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.

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• From Girls & Sex (2016)

  Sierra had her share of hookups in high school, too, but found them similarly unfulfilling. A freshman in college when we met, she’d been with her current boyfriend for nearly a year. “I used to think the sexual stuff was how you got to the emotional connection,” she said. “But that’s not true. The emotional connection comes first. That’s what has made the sex so good. The first time we had sex, my subconscious was thinking, ‘He’s excited to do this not just for the sake of doing it, but to be doing it with me. To be doing it with someone he’s going to end up loving.’ He cares about how I am feeling. He texts me in the morning: ‘Good morning! How are you today?’ And if I text, ‘I’m tired,’ he texts back, ‘Great. But how are you today? Mentally? Are you stressed? Are you happy? Are you sad?’ It’s knowing that we got to know each other, to know what makes us pissed off or happy or sad. It’s that connection, that reassurance, that this isn’t a ‘hit and run.’ We live in the moment and love every second, but it is absolutely the emotional connection before the sexual stuff that has made it worth it.” At the other extreme, or so I initially thought, was a freshman at a midwestern college who regaled me with tales of her sexual swashbuckling for nearly two hours, telling me how she rejected boys whose penis sizes “didn’t meet my standards,” or who were too heavy (“I don’t like fat guys,” she said). Yet at the end of our conversation, when I asked if there was anything she’d like to add, she hesitated, and almost in a whisper said, “philophobia.” I looked at her questioningly. “It’s the fear of falling in love or being in love,” she explained. “I read about it in a book. Sometimes I feel that’s why I never get into an actual relationship. It’s so hard for me to have an emotional attachment to people. I don’t want to get hurt. So I just go from guy to guy, putting a barrier between me and others to keep that from ever happening.”

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  18 “I have seen his [willful] ways, but I will heal him; I will lead him [also] and will restore comfort to him and to those who mourn for him, [Is 61:1 , 2 ; 66:10 ] 19 As I create the h praise of his lips, Peace, peace, to him who is far away [both Jew and Gentile] and to him who is near!” Says the LORD ; “And I will heal him [making his lips blossom anew with thankful praise].” [Acts 2:39 ; Eph 2:13–17 , 18 ; Heb 13:15 ] 20 But the wicked are like the tossing sea, For it cannot be quiet, And its waters toss up mire and mud. 21 “There is no peace,” says my God, “for the wicked.” Isaiah 58 Observances of Fasts 1 “C RY ALOUD, do not hold back; Lift up your voice like a trumpet, And declare to My people their transgression And to the house of Jacob their sins. 2 “Yet they seek Me day by day and delight [superficially] to know My ways, As [if they were in reality] a nation that has done righteousness And has not abandoned (turned away from) the ordinance of their God. They ask of Me righteous judgments, They delight in the nearness of God. 3 ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and You do not see it? Why have we humbled ourselves and You do not notice?’ Hear this [O Israel], on the day of your fast [when you should be grieving for your sins] you find something you desire [to do], And you force your hired servants to work [instead of stopping all work, as the law teaches]. [Lev 16:29 ] 4 “The facts are that you fast only for strife and brawling and to strike with the fist of wickedness. You do not fast as you do today to make your voice heard on high. 5 “Is a fast such as this what I have chosen, a day for a man to humble himself [with sorrow in his soul]? Is it only to bow down his head like a reed And to make sackcloth and ashes as a bed [pretending to have a repentant heart]? Do you call this a fast and a day pleasing to the LORD ? 6 “[Rather] is this not the fast which I choose, To undo the bonds of wickedness, To tear to pieces the ropes of the yoke, To let the oppressed go free And break apart every [enslaving] yoke? [Acts 8:23 ] 7 “Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry And bring the homeless poor into the house; When you see the naked, that you cover him, And not to hide yourself from [the needs of] your own flesh and blood?

• From Vox (1992)

  “You are, yes, and yet you’re uncertain too. And so one morning, you’re in your glass enclosure working away, and you look up and there’s this guy standing quite close to the glass, peering in at you. You nod, you’re used to this, and he nods. He’s wearing a suit, and he’s carrying what looks to be a fork, wrapped in a piece of paper towel. He looks up at the sign over the shop and you hear him go in and you hear him talking to Harvey. Harvey sounds a bit testy. You hear him say, ‘She can’t take her time up with uncreative work like that.’ Then the guy says something, a note of urgency in his voice. Harvey says, ‘No, I’m not kidding, really, no.’ And you pop your head out of the curtain. The two men look at you. Harvey goes, ‘I’m trying to tell this gentleman that you’re an artist and you are not able to do something like repair his fork. He doesn’t want me to do the repair, he wants you to do it.’ The guy in the suit looks embarrassed, he holds up his hands. You walk out into the shop. You take off your insulated soldering gloves and put them carelessly down on a display of rare campaign buttons. You’re wearing a shirt with small green and black stars on it, and black pants, and black sneakers. You hold out your hand for the fork, the guy gives it to you. You say, ‘An incident with the dishwasher?’ and he nods yes. And you say, ‘Harvey, it won’t take me a second.’ Harvey goes, ‘Fine! Go ahead!’ and sits down near the register, staring straight ahead. He’s pissed. You say to the guy, ‘I’ll have it for you by noon.’ And you go back into your area in the window. You take up the piece you’ve been working on. It’s some kind of brooch, and it isn’t turning out very well. You’ve lost your inspiration to some degree, since Harvey hasn’t sold your best effort. You look at the fork sitting there, and then you become conscious of a presence outside the window, and you look up, and it’s the same guy. You give him a questioning expression, and he moves his arms to say, ‘Don’t mind me.’ But he doesn’t walk away. You look down at the brooch again, but you don’t like it, you don’t want Mr. Fork to see it and think of it as representative of your work. And so you set it aside and you clamp the injured fork in several delicate vises, and you put on your insulated gloves, and you start playing the flame of the torch over the nicked parts. Repair is Harvey’s area, so you don’t get much of a chance to do this, but you find now that in small doses it’s a very satisfying and soothing activity.

