Anxiety

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 Jesus and His Jewish Influences (2015)

  123Lecture 19—Anarchy in JudeaJesus and His Jewish Influences ●● Josephus describes the Sicarii: “There’s springing up another sort of robber in Jerusalem called Sicarii, who slew men in the daytime in the midst of the city. This they did chiefly at festivals when they mingled among the multitude and concealed daggers under their garments with which they stabbed those who were their enemies. When any fell down dead, the murderer joined in the cries of indignation.” ●● In addition to terrorist groups, messianic and prophetic figures emerged. Josephus describes an Egyptian Jew who claimed that he would destroy the walls of Jerusalem with a command while standing on the Mount of Olives. This happened during the administration of Antonius Felix. Felix killed or captured hundreds of the messiah’s followers, but the Egyptian Jew escaped. ●● There was also class warfare at this time, even among various levels of the priesthood. A famous passage from rabbinic literature says, “Woe is me because of the house of Ishmael, son of Phabi [a high priest family]—woe is me because of their fists.” Paul’s Arrest and Execution ●● It was during this time of political and social turmoil that Paul was arrested. According to Acts 21, Paul was seized by “Jews from Asia” as he exited the Temple: They seized him, shouting, “Fellow Israelites, help! This is the man who is teaching Although Acts tells us that Paul purified himself before entering the Temple, he was arrested on suspicion of bringing a Gentile into the Temple building itself.

• From Another Country (1962)

  The businessman who had spoken to Yves about the waters of Lake Michigan, and the days when he had hiked and fished there, relentlessly put all of this behind him, and solemnly and cruelly tightened the knot in his tie. Yves was not wearing a tie, he was wearing a light blue shirt, with short sleeves, and he carried a light sport jacket; and he thought now, with some terror, that this had probably been a mistake; he was not really in America yet, after all, and might not be allowed to enter. But there was nothing he could do about it now. He straightened his collar and put on his jacket and ran his fingers through his hair—which was probably too long. He cursed himself and wished that he could ask one of his fellow passengers for reassurance. But his seatmate, a young man who played the organ in Montana, was now frowning and breathing hard and straightening as much of himself as could decently be reached. He had been very friendly during the journey and had even asked Yves to come and see him, if he ever came to Montana; but now Yves realized that he had not been given any address, and that he knew only the man’s first name, which was Peter. And it was only too clear that he could not ask for any information now. Nearly everyone on the plane knew—for he had been very high-spirited and talkative—that he was French, and coming to the States for the first time; and some of them knew that he had a friend in New York, who was an actor. This had all seemed perfectly all right while they were in the middle of the air. But now, on the ground, and in the light, hard and American, of sober second thought, it all seemed rather suspect. He felt helplessly French: and he had never felt French before. And he felt their movement away from him, decently but definitely, with nervous, and, as it were, backward smiles; they were making it clear that he could make no appeal to them, for they did not know who he was. It flashed through him that of course he had a test to pass; he had not yet entered the country; perhaps he would not pass the test. He watched them fill the aisles, and he moved backward from them, into his familiar loneliness and contempt. “Good luck,” said his seatmate quickly, and took his place in the line; he would probably have said the same words, as quickly, and in the same tone of voice, to a friend about to be carried off to prison. Yves sighed, and remained in his seat, waiting for the load in the aisle to lighten.

• From Wild (2012)

  I took off my clothes and got into the real actual bed that was astoundingly mine for the night. I lay awake for an hour, running my hands over my body, imagining what it would feel like to Jonathan if he touched it the next night: the mounds of my breasts and the plain of my abdomen, the muscles of my legs and the coarse hair on my pudenda — all of that seemed passably okay — but when I got to the palm-sized patches on my hips that felt like a cross between tree bark and a plucked dead chicken, I realized that under no circumstances while on my date tomorrow could I take off my pants. It was probably just as well. God knows I'd taken off my pants too many times to count, certainly more than was good for me.

• From Another Country (1962)

