Confusion

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 How God Became King (2012)

  Peter spoke up. “You’re the Messiah,” he said. He gave them strict orders not to tell anyone about him. (8:27–30) This functions as the midpoint in Mark, looking back to the voice at the baptism and forward to the paradoxical question of Caiaphas at the trial (“Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” 14:61, which is a statement in Greek; it gets turned into a question by the punctuation and presumably the tone of voice) and then the centurion’s statement at the foot of the cross (“This fellow really was God’s son,” 15:39). Matthew’s gospel is more complex in its structure, but this incident is still right in the middle. Luke’s equivalent scene (9:18–27) is equally dramatic, but doesn’t play the same structural role in Luke’s narrative; for him the equivalent is 9:51, where Jesus “settled it in his mind to go to Jerusalem,” following what Moses and Elijah had discussed with him during the transfiguration in 9:31. Here, in any case, we see the evangelists welding together the two elements, messiahship and cross, even while explaining that the disciples, at the time, found such a combination just as puzzling and off-putting as the church has done for much of its history. Jesus asks his followers who they think he is, and they declare that they believe him to be the Messiah. He then tells them that he must suffer, die, and be raised—and that they must suffer as well if they want to follow him. The Messiah is to come into his kingdom through a horrible death; and those who not only follow him, but are called to implement his work must expect that their royal task—for such it is—will be accomplished in the same way, by the same means. There is every sign that the earliest church understood this very well indeed, just as there is every sign (alas) that today’s church does not—except, of course, in those parts of the world, like China and the Sudan, where there has been no choice. As we contemplate the scene at Caesarea Philippi, it is vital that we do not short-circuit the messianic meaning in our quest for creedal affirmations about Jesus’s “divinity.” Yes, the four gospels do indeed affirm, often in subtle and profound ways (not so often in the rather clunky and obvious ways that some would clearly prefer), that Jesus is the embodiment of Israel’s God, come back at last to rescue his people. But the meaning of Peter’s confession of Jesus’s messiahship is not, “You are the second person of the Trinity,” but “You are Israel’s Messiah.” The phrase “son of God” in this connection is of course once more an echo of the messianic passages in Psalm 2, 2 Samuel 7, and elsewhere. And in those contexts its primary meaning is “Israel’s messiah, adopted and anointed by God as his own son.”

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

  I am thoroughly perplexed; given that we have only texted a handful of times since I left and have never spoken on the phone before now, I can’t figure out how he and I have such opposing perspectives. I also want to laugh, as I was just rejected by one man for my inability to be serious with him and now I’m being rejected by another for being too serious. What am I not getting here? “Serious” in my experience has meant cohabitation, marriage, kids, a mortgage, and going to the same dentist. In the 27 years I’ve been off the market, has “serious” come to mean something else entirely that you can achieve in three dates or less? “I think you’re an amazing person going through an incredibly difficult time and I want to be here for you,” he says. “OK, ummmm, that’s nice, though I don’t completely understand what you’re saying. You want to slow things down?” I ask, even though I don’t know how much slower we can go. Even highways have a minimum speed you have to maintain. “I want to be a friend to you, I want you to know that I’m here for you, but I don’t think we should see each other this weekend,” he says. “Ah, OK, I see. Well, I appreciate your honesty and your empathy for my situation. And it’s been lovely getting to know you. Maybe our paths will cross again someday,” I say, trying to figure out how to gracefully end this awkward phone call. “I really want to stay in touch, you know, as friends,” he says. “OK, as friends, got it,” I say. “Well, you have my number, you know where to find me.” “Hey, remember you said you had some easy recipes you could give me? I need to get some variety in my cooking, everything I make is so plain,” he says. “Recipes?” I ask incredulously, seeing my reflection in the glass of the shower door, the line between my eyebrows now deeply creased. “Yes, remember when you told me you had cooking tips for me?” he asks. I start laughing to myself. This is just perfect , I think, you don’t want to have sex with me anymore, you don’t want to hold my hand across the table from me in a restaurant or write me texts about how you will wrap yourself around me when you see me – you want recipes . Now I am laughing harder, not just to myself, and every time I start to respond, I laugh just a bit louder. Georgia shouts for me from the other side of the bathroom door, wondering why I’m in the bathroom by myself, laughing like a hyena, and I call out to her to give me one more minute. “Sorry about that, something struck me as funny,” I say. “Yeah sure, I would be happy to send you some recipes.

