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 Austerlitz (2001)

  that I had left Prague at the age of four and a half, in the months just before the war broke out, on one of the so-called children’s transports departing from the city at the time, and I had therefore come to consult the archives in the hope that people of my surname living here between 1934 and 1939, who could not have been very numerous, might be found in the registers, with details of their addresses. I fell into such a panic as I offered these explanations, which suddenly struck me as not just far too cursory but positively absurd, that I began to stammer and could hardly bring out a word. All at once I felt the heat from the stout radiator, which was encrusted with several layers of lumpy oil paint and stood under the wide-open window; I heard nothing but the noise rising from the Karmelitska, the heavy rumble of the trams, the wailing sirens of police cars and ambulances somewhere in the distance, and I calmed down only when Tereza Ambrosova, whose deep-set violet eyes had been gazing at me with some concern, gave me a glass of water. As I took a few sips from this glass, which I had to hold in both hands, she said that the registers of those living in Prague at the time in question had been preserved complete, that Austerlitz was indeed one of the more unusual surnames, so she thought there could be no particular difficulty in finding me the entries I wanted by tomorrow afternoon.

• From The Girls (2016)

  herself back on the pillow. “You’ll like this news. Peter’s gone. Like, gone gone. With Pamela, quelle surprise.” She rolled her eyes but articulated Pamela’s name with a perverse happiness. Cutting me a look. “What do you mean, left?” Panic was already dislocating my voice. “He’s so selfish,” she said. “Dad told us we might have to move to San Diego. The next day, Peter takes off. He took a bunch of his clothes and stuff. I think they went to her sister’s house in Portland. I mean, I’m pretty sure they went there.” She blew at her bangs. “He’s a coward. And Pamela is the kind of girl who’s gonna get fat after she has a baby.” “Pamela’s pregnant?” She gave me a look. “Surprise—you don’t even care I might have to move to San Diego?” I knew I was supposed to start enumerating the ways I loved her, how sad I would be if she left, but I was hypnotized by an image of Pamela next to Peter in his car, falling asleep against his shoulder. Avis maps at their feet gone translucent with hamburger grease, the backseat filled with clothes and his mechanic manuals. How Peter would look down and see the white line of Pamela’s scalp through her part. He might kiss her, moved by a domestic tenderness, even though she was sleeping and would never know. “Maybe he’s just messing around,” I said. “I mean, couldn’t he still show up?” “Screw you,” Connie said. She seemed surprised by these words, too. “What’d I even do to you?” I said. Of course we both knew. “I think I’d rather be alone right now,” Connie announced primly, and stared hard out the window. Peter, fleeing north with the girlfriend who might even have his baby— there was no imagining the biology away, the fact of the multiplying proteins in Pamela’s stomach. But here was Connie, her chubby shape on the bed so familiar that I could map her freckles, point out the blip on her shoulder from chicken pox. There was always Connie, suddenly beloved. “Let’s go to a movie or something,” I said. She sniffed and studied the pale rim of her nails. “Peter’s not even around anymore,” she said. “So you really have no reason to be here.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  26 The intensity with which young people live demands that they “blank out” as often as possible. I didn't actually think about facing Mother until the last day of our journey. I was “going to California.” To oranges and sunshine and movie stars and earthquakes and (finally I realized) to Mother. My old guilt came back to me like a much-missed friend. I wondered if Mr. Freeman's name would be mentioned, or if I would be expected to say something about the situation myself. I certainly couldn't ask Momma, and Bailey was a zillion miles away. The agony of wonder made the fuzzy seats hard, soured the boiled eggs, and when I looked at Momma she seemed too big and too black and very old- fashioned. Everything I saw shuttered against me. The little towns, where nobody waved, and the other passengers in the train, with whom I had achieved an almost kinfolk relationship, disappeared into a common strangeness. I was as unprepared to meet my mother as a sinner is reluctant to meet his Maker. And all too soon she stood before me, smaller than memory would have her but more glorious than any recall. She wore a light-tan suede suit, shoes to match and a mannish hat with a feather in the band, and she patted my face with gloved hands. Except for the lipsticked mouth, white teeth and shining black eyes, she might have just emerged from a dip in a beige bath. My picture of Mother and Momma embracing on the train platform has been darkly retained through the coating of the then embarrassment and the now maturity. Mother was a blithe chick nuzzling around the large, solid dark hen. The sounds they made had a rich inner harmony. Momma's deep, slow voice lay under my mother's rapid peeps and chirps like stones under rushing water. The younger woman kissed and laughed and rushed about collecting our coats and getting our luggage carted off. She easily took care of the details that would have demanded half of a country person's day. I was struck again by the wonder of her, and for the length of my trance, the greedy uneasiness was held at bay. We moved into an apartment, and I slept on a sofa that miraculously transformed itself at night into a large comfortable bed. Mother stayed in Los Angeles long enough to get us settled, then she returned to San Francisco to arrange living accommodations for her abruptly enlarged family. Momma and Bailey (he joined us a month after our arrival) and I lived in Los Angeles about six months while our permanent living arrangements were being concluded. Daddy Bailey visited occasionally bringing shopping bags of fruit. He shone like a Sun God, benignly warming and brightening his dark subjects. Since I was enchanted with the creation of my own world, years had to pass before I reflected on Momma's remarkable adjustment to that foreign life.

