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 Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  Fortuitously (or, as it turns out, unfortunately), the next week Hudson asks if he can go with a friend to his country house for the weekend and I ask Michael if he can take Georgia for an extra night. I have become maximally efficient with my windows of free time, so I offer #7 Friday night for the dinner and sleepover he has requested and save my Saturday night for #6. All week, #7 texts me with updates to his menu, verifying what I like to eat and what wine I would like with it and telling me how excited he is. On Friday afternoon, he texts me as he counts down the hours until my arrival, telling me he’s at the butcher asking for a special cut of meat for a special date and at the wine store asking for a special bottle of wine. I am both touched by his extravagant preparations and put off by his enthusiasm. I want to be wanted, but this feels too easy, like there’s no chase at all. Also, I’m perplexed, wondering if he really likes me or just likes the idea of me, needing someone special in his life at all times. I ask him where his daughter will be for the night and he tells me she’s going to hang out with a friend and will be home very late. I worry that she will feel uncomfortable with my staying over, as I wouldn’t dare do the reverse and have a man stay in my home with my kids around, but he insists she’s fine with it, that she hated his ex-wife and thinks I’m really sweet. I admire his openness with his daughter but also wish he would protect her from having to know so much about his private life. Also, there’s a level of investment he’s putting into my sticking around that is starting to make me feel like a cornered animal. When I arrive at his apartment that evening, he opens the door with a broad smile and instructs me to sit at the small kitchen table and pour myself a glass of wine while he finishes cooking. He bustles from the stove to the refrigerator, explaining he’s not quite used to this kitchen yet. Finally, he presents me with a plate of sliced steak with grilled mushrooms, roasted potatoes and steamed asparagus. I tell him that I am impressed and appreciative and he beams. Having a man cook me a meal with such care, being taken care of by being served dinner – that will never grow old for me.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  That Boccaccio is adopting a polemical stance in relation to the literature of profane love – a position, moreover, that is diametrically opposed to that of Dante, whose poetry he greatly admired – cannot seriously be doubted. His passionate, eloquent, and occasionally mischievous defence of the Decameron in the Introduction to the Fourth Day, as well as the remarks he appends in the work’s concluding pages, are indicative of the need he experienced to defend the genre within which he was working. And it is characteristic of Boccaccio’s realistic view of the human condition that he should have seized upon the possibilities afforded by the great natural calamity of the Black Death to furnish his stories (many of which were doubtless already written before 1348) with a plausible raison d’être. The framework of the Decameron, and the circumstances in which the hundred tales are alleged to have been told, have already been discussed in some detail. What needs to be emphasized at this juncture is that the description of the plague, and of the moral and social upheaval to which it gave rise, is first and foremost a powerful instrument for ensuring that a hitherto neglected or despised literary genre will attract due recognition. Boccaccio’s defensive posture is at once apparent in the opening paragraph of the Introduction to the First Day, where, referring to his description of the plague, he apologizes to his readers in advance for the work’s irksome and ponderous opening (grave e noioso principio), and assures them that they will be affected no differently by this grim beginning than hikers confronted by a steep and rugged hill beyond which there lies a fair and delectable plain. The delectable plain is of course the main body of the work, the hundred stories themselves, but so aware is Boccaccio of the possible opprobrium that may accrue to him from his narration of the tales that he constructs an elaborate justificatory framework within which the stories are told, in a particular set of historical circumstances, by a group of ten fictitious narrators. By using this ingenious device, which, as already noted above, is not original to Boccaccio, but is rather a sophisticated form of a technique used by compilers of earlier collections of tales, not only does he distance himself from his material, but he also provides it with a valid aesthetic and historical raison d’être.

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  The seventh-century Islamic conquests had closed the world south and east of the Mediterranean to both Rome and Constantinople. But both retained the universalist urge; indeed both had begun to look north for converts long before Moslem troops reached the Straits of Gibraltar. The creation of the Frankish empire in the eighth century, penetrating into central Europe for political and military reasons, with a strong proselytizing urge and its own distinctive and hotly defended ecclesiology, brought western missionaries up against Greek ones, who had been pushing north into the Balkans. Thus the ninth century became an age of intense missionary rivalry. The presence of two Christian Churches in the area of central Europe, each seeking to convert kings and nations and so enlarge its sphere of influence, helps to illuminate the obscure subject of why pagan societies chose to become Christian. In general, we possess remarkably little information on this subject. The first Frankish converts seem to have been guided by military considerations, rather like Constantine himself: a Christian army was more likely to win a battle. Another factor was the failure of Germanic pagan societies to produce a satisfying explanation of what happened after death, in contrast to the certitude of salvation which Christianity provided. A famous passage in Bede’s History of the English Church and Nation suggests how powerfully the Christian missionaries could rely on this point. But rulers who were contemplating leading their tribe or nation into Christianity had to consult not only their own feelings but take into consideration the likely impact of the new religion on their society in all its aspects. The Christianity brought to the Franks in the early decades of the sixth century, and to the English at the end of it, was a comparatively simple affair; moreover, Gregory the Great, in his instructions to Augustine of Canterbury, had stressed that his teaching should remain flexible and should be married, where possible, to existing customs. By the ninth century, however, the idea of a total Christian society had taken shape: the faith not only had answers, but definitive and compulsory answers, to questions on almost every aspect of human behaviour and arrangements. A pagan society embracing Christianity was accepting a completely new way of life. Moreover, in large parts of central Europe and the Balkans, such societies were offered the choice between two increasingly different brands of Christian practice, each attended by different cultural and geopolitical consequences. Fortunately, we have a unique glimpse of the dilemma, as it appeared to a barbarian monarch, thanks to the survival of two documents. In the 850s, the emergent state of Bulgaria, which feared both Carolingian and Byzantine imperialism, had seemed set on a pro-Frankish course, and in the early 860s it looked as though its king, Boris I, would accept Christianity from Frankish hands. In 864 a powerful military and naval demonstration by the Byzantines led him to change his mind; and he became an Orthodox Christian in 865.