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

  I felt more like I was floating in a little dinghy that had been recently released from the dock I had been anchored to my whole life; and now I was being tossed about on an ocean of other people’s perceptions of me. And while I was definitely searching for a place where I could feel at home in my own body, I was no longer quite sure what that place might look like or what I might call it when I finally arrived. From conversations I’ve had with a number of transsexual friends who transitioned before me, I would say that my attitude at the time—my questioning of (and refusal to identify within) the male/female binary—was a fairly common response to being in the throes of physical and social transition. Transitioning is such an upending, mind-blowing experience that it seems to me to be almost a necessity for one to let go of one’s preconceived notions of maleness and femaleness in order to traverse those states of being. Being perceived as female while having an entirely male history and a mostly male body (as I did at the time) made me feel not like an imposter (as some might imagine), but more like an alien. I was just being myself, but other people were relating and reacting to me in ways that were foreign to me. I felt less like a woman or a man than I did a stranger in a strange land. As with many of my transsexual friends, I found that this sense of otherness steadily subsided with time. And over the course of a year or two, I eventually did come to identify as a woman. Part of this evolution in my self-perception was driven by how different I felt in my body after physically transitioning. This is one of the most difficult aspects of transitioning to describe, as there are so few words in our language to articulate “body feelings” of any sort. I’m sure that this lack in language is related to our cultural tendency to dismiss or discount the way that our bodies feel to us. Indeed, many of us tend to think of ourselves as brains or souls crammed inside of a shell—a shell that is our body. We delude ourselves into believing that the shell itself is not important, not connected to our consciousness, that it’s merely a vessel that contains us, or a vehicle that we move about with our minds. But the truth is, our bodies are inseparable from our minds. This becomes evident whenever hunger, thirst, or physical pain grows to the point where we can think of nothing else, or when mental grief or stress manifests itself in physical aches and exhaustion.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  Many Christians today, saying this first article, recognize that it was designed to rule out any suggestion that the world of space, time, and matter was the work of a lesser divinity. The world we live in is God’s world, not a nasty dark place from which we should want or try to escape. Not all, however, will see it like that. Many traditional Christians may think instead of the debates about “creation and evolution” and may hear in this statement an affirmation of the former rather than the latter, which was not, of course, the original intention. The anti-evolutionary belief can quite easily accompany a belief that the early Christians strenuously resisted, that “this world is not my home, I’m just a-passing through.” Indeed, the picture of God “intervening” from outside, as it were, to “create,” can all too easily accompany the picture of Jesus as a kind of superman or spaceman, coming to earth to snatch saved souls from their dark prison. And that is classic Gnosticism, not Christianity. The fact that we jump straight from this clause to the second one, “And in Jesus Christ…,” makes it easy for many Christians to maintain their silent and unrecognized Marcionism—that is, their view that the Old Testament is a kind of parenthesis in the story, replete perhaps with signposts and promises, but in the last analysis not essential to the whole theme. What many think, then, as they jump from God to Jesus, might go something like this: “Yes, God made the world, but we are sinners, and so God sent Jesus to save us from our sins.” Creation, sin, Jesus. That is the implicit narrative of millions of Christians today—and it guarantees that they will never, ever understand either the Old Testament or the New. And in Jesus Christ his only son, our Lord… One word and one clause might give such people pause at this point. The word is the title “Christ,” and the clause is the mention of Jesus as “son of God.” But, sadly, most people, saying the creed, do not at this point think, “Jesus, the Jewish Messiah.” They think of “Christ” as, effectively, Jesus’s second name or perhaps a word that implies his “divinity.” And they think of “son of God” not in the light of Psalm 2 and 2 Samuel 7, but simply as a way of referring to Jesus as the second person of the Trinity. I fear that most will understand “our Lord” quite vaguely, meaning “the one we worship and invoke,” rather than anything more wide-ranging or substantial. Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried.

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

  I have to leave soon to get Georgia so you need to go.” * The next morning, I bring Georgia down to the lobby to meet Michael for her walk to school. I suggest that we all walk together so that we can drop her and then have a chance to talk. Georgia is delighted, walking between us and chattering away as she swings our hands. That it is now a novelty for her to be with both of her parents at the same time pains me. Daisy and Hudson had their entire childhoods with us together, but I doubt she will even remember a time we all lived in the same home. After we drop her, we walk to the park, which is quiet at this early hour and will give us more privacy than a coffee bar. I tell him about Hudson and the phone calls from school; he is upset but helpless. “If you would let me into the apartment, Hudson would be forced to acknowledge me. It’s demeaning that I’m not allowed in to pick up or drop off Georgia,” he says. “Michael, you and I are on the same side. I too feel it’s critical that he let you back into his life. There’s no part of me that is prepared to continue being a single mother to a teenage boy. You had the whole summer coming and going from the same house and he never once acknowledged you, so proximity is not the issue. If I were you, I would write him a note every single day, let him know you’re thinking about him and miss him. He’s blocked you from his phone, so you’ll have to drop off handwritten notes. It’s a start. And maybe his guidance counselor will be able to reach him,” I say. “OK,” he says. “I’ll try.” We are both quiet then, watching the park come to life as strollers pass by with babies headed for the swings and dogs bound toward the dog park. “Michael,” I finally start. He looks up at me expectantly. “What are we doing?” “Right now?” he asks. “No, in general. We’ve been back in the city for weeks and neither of us has so much as mentioned couples’ therapy. We aren’t moving forward at all. What do you want?” I say. “I don’t really know, I’ve been waiting for a cue from you. You’re so angry all the time, it’s hard for me to understand what you want,” he says. This is the response I feared, confirming that the decision about our future has become a hot potato that we are going to hurl back and forth at each other, neither of us willing to be the one to hold it and let it burn. I wait for more, but he just looks at me.

