Contentment

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.

Page 126 of 189 · 20 per page

• From The Case for God (2009)

  51 Plato regarded philosophy as an apprenticeship for death, 52 and claimed that this had also been the goal of Socrates: “Those who practise philosophy in the right way are in training for dying and they fear death least of all men.” 53 At the moment of death the soul would become free of the body, so Plato’s disciples had to live out this separation on a daily, hourly basis, paying careful attention to their behavior, as if each moment were their last. They must constantly be on their guard against pettiness and triviality, thus transcending the individualized personality that they would one day leave behind, and strive instead for a panoptic perspective that grasped “both divine and human as a whole.” 54 A philosopher must not be a money lover, a coward, or a braggart; he should be reliable and just in his dealings with others. 55 A man who consistently behaved as if he were already dead should not take earthly affairs too seriously, but should be calm in misfortune. He must eat and drink in moderation, feeding his rational powers instead with “fine arguments and speculations.” If he applied himself faithfully to this regimen, the philosopher would no longer resent his mortality; it would be quite absurd for a man who had lived in this way to be upset when death finally arrived. If he had already set his soul free of the toils of the body, he could “leave it alone, pure and by itself, to get on with its investigations, to yearn after and perceive something, it knows not what.” 56 Like the Pythagoreans, Plato regarded mathematics as a spiritual exercise that helped the philosopher to wean himself from sense perceptions and achieve a level of abstraction that enabled him to view the world in a different way. Geometry was the hidden principle of the cosmos. Even though a perfect circle or triangle was never seen in the physical world, all material objects were structured on these ideal forms. Indeed, every single earthly reality was modeled on a heavenly archetype in a world of perfect ideas. Plato departed from Socrates in one important respect. He believed that we did not arrive at a conception of virtue by accumulating examples of virtuous behavior in daily life. Like everything else, virtue was an objective phenomenon that existed independently and on a higher plane than the material world. Plato’s “doctrine of the forms” is an extraordinary notion to us moderns. We regard thinking as something that we do, so we naturally assume that our ideas are our own creation. But in the ancient world, people experienced an idea as something that happened to them. It was not a question of the “I” knowing something; instead, the “Known” drew one to itself. People said, in effect, “I think— therefore there is that which I think.”

• From The Case for God (2009)