• From Austerlitz (2001)

  ‘ { 4 13 RR | \ ZZ VA Then the wide countryside opened out again, and all the time I was looking out I never saw a vehicle on the roads, or a single human being except for the stationmasters who, whether from boredom or habit or because of some regulation which they had to observe, had come out on the platform at even the smallest stations such as Holoubkov, Chrast, or Rokycany in their red uniform caps, most of them, it seemed to me, sporting blond moustaches, and determined not to miss the Prague express as it thundered by on this pallid April morning. All I remember of Pilsen, where we stopped for some time, said Austerlitz, is that I went out on the platform to photograph the capital of a cast-iron column which had touched some chord of recognition in me. What made me uneasy at

• From Austerlitz (2001)

  I think there was some kind of popular festival going on in the city at the time; in any case, the wailing of ambulance and police sirens went on until early in the morning. When at last I woke from a bad dream I saw the tiny silver arrows of airplanes passing at intervals of ten or twelve minutes through the bright blue space above the neighboring houses, which still lay in twilight. On leaving the Flamingo Hotel—such was its name, if I remember correctly—at about eight o’clock, I saw a pale-faced woman of about forty with her eyes turned away lying on a high trolley down by the reception desk, where there was no one in evidence. Two ambulance men were talking out on the pavement. I crossed the Astridsplein to the station, bought myself a coffee, and took the next suburban train to Mechelen, then walking the ten remaining kilometers to Willebroek through the suburbs and the now built-up outskirts of the town. I retained hardly anything of what I saw on my way. All I remember is a peculiarly narrow house, in fact no more than one room wide, built of puce-colored brick and standing in an equally narrow strip of garden surrounded by a tall thuya hedge. A canal ran beside this house, and a long barge laden with cabbages as big and round as cannonballs was gliding along it just as I passed, apparently without any boatman to steer it and leaving not a trace on the black surface of the water. It had turned unusually hot, just as it was thirty years ago, by the time I reached Willebroek. The fortifications lay unchanged on the blue-green island, but the number of visitors had increased. There were several coaches in the car park, while inside the porter’s lodge a troop of schoolchildren in brightly colored clothes was crowding around the cash desk and the small kiosk. Some of them had already gone ahead of the rest over the bridge to the dark gate through which, yet again, I could not bring myself to pass even after long hesitation. I spent some time in one of the hut-like wooden buildings where the SS had set up a printing shop for the manufacture of various official forms and greeting cards. The roof and the walls creaked in the heat, and the thought passed through my mind that the hair on my head might catch fire, as St. Julian’s did on his way