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

  Upstairs in my apartment, I text Lauren to let her know I’m home safe and sound, and she asks for details. “I don’t have any, I’m sorry to disappoint. We had such a nice time but then he stuck me in a taxi and barely kissed me on the cheek.” “Oh, Outlook, come on!” she writes. “That’s not how my girl works.” “I know. It’s a bummer. And he ruined my streak. Meanwhile I’m supposed to see #5 tomorrow but I have to cancel, he’s too much.” “OK then, don’t go and move on. You know my feelings. You don’t owe anything to any of these men. Bye-bye #5.” I toss and turn all night and at dawn text #5 to let him know I’m not coming as planned, and furthermore, I don’t think we should see each other anymore. I am hopeful that with that off my chest, I can get some sleep but he texts me back within seconds, apologizing for speaking so harshly to me the night before and insisting that I come as planned, that he’s been looking forward to it all week. I decline again, reminding him that I had told him I would give exclusivity a try, but that it’s not working for me, I have too much going on with Michael and my kids to also manage his expectations. The phone rings but I don’t pick up, so he texts again, “Please come. I want to see you. If you want to date other men, we can work it out. Give me a chance. Please. I had a special day planned for you.” I am confused by him, his alternating belligerence and warmth. I think back to some of the conversations he’s had with me about his ex-wife, how roughly and unkindly he spoke about her, but how loving he is when I hear him on the phone with his daughter. I wonder if when Michael talks about me he does so with respect for the fact that I’m the mother of his children, or if his frustrations with me are so great that the anger comes first, and then the acknowledgement of the love we once shared. I decline #5’s invitation once again, but he persists. “Please. I like you so much, Laura. You’re the first woman I’ve opened up to in a long time. Just come spend the day, we’ll work this out,” he writes. I cave. I don’t know if it’s compassion or my ego, but this line of reasoning works on me, makes me feel I’m special to him and I dare not disappoint. When I arrive at his apartment, he looks at me forlornly and opens his arms to embrace me. I allow him to wrap me in a hug and he murmurs apologies in my ear, then guides me to the couch when I say that I am exhausted. He lies next to me and wraps himself around me.

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

  The taken-for-granted assumption that female and male were fixed and reliable states suddenly appeared to me to be the product of a mass hallucination, held together only by the fact that so few people actually had the firsthand experience of transitioning—of seeing how such small differences in one’s physical gender can result in such a large difference in the way one is perceived and treated by others. Suddenly, I no longer felt like I was journeying from one gender to the other. I felt more like I was floating in a little dinghy that had been recently released from the dock I had been anchored to my whole life; and now I was being tossed about on an ocean of other people’s perceptions of me. And while I was definitely searching for a place where I could feel at home in my own body, I was no longer quite sure what that place might look like or what I might call it when I finally arrived.From conversations I’ve had with a number of transsexual friends who transitioned before me, I would say that my attitude at the time—my questioning of (and refusal to identify within) the male/female binary—was a fairly common response to being in the throes of physical and social transition. Transitioning is such an upending, mind-blowing experience that it seems to me to be almost a necessity for one to let go of one’s preconceived notions of maleness and femaleness in order to traverse those states of being. Being perceived as female while having an entirely male history and a mostly male body (as I did at the time) made me feel not like an imposter (as some might imagine), but more like an alien. I was just being myself, but other people were relating and reacting to me in ways that were foreign to me. I felt less like a woman or a man than I did a stranger in a strange land.As with many of my transsexual friends, I found that this sense of otherness steadily subsided with time. And over the course of a year or two, I eventually did come to identify as a woman. Part of this evolution in my self-perception was driven by how different I felt in my body after physically transitioning. This is one of the most difficult aspects of transitioning to describe, as there are so few words in our language to articulate “body feelings” of any sort. I’m sure that this lack in language is related to our cultural tendency to dismiss or discount the way that our bodies feel to us.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  Was I glamorous? Was I living a life that others would crave, or was I out of my mind, fucking some strange driver? Part of me felt glamorous and part of me felt insane, the two feelings rotating over and over. I lay down on the floor and noticed that I felt better. I was relaxed, somewhat high even. The bad sex had served as some kind of methadone. Dominic came over and licked my face, whimpering. I would take him out later, so what if he shit in the pantry. I could just go to sleep, I thought. Now I felt certain that it would be sleep, and not death. I knew that it would just be sleep. But as I was drifting off, my phone rang. It was a Phoenix number and I answered it quickly, thinking that it might be Rochelle calling from her office to say that Megan had miscarried, or another piece of news involving Jamie. But it was the advisory committee, both the English and classics chairs, on the line. They were calling to let me know that they had read the outline and sample from my new thesis. Their voices sounded enthusiastic. Well, this was good! They were responding much more quickly than I expected. And having both of them on the call definitely signaled something big. Maybe they were so impressed that they were going to offer me more money? It was strange but I was so worn out that I couldn’t visualize either of their faces, only the rosacea nose of the classics chair and the hatching chick from the Easter sweater of the English chair. When they spoke, I imagined it was the nose itself speaking, with the chick chiming in as it emerged from its egg. “There’s an unorthodox fluidity about the new work that’s very refreshing,” said the nose. “Yes, the decreased omniscience, the infusion of romanticism. This new iteration is very powerful,” said the chick. “The voice of critical omniscience wasn’t your strong suit,” said the nose. “Or perhaps, you didn’t believe what you were saying before and that’s where the thesis faltered. After all, if you couldn’t convince yourself, then how could you convince the reader?” “I don’t know,” I said. “The new thematic scaffolding creates a much more sound dialectic,” said the chick. “Great,” I said. “Having said that, we regret to inform you that the departments will no longer be able to fund this project,” said the nose.