  Most medieval theologians had rejected Anselm’s ontological proof because, despite its apophatic dynamic, he had called God a “thing” (aliquid) that must “exist.” But now Descartes claimed that God was a “clear and distinct” idea in the human mind and was entirely happy to apply the word “existence” to God. Where Thomas had said that God was not a “sort of thing,” Descartes found no difficulty in calling God a being, albeit the “first and a sovereign Being.”17 Like Anselm, he saw existence as one of the perfections. “For it is not within my power to think of God without existence (that is of a supremely perfect Being devoid of a supreme perfection) though it is in my power to imagine a horse either with wings or without wings.”18 This truth was as clear as—if not clearer than—Pythagoras’s theorem of the right-angled triangle. “Consequently it is at least as certain that God, who is a Being so perfect, is, or exists, as any demonstration of geometry can possibly be.”19 God was absolutely necessary to Descartes’ philosophy and his science, because without God he had no confidence in the reality of the external world.20 Because we could not trust our senses, the existence of material things was “very dubious and uncertain.” But a perfect being was truth itself and would not allow us to remain in error on such a fundamental matter: On the sole ground that God is not a deceiver and that consequently He has not permitted any falsity to exist in my opinion which He has not likewise given me the faculty of correcting, I may assuredly hope to conclude that I have within me the means of arriving at the truth even here.21 What we know about the external world, we know in exactly the same way as God knows it; we could have the same “clear” and “distinct” ideas as God himself. Once Descartes was confident that the material world existed, he could proceed with the second part of his project: the creation of a single scientific method that could bring a world that was spinning out of control under the rule of reason. In his desire to master reality, Descartes could not accept the idea that the cosmos had come into being by accident. His cosmos was an intricate, well-oiled machine, set in motion and sustained by an all-powerful God. Like Mersenne, Descartes revived ancient Greek atomism, but with the crucial addition of an overseeing Creator. At the moment of creation, God had imposed his mathematical laws upon the atoms, so that when an atom collided with another, this was not a matter of chance but achieved by divinely implanted principles.22 Once everything had been set in motion, no further divine action was necessary, and God was able to retire from the world and allow it to run itself.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  The subject of the portrait was a woman - a heavybrowed woman with untidy dark hair: she seemed to be sitting very squarely, and her gaze was rather grave. I thought she might be the sister from the family group, grown up; or she might be a friend of Florence’s, or a cousin, or - well, anybody. I leaned over to try to read the handwriting that showed where the card curled over; but it was hidden, and I didn’t like to pluck it free - it wasn’t that intriguing. Then I caught the bubbling of the pan of water I had set upon the stove, and hurried out to see to it. I found a little tin bowl to wash in, and a block of green kitchen soap; and then - since there was no towel, and I didn’t think it really polite to use the dish-cloth - I danced about before the range until I was dry enough to climb back into my dirty petticoats. I thought, with a little sigh, of Diana’s handsome bathroom - of that cabinet of unguents that I had liked to sample for hours at a time. Even so, it was marvellous to be clean again, and when I had combed my hair and tended my face (I rubbed a bit of vinegar into the bruise, and then a bit of flour); when I had thumped the filth from my skirts and pressed them flat and put them on again, I felt fit and warm and quite unreasonably gay. I walked back into the parlour - it was a matter of some ten steps or so - stood for a second there, then returned to the kitchen. It was, I thought, a very pleasant house; as I had already begun to notice, however, it was not a very clean one. The rugs, I saw, all badly wanted beating. The skirting-boards were scuffed and streaked with mud. Every shelf and picture was as dusty as the sooty mantelpiece. If this was my house, I thought, I would keep it smart as a new pin. Then I had a rather wonderful idea. I ran back into the parlour and looked at the clock. Less than an hour had passed since Florence’s departure, and neither she nor Ralph, I guessed, would be home much before five. That gave me about eight whole hours - slightly less, I supposed, if I wanted to be sure of finding myself a room in some lodging-house or hostel while it was still light. How much cleaning could you do in eight hours? I had no idea: it was generally Alice who had helped Mother out at home; I had hardly cleaned a thing before in my life; lately I had had servants to do my cleaning for me. But I felt inspired, now, to tidy this house - this house where I had been, albeit briefly, so content.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  But that did not mean that the divine was wholly inaccessible. We could, as it were, catch a glimpse of God by cultivating a different mode of perception, as the Sufis did when they chanted the names of Allah like a mantra and performed the meditative exercises that induced an altered state of consciousness. But those who did not have the time, talent, or inclination for this type of spirituality could make themselves conscious of God in the smallest details of daily life. Al-Ghazzali developed a spirituality that would enable every single Muslim to become aware of the interior dimension of Muslim law. They should deliberately call to mind the divine presence when they performed such ordinary actions as eating, washing, preparing for bed, praying, almsgiving, and greeting one another. They must guard their ears from slander and obscenity, their tongues from lies; they must refrain from cursing or sneering at others. Their hands must not harm another creature; their hearts must remain free of envy, anger, hypocrisy, and pride. 25 This vigilance— similar to that practiced by Stoics, Epicureans, Buddhists, and Jains— would bridge the gap between outward observance and interior commitment; it would transform the smallest action of daily life into a ritual that made God present in the lives of ordinary men and women, even if they could not prove this rationally. It has been said that al-Ghazzali was the most important Muslim since the Prophet Muhammad. After al-Ghazzali, one great philosopher after another—Yahya Suhrawardi (d. 1191), Muid ad-Din ibn al-Arabi (1165–1240), Jalal ad-Din Rumi (1207–73), Mir Dimad (d. 1631), and his pupil Mulla Sadra (1571–1640)—insisted that theology must be fused with spirituality. The philosopher had a sacred duty to be as intellectually rigorous as Aristotle and as mystical as a Sufi; reason was indispensable for science, medicine, and mathematics, but a reality that transcended the senses could be approached only by more intuitive modes of thought. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Sufism ceased to be a fringe movement and remained the dominant Islamic mode until the nineteenth century. Ordinary laypeople practiced Sufi exercises, and these disciplines helped them to get beyond simplistically anthropomorphic ideas of God and experience the divine as a transcendent presence within. The Jews in the Islamic empire, who were so excited by falsafah that they developed a philosophical movement of their own, had a similar experience.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  So what happens if you give in? If you accept yourself, right at this moment, just as you are, without preconditions of any sort? Can you, as Walt Whitman suggests, be content with yourself as you are right now, whether fully isolated, or scrutinized by millions? This chapter describes a range of practices that can unlock this greater openness to who you actually are, openness that begets kindness and self-love. These practices coax you to more fully accept and appreciate who and how you are right now, failures and shortcomings and all. I describe both the formal practice of loving-kindness meditation as well as more informal practices, each of which allows you to experiment with self-love. These practices are not self-indulgent, navel-gazing escapes from reality. Like positivity resonance, they build your foundation for health and well-being. Indeed, studies show that self-directed, self-compassionate love is far more vital to your health and happiness than is oft-touted high self-esteem. Where to Start? Although people don’t differ in their worthiness of their own love, they differ a great deal in their ability to offer it. For many people—and you may be one of them—offering warmth and tenderness to yourself feels more than a little bit awkward. For whatever reasons, you simply may be unaccustomed to fully accepting and caring for yourself as you are. This may be a particular hang-up for those of us born and raised in cultures that foster deflating self-criticism, puffed-up self-aggrandizement, or both. Initial research bears this out. Kristin Neff, a developmental scientist at the University of Texas at Austin who has pioneered scientific assessment of a form of self-love that she calls self-compassion , has found this to be the case. Her research shows that people in cultures—like the United States—that are heavy on both self-deprecation and high self-esteem show lower levels of self-love and by consequence experience higher rates of depression and dissatisfaction with life. By contrast, people in cultures—like Thailand—where Buddhism infuses more self-acceptance into daily life show higher levels of self-love and by consequence seem to suffer less depression and dissatisfaction. Indeed, lore among those who teach LKM is that barriers to self-love are particularly high among Western students. Sharon Salzberg, cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society, in Barre, Massachusetts, is perhaps the leading Western teacher of LKM. It’s no overstatement to say that she is the person most responsible for first bringing the practice of LKM from the East to the West, having first encountered this ancient practice in India in the 1970s and then practicing it intensively in Burma in the 1980s. I’m lucky to be able to draw on Sharon’s deep expertise while I craft my experiments on LKM’s effects, as she serves as a consultant on my research grants. Sharon tells me that Western students frequently encounter difficulties or resistance when encouraged to direct loving-kindness toward themselves. Some even fall asleep at this stage.

