A Quote by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began. — © Mary Oliver
One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began.
It's no coincidence that I began writing the day my daughter started school. I knew everything I knew before I began to write, but I was raising two children and didn't have the time to get to the typewriter.
Hartford had the Mark Twain Masquers, which was fantastic. They had been in business I don't know how many years. They knew how to build sets and sell tickets and put on a play. My day started at night. When I left the office, that's when my day began.
I knew I finally made it as a performer when I began hearing rumors that I was gay.
During the pregnancy and stuff, I knew I had a daughter coming but when she finally got here that is when it really hit me. Ever since that day, I look at life a lot differently.
And I began to tell little anecdotes that had happened to me, and people would laugh. And I began to like that, you know. But I knew that, 'cause I'd do that in school, but I wouldn't do it out there in front of all them people.
Imagine your family finally making it from nothing to something, and finally getting things going, and finally buying a beautiful house and taking care of your children - and the next day, it's completely all gone. Zero. Boom. Flat broke. So that's when I had to man up.
I began to do this thing I do of giving myself a class every day, and trying to experiment and push further. I don't mean to say I knew everything, because I didn't, but I would do what I knew and then push beyond that and see what else I could find.
Ultimately, at the end of the day, you couldn't say you were better than the other person because you knew you had a secret. You knew you had cheated.
On the morning of May 1, 2018, I woke up knowing that the day I had anticipated for nine years had finally arrived. It was the day of my preventative double mastectomy - the day I would attack my BRCA 2 genetic mutation head-on and take my chances of breast cancer from 84 percent to virtually zero.
Before I knew that I was Jewish or a girl I knew that I was a member of the working class. At a time when I had not yet grasped the significance of the fact that in my house English was a second language, or that I wore dresses while my brother wore pants, I knew--and I knew it was important to know--that Papa worked hard all day long.
I knew it in my bones. That this time was it. I had finally made my choice, and so had he. He let me go. I was relieved, which I expected. What I didn't expect was to feel so much grief.
In my last year at Hallmark, we finally began putting verses on computer. It had been all in filing cabinets on index cards. They had to assign a 4 digit serial number to each sentiment, for each area of feeling.
Even when I was struggling and had horrible day jobs and wanted to be successful but wasn't finding my way in, I knew what I had to do. I knew I had to keep working at it and keep putting material out there, even if no one was paying me for it.
But coming home that day, walking downhill with a panorama of valley and hills before me, I turned my gaze inward, and what I saw, stopped me in my tracks. Instead of the usual unlocalized centre of myself, there was nothing there, it was empty, and at the moment of seeing this there was a flood of quiet joy and I knew, finally I knew what was missing-it was my "self".
I finally reached the point where I knew I had to become involved or shut up.
Some days are born ugly. From the very first light they are no damn good what ever the weather, and everbody knows it. No one knows what causes this, but on such a day people resist getting out of bed and set their heels against the day. When they are finally forced out by hunger or job they find that the day is just as lousy as they knew it would be.
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