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

  And now here comes Floyd, his 80-pound German Shepherd, running in absolute ecstasy – the one I recall running for sticks in my backyard years ago. He jumps on me, panting and drooling, and I know this dog is the love of Johnny’s life, but to put it mildly and regretfully, I’m not a dog person. Johnny comes to my rescue, pushing the dog’s paws from where they landed on my stomach, and we head up a short flight of stairs to the kitchen. His house is tidy and comfortable with a few attempts at decor thrown in – a vase with a sprig of fake flowers, a scented candle, a ‘Bless This House’ print framed on the wall – though I am surprised to see a dozen bath mats scattered all over the kitchen. I am tempted to mention that inexpensive rag rugs can easily be purchased online, but I remind myself that I’m here for a few hours, I’m not moving in, and instead gladly accept the glass of wine he offers me. He takes me on a quick tour of the living area and I feel confused; I don’t want to be rude so I express enthusiasm over the small details he proudly points out, but I’m not quite sure what we’re doing here. I was expecting the “You run to the bathroom and I’ll take all my clothes off and you’ll throw me on the bed” routine, but instead I’m admiring the wood floor he just laid in his enclosed porch. I nestle into the couch with my glass of wine and curl my feet underneath me, trying to exude availability. He perches next to me for a second before he pops back up again saying something about needing to check on the state of affairs upstairs. It finally dawns on me: he’s nervous! I’ve been so focused on how new I am to this that it hasn’t occurred to me how strange it must be for this man, who knew me as a client and has seen me in my element with my husband and kids, to have me invite myself over and present myself on his sofa, scantily clad and there for the taking. He has been upstairs a few minutes when I accept that nothing is going to happen unless I make it happen. I climb the stairs and find him down a carpeted hallway in his bedroom, taking clothes off the bed and smoothing down the blankets. “Hey,” I say, poking my head in. “Just seeing what’s going on up here.” “Sorry,” he says. “I wanted to straighten up a bit.” “No need to do it for my sake,” I say and take a quick inventory: queen-sized bed, shiny mahogany dresser set, Floyd standing at the end of the bed. I place my glass of wine on a coaster on the dresser and sit on the edge of the bed.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  Only then might one set about reincorporating that within a fresh statement of full-blown Christian faith. After all, another axiom might well go like this: when the church leaves out bits of its core teaching, it will inevitably overinflate other bits of its core teaching to fill the gap. (In other words, leave out the kingdom, and you may end up saying more than is really necessary in your “Christology” about Jesus’s divine/human nature.) That doesn’t mean that the overinflated core teaching is wrong. In the strange providence of God, this might even be seen as a means whereby people have been led to concentrate more intensely on vital areas. But it can only ever be a temporary move. By all means park the New Testament in a safe spot and go for a walk to pick the flowers nearby. But make sure you return to the New Testament when you want to continue your journey. The Hidden Underlying Challenge: Theocracy When we examine the wider movements of thought and culture in the eighteenth century, we find something of enormous significance for understanding why the gospels were being read in the way they were. At the heart of “the Enlightenment” was a resolute determination that “God”—whoever “God” might be—should no longer be allowed to interfere, either directly or through those who claimed to be his spokesmen, in the affairs of this world. Once “man had come of age,” there was no room for theocracy . It was as simple as that. God was pushed upstairs, like the doddering old boss who used to run the company, but has now been superseded. He has, no doubt, a notional place of “honor,” a cozy office where he can sit and imagine he’s still in charge. But nobody is fooled. The new generation is running the business now. They know it, and his supporters had better get used to it. Thus, for the European and American Enlightenment, God was superannuated to a position of totally ineffectual “honor.” But the whole point of the gospels is to tell the story of how God became king, on earth as in heaven . They were written to stake the very specific claim toward which the eighteenth-century movements of philosophy and culture, and particularly politics, were reacting with such hostility. Behind the attempts of Reimarus and others to suggest that the “kingdom of God” in the teaching of Jesus referred either to a violent military revolution or to the “end of the world” there lay the determination to make sure that God was kept out of real life.