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

  On the subject of toleration and the punishment of heretics, Bullinger agreed with the prevailing theory, but favorably differed from the prevailing practice. He opposed the Anabaptists in his writings, as much as Zwingli, and, like Melanchthon, he approved of the unfortunate execution of Servetus, but he himself did not persecute. He tolerated Laelio Sozini, who quietly died at Zürich (1562), and Bernardino Occhino, who preached for some time to the Italian congregation in that city, but was deposed, without further punishment, for teaching Unitarian opinions and defending polygamy. In a book against the Roman Catholic Faber, Bullinger expresses the Christian and humane sentiment that no violence should be done to dissenters, and that faith is a free gift of God, which cannot be commanded or forbidden. He agreed with Zwingli’s extension of salvation to all infants dying in infancy and to elect heathen; at all events, he nowhere dissents from these advanced views, and published with approbation Zwingli’s last work, where they are most strongly expressed.315 Bullinger’s house was a happy Christian home. He liked to play with his numerous children and grandchildren, and to write little verses for them at Christmas, like Luther.316

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Aun así, ella está bastante tiempo sola. Él ni siquiera permanece en casa las noches que ella tiene libre y me pregunto por qué demonios lo soporta. Ella parece capaz y con fortaleza. Una chica que puede cuidarse sola. ¿Qué los unió? De hecho, no parece tener a nadie más que a Cole y esa hermana suya. Ningún amigo u otros miembros de la familia han pasado por aquí a verla, que pueda decir. Aunque, de cualquier modo, estoy disfrutando teniéndola por aquí, incluso si deseo que Cole estuviera más en casa. Sonrío en cuanto paso por la puerta cada tarde, escuchando música de los ochenta sonando por la casa y de algún modo parece incluso más verano aquí dentro. Es agradable no volver a una casa vacía para variar, e incluso me sorprendo dejando el trabajo a tiempo todos los días, porque en realidad ahora disfruto estar en casa. Ella y yo hemos charlado más a lo largo de los últimos días, hablando sobre cómo fue el trabajo o cómo le está yendo en la escuela, y la chica tiene la extraña habilidad de hacerme hablar. Le gusta hacer cosas y es buena burlándose o haciendo bromas para tranquilizarme. Puedo prescindir de su lasaña de berenjena, eso está claro, pero si no estuviera aquí, Cole me estaría evitando incluso más de lo que lo hace hasta ahora, y no me estaría mordiendo la lengua con él como lo hago. Estoy contento de que ella esté aquí. Sosteniendo la bolsa de la ropa sucia sobre mi hombro, bajo las escaleras, girándome en la barandilla y entrando a la lavandería. Después de sacar mi ropa de la secadora, saco otras cosas de la lavadora y meto una nueva carga, encendiendo de nuevo ambas máquinas. Veo un rastro de polvo al frente de mi camiseta por trabajar esta mañana en el garaje y me la quito, metiéndola en la lavadora antes de cerrar la tapa. Dejando la bolsa sobre la ropa seca, tomo el cesto y vuelvo escaleras arriba. En mi habitación, arrojo la ropa sobre la cama y hurgo entre la pila, buscando otra camiseta. Pero me detengo, pasando ligeramente mis dedos sobre una pequeña pieza de tela roja que no reconozco. Está amontonada en mis jeans y no tengo que pensar dos veces para saber qué es. Mierda. Enganchando el dedo en la pequeña banda, miro a través de la pequeña tanga roja colgando de mi dedo. —¿Qué demonios? —digo entre dientes, bajando la mirada hacia la ropa para comprobar dos veces que es la mía—. ¿Cómo llegó esto a mis cosas?—. ¡Jord…! — grito pero me detengo, dándome cuenta de lo extraño que va a parecer si tengo su ropa interior. Voy a parecer un morboso, siendo atrapado con su ropa interior. Jesús. Suelto la prenda como si fuera un sartén caliente. Cae sobre la cama y me froto la nuca, sintiendo el ligero sudor en mi piel. Mi mente divaga.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  I TURN OUT the lights, walk upstairs to bed. Curled up with a book beside her, Penny has drifted off. That chemistry, that in-sync feeling from Day One, Accounting 101, remains. Our conflicts, such as they are, have centered mostly on work versus family. Finding a balance. Defining that word “balance.” At our most trying moments, we’ve managed to emulate those athletes I most admire. We’ve held on, pressed through. And now we’ve endured. I slide under the covers, gingerly, so as not to wake her, and I think of others who’ve endured. Hayes lives on a farm in the Tualatin Valley, 108 rolling acres, with a ridiculous collection of bulldozers and other heavy equipment. (His pride and joy is a John Deere JD-450C. It’s bright school-bus yellow and as big as a one-bedroom condo.) He has some health problems, but he bulldozes ahead. Woodell lives in central Oregon with his wife. For years he flew his own private airplane, giving the middle finger to everyone who said he’d be helpless. (Above all, flying private meant he never again had to worry about an airline losing his wheelchair.) He’s one of the best storytellers in the history of Nike. My favorite, naturally, is the one about the day we went public. He sat his parents down and told them the news. “What does that mean?” they whispered. “It means your original eight-thousand-dollar loan to Phil is worth $1.6 million.” They looked at each other, looked at Woodell. “I don’t understand,” his mother said. If you can’t trust the company your son works for, who can you trust? When he retired from Nike, Woodell became head of the Port of Portland, managing all the rivers and the airports. A man immobilized, guiding all that motion. Lovely. He’s also the leading shareholder and director of a successful microbrewery. He always did like his beer. But whenever we get together for dinner, he tells me, of course, his greatest joy and proudest accomplishment is his college-bound son, Dan. Woodell’s old antagonist, Johnson, lives slap in the middle of a Robert Frost poem, somewhere in the wilderness of New Hampshire. He’s converted an old barn into a five-story mansion, which he calls his Fortress of Solitude. Twice divorced, he’s filled the place to the rafters with dozens of reading chairs, and thousands and thousands of books, and he keeps track of them all with an extensive card catalog. Each book has its own number and its own index card, listing author, date of publication, plot summary—and its precise location in the fortress. Of course.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  But the rent was cheap. Fifty bucks a month. When I took Woodell to see it, he allowed it had a certain charm. Woodell needed to like it, because I was transferring him from the Eugene store to this office. He’d shown tremendous skills at the store, a flair for organizing, along with boundless energy, but I could use him better in what I would be calling “the home office.” Sure enough, on Day One he came up with a solution to the stuck windows. He brought in one of his old javelins to hook the window latches and push them shut. We couldn’t afford to fix the broken glass in the other windows, so on really cold days we just wore sweaters. Meanwhile, in the middle of the room I erected a plywood wall, thereby creating warehouse space in the back and retail-office space up front. I was no handyman, and the floor was badly warped, so the wall wasn’t close to straight or even. From ten feet away it appeared to undulate. Woodell and I decided that was kind of groovy. At an office thrift store we bought three battered desks, one for me, one for Woodell, one for “the next person stupid enough to work for us.” I also built a corkboard wall, to which I pinned different Tiger models, borrowing some of Johnson’s décor ideas in Santa Monica. In a far corner I set up a small sitting area for customers to try on shoes. One day, at five minutes before 6:00 p.m., a high school kid wandered in. Need some running shoes, he said timidly. Woodell and I looked at each other, looked at the clock. We were beat, but we needed every sale. We talked to the kid