  3On the Wednesday afternoon that Ida went off to see Ellis, Cass called Vivaldo at the midtown bookshop where he worked and asked if she could buy him a drink when his day was over. The sound of her voice, swift, subdued, and unhappy, had the effect of jolting him out of his own bewilderment. He asked her to pick him up at the shop at six. She arrived at the exact time, wearing a green summer dress which made her look very young, carrying an absurdly large straw handbag. Her hair was pulled back and fell over her shoulders; and, for a moment, watching her push through the doors, both blurred and defined by the heavy sunlight, she looked like the Cass of his adolescence, of years ago. She had then been the most beautiful, the most golden girl on earth. And Richard had been the greatest, most beautiful man. She seemed terribly wound up—seemed to blaze, nearly, with some private, barely contained passion. She smiled at him, looking both young and weary; and for a moment he was faintly aware of her personal heat, her odor. “How are you, Vivaldo? It’s been rather a while since we’ve seen each other.” “I guess it has. And it’s been my fault. How are things with you?” She shrugged humorously, raising her hands like a child. “Oh. Up and down.” Then, after a moment, “Rather down right now.” She looked around the store. People were peering into bookshelves rather the way children peered in at the glass-enclosed fish in the aquarium. “Are you free? Can we leave now?” “Yes. I was just waiting for you.” He said good night to his employer and they walked into the scalding streets. They were in the Fifties, on the East Side. “Where shall we have this drink?” “I don’t care. Someplace with air conditioning. And without a TV set. I couldn’t care less about baseball.” They started walking uptown, and east, as though each wished to get as far away as possible from the world they knew and their responsibilities in it. The presence of others, walking past them, walking toward them, erupting rudely out of doorways and taxicabs, and springing up from the curbs, intruded painfully on their stillness and seemed to menace their connection. And each man or woman that passed seemed also to be carrying some intolerable burden; their private lives screamed from their hot and discontented faces. “On days like this,” Cass said, suddenly, “I remember what it was like—I think I remember—to be young, very young.” She looked up at him. “When everything, touching and tasting—everything—was so new, and even suffering was wonderful because it was so complete.” “That’s hindsight, Cass. I wouldn’t want to be that young again for anything on earth.”

• From Jesus and His Jewish Influences (2015)

  142 Lecture 22—Rabbinic Judaism’s Traditions about JesusJesus and His Jewish Influences Aftermath of the First Jewish Revolt ●● In the aftermath of the First Jewish Revolt against the Romans and the destruction of the Second Temple, the Romans made major administrative changes in Judea; these were intended to remedy weaknesses in their earlier governing policies. ●● The province of Judea was now made independent of Syria, and it was placed under the administration of an imperial senatorial legate—a legate who commanded a legion. Now, a legion was permanently stationed in Jerusalem. ●● After 70 A.D., Jerusalem lay in ruins for a number of years. What’s more, the sects of the late Second Temple period—Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes—disappeared from the historical record. The Diaspora Revolt ●● Jews in the decades after 70 A.D. lived in daily anticipation of the reestablishment of the Temple of Jerusalem. But of course, the Jews would have needed permission from the Romans to rebuild the Temple. As the years went by and Roman permission was not forthcoming, the Jews began to grow increasingly anxious. ●● Eventually, this anxiety and unmet expectations erupted in a series of revolts against the Romans. The first of these revolts is called the Diaspora Revolt (115–117 A.D.), which broke out among Jews living in Diaspora communities. It began in Egypt, then spread to other Diaspora groups. ●● Although we have almost no sources of information about this revolt, all indications are that it was brutally suppressed by Emperor Trajan. What we do know is that this revolt was apparently fueled by messianic expectations and reflected pent- up hostilities between Jews and non-Jews. The Second Jewish Revolt ●● Several decades later, another revolt broke out, known as the Second Jewish Revolt, or the Bar Kokhba Revolt, after its leader.

• From Wild (2012)

  But paging through it for the first time while actually sitting on the trail was less reassuring than I’d hoped. There were things I’d overlooked, I saw now, such as a quote on page 6 by a fellow named Charles Long, with whom the authors of The Pacific Crest Trail, Volume 1: California heartily agreed, that said, “How can a book describe the psychological factors a person must prepare for … the despair, the alienation, the anxiety and especially the pain, both physical and mental, which slices to the very heart of the hiker’s volition, which are the real things that must be planned for? No words can transmit those factors …” I sat pie-eyed, with a lurching knowledge that indeed no words could transmit those factors. They didn’t have to. I now knew exactly what they were. I’d learned about them by having hiked a little more than three miles in the desert mountains beneath a pack that resembled a Volkswagen Beetle. I read on, noting intimations that it would be wise to improve one’s physical fitness before setting out, to train specifically for the hike, perhaps. And, of course, admonishments about backpack weight. Suggestions even to refrain from carrying the entire guidebook itself because it was too heavy to carry all at once and unnecessary anyway—one could photocopy or rip out needed sections and include the necessary bit in the next resupply box. I closed the book. Why hadn’t I thought of that? Of ripping the guidebook into sections? Because I was a big fat idiot and I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, that’s why. And I was alone in the wilderness with a beast of a load to carry while finding that out. I wrapped my arms around my legs and pressed my face into the tops of my bare knees and closed my eyes, huddled into the ball of myself, the wind whipping my shoulder-length hair in a frenzy. When I opened my eyes several minutes later, I saw that I was sitting next to a plant I recognized. This sage was less verdant than the sage my mother had grown in our yard for years, but its shape and scent were the same. I reached over and picked a handful of the leaves and rubbed them between my palms, then put my face in them and inhaled deeply, the way my mother had taught me to do. It gives you a burst of energy, she’d always declared, imploring my siblings and me to follow her lead on those long days when we’d been working to build our house and our bodies and spirits had flagged.