• From Anxious: Using the Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety (2015)

  67 People who suffer from them are hypersensitive to threats, which seize and hold their attention, a condition sometimes called hypervigilance. They are also impaired in distinguishing things that are dangerous from those that are safe and overestimate the significance of perceived threats. Even when threats are not present, they worry excessively that threats will occur and constantly scan the environment to try to understand why they feel distressed. They go to extremes to escape from or avoid threats, so much so that these avoidance strategies interfere with daily life. Figure 1.7: Alterations of Threat Processing Occur in Many Psychiatric Disorders. SHOWING MY HAND Any understanding of fear and anxiety presumes an understanding of emotion. So before we go further, I want to make clear what my own view of the subject is, using the emotion fear for illustrative purposes. In many ways my core view of emotion has not changed since the 1980s. 68 But recently I have begun to discuss it somewhat differently in an effort to sharpen the conceptualization of this complex psychological function and its relation to brain mechanisms. 69 Traditionally, emotion theories have focused on conscious feelings. 70 For example, in the late nineteenth century, William James, the father of American psychology, proposed that fear is a conscious feeling that occurs when we find ourselves responding to danger; the feeling of fear, for him, was the perception of body signals that are unique to defending against danger. 71 Not all theorists have agreed with James about how conscious feelings come about, but many have concurred that the feeling is the emotion. Freud, as mentioned above, said that anxiety is “something felt” and also noted, “It is surely the essence of an emotion that we should feel it.” 72 More recently, the Dutch psychologist Nico Frijda claimed that emotions are primarily “hedonic experiences.” Lisa Barrett, James Russell, Andrew Ortony, and Gerald Clore, and others, emphasize that emotions are psychologically constructed conscious experiences. 73 Clore notes that “emotions are never unconscious.” 74 Other theorists, though, have found conscious experience to be unnecessary, or even a detriment, to understanding emotion. For example, in the early twentieth century, behaviorists argued strongly that consciousness, being unobservable, had no place in psychology; they insisted that behavior alone should be the focus of inquiry. 75 This led to the idea that fear was a relation between stimuli and responses rather than a specific feeling. 76 When behavioral psychologists later turned to physiology in an effort to understand how stimuli and responses are connected in the brain, fear became a central motivational state—a physiological state of the brain that organized responses to dangerous stimuli.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  You are my spiritual father, you are a priest, and you are fast approaching your old age, all of which things require that you should lead a chaste and honourable life. Besides, I am no longer a young girl, able to take affairs of this sort in her stride, but a widow; and you know how essential it is that widows should follow the path of virtue. You must therefore excuse me, for I can never love you in the way you request, nor do I wish to be loved in this manner by you.’ Although he could obtain no other answer from her at this first encounter, the Provost was not the sort of man to be discouraged or defeated by a single rebuff, and with his habitual arrogance and effrontery he importuned her repeatedly by means of letters and messages, as well as by word of mouth whenever he saw her coming into church. And so the lady, finding that his attentions were becoming quite intolerable, resolved that she would teach him a salutary lesson, albeit she would do nothing without first consulting her brothers. She therefore told them all about the Provost’s importunate behaviour, and explained what she was proposing to do about it. Having obtained their full consent, a few days later she went to the church as usual, and no sooner did the Provost catch sight of her than he came over to her and spoke to her in his customary, over-familiar manner. When she saw him coming, the lady fixed her gaze upon him and gave him a cheerful smile. So the Provost led her to a secluded corner of the church, and plied her with his usual stream of endearments, whereupon the lady fetched a deep sigh and said: ‘Sir, I have frequently heard it said that no fortress is sufficiently strong to withstand a perpetual siege, and I have now discovered, from my own experience, that this is perfectly true. For you have beleaguered me so completely with your tender words and countless acts of courtesy that you have forced me to break my former resolve. And seeing that you find me so much to your liking, I am willing to surrender.’ ‘Heaven be praised!’ said the Provost, who could scarcely contain his joy. ‘To tell you the truth, madam, I am amazed that you should have held out for so long, seeing that this has never happened to me with any woman before. And in fact, I have sometimes had occasion to reflect, that if women were made of silver, you couldn’t turn them into coins, as they bend too easily. But no more of this: when and where can we be together?’ ‘Sweet my lord,’ replied the lady, ‘we can meet whenever you please, for I have no husband to whom I must give an account of my nights. But as to where we are going to meet, I have no idea.’ ‘Why not?’ said the Provost.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘Now listen, Jehannot, you would like me to become a Christian, and I am prepared to do so on one condition: that first of all I should go to Rome, and there observe the man whom you call the vicar of God on earth, and examine his life and habits together with those of his fellow cardinals; and if they seem to me such that, added to your own arguments, they lead me to the conclusion that your faith is superior to mine, as you have taken such pains to show me, then I shall do as I have promised; but if things should turn out differently. I shall remain a Jew as I am at present.’ When Jehannot heard this, he was thrown into a fit of gloom, and said to himself: ‘I have wasted my energies, which I felt I had used to good effect, thinking I had converted the man; for if he goes to the court of Rome and sees what foul and wicked lives the clergy lead, not only will he not become a Christian, but, if he had already turned Christian, he would become a Jew again without fail.’ And turning to Abraham, he said: ‘Come now, my friend, why should you want to put yourself to the endless trouble and expense involved in going all the way from here to Rome? Besides, for a rich man like yourself, the journey both by sea and land is full of dangers. Do you suppose you will not find anyone here to baptize you? If by chance you have any doubts concerning the faith as I have outlined it to you, where else except in Paris will you find greater and more learned exponents of Christian doctrine, capable of answering your questions and resolving your difficulties?1 Hence in my opinion this journey of yours is quite unnecessary. You must remember that the Church dignitaries in Rome are no different from the ones you have seen and can still see here, except that they are the better for being closer to the chief shepherd. And so if you will take my advice, you will save your energy for a pilgrimage on some later occasion, when perhaps I will keep you company.’ ‘Jehannot,’ replied the Jew, ‘I believe it to be just as you say it is, but to put the matter in a nutshell, if you really want me to do as you have urged me with so much insistence, I am fully prepared to go there. Otherwise, I shall do nothing about it.’ ‘Go then, and good luck to you,’ said Jehannot, seeing that the Jew had made up his mind. He was quite certain that Abraham would never become a Christian, once he had seen the court of Rome; but since it would make no difference, he did not insist any further.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  I’ll tell you when you can move. I know I seem nutty but I’m not ready to have this conversation with them yet.” I am practically begging him. “OK then,” he says carefully. “You sure you don’t want to just say hi?” “Please,” I say. “Carry on. As you were saying ...” I’m barely listening to him as I track the movements of my parents. I see they’ve got the bread now, but it has started raining torrentially and they’re looking out the window with concerned expressions; then my father sits on an empty stool while my mother approaches the hostess. My worst fear: they’re waiting for a table to open up. It seems like my father is looking right at me, but he doesn’t register seeing me. Is he playing it cool? When the waitress clears the table next to ours and the hostess gestures to my mother, I know that I have no choice but to out myself. I apologize to #4 and say that I have to excuse myself, alone, and to please stay put. I am so anxious as I arise that I do not realize my flip-flop has gotten caught on the leg of my chair and I fly forward as the chair tumbles backward. #4 quickly reaches out to stop me from falling flat on my face. This date has turned into a horrendous sitcom – surely even the clumsy Phoebe from Friends would deal with this situation with more grace. Too humiliated to even thank him, I make a beeline for my parents. “Hi,” I say breathlessly, leaning toward them. “Laura, hello!” my mother says happily, leaning in to peck me on my cheek. “How funny! Who are you here with?” “Well, kind of funny actually, I’m here on a blind date,” I say with a grimace. “Already?” my mother asks in a loud, indignant voice, while my father looks on silently with a bemused smile. “That’s helpful, thanks Mom – Alex set me up with someone she insisted I meet, she said I should start getting out so I’m trying. This is super awkward and I want to die,” I blurt out in one rambling, breathy sentence. “OK, OK,” she says. “Don’t panic.” “Listen, they’re clearing off the table next to us and you cannot under any circumstances sit there or anywhere else where you can see me. And don’t come over and say hello or even look over at us. Please.” “OK, calm down, Laura. Go sit. We won’t look,” she says reassuringly.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  SEVENTH STORY The Sultan of Babylon sends his daughter off to marry the King of Algarve. Owing to a series of mishaps, she passes through the hands of nine men in various places within the space of four years. Finally, having been restored to her father as a virgin, she sets off, as before, to become the King of Algarve’s wife. The young ladies, who were feeling very sorry for Madonna Beritola, would possibly have dissolved into tears if Emilia’s recital of the lady’s woes had continued for very much longer. When, finally, the tale was finished, it was the queen’s wish that Panfilo should take up the storytelling, and being very obedient he began forthwith as follows: Delectable ladies, it is no easy matter for a man to decide what is in his best interests. For as we have often had occasion to observe, there are many who have considered that only their poverty stood between themselves and a secure, trouble-free life, and they have not only prayed to God for riches, but sought deliberately to acquire them, sparing themselves neither effort nor danger in the process. And no sooner have they succeeded, than the prospect of a substantial legacy has frequently caused them to be murdered by people who, before they had become rich, had never dreamed of doing them any harm. Others have risen from low estate to the dizzy heights of kingship through a thousand dangerous battles, spilling the blood of their nearest and dearest as they went along, thinking sovereign power represented the peak of happiness. But as they could have seen and heard for themselves, it was a happiness fraught with endless fear and worry, and at the cost of their lives they came to realize that the chalice at a royal table may sometimes be poisoned, even though it is made of gold. Again, there have been many people who have ardently yearned for bodily strength and beauty, whilst others have longed with equal intensity for bodily ornaments, only to discover too late that the very things they so unwisely desired were the cause of their death or unhappiness. But in order not to become involved in a detailed review embracing the whole range of human desires, I will merely affirm that no man can, with complete confidence, elect any one of them as being wholly immune from the accidents of Fortune. For if we were to proceed at all times in a correct manner, we would have to resign ourselves to the acquisition and possession of whatever has been granted to us by the One who alone knows what we need and has the power to provide it for us.