about his instep, his stride, his life, and gave him several pairs to try on. He took his time lacing them up, walking around the room, and each pair he declared “not quite right.” At 7:00 p.m. he said he’d have to go home and “think about it.” He left, and Woodell and I sat amid the mounds of empty boxes and scattered shoes. I looked at him. He looked at me. This is how we’re going to build a shoe company? AS I GRADUALLY moved my inventory out of my apartment, into my new office, the thought crossed my mind that it might make more sense to give up the apartment altogether, just move into the office, since I’d basically be living there anyway. When I wasn’t at Price Waterhouse, making the rent, I’d be at Blue Ribbon, and vice versa. I could shower at the gym. But I told myself that living in your office is the act of a crazy person. And then I got a letter from Johnson saying he was living in his new office. He’d chosen to locate our East Coast office in Wellesley, a tony suburb of Boston. Of course he included a hand-drawn map, and a sketch, and more information than I’d ever need about the history and topography and weather patterns of Wellesley. Also, he told me how he’d come to choose it. At first he’d considered Long Island, New York. Upon his arrival there he’d rendezvoused with the high school kid who’d alerted him to the Marlboro Man’s secret machinations. The kid drove Johnson all over, and Johnson saw enough of Long Island to know that this place wasn’t his bag. He left the high school kid, headed north on I-95, and when he hit Wellesley, it just spoke to him. He saw people running along quaint country roads, many of them women, many of them Ali MacGraw look-alikes. Ali MacGraw was Johnson’s type. He remembered that Ali MacGraw had attended Wellesley College. Then he learned, or remembered, that the Boston Marathon route ran right through the town. Sold. He riffled through his card catalog and found the address of a local customer, another high school track star. He drove to the kid’s house, knocked at the door, unannounced. The kid wasn’t there, but his parents said Johnson was more than welcome to come in and wait. When the kid got home he found his shoe salesman sitting at the dining room table eating dinner with the whole family. The next day, after they went for a run, Johnson got from the kid a list of names—local coaches, potential customers, likely contacts—and a list of what neighborhoods he might like. Within days he’d found and rented a little house behind a funeral parlor. Claiming it in the name of Blue Ribbon, he also made it his home. He wanted me to go halfsies on the two-hundred-dollar rent. In a PS he said I should buy him furniture also. I didn’t answer.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  And life also belongs to God; for the actuality of thought is life, and God is that actuality; and God’s self-dependent actuality is life most good and eternal. We say therefore that God is living being, eternal, most good, so that life and duration continuous and eternal belong to God; for this is God. 73 Even for the down-to-earth Aristotle, philosophy was not merely a body of knowledge but an activity that involved spiritual transformation. • • • By the beginning of the third century BCE, six main philosophical schools had emerged: Platonism, Aristotelianism, Skepticism, Cynicism, Epicureanism, and Stoicism. They all saw theory as secondary to and dependent upon practice, and all regarded philosophy as a transformative way of life rather than a purely theoretical system. Each school developed its own scholasticism, building huge doctrinal edifices of written reflection on the teaching of the sages, but these writings were secondary to the oral transmission of the tradition. 74 When a philosopher expounded an authority, such as Plato or Aristotle, his chief purpose was to shape the spirituality of his pupils. He would, therefore, feel free to give the old texts an entirely new interpretation if this met the needs of a particular group. What mattered was the prestige and antiquity of the old texts, not the author’s original intention. Until the early modern period, most Western thought developed in a way that was reminiscent of the modern design technique of bricolage, where something new is constructed from an assemblage of whatever materials happen to lie at hand. The Hellenistic era that followed the establishment of the empire of Alexander the Great (c. 356–323) and its subsequent disintegration was a period of political and social turbulence. 75 Consequently, Hellenistic philosophy was chiefly concerned with the cultivation of interior peace. 76 Epicurus (341–270), for example, established a community outside Athens near the Academy, where his disciples could lead a frugal, secluded life and avoid mental disturbance. At the same time, Zeno (342–270), who lectured in the Painted Stoa in the Athenian agora, preached a philosophy of ataraxia , “freedom from pain”: Stoics hoped to achieve total serenity by means of meditation and a disciplined, sober lifestyle. Like Plato and Aristotle, Stoics and Epicureans both regarded science primarily as a spiritual discipline. “We must not suppose that any other end is served by knowledge of celestial phenomena,” Epicurus wrote to a friend, “than ataraxia and firm confidence, just as in other fields of study.” 77 Epicureans discovered that when they meditated on the cosmos described by the “atomists” Leucippus and Democritus, they were released from needless anxiety.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  I could give her only twenty-five dollars a week for groceries, and still she managed to whip up delicious meals. I gave her a credit card with a two-thousand-dollar limit to furnish our entire apartment, and she managed to buy a dinette table, two chairs, a Zenith TV, and a big couch with soft arms, perfect for napping. She also bought me a brown recliner, which she stuck in a corner of the living room. Now, each night, I could lean back at a forty-five-degree angle and spin inside my own head all I wanted. It was more comfortable, and safer, than the Cougar. I got into the habit every night of phoning my father from my recliner. He’d always be in his recliner, too, and together, recliner to recliner, we’d hash out the latest threat confronting Blue Ribbon. He no longer saw my business as a waste of my time, apparently. Though he didn’t say so explicitly, he did seem to find the problems I faced “interesting,” and “challenging,” which amounted to the same thing. IN THE SPRING of 1969 Penny began to complain of feeling poorly in the mornings. Food didn’t sit well. By midday she was often a little wobbly around the office. She went to the doctor—the same doctor who’d delivered her—and discovered she was pregnant. We were both overjoyed. But we also faced a whole new learning curve. Our cozy apartment was now completely inappropriate. We’d have to buy a house, of course. But could we afford a house? I’d just started to pay myself a salary. And in which part of town should we buy? Where were the best schools? And how was I supposed to research real estate prices and schools, plus all the other things that go into buying a house, while running a start-up company? Was it even feasible to run a start-up company while starting a family? Should I go back to accounting, or teaching, or something more stable? Leaning back in my recliner each night, staring at the ceiling, I tried to settle myself. I told myself: Life is growth. You grow or you die. WE FOUND A house in Beaverton. Small, only sixteen hundred square feet, but it had an acre of land around it, and a little horse corral, and a pool. There was also a huge pine tree in the front and a Japanese bamboo out back. I loved it. More, I recognized it. When I was growing up my sisters asked me several times what my dream house would look like, and one day they handed me a charcoal pencil and a pad and made me draw it. After Penny and I moved in, my sisters dug out the old charcoal sketch. It was an exact picture of the Beaverton house. The price was thirty-four thousand dollars, and I popped my shirt buttons to discover that I had 20 percent of that in savings.