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Mrs. Breakspeare sent for Stephen one morning; she was sitting at a Louis Quinze writing-table which had somehow survived the wreck of the château and was now in her gloomy, official dug-out. Her right hand reposed on an ordnance map, she looked like a very maternal general. The widow of an officer killed in the war, and the mother of two large sons and three daughters, she had led the narrow, conventional life that is common to women in military stations. Yet all the while she must been filling her subconscious reservoir with knowledge, for she suddenly blossomed forth as leader with a fine understanding of human nature. So now she looked over her ample bosom not unkindly, but rather thoughtfully at Stephen. ‘Sit down, Miss Gordon. It’s about Llewellyn, whom I asked you to take on as second driver. I think the time has now arrived when she ought to stand more on her own in the Unit. She must take her chance like every one else, and not cling quite so close—don’t misunderstand me, I’m most grateful for all you’ve done for the girl—but of course you are one of our finest drivers, and fine driving counts for a great deal these days, it may mean life or death, as you yourself know. And—well—it seems scarcely fair to the others that Mary should always go out with you. No, it certainly is not quite fair to the others.’ Stephen said: ‘Do you mean that she’s to go out with every one in turn—with Thurloe for instance?’ And do what she would to appear indifferent, she could not quite keep her voice from trembling. Mrs. Breakspeare nodded: ‘That’s what I do mean.’ Then she said rather slowly: ‘These are strenuous times, and such times are apt to breed many emotions which are purely fictitious, purely mushroom growths that spring up in a night and have no roots at all, except in our imaginations. But I’m sure you’ll agree with me, Miss Gordon, in thinking it our duty to discourage anything in the nature of an emotional friendship, such as I fancy Mary Llewellyn is on the verge of feeling for you. It’s quite natural of course, a kind of reaction, but not wise—no, I cannot think it wise. It savours a little too much of the schoolroom and might lead to ridicule in the Unit. Your position is far too important for that; I look upon you as my second in command.’ Stephen said quietly: ‘I quite understand. I’ll go at once and speak to Blakeney about altering Mary Llewellyn’s time-sheet.’ ‘Yes, do, if you will,’ agreed Mrs. Breakspeare; then she stooped and studied her ordnance map, without looking again at Stephen.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  2On New Year’s Eve Mrs. Antrim gave a dance in order, or so she said, to please Violet, who was still rather young to attend the hunt balls, but who dearly loved gaiety, especially dancing. Violet was plump, pert and adolescent, and had lately insisted on putting her hair up. She liked men, who in consequence always liked her, for like begets like when it comes to the sexes, and Violet was full of what people call: ‘allure,’ or in simpler language, of sexual attraction. Roger was home for Christmas from Sandiest, so that he would be there to assist his mother. He was now nearly twenty, a good-looking youth with a tiny moustache which he tentatively fingered. He assumed the grand air of the man of the world who has actually weathered about nineteen summers. He was hoping to join his regiment quite soon, which greatly augmented his self-importance. Could Mrs. Antrim have ignored Stephen Gordon’s existence, she would almost certainly have done so. She disliked the girl; she had always disliked her; what she called Stephen’s ‘queerness’ aroused her suspicion—she was never quite clear as to what she suspected, but felt sure that it must be something outlandish: ‘A young woman of her age to ride like a man, I call it preposterous!’ declared Mrs. Antrim. It can safely be said that Stephen at eighteen had in no way outgrown her dread of the Antrims; there was only one member of that family who liked her, she knew, and that was the small, hen-pecked Colonel. He liked her because, a fine horseman himself, he admired her skill and her courage out hunting. ‘It’s a pity she’s so tall, of course—’ he would grumble, ‘but she does know a horse and how to stick on one. Now my children might have been brought up at Margate, they’re just about fitted to ride the beach donkeys!’ But Colonel Antrim would not count at the dance; indeed in his own house he very seldom counted. Stephen would have to endure Mrs. Antrim and Violet—and then Roger was home from Sandiest. Their antagonism had never quite died, perhaps because it was too fundamental. Now they covered it up with a cloak of good manners, but these two were still enemies at heart, and they knew it. No, Stephen did not want to go to that dance, though she went in order to please her mother. Nervous, awkward and apprehensive, Stephen arrived at the Antrims that night, little thinking that Fate, the most expert of tricksters, was waiting to catch her just round the corner. Yet so it was, for during that evening Stephen met Martin and Martin met Stephen, and their meeting was great with portent for them both, though neither of them could know it.

• From Cults Inside Out: How People Get In and Can Get Out (2014)

  They are a small religious group, not an established denomination. 6. The group or at least the core members live together in an intentional community isolated from the rest of society. 7. There is often extreme paranoia in the group; members believe they are in danger and that governments or people outside the group are closely monitoring and heavily persecuting them. People on “the outside” are demonized. 8. Information and contacts from outside the cult are severely curtailed. Other Factors 9. The group leadership assembles an impressive array of guns, rifles, other murder weapons, poison, or weapons of mass destruction. They may prepare defensive structures. 10. They follow a form of Christian theology (or a blend of Christianity with another religion), with major and unique deviations from traditional beliefs in the area of end-time prophecy. Even though this definition narrowly focuses on so-called end-times or doomsday theology as its prerequisite, nevertheless it again conforms to the three categories of characteristics Lifton identifies. That is, the so-called doomsday cults are personality driven, and a charismatic leader dominates all of them. They also exhibit “social encapsulation” factors, which correspond to various aspects of the thought-reform process. And they have all done harm, which in the groups cited was so horrible that it became historically noteworthy. Intentional Communities or Cultic Compounds? We should note that thousands of counterculture communities were created and developed during the 1960s and 1970s.501 Many of these intentional communities, or communes, have endured to the present. Benjamin Zablocki, professor of sociology at Rutgers University, broke down such communities into ten categories.502 Alternative familiesCooperativesCounterculturalEgalitarianPoliticalPsychologicalRehabilitationReligiousSpiritualExperimentalZablocki studied hundreds of intentional communities, everything from an Israeli kibbutz to a Hutterite collective. He found that the dropout rate in many of these communities was approximately 25 percent. People who left often cited as a primary cause questions that arose concerning the group’s internal dynamics; typically their concerns centered on the exercise of power and authority.503 Sociologist Stephen Kent, in his own study of the counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s, found that what was initially an idealistic movement focused on social and political activism in certain instances later contributed to various forms of spirituality or morphed into guru worship. This development could be seen in such groups as the Unification Church, Hare Krishna (ISKCON), and the Children of God.504 At times destructive cults with group compounds have tried to portray such heavily controlled environments as intentional communities or benign communes. A cult compound, however, can be differentiated from a benign community in the following three ways.