• From Anxious: Using the Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety (2015)

  PENGUIN BOOKS ANXIOUS Joseph LeDoux is the Henry and Lucy Moses Professor of Science at New York University, where he is a member of the Center for Neural Science and Department of Psychology. He directs the Emotional Brain Institute at New York University and at the Nathan Kline Institute, and he is the author of Synaptic Self and The Emotional Brain . A member of the National Academy of Sciences and the rock band The Amygdaloids, LeDoux lives in Brooklyn, New York. * * * WINNER OF THE WILLIAM JAMES BOOK AWARD Praise for Anxious “Every age believes itself to be the age of anxiety . . . but in his new book, Anxious , LeDoux suggests that that has never been a stronger claim to make than it is now. . . . If this is the age of anxiety, LeDoux is our Lewis and our Clark: It was LeDoux who laid down the first map of what is called the brain’s ‘fear circuit.’ . . . With his new book, he wants to redraw that map.” —Casey Schwartz , New York Magazine “LeDoux presents a rigorous, in-depth guide to the history, philosophy, and scientific exploration of this widespread emotional state. . . . LeDoux’s charming personal asides give an impression of having a conversation with a world expert. LeDoux ends on a high note, describing how cutting-edge research on the neural substrates of anxiety is being translated into new approaches for psychiatric treatment.” —Susanne Ahmari, Nature “LeDoux is not only a pioneer in the neurobiological analysis of fear in animals but also a scholarly and accessible writer. . . . Anxious is a significant and important departure from the author’s earlier views on the neural underpinnings of fear. . . . In Anxious , LeDoux challenges the reader to think differently about the neural origins of fear and its disorders. In doing so, he offers a masterful synthesis of animal and human work and a novel road map for future work in both the laboratory and the clinic.” —Stephen Maren, Science “ Anxious is an extraordinarily ambitious, provocative, challenging, and important book. Drawing on the latest research in neuroscience . . . LeDoux provides explanations of the origins, nature, and impact of fear and anxiety disorders.” —Glenn Altschuler, Psychology Today “Impressive . . . LeDoux persuades us with reason and the power of critical thinking. He is a true scientist, and here, in his third book, there is maturity, there is breadth. You will know more than you did, and you will start to think differently about what it means to be afraid.” —Tristan A. Bekinschtein, Times Higher Education Literary Supplement (London) “LeDoux believes fear and anxiety are not innate, prepackaged states, simply waiting to be unleashed in the brain.

• From Anxious: Using the Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety (2015)

  Even if all the corrections described above were made, though, there would still be a problem. As described later in this chapter, it’s a conceptual problem. LOOKING FOR ANXIOUS GENES Alongside drug research, effort has been directed to finding a genetic basis for psychiatric disorders. If faulty genes could be identified, drugs that compensate for the malfunctioning genes might be useful in treatment. The search for anxious genes proceeds on two fronts. I mentioned earlier efforts using selective breeding or gene targeting to produce animals that show anxiety-like behaviors. The other approach is to search for genes that correlate with anxiety symptoms in people with these disorders. If anxious genes can be identified in people, they can in turn be targeted in animals, which will, in principle, make it possible to conduct mechanistic studies of the malfunctioning of those genes in the genesis of pathological anxiety. We don’t need scientific evidence to tell us that some people are more anxious than others, and anecdotal evidence also suggests that nervousness runs in families. The latter suggests that individual differences in anxiety may have a genetic component, which is supported by studies that have shown that anxious tendencies in early life tend to be carried into adulthood, as though anxiety were a stable (and therefore perhaps genetically inherited) characteristic of the individual. 49 The traditional approach to relating genes to psychiatric disorders starts with comparing the trait in question in people with similar and different genetic backgrounds. Such studies are most powerful when comparisons are made between identical and fraternal twins raised together, and between identical twins raised apart. Because identical twins have identical genes but fraternal twins do not, such studies allow the estimation of the influence of genetic versus nongenetic (especially environmental) factors on a given trait. For example, twin studies of anxiety have revealed that genetic factors account for roughly 30 percent to 50 percent of an individual’s tendency to be generally anxious or to have a specific anxiety disorder. 50 Once a genetic component has been established, the search for the genes involved can begin. This is a time-consuming and complex process that has recently been greatly facilitated by the information obtained by the Human Genome Project. 51 The success of genetic studies in neurological diseases, such as Huntington’s disease, the familial form of Parkinson’s disease, and a few others, led to hopes that similar advances could be made for psychiatric conditions. But unlike these neurological diseases, psychiatric disorders are not inherited following the simple laws of Mendelian genetics, in which traits are controlled by a single gene and result in a few standard inheritance patterns of being dominant or recessive. 52 Heritability in psychiatric disorders typically involves complex inheritance patterns controlled by multiple genes that interact with environmental factors to produce their results. With the rise of molecular genetics, it has become possible to search for possible changes (mutations, polymorphisms) in target genes.

