Borrowed Light (1999)
“That, and the feeling of being inhabited.
When I was sixteen, these two discoveries lay side by side in my mind, as separate and solid as stones. In time they connected, until, looking back, I could never see one without the other.
I FIRST SAW THE surface of the moon through a telescope in my garden when I was twelve. That same year I learned that stars were all in the process of dying.
I was shocked. My grandmother and I were standing near the azalea bush, our bare feet moist with dew. We were... ‘reading the sky’, as she put it. We did that often. In summer it was lovely, the cool grass tickling our toes. Stars sizzled above us. It’s amazing how just one crumb of information can change a person’s view of the world. I thought stars were incredibly glamorous after that. And tragic.
Stars, said Grandma, live only as long as they have fuel. Then they degenerate into white dwarves, or are defeated by gravity and slither into black holes. It’s a ghastly end, but, as I told Grandma, at least stars have a life.MoreLess
When I was sixteen, these two discoveries lay side by side in my mind, as separate and solid as stones. In time they connected, until, looking back, I could never see one without the other.
I FIRST SAW THE surface of the moon through a telescope in my garden when I was twelve. That same year I learned that stars were all in the process of dying.
I was shocked. My grandmother and I were standing near the azalea bush, our bare feet moist with dew. We were... ‘reading the sky’, as she put it. We did that often. In summer it was lovely, the cool grass tickling our toes. Stars sizzled above us. It’s amazing how just one crumb of information can change a person’s view of the world. I thought stars were incredibly glamorous after that. And tragic.
Stars, said Grandma, live only as long as they have fuel. Then they degenerate into white dwarves, or are defeated by gravity and slither into black holes. It’s a ghastly end, but, as I told Grandma, at least stars have a life.MoreLess
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