What I Know For Sure (6 page)

I’m a country girl
at heart, having grown up in rural Mississippi—where if you didn’t grow it or raise it (as in hogs and chickens), you didn’t eat it. Helping my grandmother pull turnip greens from the garden, then sitting on the porch snapping beans and shelling peas, was a routine I took for granted.

Today my favorite day of the week in spring, summer, and fall is harvest day. We go out to the garden to gather artichokes, spinach, squash, green beans, corn, tomatoes, and lettuce, along with basketfuls of fresh herbs, onions, and garlic. The bounty of it gives my heart a thrill!

I’m in awe every time: By planting so little, you can reap so much. In fact, my problem is volume. I can’t eat it all, but I don’t want to throw away anything that I’ve watched grow; discarding food you’ve grown from seed feels like throwing away a gift. I readily share with my neighbors, and still there’s always more growing.

All good food comes from the earth. And whether you get that food from a farmers’ market, your local grocer, or your own backyard, this I know for sure: The pure joy of eating well is worth savoring.

I once sliced a fresh peach that was so sweet, so succulent, so divinely peachy that even as I was eating it I thought,
There are no words to adequately describe this peach—one has to taste it to understand the true definition of peachiness.
I closed my eyes, the better to enjoy the flavor. But even that wasn’t enough, so I saved the last two bites to share with Stedman, to see if he affirmed my assessment of best peach ever. He took the first bite and said, “Mmm, mmm, mmm … this peach reminds me of childhood.” And so that small thing got bigger, as all things do when shared in a spirit of appreciation.

I still remember
the first time I stepped outside my box of giving only to family and friends, and did something significant for someone I didn’t know. I was a reporter in Baltimore and had covered a story about a young mother and her children, who had fallen on hard times. I’ll never forget going back to their home and taking the whole family to a mall to buy winter coats. They so appreciated the gesture, and I learned how good it feels to do something unexpected for someone in need.

Since that time in the late 1970s, I’ve been blessed with the ability to give truly great gifts—everything from cashmere sheets to college educations. I’ve given homes. Cars. Trips around the world. The services of a wonderful nanny. But the best gift anyone can give, I believe, is the gift of themselves.

At my fiftieth-birthday luncheon, every woman in attendance wrote a note sharing what our friendship meant to her. All the notes were placed in a silver box. That box still has a treasured space on my nightstand; on days when I’m feeling less than joyful, I’ll pull out a note and let it lift me back up.

About a year later I hosted a weekend of festivities to honor 18 magnificent bridge-building, boundary-breaking women and a few dozen of the younger women whose way they had paved. I called it the Legends Ball, and after it was over, I received thank-you letters from all the “young’uns” in attendance. The letters were calligraphed and bound together in a book. They are among my most valued possessions. And they inspired me recently, when a friend was going through a rough time: I called all of
her
friends and asked them to write her love notes, which I then had bound into a book.

I gave to someone else, in the same way that someone had given to me. And I know for sure that’s what we’re here to do: Keep the giving going.

The table next to me
was making a lot of noise, celebrating a special occasion—five waiters singing “Happy birrrrrthday, dear Marilyn…” Our side of the room applauded as Marilyn blew out the single candle on the chocolate cupcake she’d been presented with. Someone asked if I’d take a picture with the group.

“Sure,” I said, and casually asked, “How old is Marilyn?” to no one in particular.

The whole table laughed nervously. One person said in mock outrage, “I can’t believe you’re asking that!”

Marilyn ducked her head modestly and told me, “I dare not say.”

I was at first amused, then taken aback. “You want a picture honoring your birthday, but you don’t want to say how old you are?”

“Well, I don’t want to say it out loud. I’ve been a wreck for weeks knowing this day was coming. It just makes me sick to think about it.”

“It makes you sick to think that you’ve marked another year, that every worry, every strife, every challenge, every delight, every breath every day was leading to this moment, and now you made it and you’re celebrating it—with one little candle—and denying it at the same time?”