• From Ulysses (Kindle edition — verify full work) (1922)

  Sula's hyperbolic and facetious remarks, deliberately trivializing black men's experiences, destabilizes black nationalist discursive/ideological sensibilities regarding the reclamation of lost black masculinity and black men's systematic oppression that consciously or inadvertently minimize or neglect severely black women's experiences of marginalization, oppression, and violation. While Morrison does not privilege the plight of black men at the expense of black women, she does address, even if through Sula's facetiousness, the historical circumstances accounting for exterior displays of respectability among blacks and, ultimately, the script: the pathologized sexual character and infamy of black people that resulted in the violent sexualized crimes (lynchings and rapes) against their bodies. Moreover, while these phenomena are historicized and contextualized, Morrison does not exonerate the ways in which some black nationalists, through particular ideological elements of nationalism (not nationalism in and of itself), attempt to situate black men as the apotheosis of oppressive victimization, whereby black women must heal or serve as balm for their wounded and/or deflated masculinities. Sula's refusal to comport herself as such, or recognize the experience of black male victimhood, also "accords with the black nationalist goal of fashioning a new black identity free of the oppressive past."34 Morrison deftly provides a counterparadigmatic alternative to nationalist configurations of black masculinity, and how they could intersect progressively with constructions of black femininity, in her delineation of Ajax and Sula's nonpatriarchal romance. Despite the fact that Ajax, a lover whom Sula does not disregard casually after sex, is nine years Sula's senior-"she was twenty-nine, he thirty-eight" (124)-their relationship is not based on hierarchical or hegemonic notions of male authority and female subordination. Rather, it is marked by more progressive gender politics, if not, to some extent, gender egalitarianism. Their relationship is not stymied by, but instead precludes, certain mandated patriarchal and social prescriptions for women. Ajax's attraction to Sula stems precisely from her nonconformity and "elusiveness and indifference to established behavior" (127). With the exception of Ajax's mother, a conjure woman (and outlier), Sula is "perhaps the only other woman [Ajax] knew whose life was her own, who could deal with life efficiently, and who was not interested in nailing him" (127). And so, it is precisely because Ajax treats Sula both as a woman who owns herself and his equal, rather than an object or extension of himself, that she is attracted to him; and she finds what she had not found in previous relationships with men: pleasure, contentment, fulfillment, and, above all, unconditional acceptance.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  We couldn’t afford to fix the broken glass in the other windows, so on really cold days we just wore sweaters. Meanwhile, in the middle of the room I erected a plywood wall, thereby creating warehouse space in the back and retail-office space up front. I was no handyman, and the floor was badly warped, so the wall wasn’t close to straight or even. From ten feet away it appeared to undulate. Woodell and I decided that was kind of groovy. At an office thrift store we bought three battered desks, one for me, one for Woodell, one for “the next person stupid enough to work for us.” I also built a corkboard wall, to which I pinned different Tiger models, borrowing some of Johnson’s décor ideas in Santa Monica. In a far corner I set up a small sitting area for customers to try on shoes. One day, at five minutes before 6:00 p.m., a high school kid wandered in. Need some running shoes, he said timidly. Woodell and I looked at each other, looked at the clock. We were beat, but we needed every sale. We talked to the kid about his instep, his stride, his life, and gave him several pairs to try on. He took his time lacing them up, walking around the room, and each pair he declared “not quite right.” At 7:00 p.m. he said he’d have to go home and “think about it.” He left, and Woodell and I sat amid the mounds of empty boxes and scattered shoes. I looked at him. He looked at me. This is how we’re going to build a shoe company? AS I GRADUALLY moved my inventory out of my apartment, into my new office, the thought crossed my mind that it might make more sense to give up the apartment altogether, just move into the office, since I’d basically be living there anyway. When I wasn’t at Price Waterhouse, making the rent, I’d be at Blue Ribbon, and vice versa. I could shower at the gym. But I told myself that living in your office is the act of a crazy person. And then I got a letter from Johnson saying he was living in his new office. He’d chosen to locate our East Coast office in Wellesley, a tony suburb of Boston. Of course he included a hand-drawn map, and a sketch, and more information than I’d ever need about the history and topography and weather patterns of Wellesley. Also, he told me how he’d come to choose it. At first he’d considered Long Island, New York. Upon his arrival there he’d rendezvoused with the high school kid who’d alerted him to the Marlboro Man’s secret machinations. The kid drove Johnson all over, and Johnson saw enough of Long Island to know that this place wasn’t his bag. He left the high school kid, headed north on I-95, and when he hit Wellesley, it just spoke to him.