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

  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. Within seconds his mouth is on my wugget, my bald monkey, my shaved pussy. I am definitely in some kind of weird clinical mindset because I am evaluating all that is happening to me without feeling any physical arousal. Am I just flat-out having too much sex so that I can’t even be bothered to feel anything anymore? Why does this suddenly feel like work? I always feel like I should reciprocate – and I use the word “should” here as frankly, even though my blow job skills are improving, I still don’t totally get the appeal – but honestly, he is so well-endowed, I can’t fathom putting him in my mouth. I am wholly intimidated by it, sheepish even, not confident that I have the skills yet to tackle this particular one. For the moment, I am off the hook as he reaches across me into his night table drawer for a condom. With the condom on, he aggressively thrusts inside of me and I can barely catch my breath before he has single-handedly flipped me onto my stomach. I raise myself to my hands and knees so that he can enter me from behind.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Most devout Christians, when they think about it, are aware of the gentle prompting of the Spirit. This doesn’t necessarily happen all or even most of the time, but it is a reality. Most are happy to trust that even when they are not explicitly conscious of that work, the Spirit is getting on with the job behind the scenes. But most, however “orthodox,” are happy to leave it at that, to think of the Spirit as basically given to make us like Jesus, to help us to be holy, to teach us to pray. All that is true, of course. But the truth of which the creed speaks at this point is so much more. Likewise, most well-taught Christians know that “catholic” here doesn’t mean “Roman Catholic.” (When I worked at Westminster Abbey, with a few hundred or more tourists coming to services every day and hearing the creed, one of the most frequent questions I was asked afterwards was, “Is this a Catholic church?” “Yes,” I used to say, “but not in the sense I think you mean.”) The word “catholic” here has its proper sense of “universal,” “worldwide.” Many, however, have not been taught even that much about the “communion of saints” (though for some it means that we are still able to be in touch, in some sense or other, with those we have loved and see no more). Forgiveness is something most creedal Christians quietly and gratefully celebrate, without being quite clear why it occurs here in the creed at all. When it comes to “resurrection” and “the life everlasting,” we still have a major problem. Most Christians, certainly in the Western churches, still assume that the whole purpose of the Christian faith is so that we might “go to heaven when we die.” God wants to share fellowship with people, and those who have faith will be those people. For some, “resurrection” functions simply as a fancy metaphor for “eternal life,” seen in terms of a spiritual bliss outside the world of space, time, and matter. For others, this ultimate goal still dominates the horizon, not least because countless prayers and hymns reinforce it. The word “resurrection,” especially the resurrection “of the body,” remains a puzzle. As I heard one elderly man say, “I’ll be going to heaven when I die, and I certainly don’t want to take this old body with me.” It is possible, it seems, to affirm everything the creed says—especially Jesus’s “divine” status and his bodily resurrection—but to know nothing of what the gospel writers were trying to say. Something is seriously wrong here.