• From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354)

  And how Thou didst deliver me out of the bonds of desire, wherewith I was bound most straitly to carnal concupiscence, and out of the drudgery of worldly things, I will now declare, and confess unto Thy name, O Lord, my helper and my redeemer. Amid increasing anxiety, I was doing my wonted business, and daily sighing unto Thee. I attended Thy Church, whenever free from the business under the burden of which I groaned. Alypius was with me, now after the third sitting released from his law business, and awaiting to whom to sell his counsel, as I sold the skill of speaking, if indeed teaching can impart it. Nebridius had now, in consideration of our friendship, consented to teach under Verecundus, a citizen and a grammarian of Milan, and a very intimate friend of us all; who urgently desired, and by the right of friendship challenged from our company, such faithful aid as he greatly needed. Nebridius then was not drawn to this by any desire of advantage (for he might have made much more of his learning had he so willed), but as a most kind and gentle friend, he would not be wanting to a good office, and slight our request. But he acted herein very discreetly, shunning to become known to personages great according to this world, avoiding the distraction of mind thence ensuing, and desiring to have it free and at leisure, as many hours as might be, to seek, or read, or hear something concerning wisdom.

• From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354)

  At other times, shunning over-anxiously this very deception, I err in too great strictness; and sometimes to that degree, as to wish the whole melody of sweet music which is used to David’s Psalter, banished from my ears, and the Church’s too; and that mode seems to me safer, which I remember to have been often told me of Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, who made the reader of the psalm utter it with so slight inflection of voice, that it was nearer speaking than singing. Yet again, when I remember the tears I shed at the Psalmody of Thy Church, in the beginning of my recovered faith; and how at this time I am moved, not with the singing, but with the things sung, when they are sung with a clear voice and modulation most suitable, I acknowledge the great use of this institution. Thus I fluctuate between peril of pleasure and approved wholesomeness; inclined the rather (though not as pronouncing an irrevocable opinion) to approve of the usage of singing in the church; that so by the delight of the ears the weaker minds may rise to the feeling of devotion. Yet when it befalls me to be more moved with the voice than the words sung, I confess to have sinned penally, and then had rather not hear music. See now my state; weep with me, and weep for me, ye, whoso regulate your feelings within, as that good action ensues. For you who do not act, these things touch not you. But Thou, O Lord my God, hearken; behold, and see, and have mercy and heal me, Thou, in whose presence I have become a problem to myself; and that is my infirmity. There remains the pleasure of these eyes of my flesh, on which to make my confessions in the hearing of the ears of Thy temple, those brotherly and devout ears; and so to conclude the temptations of the lust of the flesh, which yet assail me, groaning earnestly, and desiring to be clothed upon with my house from heaven. The eyes love fair and varied forms, and bright and soft colours. Let not these occupy my soul; let God rather occupy it, who made these things, very good indeed, yet is He my good, not they. And these affect me, waking, the whole day, nor is any rest given me from them, as there is from musical, sometimes in silence, from all voices. For this queen of colours, the light, bathing all which we behold, wherever I am through the day, gliding by me in varied forms, soothes me when engaged on other things, and not observing it. And so strongly doth it entwine itself, that if it be suddenly withdrawn, it is with longing sought for, and if absent long, saddeneth the mind.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  "Would that the fellow-feeling which enables me to condole with you, and to sympathize in your heaviness, might also impart the power in some degree at least to lighten your sorrow. If the matter stands as the Zürichers say it does, then they have just occasion for their writing .... Your Pericles allows himself to be carried beyond all bounds with his love of thunder, especially seeing that his own cause is by no means the better of the two .... We all of us acknowledge that we are much indebted to him. But in the Church we always must be upon our guard, lest we pay too great a deference to men. It is all over with her when a single individual has more authority than all the rest .... Where there is so much division and separation as we now see, it is indeed no easy matter to still the troubled waters, and bring about composure .... You will say he [Luther] has a vehement disposition and ungovernable impetuosity; as if that very vehemence did not break forth with all the greater violence when all show themselves alike indulgent to him, and allow him to have his way unquestioned. If this specimen of overbearing tyranny has sprung forth already as the early blossom in the springtide of a reviving Church, what must we expect in a short time, when affairs have fallen into a far worse condition? Let us, therefore, bewail the calamity of the Church and not devour our grief in silence, but venture boldly to groan for freedom .... You have studiously endeavored, by your kindly method of instruction, to recall the minds of men from strife and contention. I applaud your prudence and moderation. But while you dread, as you would some hidden rock, to meddle with this question from fear of giving offence, you are leaving in perplexity and suspense very many persons who require from you somewhat of a more certain sound, on which they can repose .... Perhaps it is now the will of God to open the way for a full and satisfactory declaration of your own mind, that those who look up to your authority may not be brought to a stand, and kept in a state of perpetual doubt and hesitation .... "In the mean time let us run the race set before us with deliberate courage. I return you very many thanks for your reply, and for the extraordinary kindness which Claude assures me had been shown to him by you.569 I can form a conjecture what you would have been to myself, from your having given so kind and courteous a reception to my friend. I do not cease to offer my chief thanks to God, who has vouchsafed to us that agreement in opinion upon the whole of that question [on the real presence]; for although there is a slight difference in certain particulars, we are very well agreed upon the general question itself."

