Anger

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Little Sister: A Memoir (2019)

  I was reminded of my childhood reflections: Why did my mother have to be a nun and my father a brother? Now that façade was sundered, and I saw Father and Sister Catherine in a new light—as manipulators, driven by zealotry for a cause they decided was higher than the sacrament of marriage. My mother picked up the conversation and went on to recount how a year or two after the families had been separated and they had agreed to forgo the life of a married couple, the two of them confronted Father. “It was at St. Gabriel’s House,” she said. “Right in the refectory. We told him that we wanted our family life back, that God did not call us to be religious, but to be parents to our five children.” “What was his reaction?” I asked. “He got angry and told us we would lose our faith if we left,” my mother went on, “and so would the five of you. From the day each of us walked into the Center, long before the trouble started, we had looked up to Father as our spiritual advisor. He was telling us to stay for the good of our souls, and so we felt we had no option but to stay.” My father added, “He told us our vows of celibacy were inviolable.” In the silence that followed, I pondered his words. My father, the intellectual, the man of logic, a student of the writings of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, a man of principle—why didn’t he challenge Father about the incongruity of one set of vows superseding another set of vows? But I swallowed my instinct to ask that question. This was not a moment to interrogate my parents. They had just revealed the backstory that led to the life we lived for so many years. It was evident to me that they themselves had misgivings along the way and had suffered on account of it. My mother, almost as though to introduce some comic relief, let spill another anecdote. She laughed as she started to speak. “A couple of days later,” she said, referring to their yielding to a celibate life, “we arrived back at our little apartment at St. John’s House to find that someone had removed our double bed while we were gone and had replaced it with two twin beds, and anchored between them was a piece of plywood the length of the beds and five feet tall.” “You’re not serious?” I said. “Dead serious.” “As though you couldn’t pop into one twin bed together?” I howled with laughter. “Who do you think did it?” “I’m sure Brother Henry ordered it done,” she said. “Of course,” I replied. “Carrying out orders from on high” was the way my mother phrased it. It all seemed so counter-Catholic to me, and I asked my parents why they thought Father and Sister Catherine took such a radical step.

• From Little Sister: A Memoir (2019)

  In September 1947, Fakhri published an article in the Center’s quarterly entitled “Sentimental Theology” that boldly proclaimed, “There is no salvation outside the Catholic Church.” In other words, the only way for a person to be saved and reach heaven after this life was to be Roman Catholic. Over the centuries, no less than half a dozen popes had championed that dogma and it was so stated in the Baltimore catechism that was part of every parochial school child’s religious education. But in the aftermath of World War II, the Catholic Church turned its focus to fostering ecumenism between Catholics and non-Catholics. The previous hard-line position was deemed too doctrinaire. Feeney railed against ecumenism, against the professors at Harvard for their liberalism, and against Catholic colleges and universities for compromising their faith by suggesting that non-Catholics might find a way to heaven. But the fire of his rhetoric was aimed mostly at the Jews, whose crime was killing Jesus. As Feeney’s vitriol increased, many of his adherents grew wary and stopped attending his lectures at the Center. But a small cadre of followers found inspiration in his oratory and became ardent adherents. Before long, the message of the Center had morphed into a one-issue mantra: “No Salvation Outside the Catholic Church.” My father, as an intellectual and a student of theology, wholeheartedly subscribed to the dogma of “no salvation.” His graduate studies at Boston College only strengthened his orthodoxy in this regard. My mother’s long road to Catholicism had imbued her with a zealous ardor for her faith. There was nothing capricious about her spirituality. She was convinced that she had received a grace from God as a small child that led her to renounce her Episcopalian heritage and convert to Catholicism. Father Feeney had guided her through those final steps and had baptized her into the Catholic Church. She would remain loyal to her priest and her faith. Catholicism was her salvation. In a defiant, and seemingly rash, show of allegiance to Feeney, more than a dozen young, brilliant students at Harvard and Radcliffe resigned from their colleges during the scholastic year of 1947 and 1948, most of them just months away from graduation. Anguished parents, whose families had, in many cases, sent their sons to Harvard for generations and provided generous support for the institution, turned to the archbishop, beseeching him to intervene. At the same time, in May 1948, the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences of Boston College met with my father to offer him the position of instructor in philosophy for the upcoming scholastic year. But that offer came with a condition that he not teach Feeney’s doctrine (as he put it) that espoused “No Salvation Outside the Catholic Church.” My father refused to agree to that stipulation. He was, nonetheless, allowed to teach philosophy, but was aware that he was under scrutiny.