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

  Georgia eyes me skeptically and then hands me her coconut so she can jump in the pool. I am perplexed by Michael, unable to decide if he simply forgets that we aren’t a couple anymore, or if he remembers but doesn’t feel that should stop him from doling out compliments. I remember when I first met him, how I found his tendency to blurt out unsolicited opinions to be refreshing at times, disconcerting at others. It’s not that I don’t appreciate any and all compliments, but the way he says this now, so adoringly, is a painful reminder of how I once felt so cherished by him. It had seemed to me from our very beginning together that he was smitten with me; I cannot for the life of me figure out when that stopped being the case. “I’m worried about Blaze,” he says as he plops himself down on the double-wide chaise longue I am sprawled across. “He wasn’t himself this morning, he was kind of subdued.” I am mid-swallow when he says this and I start coughing, the thin coconut milk coming back up my throat. He looks at me quizzically and when I catch my breath, I suggest that maybe Blaze was just tired. “It was weird. You know how he always has so much energy and gets excited to do his whole coconut machete show for Georgia? He looked sad, kind of sedated,” he says. “I wouldn’t worry. It may turn out he’s simply human like the rest of us and is having an off day,” I say, trying to play it cool as questions race through my mind. Could I have worn him out? Could he be feeling guilty? Does he wish last night hadn’t happened? Hudson jumps in the pool to join Georgia and they play their usual games, which involve a combination of shrieking, laughter and, eventually, tears. Michael and I are left alone on the chair, watching them and unsure what to talk about when we aren’t talking about them. In moments like this, I have to remind myself that we are not who we used to be to each other, that a tranquil moment like this is hard-won. “Michael,” I start. “Yes?” He swivels his head to look at me, seeming surprised and thrilled that I have initiated a conversation with him. “You know how I asked you for a laptop so that I could do some writing?” “Yes. I’m so glad you’re writing. I really think you could get copywriting work, the stuff you did for me was great.” “That’s not the kind of writing I want to do. I mean, if I can do that and make some money, I’d be thrilled, but I’m more interested in creative writing.” “OK, well do both.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Its pitiful sails revolved in the wind, eternally grinding out petty sins—dry chaff blown in from the gutters of Paris. And after a while, having breasted the hill, she must climb a dusty flight of stone steps, and push open a heavy, slow-moving door; the door of the mighty temple of faith that keeps its anxious but tireless vigil. She had no idea why she was doing this thing, or what she would say to the silver Christ with one hand on His heart and the other held out in a patient gesture of supplication. The sound of praying, monotonous, low, insistent, rose up from those who prayed with extended arms, with crucified arms—like the tides of an ocean it swelled and receded and swelled again, bathing the shores of heaven. They were calling upon the Mother of God: ‘Sainte Marie, Mère de Dieu, priez pour nous, pauvres pêcheurs, maintenant et à l’heure de notre mort.’ ‘Et à l’heure de notre mort,’ Stephen heard herself repeating. He looked terribly weary, the silver Christ: ‘But then He always looks tired,’ she thought vaguely; and she stood there without finding anything to say, embarrassed as one so frequently is in the presence of somebody else’s sorrow. For herself she felt nothing, neither pity nor regret; she was curiously empty of all sensation, and after a little she left the church, to walk on through the wind-swept streets of Montmartre. CHAPTER 54 1 F ate, which by now had them well in its grip, began to play the game out more quickly. That summer they went to Pontresina since Mary had never seen Switzerland; but the Comtesse must make a double cure, first at Vichy and afterwards at Bagnoles de l’Orne, which fact left Martin quite free to join them. Then it was that Stephen perceived for the first time that all was not well with Martin Hallam. Try as he might he could not deceive her, for this man was almost painfully honest, and any deception became him so ill that it seemed to stand out like a badly fitting garment. Yet now there were times when he avoided her eyes, when he grew very silent and awkward with Stephen, as though something inevitable and unhappy had obtruded itself upon their friendship; something, moreover, that he feared to tell her. Then one day in a blinding flash of insight she suddenly knew what this was—it was Mary. Like a blow that is struck full between the eyes, the thing stunned her, so that at first she groped blindly. Martin, her friend . . . But what did it mean? And Mary . . . The incredible misery of it if it were true. But was it true that Martin Hallam had grown to love Mary? And the other thought, more incredible still—had Mary in her turn grown to love Martin?

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

  After a few moments of awkward silence, I start looking under his quilt for my clothes, both to make a statement and because I have to get home. He asks if I can stay for a late lunch but I look at my watch and shake my head. He laments that he never properly feeds me, asking if I can come over for dinner and spend the night, that he’s dying to cook for me and have a whole night with me. I am noncommittal, saying I don’t have many chances to be out for the whole night, but it’ll happen eventually. 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.