• From Wild (2012)

  I guessed and guessed again, measuring, reading, pausing, calculating, and counting before ultimately putting my faith in whatever I believed to be true. Fortunately, this stretch of the trail held plenty of clues, riddled with peaks and cliffs, lakes and ponds that were often visible from the trail. I still had the same feeling as I had from the start, when I’d begun walking the Sierra Nevada from its southern beginning—as if I were perched above the whole world, looking down on so much. I pushed from ridge to ridge, feeling relieved when I spotted bare ground in the patches where the sun had melted the snow clean away; quivering with joy when I identified a body of water or a particular rock formation that matched what the map reflected or the guidebook described. In those moments, I felt strong and calm, and then a moment later, when I paused yet again to take stock, I became certain that I’d done a very, very stupid thing in opting to continue on. I passed trees that seemed disconcertingly familiar, as if I’d surely passed them an hour before. I gazed across vast stretches of mountains that struck me as not so different from the vast stretch I’d seen earlier. I scanned the ground for footprints, hoping to be reassured by even the slightest sign of another human being, but saw none. I saw only animal tracks—the soft zigzags of rabbits or the scampering triangles of what I supposed were porcupines or raccoons. The air came alive with the sound of the wind whipping the trees at times and at other times it was profoundly hushed by the endless silencing snow. Everything but me seemed utterly certain of itself. The sky didn’t wonder where it was. “HELLO!” I bellowed periodically, knowing each time that no one would answer, but needing to hear a voice anyway, even if it was only my own. My voice would guard me against it, I believed, it being the possibility that I could be lost in this snowy wilderness forever.

• From Wild (2012)

  Just behind that longing was the urge to call Paul. He was my ex-husband now, but he was still my best friend. As much as I’d pulled away from him in the years after my mother’s death, I’d also leaned hard into him. In the midst of my mostly silent agonizing over our marriage, we’d had good times, been, in oddly real ways, a happy couple. The vented metal box in the corner turned itself on again and I went to stand before it, letting the frigid air blow against my bare legs. I was dressed in the clothes I’d been wearing since I’d left Portland the night before, every last thing brand-new. It was my hiking outfit and in it I felt a bit foreign, like someone I hadn’t yet become. Wool socks beneath a pair of leather hiking boots with metal fasts. Navy blue shorts with important-looking pockets that closed with Velcro tabs. Underwear made of a special quick-dry fabric and a plain white T-shirt over a sports bra. They were among the many things I’d spent the winter and spring saving up my money to buy, working as many shifts as I could get at the restaurant where I waited tables. When I’d purchased them, they hadn’t felt foreign to me. In spite of my recent forays into edgy urban life, I was easily someone who could be described as outdoorsy. I had, after all, spent my teen years roughing it in the Minnesota northwoods. My family vacations had always involved some form of camping, and so had the trips I’d taken with Paul or alone or with friends. I’d slept in the back of my truck, camped out in parks and national forests more times than I could count. But now, here, having only these clothes at hand, I felt suddenly like a fraud. In the six months since I’d decided to hike the PCT, I’d had at least a dozen conversations in which I explained why this trip was a good idea and how well suited I was to the challenge. But now, alone in my room at White’s Motel, I knew there was no denying the fact that I was on shaky ground. “Perhaps you should try a shorter trip first,” Paul had suggested when I told him about my plan during one of our should-we-stay-together-or-get-divorced discussions several months before. “Why?” I’d asked with irritation. “Don’t you think I can hack it?” “It isn’t that,” he said. “It’s only that you’ve never gone backpacking, as far as I know.” “I’ve gone backpacking!” I’d said indignantly, though he was right: I hadn’t. In spite of all the things I’d done that struck me as related to backpacking, I’d never actually walked into the wilderness with a backpack on and spent the night. Not even once.

