Skylar Calkins

“Oh to be a pear tree – any tree in bloom! With kissing bees singing of the beginning of the world!”
― Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

“He had seen Death coming and had stood his ground and fought it like a natural man. He had fought it to the last breath. Naturally, he didn't have time to straighten himself out. Death had to take him like it found him.”
― Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

“A little war of defense for helpless things was going on inside her. People ought to have some regard for helpless things. She wanted to fight about it.”
― Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

“So Janie waited a bloom time, and a green time and an orange time. But when the pollen again gilded the sun and sifted down on the world she began to stand around the gate and expect things. What things? She didn't know exactly. Her breath was gusty and short. She knew things that nobody had ever told her. For instance, the words of the trees and the wind. She often spoke to falling seeds and said, 'Ah hope you fall on soft ground,' because she had heard seeds saying that to each other as they passed. She knew the world was a stallion rolling in the blue pasture of ether. She knew that God tore down the old world every evening and built a new one by sun-up. It was wonderful to see it take form with the sun and emerge from the gray dust of its making. The familiar people and things had failed her so she hung over the gate and looked up the road towards way off. She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie's first dream was dead, so she became a woman.”
― Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God