Some women wait for themselves around the next corner and call the empty spot peace but the opposite of living is only not living and the stars do not care.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that some women seek fulfillment in an unattainable future while ignoring the present reality of life.
Audre Lorde reflects on how some women may postpone their happiness by waiting for a future moment where they believe they will find peace. She emphasizes that merely existing is not enough; true living involves engaging with the present, as the stars—which symbolize aspirations or ideals—remain indifferent to one's state of being. The quote invites reflection on the importance of actively living rather than passively waiting for life to change.
In practice
Using this quote in a speech about self-acceptance and mindfulness.
The fact that we are here and that I speak these words is an attempt to break that silence and bridge some of those differences between us, for it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken.
There is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.
There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt.
I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.
I am deliberate and afraid of nothing.
There's always someone asking you to underline one piece of yourself - whether it's Black, woman, mother, dyke, teacher, etc. - because that's the piece that they need to key in to. They want to dismiss everything else.
I don't think I'll ever act again. I have so many wonderful memories, but those days are over.
There's nothing illogical, it seems to me, about saying, 'I am going to care deeply about my work and my writing. I'm also going to care deeply about my family and my child.'
If we tend to the things that are important in life, if we are right with those we love, and behave in line with our faith, our lives will not be cursed with the aching throb of unfulfilled business. Our words will always be sincere, our embraces will be tight. We will never wallow in the agony of ‘I could have, I should have’. We can sleep in a storm. And when its time, our goodbyes will be complete.
Then the children went to bed, or at least went upstairs, and the men joined the women for a cigarette on the porch, absently picking ticks engorged like grapes off the sleeping dogs. And when the men kissed the women good night, and their weekend whiskers scratched the women's cheeks, the women did not think shave, they thought stay.
Sometimes we just walk into something that is not for us at all. We pretend it is. We think we can shrug it off like a coat, but it's not a coat at all, it's more like another skin. [...] All I wanted was to make my life thrilling for a while: to take the oridinary objects of my days and make a different argument out of them, no obligations to my past.
With confidence, he open the door of life presented to him.
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