• From Little Sister: A Memoir (2019)

  Later that evening, the five of us Little Sisters sat on the edge of Sister Maria Crucis’s garden as she weeded and watered the small patch of miniature marigolds and pansies that surrounded her favorite statue of the Virgin Mary. While the others lent her a hand, I turned my back, pretending to be bird watching. “Look,” I exclaimed. “There’s a rose-breasted grosbeak at the top of the walnut tree.” Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of Sister Maria Crucis as she dropped her trowel and squinted upward in the fading light. She could always be counted on to engage in bird watching. “Oh, it’s gone,” I said. “Too bad you missed it.” There had been no bird. Before heading to bed that night, I lingered in the bathroom so I wouldn’t have to say good night to her or accept the kiss she planted on my cheek before turning out the lights. I continued my strike the next morning at second breakfast and was beginning to enjoy the power I felt in being able to shut her out. She brought this on herself for not trusting me. Our silent battle raged for days until even I started to tire of the energy it took to stay at war. How long would we keep up this state of conflict? Forever? One thing I did know: I would not apologize for something I hadn’t done. After nearly a week of standoff, as once again we were crossing the yard to go to Benediction, Sister Maria Crucis turned to me, her eyes filled with tears. “What can I do?” she asked. “Will you never speak to me again? Is there nothing I can do to make up?” With all the composure I could muster, I replied, “You didn’t trust me, and you didn’t believe me when I told you the truth.” “I am so sorry,” she replied. “Will you ever forgive me?” “Yes,” I said, doing my best not to let a tear show in my own eye. And with that, the standoff was over. It was an awkward moment, one I’d never experienced before. Children didn’t accuse Angels and Angels didn’t apologize to the children. I was embarrassed. On the surface, life seemed to go back to normal. But with that confrontation, I discovered that I, too, could be a force to be reckoned with. The power equation had shifted. It was no longer a one-way street—at least with Sister Maria Crucis. 36 The Attack 1963 O n a sunny June morning, only the clicking of metal knives and forks on melamine plates as we ate our fried eggs and toast broke the obligatory silence at second breakfast. Ahead lay another ordinary day of tutoring. Two weeks remained before the start of our summer vacation, and my mind had turned to wondering what Sister Catherine had planned as this year’s project.

• From Little Sister: A Memoir (2019)

  I felt a surge of anger—anger at Father and Sister Catherine who, for all those years I was a child, acted as though I had two parents whose sole objective was to dedicate their lives to God as members of a religious order. I was reminded of my childhood reflections: Why did my mother have to be a nun and my father a brother? Now that façade was sundered, and I saw Father and Sister Catherine in a new light—as manipulators, driven by zealotry for a cause they decided was higher than the sacrament of marriage. My mother picked up the conversation and went on to recount how a year or two after the families had been separated and they had agreed to forgo the life of a married couple, the two of them confronted Father. “It was at St. Gabriel’s House,” she said. “Right in the refectory. We told him that we wanted our family life back, that God did not call us to be religious, but to be parents to our five children.” “What was his reaction?” I asked. “He got angry and told us we would lose our faith if we left,” my mother went on, “and so would the five of you. From the day each of us walked into the Center, long before the trouble started, we had looked up to Father as our spiritual advisor. He was telling us to stay for the good of our souls, and so we felt we had no option but to stay.” My father added, “He told us our vows of celibacy were inviolable.” In the silence that followed, I pondered his words. My father, the intellectual, the man of logic, a student of the writings of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, a man of principle—why didn’t he challenge Father about the incongruity of one set of vows superseding another set of vows? But I swallowed my instinct to ask that question. This was not a moment to interrogate my parents. They had just revealed the backstory that led to the life we lived for so many years. It was evident to me that they themselves had misgivings along the way and had suffered on account of it. My mother, almost as though to introduce some comic relief, let spill another anecdote. She laughed as she started to speak. “A couple of days later,” she said, referring to their yielding to a celibate life, “we arrived back at our little apartment at St. John’s House to find that someone had removed our double bed while we were gone and had replaced it with two

• From Little Sister: A Memoir (2019)

  O 35 Challenging Authority 1962 ne afternoon in early autumn the year I entered ninth grade, Sister Maria Crucis turned to me as we were crossing the yard for Benediction. “Anastasia,” she said, “were you in the study hall this afternoon?” “No, Sister,” I replied “Are you sure?” she asked. Her nearly black eyes glared at me through her thick glasses. The tone of her voice was accusatory. I responded in a deferential tone of voice. “Yes, Sister, I’m sure.” She didn’t let up. “Where exactly were you?” “Down at the barn,” I said, irked at this form of inquisition. What I wanted to say was, “And you should know that I go down to the barn every afternoon to do my chores.” But I didn’t dare. I could tell she didn’t believe me. Powerless, I swallowed hard, trying to bury the anger that was boiling up inside me. As we arrived at the chapel, I knelt in my place and spent the half hour of Benediction fuming over her horridness. By the time we sat down for dinner, my rage had only increased. How dare she mistrust me. When it came time for dessert and we were allowed to speak, I laughed and chatted with the four other Little Sisters at my table but refused to make eye contact with Sister Maria Crucis. When she asked me a question, I answered without looking at her. “Look at me when you speak,” she snapped. I did so, glaring straight through her thick eyeglasses into her black eyes and enunciated my words slowly to make a point. “Yes, Sister,” I said, pausing between each word for emphasis. Watch out, a little voice in my head said to me. Ha, I said back to that little voice. And I went on chatting with my tablemates, exaggerating my effusiveness with them to make it evident that I wanted nothing to do with Sister Maria Crucis.