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

  I am still malleable, not ready or willing to commit to any one mold yet. If I am spotted on dates by people I know, I fear I will be pulled out of the character I’m playing and return to the Laura they know again, not the one I am trying on for size. Inside I know I have the same core values, the same love for my family and friends, the same silly sense of humor, the same love for the color pink and vintage glassware and the NYTimes crossword puzzle, but my life’s circumstances have changed – turned upside down, actually – so being exactly the same person is just no longer possible. * The next morning, I leave the house to meet the guy from Alex’s gym while Hudson is still asleep. The air is heavy and I don’t want to wear anything close to my body, so I opt for the same shorts and tank top from my date with #3, and a pair of flip-flops. I arrive a few minutes early and stand hesitantly on the porch, pondering whether to get a table indoors or out. A man bounds up the steps with a wide grin, glances at me and says confidently, “Laura.” I am confused as this man looks like a boy, clean-cut and wearing cargo shorts and basketball sneakers. He embraces me in a tight, warm hug, immediately putting me at ease. We agree that the air outside is sticky, so we find a table inside against the window. He peppers me with questions about my newly single life, listening attentively while his beautiful aqua blue eyes bore into me. “Dating is surprisingly fun,” I say gaily. “Maybe because it’s still new to me. In fact, this is the first blind date I’ve ever been on in my entire life.” “You’re doing great,” he says laughing, and then his voice becomes more serious when he asks me for how long I have been separated. I confess that it is relatively new, only six months, and that I just recently started dating. “Were you in the process of separating for a long time?” “No,” I say, shaking my head. “It was very sudden.” He nods his head thoughtfully and gives me a knowing look. This is a question that I am frequently asked, particularly by other women, and I understand but I also resent it. Saying it was sudden is clearly a euphemism for admitting that one of us had an affair, which instantly satisfies everyone who wants a reasonable explanation as to how a 27-year relationship met a sudden demise. There are equal parts curiosity and self-preservation in the question, akin to asking someone with cancer if they smoked. What’s the difference, I always want to ask. Whether or not you can trace the origin of my diseased marriage is irrelevant, because either way now I’m here.

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

  Christianity already filled the atmosphere of the age too much, to be wholly shut out. As might be expected, this compound of philosophy and religion was an extravagant, fantastic, heterogeneous affair, like its contemporary, Gnosticism, which differed from it by formally recognising Christianity in its syncretism. Most of the NeoPlatonists, Jamblichus in particular, were as much hierophants and theurgists as philosophers, devoted themselves to divination and magic, and boasted of divine inspirations and visions. Their literature is not an original, healthy natural product, but an abnormal after-growth. In a time of inward distraction and dissolution the human mind hunts up old and obsolete systems and notions, or resorts to magical and theurgic arts. Superstition follows on the heels of unbelief, and atheism often stands closely connected with the fear of ghosts and the worship of demons. The enlightened emperor Augustus was troubled, if he put on his left shoe first in the morning, instead of the right; and the accomplished elder Pliny wore amulets as protection from thunder and lightning. In their day the long-forgotten Pythagoreanism was conjured from the grave and idealized. Sorcerers like Simon Magus, Elymas, Alexander of Abonoteichos, and Apollonius of Tyana (d. A.D. 96), found great favor even with the higher classes, who laughed at the fables of the gods. Men turned wishfully to the past, especially to the mysterious East, the land of primitive wisdom and religion. The Syrian cultus was sought out; and all sorts of religions, all the sense and all the nonsense of antiquity found a rendezvous in Rome. Even a succession of Roman emperors, from Septimius Severus, at the close of the second century, to Alexander Severus, embraced this religious syncretism, which, instead of supporting the old Roman state religion, helped to undermine it.83 After the beginning of the third century this tendency found philosophical expression and took a reformatory turn in Neo-Platonism. The magic power, which was thought able to reanimate all these various elements and reduce them to harmony, and to put deep meaning into the old mythology, was the philosophy of the divine Plato; which in truth possessed essentially a mystical character, and was used also by learned Jews, like Philo, and by Christians, like Origen, in their idealizing efforts and their arbitrary allegorical expositions of offensive passages of the Bible. In this view we may find among heathen writers a sort of forerunner of the NeoPlatonists in the pious and noble-minded Platonist, Plutarch, of Boeotia (d. 120), who likewise saw a deeper sense in the myths of the popular polytheistic faith, and in general, in his comparative biographies and his admirable moral treatises, looks at the fairest and noblest side of the Graeco-Roman antiquity, but often wanders off into the trackless regions of fancy. The proper founder of Neo-Platonism was Ammonius Saccas, of Alexandria, who was born of Christian parents, but apostatized, and died in the year 243.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  It was rather a terrible summer for them all, the more so as they were surrounded by beauty, and great peace when the evening came down on the snows, turning the white, unfurrowed peaks to sapphire and then to a purple darkness; hanging out large, incredible stars above the wide slope of the Roseg Glacier. For their hearts were full of unspoken dread, of clamorous passions, of bewilderment that went very ill with the quiet fulfilments, with the placid and smiling contentment of nature—and not the least bewildered was Mary. Her respite, it seemed, had been pitifully fleeting; now she was torn by conflicting emotions; terrified and amazed at her realization that Martin meant more to her than a friend, yet less, oh, surely much less than Stephen. Like a barrier of fire her passion for the woman flared up to forbid her love of the man; for as great as the mystery of virginity itself, is sometimes the power of the one who has destroyed it, and that power still remained in these days, with Stephen. Alone in his bare little hotel bedroom, Martin would wrestle with his soul-sickening problem, convinced in his heart that but for Stephen, Mary Llewellyn would grow to love him, nay more, that she had grown to love him already. Yet Stephen was his friend—he had sought her out, had all but forced his friendship upon her; had forced his way into her life, her home, her confidence; she had trusted his honour. And now he must either utterly betray her or through loyalty to their friendship, betray Mary.