• From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354)

  By these temptations we are assailed daily, O Lord; without ceasing are we assailed. Our daily furnace is the tongue of men. And in this way also Thou commandest us continence. Give what Thou enjoinest, and enjoin what Thou wilt. Thou knowest on this matter the groans of my heart, and the floods of mine eyes. For I cannot learn how far I am more cleansed from this plague, and I much fear my secret sins, which Thine eyes know, mine do not. For in other kinds of temptations I have some sort of means of examining myself; in this, scarce any. For, in refraining my mind from the pleasures of the flesh and idle curiosity, I see how much I have attained to, when I do without them; foregoing, or not having them. For then I ask myself how much more or less troublesome it is to me not to have them? Then, riches, which are desired, that they may serve to some one or two or all of the three concupiscences, if the soul cannot discern whether, when it hath them, it despiseth them, they may be cast aside, that so it may prove itself. But to be without praise, and therein essay our powers, must we live ill, yea so abandonedly and atrociously, that no one should know without detesting us? What greater madness can be said or thought of? But if praise useth and ought to accompany a good life and good works, we ought as little to forego its company, as good life itself. Yet I know not whether I can well or ill be without anything, unless it be absent.

• From Little Women (1868)

  There was a dentist's sign, among others, which adorned the entrance, and after staring a moment at the pair of artificial jaws which slowly opened and shut to draw attention to a fine set of teeth, the young gentleman put on his coat, took his hat, and went down to post himself in the opposite doorway, saying with a smile and a shiver, "It's like her to come alone, but if she has a bad time she'll need someone to help her home." In ten minutes Jo came running downstairs with a very red face and the general appearance of a person who had just passed through a trying ordeal of some sort. When she saw the young gentleman she looked anything but pleased, and passed him with a nod. But he followed, asking with an air of sympathy, "Did you have a bad time?" "Not very." "You got through quickly." "Yes, thank goodness!" "Why did you go alone?" "Didn't want anyone to know." "You're the oddest fellow I ever saw. How many did you have out?" Jo looked at her friend as if she did not understand him, then began to laugh as if mightily amused at something. "There are two which I want to have come out, but I must wait a week." "What are you laughing at? You are up to some mischief, Jo," said Laurie, looking mystified. "So are you. What were you doing, sir, up in that billiard saloon?" "Begging your pardon, ma'am, it wasn't a billiard saloon, but a gymnasium, and I was taking a lesson in fencing." "I'm glad of that." "Why?" "You can teach me, and then when we play Hamlet , you can be Laertes, and we'll make a fine thing of the fencing scene." Laurie burst out with a hearty boy's laugh, which made several passers-by smile in spite of themselves. "I'll teach you whether we play Hamlet or not. It's grand fun and will straighten you up capitally. But I don't believe that was your only reason for saying 'I'm glad' in that decided way, was it now?" "No, I was glad that you were not in the saloon, because I hope you never go to such places. Do you?" "Not often." "I wish you wouldn't." "It's no harm, Jo. I have billiards at home, but it's no fun unless you have good players, so, as I'm fond of it, I come sometimes and have a game with Ned Moffat or some of the other fellows." "Oh, dear, I'm so sorry, for you'll get to liking it better and better, and will waste time and money, and grow like those dreadful boys. I did hope you'd stay respectable and be a satisfaction to your friends," said Jo, shaking her head. "Can't a fellow take a little innocent amusement now and then without losing his respectability?" asked Laurie, looking nettled. "That depends upon how and where he takes it.

• From Talk Dirty to Me: An Intimate Philosophy of Sex (1994)

  What Nietzsche considered natural, Joan Riviere came to see as a necessary deceit for survival—for every woman’s survival. Riviere was a Freudian analyst who suffered a great deal from the expectations of gender heaped upon her by society and her fellow analysts. She addressed one aspect in her essay “Womanliness as a Masquerade,” written in 1929. “I shall attempt to show that women who wish for masculinity may put on a mask of womanliness to avert anxiety and the retribution feared from men,” wrote Riviere. She was particularly addressing the case of women who display intellectualism, who pursue careers, who literally compete with men, including their fathers—and who also deliberately display womanly pursuits such as motherhood, home-making, heterosexual flirtations. “Womanliness therefore could be assumed and worn as a mask, both to hide the possession of masculinity and to avert the reprisals expected if she was found to possess it.” Womanliness itself, Riviere continued, her prose a model of quiet clarity, couldn’t be divided into “real” and “pretend”; there was no difference between femininity consciously displayed and femininity unconsciously lived, because “whether radical or superficial, they are the same thing.” To be perceived as a woman by society was to pretend, period. Femininity is deceit, deceit is femininity, anatomical women who don’t display the “masquerade” fail to be women. In society’s eyes, only masculinity is whole, complete in itself. “Woman” was that which made a man feel like a man, by being less than male. Augustine spent a lot of time trying to figure out what the point of woman was. Why did God want to make someone different from man? He noted that if she was meant as a helper, she should have been a man for strength. And if she was meant as a friend, she should have been a man for comfort. So why was she there? Psychoanalysis had at its bedrock this same semi-secret belief—that no one would want to be a woman, given a choice. A “healthy” female identity, which was of course heterosexual, had to be about what the analysts called lack—giving up, giving in, submitting, being filled. (Therefore, disguise and pretense—you have to fill up with something, only part of which is men.) Transsexualism “experts” persist in disbelieving in the female-to-male transsexual not because no one would want to be a man, but because everyone must want to be one. The butch woman sows seeds of discontent wherever she goes; she disturbs merely by being. The tide of her passage pulls at the seams of power. About the butch woman the Greeks had nothing to say. No man has ever had much to say about her, but the fear of her propels convention.