• From Little Sister: A Memoir (2019)

  anger, instigated by opposition to the war in Vietnam, but soon enflamed by a growing array of perceived—and in some cases, real—social ills. The rule of law seemed on the verge of annihilation around the country, most notably when students overtook buildings on the campus of Columbia University for five days. The Democratic National Convention in Chicago that summer was the scene of endless riots and confrontations with the police. The fever pitch of hate was foisted directly on those in the military, and as war-weary veterans returned to U. S. soil—those lucky enough to come back alive—they were frequently met with scorn and physical abuse. But it was the massacre of four unarmed students at Kent State University in May of 1970 that brought the greatest shock to the country, resulting in hundreds of colleges and universities being shuttered for the rest of the school year. Throughout that era of upheaval, I voiced no opinion on the social issues wracking the country. The discord and enmity felt too close to home. I wanted no more of that way of life, the one I’d been forced to lead for nearly eighteen years at the Center—defying the authorities, challenging the Catholic Church, standing on a soapbox. Not long after my mother started working, my father began coming down to visit us for Sunday dinner. My mother was always waiting at the door when he arrived. Their embrace in the front hallway was evidence of their affection. With hands clasped, they snuggled together, almost like young teenagers who were not quite sure it was all right to go further. I made myself scarce, embarrassed by their romance. However, deep inside I was pleased that, away from the prying eyes of the authorities at the Center, they acted like the married couple they were forbidden to be in Still River. Their obvious love for each other was something I had never doubted during my years at the Center, but for which I had little obvious evidence. Those Sunday dinners were an opportunity for my father to catch up on the news of the world. He read the newspapers that were forbidden at the Center, and when dinner was over, he found reasons to stay on, watching television with my mother as the two of them held hands. It was often long after dark when he bade her a prolonged farewell in the front hall, while I headed off to bed.

• From Little Sister: A Memoir (2019)

  Despite a staunchly conservative upbringing, there was a large contingent of Democrats, as well as some Republicans, Libertarians, and Independents. Some enjoyed gathering at an annual summer reunion in Still River, while others refused to speak to anyone at the Center again. In a way, we represented a microcosm of society in this country, notwithstanding the unusual circumstances of our early life. Thirty-nine children were raised in an experiment—part of the vision of a woman who believed she could supersede the “evil” forces of nature and mold human beings into a cadre of religious zealots who would follow her, in cult-like fashion, embracing a celibate way of life for God. Where was Leonard Feeney’s input in all this? He was the spiritual leader of the Center. Sadly, once we moved to Still River, his role as leader was titular at best. A romantic at heart, he needed to be admired and praised, and he sought the approbation of those who would give it. That weakness gave Catherine Clarke the upper hand, and despite the fact that she could not hold a candle to Feeney on matters of theology, she usurped his role. He was not strong enough to counter her. Was Catherine Clarke’s vision conceived in the moment of crisis that forced the Center into hiding in 1949? It seems more likely it was honed piecemeal as she became increasingly enamored of her own power. Did she ever concern herself with the thought that she might get pushback from some sixty highly intelligent, educated, and sophisticated men and women as she manipulated them emotionally? How could she be assured that they would forever sacrifice their personal ambitions and dreams and adopt her vision? If she ever doubted her prowess, there was no evidence of it. Her actions, over the course of nearly twenty years, influencing the lives and emotions not only of the children but of their parents as well, implied that in her mind, any means were valid to justify the end. Whatever deep-seated pathological conditions in her past may have influenced Catherine Clarke’s decisions concerning the lives of parents and children will never be known. One can only conjecture how a mother who chose to keep her own family intact, spending nights at her private home away from the Center, could, with blithe indifference, have sundered the family bonds of twelve other families. The evidence was monumental that to her dying breath she had no remorse over her actions. My youngest sister relayed to me that as recently as three days before Catherine Clarke succumbed, she called for the Little Sisters to assemble in her bedroom as she lay on her deathbed. She then excoriated my sister for her “particular friendship” with one of the other Little Sisters. A day or two later, she slipped into a coma from which she never recovered. While she lived, Catherine Clarke’s experiment seemed to meet with success. She simply rid herself of those, like me, who stood to thwart her plan.