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

  And the guy above my head was very close to me and I was hyperaware of him, so that was awkward. And then the worst part, I can’t even say it,” he says. I wait silently. There’s no way I’m not getting the rest of this story out of him so I figure if the silence is uncomfortable enough, he will break it eventually. “Well, the guy on top was really short, remarkably short, but he had a huge dick. Huge . The ratio of the size of it to the size of his body was jarring,” he says. “I could feel him while I was inside of her. I mean, it’s just a thin wall between her ass and her pussy, and I’m inside her pussy and I can feel him moving inside of her. It was too much for me. I’m glad I tried it, but I never need to do it again.” “Was there any part of it that you enjoyed?” I ask. “Honestly, not really,” he says laughing. “It reduced sex to something that felt purely animalistic. I like this woman, but this isn’t for me. I haven’t spoken to her since the party. I think she knows it spooked me. By the way, if you saw her you would be shocked. She looks quite prim and proper. She’s petite, wears a headband and has a big job working for a bank.” “I don’t think I could do that. I’m trying hard not to judge. I get that everyone needs different things to make them feel whole or turned on or alive or whatever, but the extremeness makes me wonder a hundred different things about her, why she needs so much at once. It seems violent,” I say, and I can’t help but wonder if he realizes that his own approach to sex, if not exactly violent, is definitely aggressive and feral. I sigh and changing topics, he asks me about the rest of my day. “My parents are staying for dinner and we’re going to try out the new air fryer I got for Christmas,” I say. “My mom and I love testing out kitchen appliances.” He pulls up an instructional video on YouTube so that we can watch a demonstration. How odd , I think, to be naked in a man’s bed on a Wednesday afternoon discussing sex parties and watching a video about air fryers . For at least the hundredth time over the past few months I am perplexed, puzzling over the path that led me to this spot at this moment. I was so certain of my life’s trajectory and my vision definitely didn’t include this bit of off-roading, it just involved more of the same: marveling as the kids grew, spending holidays with my parents, upgrading our iPhones, brining increasingly larger turkeys for Thanksgiving, clearing books we didn’t love from the shelves to make room for new ones, arguing over who got more coffee every morning.

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

  And now here comes Floyd, his 80-pound German Shepherd, running in absolute ecstasy – the one I recall running for sticks in my backyard years ago. He jumps on me, panting and drooling, and I know this dog is the love of Johnny’s life, but to put it mildly and regretfully, I’m not a dog person. Johnny comes to my rescue, pushing the dog’s paws from where they landed on my stomach, and we head up a short flight of stairs to the kitchen. His house is tidy and comfortable with a few attempts at decor thrown in – a vase with a sprig of fake flowers, a scented candle, a ‘Bless This House’ print framed on the wall – though I am surprised to see a dozen bath mats scattered all over the kitchen. I am tempted to mention that inexpensive rag rugs can easily be purchased online, but I remind myself that I’m here for a few hours, I’m not moving in, and instead gladly accept the glass of wine he offers me. He takes me on a quick tour of the living area and I feel confused; I don’t want to be rude so I express enthusiasm over the small details he proudly points out, but I’m not quite sure what we’re doing here. I was expecting the “You run to the bathroom and I’ll take all my clothes off and you’ll throw me on the bed” routine, but instead I’m admiring the wood floor he just laid in his enclosed porch. I nestle into the couch with my glass of wine and curl my feet underneath me, trying to exude availability. He perches next to me for a second before he pops back up again saying something about needing to check on the state of affairs upstairs. It finally dawns on me: he’s nervous! I’ve been so focused on how new I am to this that it hasn’t occurred to me how strange it must be for this man, who knew me as a client and has seen me in my element with my husband and kids, to have me invite myself over and present myself on his sofa, scantily clad and there for the taking. He has been upstairs a few minutes when I accept that nothing is going to happen unless I make it happen. I climb the stairs and find him down a carpeted hallway in his bedroom, taking clothes off the bed and smoothing down the blankets. “Hey,” I say, poking my head in. “Just seeing what’s going on up here.” “Sorry,” he says. “I wanted to straighten up a bit.” “No need to do it for my sake,” I say and take a quick inventory: queen-sized bed, shiny mahogany dresser set, Floyd standing at the end of the bed. I place my glass of wine on a coaster on the dresser and sit on the edge of the bed.