• From The Girls (2016)

  from the dreamworld into my waking life. And how jarring it would be to realize that I was not married, that I had not cracked the code to flight, and there would be a real sorrow. The actual moment Russell told Suzanne to go to Mitch Lewis’s house and teach him a lesson—I kept thinking I had witnessed it: the black night, the cool flicking chirps of crickets, and all those spooky oaks. But of course I hadn’t. I’d read about it so much that I believed I could see it clearly, a scene in the exaggerated colors of a childhood memory. I’d been waiting in Suzanne’s room at the time. Irritable, desperate for her return. I’d tried to talk to her at multiple points that night, tugging at her arm, tracking her gaze, but she kept brushing me off. “Later,” she said, and that was all it took for me to imagine her promise fulfilling itself in the darkness of her room. My chest tightened when I heard footsteps enter the room, mind swelling with the thought—Suzanne was here—but then I felt the soft glancing hit and my eyes flew open—it was just Donna. She’d thrown a pillow at me. “Sleeping Beauty,” she said, sniggering. I tried to settle back into pretty repose; the sheet overheated from the nervous shuffle of my body, ears suggestible for any sound of Suzanne’s return. But she didn’t come to the room that night. I waited as long as I could, alert to every creak and jar, before passing into the drowsy patchwork of unwilling sleep. In fact, Suzanne had been with Russell. The air of his trailer probably going stuffy from their fucking, Russell unraveling his plan for Mitch, he and Suzanne staring up at the ceiling. I can imagine how he got right up to the edge before swerving around the details, so maybe Suzanne would start to think she’d had the same idea, that it was hers, too. “My little hellhound,” he had cooed to her, his eyes pinwheeling from a mania that could be mistaken for love. It was strange to think Suzanne would be flattered in this moment, but certainly she was. His hand scratching her scalp, that same agitated pleasure men like to incite in dogs, and I can imagine how the pressure started to build, a desire to move along the larger rush. “It should be big,” Russell had said. “Something they can’t ignore.” I see him twisting a lock of Suzanne’s hair around a finger and pulling, the barest tug so she wouldn’t know if the throb she felt was pain or pleasure.

• From The Girls (2016)

  By the time I’d walked the farthest spit of land, the wind had picked up. The beach empty, all the picnickers and dog walkers gone. I stepped my way over the boulders, heading back to the main stretch of sand. Following the line between cliff and wave. I’d done this walk many times. I wondered how far Sasha and Julian and Zav had gotten by then. Probably still an hour from L.A. Without having to think about it, I knew Julian and Zav were sitting in the front seats and Sasha was in the back. I could imagine her leaning forward from time to time, asking for a joke to be repeated or pointing out some funny road sign. Trying to campaign for her own existence, before finally giving up and lying back on the seat. Letting their conversation thicken into meaningless noise while she watched the road, the passing orchards. The branches flashing with the silver ties that kept away birds. — I was passing by the common room with Jessamine, on our way to the Tuck Shop, when a girl called, “Your sister’s looking for you downstairs.” I didn’t look up; she couldn’t be talking to me. But she was. It took me a moment to understand what might be happening. Jessamine seemed hurt. “I didn’t know you had a sister.” — I suppose I had known Suzanne would come for me. The cottony numbness I occupied at school wasn’t unpleasant, in the same way a limb falling asleep isn’t unpleasant. Until that arm or leg wakes up. Then the prickles come, the sting of return—seeing Suzanne leaning in the shade of the dorm entrance. Her hair uncombed, her lips bristling—her presence knocked the plates of time ajar. Everything was returned to me. My heart strobed, helpless, with the tinny cut of fear. But what could Suzanne do? It was daytime, the school filled with witnesses. I watched her notice the fuss of landscaping, teachers on their way to tutoring appointments, girls crossing the quad with tennis bags and chocolate milk on their breath, walking proof of the efforts of unseen mothers. There was a curious, animal distance in Suzanne’s face, a measurement of the uncanny place she’d found herself.

• From Austerlitz (2001)

  In the first few weeks after his return from Bohemia, Austerlitz continued his tale as we walked on, he had learnt by heart the names and dates of birth and death of those buried here, he had taken home pebbles and ivy leaves and on one occasion a stone rose, and the stone hand broken off one of the angels, but however much my walks in Tower Hamlets might soothe me during the day, said Austerlitz, at night I was plagued by the most frightful anxiety attacks which sometimes lasted for hours on end. It was obviously of little use that I had discovered the sources of my distress and, looking back over all the past years, could now see myself with the utmost clarity as that child suddenly cast out of his familiar surroundings: reason was powerless against the sense of rejection and annihilation which I had always suppressed, and which was now breaking through the walls of its confinement. Soon I would be overcome by this terrible anxiety in the midst of the simplest actions: tying my shoelaces, washing up teacups, waiting for the kettle to boil. All of a sudden my tongue and palate would be as dry as if I had been lying in the desert for days, more and more I had to fight harder and harder for breath, my heart began to flutter and palpitate in my throat, cold sweat broke out all over my body, even on the back of my trembling hand, and everything I looked at was veiled by a black mist. \ ~)\-omrit rit on¥ eacax, ano ya. of) WWE swabows FLEE away” {> I felt like screaming but could not utter a sound, I wanted to walk out into the street but was unable to move from the spot; once, after a long and painful contraction, I actually visualized myself being broken up from within, so that parts of my body were scattered over a dark and distant terrain. I cannot say now, said Austerlitz, how many such attacks I suffered at the time, but one day, when I collapsed on my way to the kiosk at the end of Alderney Street, striking my head against the edge of the pavement, I was taken to St. Clement’s as the last in a series of various casualty departments and hospitals, and there found myself in one of the men’s wards when at last I returned to my senses, after what I was told later had been nearly three weeks of mental absence which, though it did not impair the bodily functions, paralyzed all thought processes and emotions. I walked around in this place, said Austerlitz, his left hand pointing to the tall brick fagade of the hospital building towering behind the wall, in the