“I’m not denying it,” she said. “I just don’t want to be forty-three.”

I gasped in mock horror. “You’re
forty-three?
Oh my, I see why you wouldn’t want anyone to know that.” Everyone laughed that nervous laughter again.

We took the picture, but I didn’t stop thinking about Marilyn and her friends.

I also thought about Don Miguel Ruiz, author of one of my favorite books,
The Four Agreements.
According to Don Miguel, “Ninety-five percent of the beliefs we have stored in our minds are nothing but lies, and we suffer because we believe all these lies.”

One of these lies that we believe and practice and reinforce is that getting older means getting uglier. We then judge ourselves and others, trying to hold on to the way we were.

This is why, over the years, I have made it a point to ask women how they feel about aging. I’ve asked everyone from Bo Derek to Barbra Streisand.

Ali MacGraw told me, “The message women my age send to terrified thirty- and forty-year-old women is that ‘it’s almost over.’ What a gyp.”

Beverly Johnson said, “Why am I trying to keep this teenage body when I’m not a teenager and everybody knows it? That was an epiphany for me.”

And Cybill Shepherd’s honesty offered terrific insight: “I had a great fear, as I grew older, that I would not be valued anymore.”

If you’re blessed enough to grow older, which is how I look at aging (I think often of all the angels of 9/11 who won’t get there), there’s so much wisdom to be gained from people who are celebrating the process with vibrancy and vigor and grace.

I’ve had wonderful mentors in this regard. Maya Angelou, doing speaking tours in her mid-eighties. Quincy Jones, always off in some far-flung part of the world creating new projects. Sidney Poitier, epitomizing who and what I want to be if I’m fortunate to live so long—reading everything he can get his hands on, even writing his first novel at age 85, continuously expanding his fields of knowledge.

For sure we live in a youth-obsessed culture that is constantly trying to tell us that if we’re not young and glowing and “hot,” we don’t matter. But I refuse to buy into such a distorted view of reality. And I would never lie about or deny my age. To do so is to contribute to a sickness pervading our society—the sickness of wanting to be what you’re not.

I know for sure that only by owning who and what you are can you step into the fullness of life. I feel sorry for anyone who buys into the myth that you can be what you once were. The way to your best life isn’t denial. It’s owning every moment and staking a claim to the here and now.

You’re not the same woman you were a decade ago; if you’re lucky, you’re not the same woman you were last year. The whole point of aging, as I see it, is change. If we let them, our experiences can keep teaching us about ourselves. I celebrate that. Honor it. Hold it in reverence. And I’m grateful for every age I’m blessed to become.

I never foresaw
doing the
Oprah
show for 25 years. Twelve years in, I was already thinking about bringing it to a close. I didn’t want to be the girl who stayed too long at the party. I dreaded the thought of overstaying my welcome.

Then I did the movie
Beloved,
portraying a former slave who experiences newfound freedom. That role changed the way I looked at my work. How dare I, who’d been given opportunities unimagined by my ancestors, even think of being tired enough to quit? So I renewed my contract for another four years. Then another two.

At the 20-year mark, I was almost certain that the time was finally right to call it a day. That’s when I received an e-mail from Mattie Stepanek.

Mattie was a 12-year-old boy with a rare form of muscular dystrophy who had appeared on my show to read his poetry and became an instant, dear friend. We exchanged e-mails often and talked on the phone when we could. He made me laugh. And sometimes cry. But most often he made me feel more human and present and able to appreciate even the smallest things.

