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Quote by Stephanie Barron

“Delightful,' Eliza murmured. 'He looks so well against the scarlet hangings, don't you agree, Jane? One should always have a decorative young man about the room, and well-bred if one may contrive it; it lends so much tone to the display.”

Quote by Stephanie Barron

Work

Jane and the Barque of Frailty

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Stephanie Barron

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“Do that thing you always wanted to do “someday” in the future: get on a plane in your Jackie O shift dress and shades, take a train across Europe wearing red lipstick, buy that sporty two-seater car, spend your money on perfume. Otherwise you might wake up one day with a husband and kids and wonder what you did with all that free time you once had. And if you’re already experiencing the domestic bliss of family life, savour every moment.”

“The womb is where babies are created, and grown, and from where they are birthed. It is the home of our creativity, the wellspring of our vital feminine energies. The womb is the matrix from which our life force rises and to which it returns. It is the hub of our energetic and physical bodies. The womb is also where we experience death. Our moon blood, our menstruation, is a sign that an ovum (...) has died without being fertilized by the sperm (...); it passes out of our bodies with the now unneeded uterine lining that the womb created for the possibility of growing a baby. Without fertilization, this living-nourishing matrix dies and leaves our bodies in our monthly flow (which by the way is one of the most concentrated forms of śakti in our bodies).”

“I mention Jackie mostly because I want to be assured that I inhabit the same universe as other people; that I am not alone on a distant shore. Jackie glues me to this world—most effectively when I can find a way to mention her name or her attributes, when I can find a pretext, however frail, to introduce her into a conversation, even at the risk of non sequitur, bathos, or incoherence.”

“Without Al, Mary Frances discovered what she did alone. She liked to cook for herself, to assemble a meal of things he would never consider worth a mealtime- shad roe and toast, soft-set eggs, hearts of celery and palm with a quick yellow mayonnaise, a glass of wine, an open book in her lap, and the radio on. The elements that mattered most were the simple ones: butter, salt, a thick plate of white china and a delicate glass, the music faint, the feel of paper in her hand, and the knowledge that there was more, always more book to read, more wine if she liked it, some cold fruit in the refrigerator when she was hungry again, and the hours upon hours to satisfy herself.”

“She browned onions and garlic, and from the pot on the windowsill, chopped a few winter-sad leaves of tarragon. The smell was green and strong, and she thought of spring. Spring in Dijon, when she and Al would hike into the mountains with the Club Alpin, the old women forever chiding her tentative steps, her newborn French: la petite violette, violette américaine. She would turn back to Al, annoyed, and he would laugh. Hardly his delicate flower. When they stopped for lunch, it was Mary Frances with the soufflé of calves' brains, whatever was made liver or marrow, ordering enough strong wine that everyone was laughing. The way home, the women let her be. If she wanted calves' brains now, she wouldn't even know where to begin to look or how to pay. She and Al seemed to be living on vegetables and books, tobacco, quiet. She blanched a bunch of spinach and chopped it. She beat eggs with the tarragon, heated the skillet once again. There was a salad of avocados and oranges. There was a cold bottle of ale and bread. Enough, for tonight.”