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Cualquier cosa que Cole deje en la sala de estar la noche anterior, como zapatos o latas de soda, desaparece repentinamente y no puedo recordar la última vez que tuve que usar la lavadora. Y no, ni por un momento creo que sea gracias a mi hijo. Se ha convertido en un jodido perezoso y parece que, no me había dado cuenta de cuánto había cambiado. Cuanto más crecía menos tiempo quería pasar conmigo, y veo muestras de cómo era su madre conmigo en la forma que trata ahora a Jordan. Es descuidado, y me encuentro apretando los dientes para mantener mi boca cerrada y guardarme mis opiniones. Amo a mi hijo, pero es difícil ver por qué la merece. Difícilmente está en casa excepto para dormir, y cuando lo está, Jordan está en el trabajo hasta las dos de la mañana. Estaba preocupado por encontrarlos teniendo sexo en el sofá o algo así cuando ofrecí dejarlos vivir aquí, pero gracias a Dios, sus horarios no compaginan bien, así que difícilmente están aquí al mismo tiempo. Y si lo están, estoy en el trabajo y no tengo que escuchar o ver algo. Aun así, ella está bastante tiempo sola. Él ni siquiera permanece en casa las noches que ella tiene libre y me pregunto por qué demonios lo soporta. Ella parece capaz y con fortaleza. Una chica que puede cuidarse sola. ¿Qué los unió? De hecho, no parece tener a nadie más que a Cole y esa hermana suya. Ningún amigo u otros miembros de la familia han pasado por aquí a verla, que pueda decir. Aunque, de cualquier modo, estoy disfrutando teniéndola por aquí, incluso si deseo que Cole estuviera más en casa. Sonrío en cuanto paso por la puerta cada tarde, escuchando música de los ochenta sonando por la casa y de algún modo parece incluso más verano aquí dentro. Es agradable no volver a una casa vacía para variar, e incluso me sorprendo dejando el trabajo a tiempo todos los días, porque en realidad ahora disfruto estar en casa. Ella y yo hemos charlado más a lo largo de los últimos días, hablando sobre cómo fue el trabajo o cómo le está yendo en la escuela, y la chica tiene la extraña habilidad de hacerme hablar. Le gusta hacer cosas y es buena burlándose o haciendo bromas para tranquilizarme. Puedo prescindir de su lasaña de berenjena, eso está claro, pero si no estuviera aquí, Cole me estaría evitando incluso más de lo que lo hace hasta ahora, y no me estaría mordiendo la lengua con él como lo hago. Estoy contento de que ella esté aquí. Sosteniendo la bolsa de la ropa sucia sobre mi hombro, bajo las escaleras, girándome en la barandilla y entrando a la lavandería.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Finalmente extiendo mi mano hacia él. —Soy Jordan. Lamento lo del vino. —¿Jordan? —repite, tomando mi mano y estrechándola—. Un nombre inusual para una chica. —No, en realidad no. —Me relajo contra el asiento y me cruzo de brazos, levantando las rodillas y plantando mis zapatos entre los dos asientos vacíos frente a mí—. Es el nombre del interés romántico de Tom Cruise en Cocktail, ¿recuerdas? Alza las cejas con duda. —¿Cocktail? —repito—. La película de 1988 sobre las acrobacias del barman. —Oh, claro. —Pero tiene esta mirada de inseguridad en sus ojos, y no estoy segura de que sepa de qué demonios le estoy hablando. —¿Te gustan las películas de los 80? —pregunto, apuntando a la película que estamos por ver en la pantalla. —Me gustan las películas de terror —aclara y me ofrece las palomitas—. Esta es un clásico. ¿A ti? —Amo los 80. —Tomo un pequeño puñado y pongo una en mi boca—. Mi novio odia mi gusto para las películas y la música, pero no puedo resistirme. Vengo aquí cuando proyectan algo de la década. Me siento incomoda con la mención al azar del novio, pero no quiero darle una impresión equivocada aquí. Miro rápidamente su mano izquierda, afortunadamente no veo un anillo de bodas. Sería erróneo sentarme aquí con un tipo casado. Pero solo me mira a sabiendas. —¿Breakfast Club es tu favorita, verdad? —dice—. ¿Y cualquier otra creación de John Hughes? —¿Tienes algo en contra de The Breakfast Club? —Las primeras diez veces que la vi, no. Una sonrisa estira mis labios. Supongo que la pasan mucho por televisión. Se inclina cerca. —Los 80 fueron la época de los héroes de acción —dice, su profunda voz cerca y susurrada—. La gente olvida eso. Arma Letal, Duro de Matar, Terminator, Rambo... —Jean-Claude Van Damne —añado. —Exactamente.