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  In Spain, the Catholic crown, through its instrument the Inquisition, exterminated Protestantism in the 1550s. In the Italian states, Protestantism made little headway among the aristocracy, and the question really did not arise, except in Venice. But in France, under a Catholic monarchy, the aristocracy became divided. Great families like the Guises and the Montmorencys were strongly Catholic, and controlled Lorraine. Cities like Paris, Bordeaux and Toulouse were also Catholic. But the Prince of Condé was a Calvinist Protestant, or Huguenot; so was Coligny, the High Admiral; and so were the Bourbons of Navarre. The Huguenots numbered about one-tenth to one-fifteenth of the total population, but they were in the majority in parts of the Orléanais, Normandy, Navarre, the Dauphiné and many towns. How, then, could the principle be applied to France? There was a fierce debate among the Protestants as to whether they were justified in taking up arms against the lawful ruler. Beza, writing to the King of Navarre, thought it was ‘the lot of the Church of God’ to ‘endure blows and not to strike them’; but, he added, ‘remember that it is an anvil which has broken many hammers’. One Huguenot lawyer, awaiting execution in 1559, argued that any monarch who forced his subjects to live against the will of God must be illegitimate. But who was to define ‘the will of God’? Therein lay the whole argument. Calvin, consulted, ruled that resistance to persecution was permissible if led by the chief magistrate or prince of the blood. Hence the importance in France of such figures as Condé, Coligny and Navarre, who made possible a rebellion which Protestants could regard as theologically legitimate: the 2,000 Huguenot consistories in France became a civil and military organization, as well as a religious one. This new principle was made to apply elsewhere. In 1559 in Scotland the predominant section of the nobility, goaded on by Calvin’s pupil, John Knox, raised arms against the Catholic administration. The English crown, after much hesitation, decided that this rebellion, too, was legitimate and lawful, and assisted it. Again, in the 1560s, the Spanish Netherlands rose against the persecuting Catholic Habsburgs, using in justification their ancient constitutional machinery, and in defence of their traditional laws, customs and charters. Their leader was a blood-prince, William the Silent, Prince of Orange, and when he was assassinated their ‘governorship’ was offered to the anointed Protestant Queen of England. Thus the theories determining the religious division of Europe, though springing from the same root-concept – the priestly power of the prince – were increasingly divergent and conflicting. The result was a drift towards civil war within states, and

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  I try to exude calm, as if condoms regularly fall off inside of me, and say, “Just give me a sec.” It doesn’t take long for my finger to alight on the rubber, and I pull it, long and slippery, out of me. Blaze sorts through the pile of clothing until he finds his shorts. He spills out the contents of his pockets and I hear coins and keys falling, but he soon holds up another condom, announcing that it is his last one. He enters me from behind and I brace my hands on the back of the chair as his indefatigable thrusting continues. We both hear voices at the same time, a small group of people, and their voices get louder as they approach the area where we are. He pauses, saying “Shhhhh” to me. We are suspended in motion, silent, listening to the voices rise and fall and the ocean waves gently break on the sand a few feet away. I am squeezing my eyes shut, praying we can’t be seen in the dark since we are mostly covered by a canopy anyway, and eventually the voices fade away. When Blaze gently turns me around again to get back on top of me, I hear him curse under his breath. “What?” I ask. He points sheepishly down at his penis, which is dark and erect and once again missing its rubber sheath. I wordlessly reach inside myself and pull it out again, this time handing it back to him so he can resume using it, and note that I should probably march myself back into my gynecologist’s office and ask for yet another STD panel, even if I am chastened by the mere thought of it. Our bodies are slick with sweat and when he clamps his hips against mine and lets out a surprisingly high-pitched coyote-like yelp, I am relieved, as I am physically spent. He collapses on top of me, panting, and then rolls to the side. Suddenly curious about his age, I ask him how old he is, guessing that he’s 35, but he’s actually only 31. “Oh wow. A baby,” I say. “You like older women, huh?” “I like beautiful women,” he says. “How often do you sleep with guests at this hotel?” I ask. “Never. You’re my first one,” he says, unconvincingly. I give him a skeptical look and he continues, “Sometimes three women in a month and then nothing for a few months.” I ask an improbably naïve question then, needing to know if these women have all been single. He laughs. “Married women proposition you?” I ask, unable to keep the shock out of my voice. “I guess they can’t stay away – you exude sex.” “So do you,” he says. He starts putting his clothes back on, reaching in the dark for a collection of money, keys, matches and joints which had fallen from his pockets.