• From Another Country (1962)

  But she forced herself to wait, wondering all the time if she were waiting too long or would be calling too early. Finally, during the heaviest of the wide screen’s technicolored stormy weather, she walked down the stairs and entered the phone booth. She dialed his number and got the answering service. She crawled back upstairs and found her seat again. But she could not bear the movie, which showed no signs of ever ending. At nine o’clock, she walked downstairs again, intending to walk and have a drink somewhere and go home. Home. And she dialed the number again. It rang once, twice; then the receiver was picked up; there was a silence. Then, in an aggressive drawl, “Hello?” She caught her breath. “Hello?” “Hello. Eric? ” “Yes.” “Well, it’s me. Cass.” “Oh,” and then, quickly, “How are you, Cass, it’s good of you to call me. I’ve been sitting here trying to read this play and going out of my mind and feeling suicidal.” “I imagine,” she said, “that you may have been expecting this call.” For never let it be said, she thought, now really in the teeth of irreality and anguish, that I don’t lay my cards on the table. “What did you say, Cass?” But she knew, from the rhythm of his question, that he had understood her. “I said, ‘You may have been expecting this call.’ ” After a moment, he said, “Yes. In a way.” Then, “Where are you, Cass?” “I’m around the corner from your house. Can I come up?” “Please do.” “All right. I’ll be there in about five minutes.” “Okay. Oh, Cass—” “Yes?” “I haven’t got anything in the house to drink. If you’ll pick up a bottle of Scotch, I’ll pay you for it when you get here.” “Any special kind?” “Oh, I don’t care. Any kind you like.” A stone, miraculously enough, seemed to rise from her heart for a moment. She laughed. “Black Label?” “Crazy.” “In a minute, then.” “In a minute. I’ll be here.” She hung up, staring for a moment at the shining black instrument of her—deliverance? She marched into the street, found a liquor store and bought a bottle; and the weight of the bottle in her straw handbag somehow made everything real; as the purchase of a railroad ticket proves the imminence of a journey. What would she say to him? what would he say to her? He called, “Is that you, Cass?” She called back, “Yes!” and ran clumsily up the steps, like a schoolgirl. She reached his doorway out of breath, and he stood there, in a T-shirt and a pair of old army pants, smiling and pale.

• From Cult: A Love Story: Ten Years Inside a Canadian Cult and the Subsequent Long Road of Recovery (2013)

  He took the phone and began chatting with her and then excused himself and went into Lisa and Matthew’s bedroom, which was just off the kitchen. (In the latest game of Musical Beds, Limori’s former husband was now paired with Lisa.) He was gone for two hours and when he hung up and came and found me in the library, he was a changed man. His face looked dour and drawn and there was none of the usual spark of life in his eyes. I asked what was wrong and he said he couldn’t talk about it, so I left it alone. But I guessed that whatever had transpired during his phone call with Limori had to do with me and that it wasn’t good news. I guessed this because of the way he was closed off from me, in a way that he only ever was after he’d talked to his guru. I was certain that she’d delivered the latest message from God that said I was failing Him and also failing Limori and Michael. But I couldn’t know for sure because Michael wasn’t talking. So I tried not to think about it. During dinner that night he was obviously more comfortable because we were with Matthew, Lisa and John. Some of his normal lightheartedness began to return. But as we got ready for bed that night, we sat on top of the bedspread for a while, chatting. I tentatively made another query into the topic of his conversation with Limori and, surprisingly, he revealed a tiny bit. “You’re not doing very well,” he said. I knew he meant “energetically.” “Why?” I asked. “What’s wrong?” “I can’t tell you.” I paused, trying to get my head around what was going on, “So . . . something’s wrong but you can’t tell me what it is. Is that it?” “Yes,” he said. He was having trouble meeting my eyes and his dour expression was back. I made an exasperated noise and moved to get up off the bed to brush my teeth. “You’re angry,” he said, and somehow I could tell that he was talking not just about the present moment, but about my state of being in general. “No, I’m not.” I defended myself automatically. “Or at least, I wouldn’t be if you would tell me what was going on.” “I told you, I can’t.” I gave up on the conversation because I could tell it was going nowhere and only making me more nervous than I already was. After we’d cleaned our teeth and added more fuel to the woodstove in our cabin, we snuggled up against one another under the warm blankets. I felt like crap because of the cold we’d both caught at Christmas, and his nose was red and running, too. “Do you want to make love?” he asked. “No,” I said.