• From Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017)

  I have worked with personal trainers off and on over the years, recognizing that perhaps the support of a professional might help me improve my physical fitness. These days, my trainer is a young guy born and raised in Indiana named Tijay. He is short and compact and has an unbelievable body. His whole life is fitness. He literally glows with youth, health, and the vigorous enthusiasm of having the world as his oyster. He is a big advocate of chicken breasts as a source of protein and mustard as an accompanying condiment because it is fat free and very low in calories. Not a session goes by when he doesn’t mention some aspect of his diet that makes me so sad for him and his palate. I worry he doesn’t know about spices or flavor or anything that makes food delicious. Tijay never seems to know what to make of me because I do not glow and I am not young and I am not cheerful. He runs me through my paces, always offering me encouragement. He is not a nightmare trainer out to break my soul. He is genuine and kind and dedicated and I suppose I am his albatross. I am his project. He’s just so cheerful. He is a true believer in the benefits of a “healthy lifestyle.” He makes it all seem so easy, as I pant and sweat and ache. I want to murder this man when we work out. I am generally terrified I will drop dead at any moment, my heart pounding in my chest as I struggle to catch my breath. Sometimes, when he asks me to do something that seems well beyond my big body’s abilities, I want to scream, “Don’t you see that I’m fat?” I once asked this very question and he said, very calmly, “That’s why we’re here,” and I walked to my nearby water bottle, drank freely, muttering, “Fuck you,” under my breath. In truth, I curse at him frequently and he takes it all in stride. Each visit, he adds an exercise or intensifies an exercise we have previously done. Each visit, I stumble to my car with rubbery legs and wonder how I will find the strength to return. I sit in my car, sometimes for up to ten minutes, drenched in sweat, drinking water. I take selfies that I post to Snapchat with angry words about how much I hate exercise, and when I share these selfies on Twitter, people offer encouragement and advice, even though I am looking for neither. I am just sharing my suffering. I am looking for commiseration.

• From Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation (2016)

  Lecture 14—Elijah, the T roubler of Israel 97 will manipulate the system so that she can take the land without paying for it. Jezebel fabricates a legal case against Naboth that ends with his execution. The moral of the story seems to be that might makes right. ‹ But Elijah pronounces a different moral. He warns that those who wrongly perpetrate violence will suffer violence themselves. Ahab and Jezebel have destroyed an innocent man, and they, in turn, will be destroyed. The final chapter of 1 Kings shows the grim truth of the prophet’s warning. Elijah’s Departure ‹ The final part of Elijah’s story is told in 2 Kings 2. By this point, it’s clear that Elijah’s time has run out, even though his work is not complete. The still, People assumed that Elijah ascended to heaven and never died; indeed, the book of Malachi promises that Elijah will return to reconcile parents and their children. Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation98 small voice had told him to anoint three people who would bring down the government, but Elijah has enlisted only one of them, the prophet Elisha. He has also warned that Queen Jezebel will come to a hideous end, yet she is still free. ‹ What’s intriguing about this part of the story is that it’s an ending that is not really an ending. In fact, Elijah’s departure actually opens up the prospect of much more to come. Elijah and Elisha travel down to the Jordan River valley. As they walk together, a chariot pulled by horses made of fire comes charging across the landscape. Then, there is a great whirlwind that carries Elijah up to the sky until he vanishes from sight. ‹ There are many parts of Elijah’s story that we might remember: his life on the margins and his flair for street theater; his anger at injustice and his penchant for self-absorption. But the most striking part of his story is the way it resists closure. Its ending holds the prospect of a new beginning. Suggested Reading Blenkinsopp, “Prophecy in the Northern Kingdom.” Hens-Piazza, 1–2 Kings. Questions to Consider 1. A central theme in Elijah’s story is his conflict with King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. What did the king and queen find so troublesome about the prophet? What did the prophet find so troublesome about the king and queen? 2. The middle section of Elijah’s story tells of his journey to Mount Horeb (Sinai), where he voices an angry sense of isolation and despair. In what ways is the narrative critical of the prophet? In what ways might this episode enhance a reader’s appreciation for the prophet?