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  I blamed Michael for encouraging this and was further angry that I had to be the one to figure out what to do with every accident. When they arrived home later with Hudson’s broken hand in a cast, I had warm bowls of chicken tortilla soup waiting for them. As we ate dinner, I tried to catch Michael’s eye, but he wouldn’t look at me. I kept my eyes on him as he stared down at his bowl of soup resolutely. As strained as things had become between us, this felt egregiously harsh, as if he couldn’t bear the sight of me. It was at that moment that the gravity of what he had been trying to tell me weeks earlier clicked and I realized with growing alarm that something in our home had gone terribly awry. After dinner, Michael said he was exhausted and would put Georgia to sleep in our bed and go to sleep with her. I eyed his phone on the counter; I understood at that moment that I would have to scroll through it that night for a clue as to what was happening. I offered to charge it in the kitchen for him, but he grabbed the phone and closed our bedroom door behind him. If he refused to share the real reason behind his unhappiness, I would dig for it myself. I felt like I had just walked through a doorway to another planet – this was my family, my home, my marriage, my forever, my safe ground I walked on no matter what was whirling around in the world outside, and yet suddenly there was a chasm in the ground. I could sense it, but I couldn’t find its source; I was terrified that when I did, I would plunge through it. I cleaned the kitchen, then tiptoed into our bedroom and took his phone from his nightstand. My heart pounded as I walked to the chair at our desk off the hallway and sank down onto it. I easily opened his phone since he and I used the same passwords. I had no idea what I was looking for, so I read his texts, wading through hundreds of business-related texts and finding only one text of note. I didn’t recognize the sender; when I googled him, I saw that he was a therapist. Why wouldn’t Michael tell me if he was seeing a therapist? I then skimmed through hundreds of emails, still coming up empty-handed. I was starting to feel foolish about my paranoia and guilty that I was invading his privacy, but I knew something was amiss and I wasn’t going to know exactly what it was unless I found it out on my own: Michael had closed himself to me.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  I want him to know that I recognize that I am being deceived in some way, that I’m not so gullible I don’t see it, but I don’t want to appear to be a mousy, timid, nervous woman. Reluctantly, I accept the coffee, which tastes bitter and stale, and follow him out the back door to the yard. The yard is small but pretty, with an abundance of greenery and a porch swing under an awning, where we sit, gently swaying as we talk about his writing, until twenty minutes in, I confess that I am terribly uncomfortable, that I’m getting bitten up by mosquitoes, pointing to swollen red spots on my bare legs, and he leads the way back inside. This time, we sit on his couch in the living room and I ask about his vast collection of DVDs and CDs, items that don’t get a lot of shelf space in most homes anymore. Only a few minutes into our having settled on the sofa, he leans toward me as I am mid-sentence and starts kissing me. “OK,” I say, pulling back slightly. “Well, that’s one way to get me to stop talking.” “Can we move to my bedroom?” he asks, his coffee-laden breath too close to my face. “Um, OK, sure. That was fast,” I say, grimacing slightly. I don’t really want to sleep with him, but I don’t know how to get myself out of here. He has steered me here, but I have shown only hesitation, not one sign of actual resistance. I feel completely disconnected from myself, as if I am no longer here in this gloomy apartment but on the other side of the door where a brilliant blue sky shines on my real life, where I should be right now. I am scared to say no to this man – he is intense and determined, and I fear that I might have led him to this inevitable conclusion so that saying no now would brand me a tease, a blue- baller, a naïf, someone who doesn’t understand the sexual dynamics between a man and a woman. I feel myself floating out of my body, much the way I do in moments of crisis with my kids when I’ve cradled them after falls have broken their bones or bloodied their faces, and I remain preternaturally calm, managing their physical care while not allowing in the repulsion of gushing blood or limbs that seem to be bent in the wrong direction. Silently, I follow him to his bedroom and take my tank top and skirt off, folding them and placing them on his dresser, then lie down in my lacy bra and underwear.