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  She belonged to something to do with a heart; it all seemed rather uncanny to Burton. He thought of the Vicar who had played such fine cricket, and suddenly felt very homesick for Morton. Fruit would find its way to the little apartment, together with cakes and large marrons glacés. Then Mademoiselle Duphot would become frankly greedy, eating sweets in bed while she studied her booklets on the holy and very austere Thérèse, who had certainly not eaten marrons glacés. Thus the spring, that gentle yet fateful spring of 1914, slipped into the summer. With the budding of flowers and the singing of birds it slipped quietly on towards great disaster; while Stephen, whose book was now nearing completion, worked harder than ever in Paris. CHAPTER 34 1 W ar. The incredible yet long predicted had come to pass. People woke in the mornings with a sense of disaster, but these were the old who, having known war, remembered. The young men of France, of Germany, of Russia, of the whole world, looked round them amazed and bewildered; yet with something that stung as it leapt in their veins, filling them with a strange excitement—the bitter and ruthless potion of war that spurred and lashed at their manhood. They hurried through the streets of Paris, these young men; they collected in bars and cafés; they stood gaping at the ominous government placards summoning their youth and strength to the colours. They talked fast, very fast, they gesticulated: ‘C’est la guerre! C’est la guerre!’ they kept repeating. Then they answered each other: ‘Oui, c’est la guerre.’ And true to her traditions the beautiful city sought to hide stark ugliness under beauty, and she decked herself as though for a wedding; her flags streamed out on the breeze in their thousands. With the paraphernalia and pageantry of glory she sought to disguise the true meaning of war. But where children had been playing a few days before, troops were now encamped along the Champs Elysées. Their horses nibbled the bark from the trees and pawed at the earth, making little hollows; they neighed to each other in the watches of the night, as though in some fearful anticipation. In bystreets the unreasoning spirit of war broke loose in angry and futile actions; shops were raided because of their German names and their wares hurled out to lie in the gutters. Around every street corner some imaginary spy must be lurking, until people tilted at shadows. ‘C’est la guerre,’ murmured women, thinking of their sons. Then they answered each other: ‘Oui, c’est la guerre.’ Pierre said to Stephen: ‘They will not take me because of my heart!’ And his voice shook with anger, and the anger brought tears which actually splashed the jaunty stripes of his livery waistcoat. Pauline said: ‘I gave my father to the sea and my eldest brother.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  But as Stephen dismounted, bespattered and dishevelled, and yet with that perversive look of her father, the words that Anna had been planning to speak died away before they could get themselves spoken—she shrank back from the child; but the child was too overjoyed at that moment to perceive it. 4 Happy days, splendid days of childish achievements; but they passed all too soon, giving place to the seasons, and there came the winter when Stephen was fourteen. On a January afternoon of bright sunshine, Mademoiselle Duphot sat dabbing her eyes; for Mademoiselle Duphot must leave her loved Stévenne, must give place to a rival who could teach Greek and Latin—she would go back to Paris, the poor Mademoiselle Duphot, and take care of her ageing Maman. Meanwhile, Stephen, very angular and lanky at fourteen, was standing before her father in his study. She stood still, but her glance kept straying to the window, to the sunshine that seemed to be beckoning through the window. She was dressed for riding in breeches and gaiters, and her thoughts were with Raftery. ‘Sit down,’ said Sir Philip, and his voice was so grave that her thoughts came back with a leap and a bound; ‘you and I have got to talk this thing out, Stephen.’ ‘What thing, Father?’ she faltered, sitting down abruptly. ‘Your idleness, my child. The time has now come when all play and no work will make a dull Stephen, unless we pull ourselves together.’ She rested her large, shapely hands on her knees and bent forward, searching his face intently. What she saw there was a quiet determination that spread from his lips to his eyes. She grew suddenly uneasy, like a youngster who objects to the rather unpleasant process of mouthing. ‘I speak French,’ she broke out, ‘I speak French like a native; I can read and write French as well as Mademoiselle does. ’ ‘And beyond that you know very little,’ he informed her; ‘it’s not enough, Stephen, believe me.’ There ensued a long silence, she tapping her leg with her whip, he speculating about her. Then he said, but quite gently: ‘I’ve considered this thing—I’ve considered this matter of your education.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  “-maybe it mean Sister Florida wants you to work with the children in the church.” “One thing I always used to tell Florida, people won't let you get your words in edgewise—” “Could be she's trying to tell you—” “I ain't crazy, you know. My mind's just as good as it was.” “-to take a Sunday school class—” “Thirty years ago. If I say I was awake when I saw that little fat angel, then people ought to—” “Sunday school need more teachers. Lord knows that's so.” “—believe me when I say so.” Their remarks and responses were like a Ping-Pong game with each volley clearing the net and flying back to the opposition. The sense of what they were saying became lost, and only the exercise remained. The exchange was conducted with the certainty of a measured hoedown and had the jerkiness of Monday's wash snapping in the wind-now cracking east, then west, with only the intent to whip the dampness out of the cloth. Within a few minutes the intoxication of doom had fled, as if it had never been, and Momma was encouraging Mr. Taylor to take in one of the Jenkins boys to help him with his farm. Uncle Willie was nodding at the fire, and Bailey had escaped back to the calm adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The change in the room was remarkable. Shadows which had lengthened and darkened over the bed in the corner had disappeared or revealed themselves as dark images of familiar chairs and such. The light which dashed on the ceiling steadied, and imitated rabbits rather than lions, and donkeys instead of ghouls. I laid a pallet for Mr. Taylor in Uncle Willie's room and crawled under Momma, who I knew for the first time was so good and righteous she could command the fretful spirits, as Jesus had commanded the sea. “Peace, be still.”