• From Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017)

  84Some years ago, I looked up this boy from my past, wanted to know what had become of him. He does not have an uncommon name, but his name isn’t John Smith, either, so I had a chance. I looked and looked and looked. It became a minor obsession. Every day I scrolled through the hundreds of hits that came up when I searched his name on Google. I tried combinations of his name and the state where I knew him, but he no longer lives there. I tried to guess what he had become when he grew up—my first two guesses were politician or lawyer, so you can probably guess the kind of person he is. I found him. He is neither a politician nor a lawyer, but I wasn’t far off. People don’t change. I wondered if I would recognize him. I shouldn’t have. There are some faces you don’t forget. He looks exactly the same. Exactly. He looks older, but not by much. His hair is darker. I know how long it has been since I last saw him in years, months, and days. It has been more than twenty years but fewer than thirty. I would recognize him anywhere. He wears his hair in the same style he always has, real glossy-catalog preppy. He has a wide face. He’s an executive at a major company. He has a fancy title. He has the same smug facial expression, that sort of “the world is mine” cockiness innate to some people, people like him. Ever since I found him, I Google him every few days or so like I’m trying to make sure he doesn’t go missing. I need to know where he is. I need to understand, at all times, the distance between him and me, just in case. I don’t know why I’m telling you this. Or I do. I Googled him when I wrote this book. I don’t know why. Or I do. I sat for hours, staring at his picture on his webpage on his company’s website. It nauseates me. I can smell him. This is what the future brings. I think about tracking him down the next time I’m in his city. I am there sometimes. If I told my friends there what I was doing, they would try to stop me, so I would wait and keep my plans to myself, commit a sin of omission. I am good at waiting. I could make the time to find him. He wouldn’t recognize me. I was skinny when he knew me and much shorter. I was very small and cute and smart but not smart. I am not that girl anymore. I could find him and hide in plain sight. I saw to that. He wouldn’t see me. He would look right through me. I know where he works and his e-mail address and his phone number and fax number. I don’t have these things written down, but I know.

• From Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017)

  But I followed her to the dressing room and I told her she was beautiful. And she was indeed beautiful. She nodded, tears were streaming down her face. We both went on with our shopping. I wanted to tear her mother’s face off. I wanted to call my person and hear a kind voice. I wanted something to pull me out of the spiral of self-loathing I felt myself tumbling into. I wanted to burn the store down. I wanted to scream. When the young woman left the store with her mother, she was still crying. I cannot stop picturing her face, that look in her eyes that I know too well, how she was trying to fold in on herself in a body that was so visible. She was trying to disappear and she couldn’t. It is unbearable to want something so little and need it so much. 53I never imagined myself to be the kind of person who got a tattoo. They were certainly frowned upon by my family as a mark of criminality, at best. But in the after, I wasn’t a good girl and I didn’t have to follow the rules as I once knew them. My parents, I knew, would freak out because they were still holding on to the idea of who they thought I was. But my getting a tattoo was not about them. It was about me doing something I wanted, that I chose, to my body. And so I got my first tattoo when I was nineteen. I started with a woman with wings. The artist said getting the tattoo would hurt as he wiped my arm with rubbing alcohol, swiped a plastic razor over the hairs, removing them from his flesh canvas. I waited for pain but I felt nothing. I sat quietly and watched as the ink seeped into my skin. When I look at the arcs of ink, more than twenty years later, I still see a woman with wings, a woman who can escape anything she wants, even her body. I got my next tattoo not long after, a tribal design, black and red, just below the first tattoo on my left forearm. I wish I could say I had some kind of thoughtful approach to my tattoos, but I didn’t. I just wanted to have control over (the marking of) my body. I recognize the inherent tension in my getting tattoos while also wanting to be invisible. People notice tattoos. My tattoos often inspire conversation. People ask me about the significance or meaning of my tattoos and I don’t have good answers. Or, rather, I don’t have the kinds of answers people want to hear: convenient, easy ones.

• From Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017)

  I couldn’t spend time with this person’s colleagues without a rigorous critique of everything wrong with me that I needed to try and improve. Most of the time, as you might imagine, we were not together in public because I was just not good enough. I never looked nice enough. I talked too loud. I breathed too loud. I slept too loud. I was too warm while I slept. I moved too much while I slept. I basically stopped sleeping. I just hugged as small a sliver of the edge of the bed as I could and I stayed awake so my sleeping wouldn’t be such a nuisance. I was always tired. I didn’t wash dishes correctly. There is a right way and a wrong way to wash dishes. I know that now. Don’t get water on the floor. Drain the dish rack. Be careful how you organize the dishes in the dish rack. One of my favorite things to do now is to wash dishes any old way. I spill water on the floor and I smile because these are my fucking floors and these are my dishes and no one cares if there is water on the floor. I didn’t eat food correctly. I ate too fast. I chewed too loudly. I chewed ice too often. I didn’t put things away correctly. I didn’t arrange my shoes by the front door the right way. I swung my arms while walking. I would be told these things and then have to try and remember all the things I shouldn’t do so I wouldn’t be so upsetting by just existing. We would be walking, and I would remember, Okay, hold your arms at your side. Do not swing your arms. I would spend all my time just reminding myself, Don’t swing your arms. And then I might get distracted and forget and accidentally let my arm move an inch or two and I would hear this exasperated sigh, so I would redouble my efforts to make myself less upsetting to this person I loved. DON’T SWING YOUR ARMS, ROXANE. Sometimes, I catch myself trying not to swing my arms even now and I get so angry. I get so fucking angry and I want to swing my arms like a windmill. These are my arms. This is how I walk.