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  is, after the Four Last Things) and would be marked by universal peace, in which the institutions necessary for a turbulent world would wither away. For Marxists the parallels are disturbingly close. Men read Joachim with the same care and excitement with which they read the more imaginative historians like Otto of Freising. They thought that God intended the future to be discoverable and that it was the duty of society to prepare for it. Roger Bacon, perhaps the best true scientist of the Middle Ages, wrote to the Pope (c. 1267): ‘If only the church would examine the prophecies of the bible, the sayings of the saints, the sentences of the Sibyl and Merlin and other pagan prophets, and would add thereto astrological considerations and experimental knowledge, it would without doubt be able to provide usefully against the coming of Antichrist. . . . For not all prophecies are irrevocable and many things are said in the prophets about the coming of antichrist which will come to pass only through the negligence of Christians. They would be changed if Christians would strenuously inquire when he will come, and seek all the knowledge which he will use when he comes.’ 4 This passage, representing the higher conventional wisdom of the thirteenth century, implies a degree of possible control over the universe, present and future, which fits in with the theory of limitless papal monarchy, then nearing its zenith. It springs from the same assumptions as the wild triumphalism of Boniface VIII, quoted at the beginning of this section. But neither the papacy nor the Church as a whole had a firm grip on the total Christian society even in the thirteenth century. Thereafter what grip it had slackened. From about this time, the unified Christian society began to dissolve, and forms of heterodoxy became endemic, their detection and punishment being part of the routine operations of the Church and State. Every form of religious manifestation filled the authorities with disquiet; none could be trusted not to slip out of control. And for much of the time there was not one pope, to act as invigilator and monitor, but two; sometimes three. Joan of Arc, for instance, was not a victim of English nationalism: only eight of the 131 judges, assessors and other clergy connected with her trial were Englishmen. She was, rather, the casualty of a French civil war which had a wide theological dimension. One of the things which aroused suspicion about her was that she headed her letters ‘Jhesus Maria’ –

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  There is something about the urgency of his movements, coupled with my tepid response, that unnerves me. The power here is most decidedly not in my court. As for the paucity of my physical feedback, I am more than a little distracted – by Dustin Hoffman’s bumbling machinations across the room, by the sun beaming through the windows which affords no darkness in which to hide, by the crab cake congealing on my plate in front of me. My mind is wandering so much that I start to panic – am I losing my interest in sex, have I used up my post-divorce allotment? I am attracted to him, so why do I feel like I can take this or leave it right now? He pushes back from me, swings his legs around to the floor, and takes my hand to lead me to the back of the apartment. Passing by the bathroom, I extricate my hand from his, indicating that I’m going to make a quick stop first. When I enter his bedroom a minute later, he is lying on his back on the bed, stripped down to a pair of boxer shorts. His bed is neatly made beneath him, a purple geometrically patterned comforter covering a low platform bed. I pause at the side of the bed, pulling off my sweater so that I am down to a sheer camisole. I lie next to him and he immediately rolls over so that he is on top of me, tugging off my jeans and then my thong. When he sees my bare pubic area, he pauses and raises his eyebrows. “I did not expect you to have a wugget,” he says, smiling. “A what?” I ask, furrowing my eyebrows. “A wugget,” he repeats and I continue to look questioningly at him. “A bald monkey,” he adds, unhelpfully. “Translation please,” I say. “A shaved pussy,” he clarifies. “Wow, you’re a walking urban dictionary! Yes, well, surprise, here it is. I am told this is what men like now,” I say. “Would you like to weigh in?” “Yeah, I like it,” he says. “But do you prefer it this way? Is the presence of pubic hair a dealbreaker for you?” I ask. “Ha, no! Not much is a dealbreaker for me in terms of hair. But it’s a bold choice. I guess I would think with your daughters up in your business all the time, you might have wanted to keep some hair,” he says. “Just to be clear, my kids are definitely up in my business, but not the business of my vagina,” I say and he laughs.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  As he burrows under the blankets to go down on me I close my eyes and hold my breath, as anxious as I had been with #1 that he might find something down there that alarms him. It’s a great relief when he compliments me instead, tells me that I smell good and my skin is so soft. More importantly, two men have now independently surveyed the state of my vagina and given it the all-clear. If I’m lucky enough to have sex with another man, I can probably stop worrying about this part of my anatomy. I don’t want to rely on male approval, and frown when I think of my distinctly non-feminist dependence on it, but I have lost faith in the power and beauty of my body that I took for granted the last time I was single. I’m realistic about the inevitable changes that result from childbirth and age. Even though I’m grateful to have had a chance to experience both, and believe on a fundamental level that they only add to a woman’s power and beauty, I worry that for me they don’t sweeten the pot but mark me instead as if I am decaying. Over the years, I’ve worked to maintain my physique, but I did so to stay attractive and appealing to Michael, not for myself. Now I see that I need to do a search-and-rescue mission for the confidence I once had in my physical prowess, that I need to embrace the imperfections I see as battle scars and not apologize for them. Johnny is suddenly inside of me and thrusting, fast and hard. Within a couple of minutes, I worry that he is disconcertingly breathless – not lustful panting, but more the way I sound like I’m wheezing after an intense workout. “Are you OK, Johnny?’” “Yes, sorry, I’m fine.” But he does not sound fine to me; unbidden, my caretaking instincts kick in. “I think we should stop. Just lie with me while you catch your breath.” He lies next to me and I put my hand on his chest over his heart. “I’m so embarrassed,” he says, shaking his head. “I’m still recovering. I can’t do all the things I did before. It’s frustrating but also just so embarrassing.” “Shhhh,” I say, like I’m soothing a child. “It’s OK. Recovery is a process. Don’t feel bad if this is too much for you.” “I cannot believe I have a sexy woman lying naked in my bed and I can’t keep up.” “Please, don’t apologize or feel bad. You’ll get back to yourself eventually. I’m sure most men would fare much worse after having half a lung removed!”