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  While all crossdressers are cognizant of this double standard, some mistakenly view it as a form of “reverse” sexism—i.e., that men are specifically denied a “right” regarding attire that women take for granted. I would argue instead that this double standard stems directly from traditional sexism. After all, these days it’s not so much a legal barrier that prevents most crossdressers from incorporating “women’s” clothes into their daily wardrobes as it is a class barrier. Because femininity is seen as inferior to masculinity, any man who appears “effeminate” or feminized in any way will drastically lose status and respect in our society, much more so than those women who act boyish or butch. But it’s not just that males who act feminine lose the advantages of male privilege; rather, they come under far more public scrutiny and disdain. This is because, in a male-centered world, women who express masculinity may be seen as breaking oppositional sexist norms, but they are not a perceived challenge to traditional sexism (i.e., their “wanting to be like men” is consistent with the idea that maleness is more valued than femaleness). In contrast, males who express femininity challenge both oppositional and traditional sexist norms (i.e., someone who is willing to give up maleness/masculinity for femaleness/femininity directly threatens the notion of male superiority as well as the idea that women and men should be “opposites”). In my own experiences, I have found that this obsession and anxiety over male expressions of femininity (which I called effemimania in chapter 7, “Pathological Science”) extends far beyond critiquing men who wear “women’s” clothing. In the years just before my transition, when I was living as a male who was open and comfortable with my own feminine inclinations, I regularly experienced gender anxiety from other people over the most trivial things. On more than one occasion, I was questioned about the fact that I had a bright red umbrella (“Is it your girlfriend’s?” or “Are you just borrowing it?”). I was also interrogated regarding my tendency to color-coordinate my T-shirts and sneakers (“Is it just a coincidence or do you make them match on purpose?” or “Why would you do that?”). Another time, a friend asked me to hold her purse for a minute and then ostracized me for strapping it onto my shoulder (“I asked you to hold it, not to wear it!”). And I was regularly subjected to strange looks and comments for using words like “cute,” “adorable,” or “pretty” in a nonsarcastic way. I have hundreds of anecdotes like these—of people commenting, critiquing, and expressing concern over even the slightest manifestations of my femininity, given that I was male-bodied.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  God must come first in our lives, or he comes nowhere. There is a story of two children who had been given a toy Noah’s Ark as a present. They had been listening to the Old Testament stories, and decided that they too would offer a sacrifice. They examined the animals in their toy ark and finally decided on a sheep with a broken leg. The only thing they would offer was a broken toy they could well do without. That is the way in which so many people would like to sacrifice to God; but only the dearest and the best is good enough for him. (2) Abraham is the model of the individual who accepts what is beyond understanding. To him there had come this incomprehensible demand. It did not make sense. The promise was that in Isaac his seed would grow and grow until he became a mighty nation in which all others would be blessed. On the life of Isaac depended the promise; and now God seemed to want to take that life away. As the fourth-century churchman John Chrysostom put it: ‘The things of God seemed to fight against the things of God, and faith fought with faith, and the commandment fought with the promise.’ For everyone at some time, there comes something for which there seems to be no reason and which defies explanation. It is then that we are faced with life’s hardest battle – to accept when we cannot understand. At such a time, there is only one thing to do – to obey and to do so without resentment, saying: ‘God, you are love! I build my faith on that.’ (3) Abraham is the model of the individual who, with the test, found a way of escape. If we take God at his word and stake everything on him, even when there seems to be nothing but a blank wall in front of us, the way of escape will open up. THE FAITH WHICH DEFEATS DEATHHebrews 11:20–2 It was by faith that Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in the things concerning the future. It was by faith that Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph and prayed leaning on the head of his staff. It was by faith that Joseph, as he came to the end, had in his mind the days when the children of Israel would leave Egypt, and gave instructions concerning his bones.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  I did discover that the difference between hermaphrodites and lesbians was that hermaphrodites were “born that way.” It was impossible to determine whether lesbians budded gradually, or burst into being with a suddenness that dismayed them as much as it repelled society. I had gnawed into the unsatisfying books and into my own unstocked mind without finding a morsel of peace or understanding. And meantime, my voice refused to stay up in the higher registers where I consciously pitched it, and I had to buy my shoes in the “old lady's comfort” section of the shoe stores. I asked Mother. Daddy Clidell was at the club one evening, so I sat down on the side of Mother's bed. As usual she woke completely and at once. (There is never any yawning or stretching with Vivian Baxter. She's either awake or asleep.) “Mother, I've got to talk to you …” It was going to kill me to have to ask her, for in the asking wouldn't it be possible that suspicion would fall on my own normality? I knew her well enough to know that if I committed almost any crime and told her the truth about it she not only wouldn't disown me but would give me her protection. But just suppose I was developing into a lesbian, how would she react? And then there was Bailey to worry about too. “Ask me, and pass me a cigarette.” Her calmness didn't fool me for a minute. She used to say that her secret to life was that she “hoped for the best, was prepared for the worst, so anything in between didn't come as a surprise.” That was all well and good for most things but if her only daughter was developing into a … She moved over and patted the bed, “Come on, baby, get in the bed. You'll freeze before you get your question out.” It was better to remain where I was for the time being . “Mother … my pocketbook …” “Ritie, do you mean your vagina? Don't use those Southern terms. There's nothing wrong with the word ‘vagina.’ It's a clinical description. Now, what's wrong with it?” The smoke collected under the bed lamp, then floated out to be free in the room. I was deathly sorry that I had begun to ask her anything. “Well? … Well? Have you got crabs?” Since I didn't know what they were, that puzzled me. I thought I might have them and it wouldn't go well for my side if I said I didn't. On the other hand, I just might not have them, and suppose I lied and said I did? “I don't know, Mother.” “Do you itch? Does your vagina itch?” She leaned on one elbow and jabbed out her cigarette. “No, Mother.” “Then you don't have crabs.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  25 Knowing Momma, I knew that I never knew Momma. Her African-bush secretiveness and suspiciousness had been compounded by slavery and confirmed by centuries of promises made and promises broken. We have a saying among Black Americans which describes Momma's caution. “If you ask a Negro where he's been, he'll tell you where he's going.” To understand this important information, it is necessary to know who uses this tactic and on whom it works. If an unaware person is told a part of the truth (it is imperative that the answer embody truth), he is satisfied that his query has been answered. If an aware person (one who himself uses the stratagem) is given an answer which is truthful but bears only slightly if at all on the question, he knows that the information he seeks is of a private nature and will not be handed to him willingly. Thus direct denial, lying and the revelation of personal affairs are avoided. Momma told us one day that she was taking us to California. She explained that we were growing up, that we needed to be with our parents, that Uncle Willie was, after all, crippled, that she was getting old. All true, and yet none of those truths satisfied our need for The Truth. The Store and the rooms in back became a going-away factory. Momma sat at the sewing machine all hours, making and remaking clothes for use in California. Neighbors brought out of their trunks pieces of material that had been packed away for decades in blankets of mothballs (I'm certain I was the only girl in California who went to school in watermarked moiré skirts and yellowed satin blouses, satin-back crepe dresses and crepe de Chine underwear). Whatever the real reason, The Truth, for taking us to California, I shall always think it lay mostly in an incident in which Bailey had the leading part. Bailey had picked up the habit of imitating Claude Rains, Herbert Marshall and George McCready. I didn't think it at all strange that a thirteen-year-old boy in the unreconstructed Southern town of Stamps spoke with an Englishy accent. His heroes included D'Artagnan and the Count of Monte Cristo and he affected what he thought were their swashbuckling gallantries. On an afternoon a few weeks before Momma revealed her plan to take us West, Bailey came into the Store shaking. His little face was no longer black but a dirty, colorless gray. As was our habit upon entering the Store, he walked behind the candy counter and leaned on the cash register. Uncle Willie had sent him on an errand to whitefolks’ town and he wanted an explanation for Bailey's tardiness. After a brief moment our uncle could see that something was wrong, and feeling unable to cope, he called Momma from the kitchen. “What's the matter, Bailey Junior? ” He said nothing. I knew when I saw him that it would be useless to ask anything while he was in that state.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  I thought for a minute that something awful might have happened. Maybe at the time of the crash ... I, too, pushed to the window to see, but then I remembered the rhythmic snores, and coolly walked away. The guard must have thought he had a major crime on his hands. He made moves and sounds like “Watch her” or “Don't let her out of your sight.” The family came back, this time not as close but more menacing, and when I was able to sort out one coherent question, “Quién es?” I answered dryly and with all the detachment I could summon, “Mi padre.” Being a people of close family ties and weekly fiestas they suddenly understood the situation. I was a poor little girl thing who was caring for my drunken father, who had stayed too long at the fair. Pobrecita. The guard, the father and one or two small children began the herculean job of waking Dad. I watched coolly as the remaining people paraded, making figure eights around me and their badly bruised automobile. The two men shook and tugged and pulled while the children jumped up and down on my father's chest. I credit the children's action for the success of the effort. Bailey Johnson, Sr., woke up in Spanish. “Qué tiene? Qué pasa? Qué quiere?” Anyone else would have asked, “Where am I?” Obviously, this was a common Mexican experience. When I saw he was fairly lucid I went to the car, calmly pushed the people away, and said from the haughty level of one who has successfully brought to heel a marauding car and negotiated a sneaky mountain, “Dad, there's been an accident.” He recognized me by degrees and became my pre-Mexican-fiesta father. “An accident, huh? Er, who was at fault? You, Marguerite? Errer was it you?” It would have been futile to tell him of my mastering his car and driving it nearly fifty miles. I didn't expect or even need, now, his approbation. “Yes, Dad, I ran into a car.” He still hadn't sat up completely, so he couldn't know where we were. But from the floor where he rested, as if that was the logical place to be, he said, “In the glove compartment. The insurance papers. Get them and er give them to the police, and then come back.” The guard stuck his head in the other door before I could form a scathing but polite response. He asked Dad to get out of the car. Never at a loss, my father reached in the glove compartment, and took out the folded papers and the half bottle of liquor he had left there earlier. He gave the guard one of his pinch-backed laughs, and descended, by joints, from the car. Once on the ground he towered over the angry people. He took a quick reading of his location and the situation, and then put his arm around the other driver's shoulder.