• From Little Women (1868)

  He is a truly excellent young man, and we could not refuse to listen to him, but I will not consent to Meg's engaging herself so young." "Of course not. It would be idiotic! I knew there was mischief brewing. I felt it, and now it's worse than I imagined. I just wish I could marry Meg myself, and keep her safe in the family." This odd arrangement made Mrs. March smile, but she said gravely, "Jo, I confide in you and don't wish you to say anything to Meg yet. When John comes back, and I see them together, I can judge better of her feelings toward him." "She'll see those handsome eyes that she talks about, and then it will be all up with her. She's got such a soft heart, it will melt like butter in the sun if anyone looks sentimentlly at her. She read the short reports he sent more than she did your letters, and pinched me when I spoke of it, and likes brown eyes, and doesn't think John an ugly name, and she'll go and fall in love, and there's an end of peace and fun, and cozy times together. I see it all! They'll go lovering around the house, and we shall have to dodge. Meg will be absorbed and no good to me any more. Brooke will scratch up a fortune somehow, carry her off, and make a hole in the family, and I shall break my heart, and everything will be abominably uncomfortable. Oh, dear me! Why weren't we all boys, then there wouldn't be any bother." Jo leaned her chin on her knees in a disconsolate attitude and shook her fist at the reprehensible John. Mrs. March sighed, and Jo looked up with an air of relief. "You don't like it, Mother? I'm glad of it. Let's send him about his business, and not tell Meg a word of it, but all be happy together as we always have been." "I did wrong to sigh, Jo. It is natural and right you should all go to homes of your own in time, but I do want to keep my girls as long as I can, and I am sorry that this happened so soon, for Meg is only seventeen and it will be some years before John can make a home for her. Your father and I have agreed that she shall not bind herself in any way, nor be married, before twenty. If she and John love one another, they can wait, and test the love by doing so. She is conscientious, and I have no fear of her treating him unkindly. My pretty, tender hearted girl! I hope things will go happily with her." "Hadn't you rather have her marry a rich man?" asked Jo, as her mother's voice faltered a little over the last words.

• From Talk Dirty to Me: An Intimate Philosophy of Sex (1994)

  In the United States it is considered legal fraud if a sexual problem is not disclosed prior to marriage; annulments have been granted because of impotence, infertility, a fetish. Marriage grants the state a long-standing and carefully delineated interest in the sexual relations between adults. We generally disdain the idea of public nudity, prostitution, and sex shows because we disdain making one’s sexual relations public, showing them off. But every marriage is a public sexual relationship, legally sanctioned, and its emblem is the hymen. We must have reverence for “the greatest gift a girl can give.” Husbands in some societies still sew up their wives’ labia before going on a trip out of town. The male fascination with virgins has created a myth, a quest for the grail of the maidenhead—which invariably, in men’s stories, is “torn open” or “ripped” or “broken” with copious blood and great pain. Followed by the young girl’s swooning appreciation for the man who has at last shown her the depth of sexual passion. To deflower a virgin has long been considered a special treat by certain men, especially certain classes of men—men with an edge of sadism who had leisure time and the wealth to afford the purchasing of female bodies. The historian Reay Tannahill says that London brothels used to supply medical certificates of virginity to customers. But since lots of virgins don’t have complete hymens, and broaching one often doesn’t have the dramatic impact myth leads men to expect, prostitutes became skilled at faking the imagined symptoms of virginity—astringents to make the vagina seem tight and dry, blood-filled sponges inside, dramatic skills to pretend pain. “In some brothels, professional virgins were patched up several times a week, and not only in London, but in Paris, Berlin, New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans, where some houses at the turn of the century offered defloration as part of the floor show.” Hymen repair before marriage is still common in Japan. Thus we come to the neat and probably inevitable intersection of the virgin and the whore. They are both women defined solely and completely by their sexual behavior, women who don’t exist but for their perceived sexual behavior. Why does the word “penetration” carry such discomfort and anxiety with its longing? Perhaps the best explanation is simply that the word is rarely spoken, but I suspect there’s more involved. Even when we think we’re comfortable talking about sex, even after an hour’s deconstruction of fellatio with three friends, I’m not comfortable discussing the nuances of sensation, the little dreams that crop up here and there, the sudden urges of my body. There was a fad for a while among heterosexual feminists to talk about intercourse as “engulfment,” trying to turn the power of the act on its head. But engulfment is as mushy a word as I can imagine for an experience that can feel so direct. Penetration is entry, submersion, binding, war.