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  I feel equal parts brave and foolish: less “I am woman, hear me roar,” and more “I am lonely, newly single, timid woman, hear me whisper.” With empty stools on either side of me, I sit down and order a Margarita in a voice the bartender has to lean in close to hear and nurse that drink for all its worth. I can do this, I think, just one drink, some people watching and I’m out. I listen to the young, pig-tailed bartender tell her older, white-bearded counterpart about her visit home to introduce her boyfriend to her parents. I eavesdrop on two women at the end of the bar who are discussing strategies for organic gardening, stopping only when I realize I am nodding along with their suggestions. I watch the tables in front of the bar fill up and wonder if my parents might turn up; they don’t live far and this looks like their crowd. I remember how ill at ease I felt in bars even when I was in college and was supposed to thrive in them, finding them loud and pointless, preferring to snuggle up with my friends in our own apartment where we could talk without yelling and sip our peach wine coolers in a room that didn’t smell like rank beer. A boisterous group files into the bar and fills the seats to my left. My radar goes up. A man whose back is turned to me is tall, muscular and has a full head of dark hair. I casually lean forward to check his ring finger and raise my eyebrows when I see that it is bare. The group seems to be his family, so I assume a girlfriend will soon appear and I can then relax my lifted eyebrows and go back to feeling sorry for myself. I impatiently wait a few more minutes, closely monitoring the group dynamics. When a girlfriend does not appear, I slide my stool back noisily, hop off it and make a big show of moving it away from him to try and grab his attention. It works. “Oh, hey, sorry,” he says, turning his warm brown eyes to me. “I didn’t mean to crowd you.’” “No, no,” I say, smiling. “I just realized that I have a football field open to the right of me and you’re crammed in here with a big group, so I was giving you more room.” And that’s it.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  Also, I urgently need to wash my feet. Perhaps you have a hose?” “Ugh, sorry, I should have warned you not to walk around here barefoot,” he says, grimacing. “It’s OK. I just pretend to be a country girl, but in real life I’m as city as they come,” I say laughing. When I hear the late evening chirps of the crickets start to swell, I tell him that as much as I want to stay, it’s way past time for me to head home. Michael has to return to the city, so I need to get back to Georgia. He leans against my car door as we draw out our goodbye, asking when he can see me again. We tentatively set a date for the following weekend, when Michael will take Georgia to the beach and Hudson will still be in Israel. I make him promise that he will let me cook for him on our next date, and with one last kiss through the car window, I am once again on my way back home. CHAPTER 8 A Hug Won’t Fix This I’ve added #3’s contact information in my phone under the name Jen. Since I have a handful of friends and a sister named Jen, I hope that when his texts pop up on my phone the kids won’t think twice about who it is. I’m not ready to tell them that I have started dating, but sneaking around makes me feel like I’m doing something illicit. I’m confused about my status with Michael, moving further and further away from him as the summer progresses but unwilling to commit to staying apart. If the kids know I’m dating they’ll feel it is a definitive statement about our future; given my own ambivalence, the last thing I need is for them to throw their own addled feelings into the mix. Like a woman on the run who has to be in motion all the time now, I take Georgia to Pennsylvania for a few days to visit our friends at their lake house. I have always been a busy person, working on messy baking or craft projects or cleaning out closets. I claim that I want to be left alone with a good book but given the opportunity to do so, I rarely let myself relax. Now it’s like I’m on speed. When I read, my eyes aimlessly scan pages without taking words in and I start books only to give up on them a few pages in. If I’m sitting still, chances are that I’m keeping myself busy with disconcerting thoughts about my past and unanswerable questions about my future. My mind is in a constant, unpleasant state of overdrive.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  But on one of these occasions when Federigo was due to come and take supper with Monna Tessa, and she had roasted a pair of fat capons in his honour, it so happened that, much to the lady’s annoyance, Gianni turned up unexpectedly, very late in the evening. She and her husband supped on a small quantity of salted meat which she had cooked separately; and meanwhile she got her maid to wrap the two roast capons in a white tablecloth together with a quantity of new-laid eggs and a flask of choice wine, and carry them into her garden, which it was possible to reach without going through the house, and where every so often she and Federigo used to sup. And she told the maid to leave all these things at the foot of a peach-tree that stood at the edge of a neat little lawn. But she was so enraged by what had happened that she forgot to tell the maid to wait until Federigo arrived, so as to inform him that Gianni was at home and that he was to take away the things from the garden. And so not long after she and Gianni had gone to bed, and the maid had also retired for the night, Federigo came and tapped gently at the door, which was so near to the bedroom that Gianni heard it immediately, and so did the lady. But so that Gianni could have no possible reason to suspect her, she pretended to be asleep. Federigo waited a little, then knocked a second time, whereupon Gianni began to wonder what it was all about and gave his wife a little poke, saying: ‘Tessa, do you hear what I hear? It sounds like someone tapping at our door.’ His wife, who had heard it much more clearly than he had, made a show of waking up, and murmured: ‘Mm? What’s that you say?’ ‘I said,’ Gianni replied, ‘that it sounds like someone tapping at our door.’ ‘Tapping?’ she said. ‘Oh, heavens, Gianni dear, d’you know what it’ll be? It’ll be the werewolf that’s been frightening me out of my senses for these past few nights. I was so terrified that every time I heard it I stuck my head under the bedclothes and kept it there until it was broad daylight.’ ‘Come now, don’t be afraid, my dear,’ said Gianni. ‘If that’s all it is, there’s no need to worry, because before we got into bed I recited the Te lucis9 and the Intemerata10 and various other excellent prayers, and I also made the sign of the cross from corner to corner of the bed in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, so no matter how powerful this werewolf may be, it can’t do us any harm.’