• From Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017)

  Shame is a difficult thing. People certainly try to shame me for being fat. When I am walking down the street, men lean out of their car windows and shout vulgar things at me about my body, how they see it, and how it upsets them that I am not catering to their gaze and their preferences and desires. I try not to take these men seriously because what they are really saying is, “I am not attracted to you. I do not want to fuck you, and this confuses my understanding of my masculinity, entitlement, and place in this world.” It is not my job to please them with my body. It is, however, difficult to hold on to what I know in the face of what I feel when I am reminded so publicly, so violently, of how certain people see me. It is difficult to not feel like I am the problem, and like I should do whatever it takes to make sure I don’t compel such men to taunt me in the future. Fat shaming is real, constant, and rather pointed. There are a shocking number of people who believe they can simply torment fat people into weight loss and disciplining their bodies or disappearing their bodies from the public sphere. They believe they are medical experts, listing a litany of health problems associated with fatness as personal affronts. These tormentors bind themselves in righteousness when they point out the obvious—that our bodies are unruly, defiant, fat. It’s a strange civic-minded cruelty. When people try to shame me for being fat, I feel rage. I get stubborn. I want to make myself fatter to spite the shamers, even though the only person I would really be spiting is myself.

• From Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation (2016)

  Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation146 by these dynasties was Judea, where Jerusalem was located. In the 2 nd century B.C., Judea was under Seleucid control. ‹ The villain of 1 Maccabees is Antiochus IV , also called Antiochus Epiphanes. He came to power in 175 B.C., and his western capital was the city of Antioch in Syria. The writer of 1 Maccabees warns that Antiochus is “a sinful root,” an opponent of faithful Jews. ‹ Questions of adapting to or resisting Greek influence intensified as Antiochus asserted greater control over Jerusalem and the surrounding region. He sent his army to push back a growing threat from his Egyptian rivals, the Ptolemies. Then, he raided the temple in Jerusalem and established a fortress there, where troops were stationed to control opposition to Seleucid rule. ‹ Things reached the breaking point when Antiochus tried to suppress Jewish practice and impose his own religious tradition by force. According to 1 Maccabees 1, he banned the offering of Jewish sacrifices in the temple and prohibited the observance of the Sabbath and other holidays. Copies of the Jewish law were destroyed, and people who had their children circumcised were put to death. One flash point in the Jewish response to Greek culture was the establishment of a gymnasium in Jerusalem, where young athletes competed naked; to fit in at the gymnasium, some Jews had their circumcisions surgically reversed.

• From Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017)

  Each episode has a very familiar narrative arc, in which we meet the subject and learn about their life, the seemingly miserable limitations of it. Then they meet Dr. Now, who chastises them and their loved ones for letting things get so out of hand. He tends to be palpably distressed by his patient and their family. Dr. Now often requires that these people go on a 1,200-calorie-a-day diet so they can lose fifty pounds before he will perform the weight-loss surgery. He does the surgery and it always goes well and then the subject sees a therapist and stumbles along trying to live and eat differently. This show loves to gratuitously display the fat body, all the excess, the mounds of flesh. The surgeries are graphic, and we see insides, globules of fat being shoved aside by medical instruments, as the obese body is medically brought to heel. Through medical intervention, the show offers redemption or, at least, a chance at redemption. Each episode tries to end on a hopeful note, but sometimes, even with medical intervention, there is no happy ending, which for the show is a drastically thinner body. In that, My 600-lb Life offers some truth. I hate these shows, but clearly I watch them. I watch them even though sometimes they enrage me and sometimes they break my heart and all too often they reveal painfully familiar experiences of loneliness, depression, and genuine suffering born of living in a world that cannot accommodate overweight bodies. I watch these shows because even though I know how damaging and unrealistic they are, some part of me still yearns for the salvation they promise. 36It’s not just reality TV that is obsessed with weight. If you watch enough daytime television, particularly on “women’s networks,” you are treated to an endless parade of commercials about weight-loss products and diet foods—means of disciplining the body that will also fatten the coffers of one corporation or another. These commercials drive me crazy. They encourage self-loathing. They tell us, most of us, that we aren’t good enough in our bodies as they are. They offer us the cruelest aspiration. In these commercials, women swoon at the possibility of satisfying their hunger with somewhat repulsive foods while also maintaining an appropriately slim figure. The joy women express over fat-free yogurt and 100-calorie snack packs is not to be believed. Every time I watch a yogurt commercial I think, My god, I want to be that happy. I really do. It is a powerful lie to equate thinness with self-worth. Clearly, this lie is damn convincing because the weight-loss industry thrives. Women continue to try to bend themselves to societal will. Women continue to hunger. And so do I.