• From Cult: A Love Story: Ten Years Inside a Canadian Cult and the Subsequent Long Road of Recovery (2013)

  Much of the lush landscape on the island was destroyed by the hurricane and it would take years to recover. Before this, Limori had been travelling to Kauai regularly for several years. She described the Hawaiian Islands as having particular spiritual significance, and Kauai was specifically touted to be one of the most spiritual places on Earth. Whenever Limori returned from her trips to the island, she shared stories of the spectacular spiritual energy that was there and the increasingly significant messages that she received from God and from other spirits whenever she was there. She and Alice would stay for weeks or months at a time and return to the group tanned and replete with the spirit of Aloha. Limori used Hurricane Iniki to her advantage. Because the hurricane landed on Kauai during daylight hours, and because of the prevalence of video recorders in private homes, there was a tremendous amount of recorded footage of the destruction as it occurred. A few months after the hurricane, a documentary film was released, using people’s recordings of the storm, and Limori screened the movie for us one night at the meditation circle. The hurricane was described as the work of the Devil. Limori had been doing so much good energy work while in Kauai, she said, and so many positive things were happening in the universe because of it that the Devil felt he had to strike back, and this was what he’d done. “But we will not be defeated!” she said. “Michael and Jessica’s wedding will go ahead as planned in Kauai and the spiritual work that will be accomplished by the wedding itself will help tremendously to begin to restore the damage done by the Devil and his hurricane.” During the lead-up to the wedding, I was struggling mightily with my banishment from Limori’s house and with the feelings that living at the house had stirred up in me and the ones that were coming to the surface while I processed what had happened. I had moved into a studio apartment, and while I was secretly relieved to be living on my own again, I was experiencing for the first time what being an outcast among the group was like. Shunning was a strategy that Limori’s followers had adopted and used from the earliest days of my involvement, but this was the first time I had experienced the fuzzy side of this particular lollipop. We never used the word shunning ; it is a word I have applied to the particular set of behaviours that occurred when someone was thought to have “dark energy” taking them over. Reflecting on how shunning was applied in the group, I realize that Limori never gave us instructions about how or when or why to shun. It was something we learned by modelling her and something that felt necessary because of the culture of fear that we lived in.

• From Cult: A Love Story: Ten Years Inside a Canadian Cult and the Subsequent Long Road of Recovery (2013)

  This was another reminder that we had to constantly be on guard and wary; doing God’s work incited the wrath of the “dark forces,” and coming to Wolf’s Den en masse like this meant that the Devil would be really pissed at us. Cabin assignments were to be strictly followed – as with everything else, the cabin assignments were decided upon with Spirit’s guidance and the “energies” were balanced by pairing certain people together. Meals would be taken communally in the main lodge with breakfast at 8:00 a.m. Alice was in charge of the kitchen and would be preparing the meals for us, but we would help with cleanup. Whatever happened or was shared by anyone at the workshop was strictly secret and was not to be shared with anyone once we’d returned to our regular lives. After these rules had been outlined, we were free to spend the first evening as we wished, catching up with our compatriots and winding down from the long drive. Limori floated among us and held court. She continually provided bossy instruction to those who lived at Wolf’s Den about tasks to be done immediately or in the coming days or weeks. “Open a window; we need some fresh air. Close the door or the cats will get out. Brent, is there firewood stacked at each cabin? Alice, what is that smell? Turn off the stove—you’re burning the soup. Rosemary, get me a platter to put this on. No! Not that one. The blue one. Ugh, I’ll do it myself. John, is there enough toilet paper in each outhouse? Go check. No, I said, go check. ‘I think so’ isn’t a good enough answer,” etc. This bossiness was one of the things that always bothered me the most about Limori, and being here in close quarters with her for several days in a row made my discomfort with the relentlessness of it, and her control over those around her, begin to grow. Everyone around her was always treated as if they were four years old and couldn’t make the smallest decisions for themselves. But, as with every other warning sign and feeling of discomfort, I dismissed how I was feeling. “She’s not bossy,” I thought. “She’s just particular.” The first night, the cabin I was assigned to was warm with both heat from the wood stove and the intimacy and community of the four women who were my bunk-mates. We took turns stoking the fire and brushed our teeth using water from a jerry can balanced on an old wooden chair in the corner. Some of the women in my cabin were the ones I’d driven up with; others were not, but we all knew each other and shared the common bond of a deepening desire to do good spiritual work. Ironically, I was assigned to share a double bed with Michael’s girlfriend Jessica; Amber and Debbie were each on a tier of a bunk bed on the other side of the room.