46
" I turned from my window. Suddenly it seemed odd for my neighbors on both sides to have visitors while I had none. For the first time, I felt lonely at 'Sconset.
"Let's cook," Frannie said energetically. "We will smell so good that they'll all come running." She picked up a bowl, filled it with apples from the barrel, and immediately began to cut them up. I put water to boil, got out cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, lard, flour, sugar, salt, saleratus, vinegar, and all the other things for apple pies. We both laughed happily. How easy it is, we thought, to make a decision, to implement a remedy, to act. "
― Sena Jeter Naslund , Ahab's Wife, or The Star-Gazer
47
" What, in nature," Kit asked, "is the most beautiful thing you've seen? Or the most terrible?"
"The Dismals," Giles answered promptly. "A beautiful aberration in the lay of the land--North Alabama. A section mysteriously lowered, strewn with boulders, ferny, mossy, cooler--the vegetation, they say, typical of Canada. There the creek runs clear, but all other Alabama rivers and waterways are muddy with sediment. I even like the name--the Dismals. An eternal place, disjunct with the climate, the time, and its location."
"You think being dismal is an attractive association with eternity?" I asked.
"It is a cool Eden in the Southern summer heat. What's yours, Una?"
"The Kentucky hills in spring. Layers of pink and white--redbud and dogwood."
"And you?" Giles asked Kit.
"Stars," he said. That was all. "
― Sena Jeter Naslund , Ahab's Wife, or The Star-Gazer
48
" Phoebe asked me, "Tell me, what do you think of the afterlife?"
I was a bit nonplussed. I had no idea what she thought, but I knew that the question must be of greater interest to someone of her age than to me. But our conversation had been completely honest, and before I could speak, honesty and tact had joined hands in my answer. "I have no faith at all," I said, "but sometimes I have hope."
I rather think," she replied, "that total annihilation is the most comfortable position."
I was shaken. The horse clopped on. The children laughed behind us.
When I die," she said, "I don't expect to see any of my loved ones again. I'll just become a part of all this." She waved her hand at the surrounding countryside. "That's all right with me. "
― Sena Jeter Naslund , Ahab's Wife, or The Star-Gazer
50
" What was the golden motto embroidered on the hem of my baby's silk dress? We are kin to stars. I reach my hands toward them, spread my fingers and see those diamonds in the black V's between my fanning fingers. To think that I could gather them into my hands, stuff them in my pockets, is folly. But I can reach. It is I, myself, alive now, who reach into the night toward stars. Their light is on my hands. Their light is in my hands. I gasp in the crisp air of earth and know that I am made of what makes stars! Those atoms are burning bright--I lower my hands--why, they are here within me. I am as old as they and will continue as long as they, and after our demise, we will all be born again, eons from now. What atoms they have I cannot know. I cannot call their names, but they are not strangers to me. I know them in my being, and they know me. Little scrap, little morsel, the stars sing to me, we are the same. "
― Sena Jeter Naslund