• From Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017)

  I am hyperconscious of how I take up space. As a woman, as a fat woman, I am not supposed to take up space. And yet, as a feminist, I am encouraged to believe I can take up space. I live in a contradictory space where I should try to take up space but not too much of it, and not in the wrong way, where the wrong way is any way where my body is concerned. Whenever I am near other people, I try to fold into myself so that my body doesn’t disrupt the space of others. I take this to extremes. I will spend five-hour flights tucked against the window, my arm tucked into the seat belt, as if trying to create absence where there is excessive presence. I walk at the edge of sidewalks. In buildings I hug the walls. I try to walk as quickly as I can when I feel someone behind me so I don’t get in their way, as if I have less of a right to be in the world than anyone else. I am hyperconscious of how I take up space and I resent having to be this way, so when people around me aren’t mindful of how they take up space, I feel pure rage. I am seething with jealousy. I hate that they don’t have to consider how they take up space. They can walk at any speed they want. Their limbs can spill over armrests. They can dawdle and stretch and shrug, no matter where they are. I rage that they don’t have to second-guess themselves or give a moment’s thought to the space they fill. The ease with which they take up space feels spiteful and personal. I am, perhaps, self-obsessed beyond measure. No matter where I am, I wonder about where I stand and how I look. I think, I am the fattest person in this apartment building. I am the fattest person in this class. I am the fattest person at this university. I am the fattest person in this theater. I am the fattest person on this airplane. I am the fattest person in this airport. I am the fattest person on this interstate. I am the fattest person in this city. I am the fattest person at this event. I am the fattest person at this conference. I am the fattest person in this restaurant. I am the fattest person in this shopping mall. I am the fattest person on this panel. I am the fattest person in this casino. I am the fattest person. This is a constant, destructive refrain and I cannot escape it.

• From Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017)

  I have worked with personal trainers off and on over the years, recognizing that perhaps the support of a professional might help me improve my physical fitness. These days, my trainer is a young guy born and raised in Indiana named Tijay. He is short and compact and has an unbelievable body. His whole life is fitness. He literally glows with youth, health, and the vigorous enthusiasm of having the world as his oyster. He is a big advocate of chicken breasts as a source of protein and mustard as an accompanying condiment because it is fat free and very low in calories. Not a session goes by when he doesn’t mention some aspect of his diet that makes me so sad for him and his palate. I worry he doesn’t know about spices or flavor or anything that makes food delicious. Tijay never seems to know what to make of me because I do not glow and I am not young and I am not cheerful. He runs me through my paces, always offering me encouragement. He is not a nightmare trainer out to break my soul. He is genuine and kind and dedicated and I suppose I am his albatross. I am his project. He’s just so cheerful. He is a true believer in the benefits of a “healthy lifestyle.” He makes it all seem so easy, as I pant and sweat and ache. I want to murder this man when we work out. I am generally terrified I will drop dead at any moment, my heart pounding in my chest as I struggle to catch my breath. Sometimes, when he asks me to do something that seems well beyond my big body’s abilities, I want to scream, “Don’t you see that I’m fat?” I once asked this very question and he said, very calmly, “That’s why we’re here,” and I walked to my nearby water bottle, drank freely, muttering, “Fuck you,” under my breath. In truth, I curse at him frequently and he takes it all in stride. Each visit, he adds an exercise or intensifies an exercise we have previously done. Each visit, I stumble to my car with rubbery legs and wonder how I will find the strength to return. I sit in my car, sometimes for up to ten minutes, drenched in sweat, drinking water. I take selfies that I post to Snapchat with angry words about how much I hate exercise, and when I share these selfies on Twitter, people offer encouragement and advice, even though I am looking for neither. I am just sharing my suffering. I am looking for commiseration.

• From Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017)