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  —Hola, ¿puedes recogerme a las dos? —Coloco el teléfono entre mi oreja y mi hombro mientras cuento el efectivo y lo pongo en la caja—. Ash no vino. Su bebé está enfermo, y no tengo quien me lleve. —Sí, sí —dice Cole—. Por supuesto. Estaré allí. Después de nuestra última pelea, las cosas progresaron exactamente como lo predije. Llegó borracho y relajado a casa, se metió en la cama, y nos acurrucamos. Las cosas casi han vuelto a la normalidad, o lo que es nuestra normalidad, en cualquiera caso, lo suficiente como para que no me importara cuando trató de llevarme a la ducha esta mañana. Sin embargo, cuando entramos a nuestro baño, descubrimos que su padre había arrancado el lavamanos y había comenzado a arrancar las baldosas de la ducha, nuestro baño era lo siguiente en su lista de renovación. ¿Cómo habíamos dormido con todo eso? ¿Y a qué hora se levantó esta mañana? —Terminaré a las dos —repito, cerrando la caja registradora. —Sí, lo tengo. Te amo. —También te amo —respondo y cuelgo. Pike ha estado trabajando en mi auto, y en un esfuerzo por suavizar las cosas, estoy segura que Cole realmente ayudó hoy. Sin embargo, no estoy segura cómo voy a pagarle a su papá, porque sé que está gastando dinero, a pesar que actúa como si compró el nuevo tubo de escape a buen precio o simplemente tenía esas llantas nuevas guardadas. He estado tratando de ir más allá en la casa, haciendo cosas como preparar el desayuno para todos esta mañana y limpiar debajo de los cojines del sofá. Incluso planté algunas flores en el patio trasero, alrededor del borde, para la estética, lo que Pike aceptó siempre y cuando no lleve flores a la casa. Me río, pensando en lo gruñón que puede ser a veces. Es bastante gracioso. Horas más tarde, exhausta y con los pies adoloridos, no puedo esperar para regresar a casa. A casa y a la cama. Estoy tan cansada. Atando mi cabello en una coleta, cuento el efectivo, lo vuelvo a colocar en la caja y deslizo la bandeja en la caja fuerte. Después de tapar las botellas de licor, guardar los platos y apagar las luces, miro por la ventana y veo el auto de Cole junto a la acera. Sonrío, encantada porque llegue a tiempo.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  De ninguna manera iba a pagar la mitad de la pizza, por Dios santo. La invité, ¿no es así? Y la razón por la que se quedaran aquí era para ahorrar dinero, ¿cierto? Paso a su lado, ignorando el dinero en su mano mientras llevo la pizza a la isla de la cocina. Suspira, dejando salir un pequeño gruñido. Me rio. —Mira, yo pedí la pizza, ¿está bien? Simplemente asegúrate que no tenga nada de tu lechuga blandita en mi mitad. —Ja, ja. —Camina hacia el refrigerador y toma dos sodas. Soy un hombre simple de pepperoni y puedo soportar una pizza de tacos, pero no esa lechuga cálida y destrozada que viene con ella. Puede quedársela por completo. Repartimos los trozos en dos platos, pero antes de irnos a la sala de estar, pone una pila de vegetales en mi plato con unas pinzas. —Uh, gracias. —Si comes primero los vegetales —indica—, tendrás menos sitio para la pizza. Un pequeño truco que saqué de Pinterest. ¿Pinter... qué? —Entonces comerás menos pizza —continúa—, consumirás menos calorías y te sentirás mejor después de la comida. Sí, claro. Si me preocupara por consumir menos calorías, supongo. Bien. A la mierda. Lo que sea. Me dirijo al refrigerador y tomo la salsa ranchera que hay en la puerta. —No —exclama, deteniéndome—. Ya tiene salsa. Una vinagreta de frambuesa. Me enderezo y la miro fijamente. Simplemente sonríe y se aleja. Tomo dos tenedores, le paso uno y llevo mi plato y mi soda a la sala de estar, con ella detrás de mí.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Me río para mí misma por su tartamudeo. Supongo que es una mejor explicación que: "Esta es la ex novia de Cole que aún vive conmigo y constantemente discute conmigo, y realmente odio su música, pero mira... ¡salsa de tacos! —Soy Teresa —dice, rodando la lengua en la r y mirándome por encima del hombro con una sonrisa. Gesticula con mis bandejas—. ¿Esto es queso crema? —Oh, sí. —Sííí —canturrea, guiándonos a las mesas de comida. Todo está dispuesto como un buffet, tres largas mesas alineadas y llenas de comida. Hay varias neveras al final, y el olor a hamburguesa rostizada golpea el fondo de mi garganta, y mi boca se hace agua. Grupos de personas se relajan sentados en sus patios o en la calle bloqueada, y los niños corren por todas partes, juegan a la pelota o ruedan por las colinas de algunos prados. Unos cuantos adolescentes, no mucho más jóvenes que yo, están sentados alrededor jugando con sus teléfonos, mientras los adultos se ríen y conversan, de vez en cuando se detienen a gritar órdenes a uno de sus hijos. Puede que aún no sea técnicamente el verano, pero el calor nos golpea y solo se ve atenuado por la capa de nubes esporádicas. Es un hermoso día. —Vamos —dice Dutch, dándole un codazo a Pike. Pike me mira, probablemente para asegurarse que estoy bien, y finalmente deja la ensalada antes de irse. Se detiene, estrechando la mano de algunos amigos y quitándole la tapa a una cerveza que alguien le da. Me acerco a Teresa mientras coloca todo sobre la mesa. —¿Hace cuánto tiempo que tú y Dutch están casados? —pregunto. Suspira. —Catorce años. —Me mira—. Y tres niños más tarde, todavía quiero matarlo todos los días, pero prepara buenos espaguetis, así que... Resoplo. Estoy segura que solo está tratando de ser graciosa, porque dudo que pueda explicarlo. Ella se ve bastante elegante, mientras que él usa una franela y unas botas de trabajo pesado. —Esto se ve tan bien —dice, quitando el papel de envoltura—. Gracias por traer tanto. No durará mucho. Justo en ese momento, un brazo se interpone entre nosotras, toma cuatro rollitos por los palillos de dientes y se los roba. Reconozco la tinta en el brazo de inmediato. —Oye —regaño a Pike, pero no puedo dejar de sonreír.