• From How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian (2015)

  Next is a sequence of blessings, “if you will only obey the Lord your God” (28:1–14), which are overbalanced almost fourfold by curses, “if you will not obey the Lord your God” (28:15–68): “Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your ground, and the fruit of your livestock, both the increase of your cattle and the issue of your flock” (28:4); and, conversely, “Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your ground, the increase of your cattle, and the issue of your flock” (28:18). Read, if you can take it, all those very specific curses from 28:15 through 28:68. Finally, as if that were not enough, there are more curses in 29:19–27, followed by a lesser number of blessings in 30:1–10. As an example, if you are cursed, you will see your land with “all its soil burned out by sulfur and salt, nothing planted, nothing sprouting, unable to support any vegetation, like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah” (29:23); but if you are blessed, “the Lord your God will bring you into the land that your ancestors possessed, and you will possess it; he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your ancestors” (30:5). Why has covenant become, in this Deuteronomic tradition, so thoroughly Sanction -ridden? And even granted that it is Sanction -obsessed, why do curses and punishments so thoroughly outnumber blessings and rewards? What is the matrix for this excessively negative vision of covenant that passed from northern Israel in the late 700s to southern Judah in the late 600s BCE ? My answer to this question comes, as always, from considerations of its matrix within the ancient Near East. By the 700s BCE , the powerful Bronze Age Hittite Empire was long gone, and the even more powerful Iron Age (Neo)Assyrian Empire was in full ascendancy. On one hand, as you will recall, the Hittite-style covenants from the 1300s and 1200s BCE usually concluded with a summary statement of curses for infidelity and blessings for fidelity—recall that brief and evenly balanced example of such a Sanction from Chapter 5. On the other hand, however, the Assyrian-style treaties from the 700s and 600s BCE multiply Sanction exponentially, usually containing curses without any blessings and invoking those curses with symbolic enactments and terrifyingly explicit rituals. From treaty texts to siege tactics, Assyria used imperial terror as deliberate military strategy and calculated foreign policy. I propose that the Deuteronomic tradition accepted, for better or for worse, the contemporary Assyrian-style sacred treaty as its ongoing understanding of God’s covenant with Israel. “Do Not Set over Yourselves Another King, Another Lord”I GIVE YOU ONE paradigmatic example of those Assyrian-style suzerain-vassal treaties, and I draw special attention to its style and format, that is, to the violence and even terrorism of the Sanction sworn by vassals as self-curses for any future infidelity. You will notice how it differs from the Hittite style of Preamble, History, Law, Witness, and Sanction seen in Chapter 5.