The Abundance. Annie Dillard
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So I read. Armenians, I read, salt their newborn babies. I check somewhere else: so did the Jews at the time of the prophets. They washed a baby in water, salted him, and wrapped him in cloths. When God promised to Aaron and all the Levites all the offerings Israel made to God, the firstfruits and the firstling livestock, “all the best of the oil, and all the best of the wine,” he said of this promise, “It is a covenant of salt forever.” In the Roman church baptism, the priest once placed salt in the infant’s mouth.
I salt my breakfast eggs. All day long I feel created. I can see the blown dust on the skin on the back of my hand, the tiny trapezoids of chipped clay, moistened and breathed alive. There are some created sheep in the pasture below me, sheep set down here precisely, just touching their blue shadows hoof to hoof on the grass. Created gulls pock the air, rip great curved seams in the settled air. I greet my created meal, amazed.
I have been drawing a key to the islands I see from my window. Everyone told me a different set of names for them, until one day a sailor came and named them all with such authority that I believed him. So I penciled an outline of the horizon on a sheet of paper and began labeling the lobes: Skipjack, Sucia, Saturna, Salt Spring, Bare Island . . .
Today, November 18 and no wind; today a veil of air has lifted I didn’t know was there. Behind the blue translucence of Salt Spring Island I see a new island, a new wrinkle, the deepening of wonder. I have no way of learning this new island’s name. Still, I bring the labeled map to the table and pencil in a new line. Call that: Unknown Island North; Water-Statue; Sky-Ruck; Newborn and Salted; Waiting for Sailor.
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