• From Memoirs of Fanny Hill (1749)

  Mrs. Cole still continued her friendship, and offered me her assistance and advice towards another choice; but I was now in ease and affluence enough to look about me at leisure; and as to any constitutional calls of pleasure, their pressure, or sensibility, was greatly lessened by a consciousness of the ease with which they were to be satisfied at Mrs. Cole’s house, where Louisa and Emily still continued in the old way; and my great favourite Harriet used often to come and see me, and entertain me, with her head and heart full of the happiness she enjoyed with her dear baronet, whom she loved with a tenderness and constancy, even though he was her keeper, and what is yet more, had made her independent, by a handsome provision for her and hers. I was then in this vacancy from any regular employ of my person in my way of business, when one day, Mrs. Cole, in the course of the constant confidence we lived in, acquainted me that there was one Mr. Barville, who used her house, just come to town, whom she was not a little perplexed about providing a suitable companion for; which was indeed a point of difficulty, as he was under the tyranny of a cruel taste: that of an ardent desire, not only of being unmercifully whipped himself, but of whipping others, in such sort, that though he paid extravagantly those who had the courage and complaisance to submit to his humour, there were few, delicate as he was in the choice of his subjects, who would exchange turns with him so terribly at the expense of their skin. But, what yet increased the oddity of this strange fancy was the gentleman being young; whereas it generally attacks, it seems, such as are, through age, obliged to have recourse to this experiment, for quickening the circulation of their sluggish juices, and determining a conflux of the spirits of pleasure towards those flagging shrivelly parts, that rise to life only by virtue of those titillating ardours created by the discipline of their opposites, with which they have so surprising a consent.

• From Memoirs of Fanny Hill (1749)

  She had scarce finished this, when the little troop of love girls, my companions, broke in, and renewed their compliments and caresses. I observed with pleasure, that the fatigues and exercises of the night had not usurped in the least on the life of their complexion, or the freshness of their bloom: this I found, by their confession, was owing to the management and advice of our rare directress. They went down then to figure it, as usual, in the shop; whilst I repaired to my lodging, where I employed myself till I returned to dinner at Mrs. Cole’s. Here I staid in constant amusement, with one or other of these charming girls, till about five in the evening; when seized with a sudden drowsy fit, I was prevailed on to go up and doze it off on Harriet’s bed, who left me on it to my repose. There then I laid down in my clothes, and fell fast asleep, and had now enjoyed, by guess, about an hour’s rest, when I was pleasingly disturbed by my new and favourite gallant, who, enquiring for me, was readily directed where to find me. Coming then into my chamber, and seeing me lie alone, with my face turned from the light towards the inside of the bed, he, without more ado, just slipped off his breeches, for the greater ease and enjoyment of the naked touch; and softly turning up my petticoats and shift behind, opened the prospect of the back avenue to the genial seat of pleasure; where, as I lay at my side length, inclining rather face downward, I appeared full fair, and liable to be entered. Laying himself gently down by me, he invested me behind, and giving me to feel the warmth of his body, as he applied his thighs and belly close to me, and the endeavours of that machine, whose touch has something so exquisitely singular in it, to make its way good into me. I awaked pretty much startled at first, at seeing who it was, disposed myself to turn to him, when he gave me a kiss, and desiring me to keep my posture, just lifted up my upper thigh, and ascertaining the right opening, soon drove it up to the farthest: satisfied with which, and solacing himself with lying so close in those parts, he suspended motion, and thus steeped in pleasure, kept me lying on my side, into him, spoon-fashion, as he termed it, from the snug indent of the back part of my thighs, and all upwards, into the space of the bending between his thighs and belly; till, after some time, that restless and turbulent inmate, impatient by nature of longer quiet, urged him to action, which now prosecuting with all the usual train of toying, kissing, and the like, ended at length in the liquid proof on both sides, that we had not exhausted, or at less were quickly recruited of last night’s draughts of pleasure in us.