  With the dramatic reveal of Rachel Frederickson, the Season 15 winner of The Biggest Loser, those of us who watch finally had an unimpeachable reason to be visibly outraged about the show and its practices, even though the show has been on the air and offering a damaging narrative about weight loss since 2004. When her season began, Frederickson weighed 260 pounds. At her final weigh-in, on live television, she weighed 105, a 60 percent loss in mere months. During this reveal, even trainers Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels gaped at Frederickson’s gaunt body. She had disciplined her body the way she’d been asked to, but apparently, she had disciplined her body a bit too much. The biggest loser, we now know, should lose, but only so much. There are so many rules for the body—often unspoken and ever-shifting. In an interview, Harper would later say, “I was stunned. That would be the word. I mean, we’ve never had a contestant come in at 105 pounds.” There was a wide range of responses in the press and on social media in the wake of seeing Rachel Frederickson’s new body. Her body, like most women’s bodies, instantly became a public text, a site of discourse, only now because she had taken her weight loss too far. She had disciplined her body too much. As of late, several former contestants have leveled many accusations against the show, alleging that producers used forced dehydration, severely restricted caloric intake, and encouraged the use of weight-loss drugs and more to help contestants reach their goals, to make for better television. Even more damning was a medical study of one season’s participants, led by metabolism expert Kevin Hall. The study found that thirteen of the fourteen contestants’ metabolisms continued slowing even after their significant weight loss. This slowed metabolism contributed to the contestants gaining back most, if not all or more, of the weight they had lost on the show. The results are a stark reminder that weight loss is a challenge that the medical establishment has not yet overcome. It is certainly not a challenge a reality television show has overcome. It’s no wonder that so many of us struggle with our bodies. In the two months after her big reveal, Frederickson gained twenty pounds and reached, apparently, a more acceptable but still appropriately disciplined size. She explained that she lost so much weight because she was trying to win the $250,000 prize, but those of us who deny ourselves and try so hard to discipline our bodies know better. Rachel Frederickson was doing exactly what we asked of her, and what too many of us would, if we could, ask of ourselves.

• From Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017)

  I am angry that the fashion industry is completely unwilling to design for a more diverse range of human bodies. In my teens and early twenties, I often went clothes shopping with my mother and I could always see her dismay at where I am forced to shop. I could see that she wished her daughter had a different body. I could see her humiliation and frustration. Sometimes, she told me, “I hope this is the last time we have to shop here,” and I murmured my agreement. I harbored the same hope. I also knew it wouldn’t be the last time. I harbored no small amount of frustration, or anger, for her words, for her disappointment in me, for my inability to be a good daughter, for one more thing I couldn’t have—the simple pleasure of having fun while shopping with my mother. A couple years ago, I was in a clothing store, alone. I wanted to find a few nice things to wear. I wanted to look nice for someone who loves me exactly as I am and who makes me care about my appearance and who has taught me to care about myself in ways both great and small. Wanting to look nice for someone was new and I liked it. I was at this store, looking for some cute, colorful shirts, when a young woman came out of the dressing room crying. The details aren’t mine to share but she was so upset and her mother was treating her in quite a humiliating manner and I wanted to sob right there in the store because it was just too much to see such a familiar and painful scene. Fat daughters and their thin mothers have especially complicated relationships. I’ve been that girl, too big for the clothes in the store, just trying to find something, anything, that fits, while also dealing with the commentary of someone else who means well but can’t help but make pointed, insensitive comments. To be that girl in a clothing store is to be the loneliest girl in the world. I am not a hugger, but I wanted to wrap my arms around this girl. I wanted to protect her from this world that is so unbelievably cruel to overweight people. There was nothing I could really do because I know this world. I live in it too. There’s no shelter or safety or escape from the cruel stares and comments, the too-small seats, the too-small everything for your too-big body.

• From Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017)

  I have them bookmarked and maybe committed to memory. I know what the street outside his office building looks like because of Google Maps Street View. There are palm trees. He has a nice view. This is the future. I don’t have anything to say to him or, rather, anything I would say to him. Or I do. Maybe I have everything to say to him. I don’t know. I wonder where he lives. If I went to his workplace and waited outside the parking lot and followed him home, I could find out where he lives, how he lives. I could see where and how he sleeps at night. I wonder if he’s married, if he has children, if he’s happy. Is he a good husband and father? I wonder if he keeps in touch with the guys he used to run with. I wonder if they ever talk about the good old days, if they talk about me. I wonder if he could tell me their names because I didn’t really know them, I just knew of them, and then I did know them but never their names. I wonder if he has become a good person. This one time, we were making out in the woods and my younger brother caught us and then blackmailed me for weeks. I had to do what he said or he would tell on me, which meant doing all his stupid chores and worrying, constantly, that he would tell my parents I was a bad Catholic girl. Sibling relationships are strangely corrupt. My younger brother also told me, then, that he didn’t like this guy and I should stay away. I told him he was being silly, immature. I had a secret romance with a golden boy. That’s all that mattered. I told him he was jealous someone liked me. I told my brother he was just a kid, he couldn’t understand. I should have listened to my brother. I was a kid too. I wonder how this man from my past takes his coffee because there is a Starbucks right across from his office. Google showed me that too. I wonder if he eats red meat and if he still likes to look at Playboys and if he has any hobbies and if he’s still mean to fat kids. I was crazy for him. I probably would have done anything if he had bothered to ask. Do people still like him as much as they used to? What kind of car does he drive? Is he close to his parents? Do they live in the same house? I have called his office and asked for him. I have done this more than once. Mostly I hang up immediately. His secretary put me through once after I made up a story about why I needed to speak to him. It was a good story. When I heard his voice I dropped the phone. His voice hasn’t changed.