Mattie suffered so much in his young life, going into and out of the hospital, yet hardly ever complained. When he spoke, I listened. And in May 2003, as I was in the throes of deciding whether to bring the show to an end, he was a singular force in changing my mind. Here’s the letter he wrote me:

Dear Oprah,

Hello, it’s me, Mattie … your guy. I am praying and hoping to go home around Memorial Day. It’s not a guarantee, so I am not telling a lot of people. It seems that every time I try to go home, something else goes wrong. The doctors are not able to “fix” me, but they agree with me going home. And don’t worry, I am not “going home to die” or anything like that. I am going home because they can’t do anything else here, and if I heal, it’s because I am meant to heal, and if I don’t, then my message is out there and it’s time for me to go to Heaven. I personally am hoping that my message still needs me to be the messenger a while longer, but that’s really in God’s hands. But anyway … I am only needing blood transfusions about once a week now, so that is better. And it sounds weird, but I think it’s really cool that I have blood and platelets from so many people. Makes me related to the world in some way, which is a proud thing to be.

I know that you are planning to retire your show on its 20th anniversary. It is my opinion that you should wait to stop your daytime show on its 25th anniversary. Let me explain why. Twenty-five makes more sense to me, partially because I am a bit OCD and 25 is a perfect number. It’s a perfect square, and symbolizes a quarter of something, not just a fifth like the number 20. Also, when I think of the number 25, especially for retiring or completion, for some reason my mind is filled with bright colors and the rejuvenation of life. I know that sounds weird, but it’s true. You’ve already made history in so many ways, wonderful and beautiful ways, why not make history bigger by having a show with great dignity that touched and inspired so many people for a quarter of a century? I’ll let you think on it. And of course it’s only my opinion, but I sometimes get feelings about things, and I have one about this. I think it’s good for the world and good for you.

I love you and you love me,

Mattie

As anyone who knows me knows, I “sometimes get feelings about things,” too, and my gut told me to pay attention to this angel boy who I believe was a messenger for our time.

Somehow it was clear to him, back in 2003, that I was neither emotionally nor spiritually prepared to bring that phase of my career to a close.

When I finally was ready for the next chapter, I moved forward with no regrets—only grace and gratitude. And wherever heaven is, I know for sure Mattie is there.

Every morning
when I open my curtains for that first look at the day, no matter what the day looks like—raining, foggy, overcast, sunny—my heart swells with gratitude. I get another chance.

In the best of times and worst of times, I know for sure, this life is a gift. And I believe that no matter where we live or how we look or what we do for a living, when it comes to what really matters—what makes us laugh and cry, grieve and yearn, delight and rejoice—we share the same heart space. We just fill it with different things. Here are 15 of my favorites:

1. Planting vegetables in my garden.

2. Making blueberry-lemon pancakes on Sunday morning for Stedman. Never fails to delight him—like he’s 7 every time.

3. An off-leash romp on the front lawn with all my dogs.

4. A rainy day, a chill in the air, a blazing fire in the fireplace.

5. Picking vegetables from my garden.

6. A great book.

7. Reading in my favorite place on earth: under my oak trees.

8. Cooking vegetables from my garden.

9. Sleeping till my body wants to wake up.

10. Waking up to the real twitter: birds.

11. A workout so strong, my whole body breathes.

12. Eating vegetables from my garden.

13. Being still.

14. Embracing silence.

15. The daily spiritual practice of gratitude. Every day I bless my life by counting my blessings.

Possibility

“Soar, eat ether, see what has never been seen; depart, be lost, but climb.”

—Edna St. Vincent Millay

How can I realize
my potential more fully? That’s a question I still ask myself, especially when contemplating what’s next in my life.

In every job I’ve taken and every city in which I’ve lived, I have known that it’s time to move on when I’ve grown as much as I can. Sometimes moving on terrified me. But always it taught me that the true meaning of courage is to be afraid, and then, with your knees knocking, to step out anyway. Making a bold move is the only way to advance toward the grandest vision the universe has for you. If you allow it, fear will completely immobilize you. And once it has you in its grip, it will fight to keep you from ever becoming your best self.

What I know for sure is this: Whatever you fear most has no power—it is your fear that has the power. The thing itself cannot touch you. But your fear can rob you of your life. Each time you give in to it, you lose strength, while your fear gains it. That’s why you must decide that no matter how difficult the path ahead seems, you will push past your anxiety and keep on stepping.