• From Vox (1992)

  48 the brooch again, but you don't like it, you don't want Mr. Fork to see it and think of it as representative of your work. And so you set it aside and you clamp the injured fork in several delicate vises, and you put on your insu lated gloves, and you start playing the flame of the torch over the nicked parts. Repair is Harvey's area, so you don't get much of a chance to do this, but you find now that in small doses it's a very satisfying and soothing activity. Naturally you can't restore the fork to mint condition—you melt the roughnesses until they subside, and what you're left with is a lovely irregular mottled very shiny surface. You're glad you have your dark welder's goggles on: you look up covertly, with just your eyes, not lifting your head, and you see the fork man standing there sort of slumped, looking at you do those things to his fork. He's melting, he's smitten, he's silversmitten. You plunge the fork into a tray of water. He smiles. He goes back into the shop. You come out of your enclo sure. Harvey looks up. You hand the fork to Harvey and Harvey looks at it and says, Twelve dollars.' Mr. Fork pays the twelve dollars and takes the repair job and says thank-you to Harvey. Then he says, 'I was just curious how it was done. I'm sorry to have taken up her time.' And then he asks, 'You say she's an artist. Can you show me some things she's done?' Slowly, slowly Harvey walks over to the display case, unlocks it, sighs. The guy leans very close to the jewelry, his head is practically in the case. You're watching all this. You notice for the first

• From Girls & Sex (2016)

  Here’s a solution for concerned parents: move to the Netherlands. Okay, maybe that’s not the most practical advice. Perhaps, though, we can move a little of the Netherlands here. Because the Dutch seem to have it all figured out. While we in the United States have the highest teen pregnancy rate in the industrialized world, they have among the lowest. Our teen birth rate? Eight times higher than theirs, and our teen abortion rate is 1.7 times higher. Yes, there are some significant demographic differences that affect those numbers: we are a more diverse nation than Holland, with higher rates of childhood poverty, fewer social welfare guarantees, and more social conservatives. Yet even when controlling for all that, the difference holds. Consider a study comparing the early sexual experiences of four hundred randomly chosen American and Dutch women at two similar colleges—nearly all white, all middle class, with similar religious backgrounds. So, apples to apples. The American girls had become sexually active at a younger age than the Dutch, had had more encounters with more partners, and were less likely to use birth control. They were more likely to say they’d had first intercourse because of “opportunity” or pressure from friends or partners. In subsequent interviews with some of the participants, the Americans, much like the ones I met, described interactions that were “driven by hormones,” in which boys determined relationships, male pleasure was prioritized, and reciprocity was rare. As for the Dutch girls? Their early sexual activity took place in loving, respectful relationships in which they communicated openly with their partners (whom they said they knew “very well”) about what felt good and what didn’t, about how “far” they wanted to go, and about what kind of protection they would need along the way. They reported more comfort with their bodies and their desires than the Americans and were more in touch with their own pleasure. It’s enough to make you rush out to buy a pair of wooden shoes. What’s their secret? The Dutch girls said that teachers and doctors had talked candidly to them about sex, pleasure, and the importance of a loving relationship. More than that, though, there was a stark difference in how their parents approached those topics. The American moms had focused on the potential risks and dangers of sex, while their dads, if they said anything at all, stuck to lame jokes. Dutch parents, by contrast, had talked to their daughters from an early age about both the joys and responsibilities of intimacy. As a result, one Dutch girl said she told her mother immediately after her first intercourse, “because we talk very open[ly] about this. My friend’s mother also asked me how it was, if I had an orgasm and if he had one.”

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Ramon said that it was better to buy flowers from him: ‘I cut fresh from the garden when you want,’ he coaxed gently. He spoke even his broken English with the soft, rather sing- song drawl of the local peasants. ‘ But aren’t they our flowers? © inquired Mary, surprised. Ramon shook his head: ‘ Yours to see, yours to touch, but 352 THE WELL OF LONELINESS not yours to take, only mine to take —I sell them as part of my little payment. But to you I sell very cheap, Sefiorita, because you resemble the santa noche that makes our gardens smell sweet at night. I will show you our beautiful santa noche.’ He was thin as a lath and as brown as a chestnut, and his shirt was quite incredibly dirty; but when he walked he moved like a king on his rough bare feet with their broken toe-nails. ‘ This evening I make you a present of my flowers; I bring you a very big bunch of tabachero,’ he remarked. ‘Oh, you mustn’t do that,’ protested Mary, getting out her urse. : But Ramon looked offended: ‘I have said it. I give you the tabachero.’ 3 Tuerr dinner consisted of a local fish fried in oil — the fish had a very strange figure, and the oil, Stephen thought, tasted slightly rancid; there was also a small though muscular chicken. But Concha had provided large baskets of fruit; loquats still warm from the tree that bred them, the full flavoured little indigenous bananas, oranges sweet as though dripping honey, custard apples and guavas had Concha provided, together with a bottle of the soft yellow wine so dearly beloved of the island Spaniards. Outside in the garden there was luminous darkness. The night had a quality of glory about it, the blue glory peculiar to Africa and seen seldom or never in our more placid climate. A warm breeze stirred the eucalyptus trees and their crude, harsh smell was persistently mingled with the thick scents of heliotrope and datura, with the sweet but melancholy scent of jasmine, with the faint, unmistakable odour of cypress. Stephen lit a cigarette: ‘ Shall we go out, Mary? ’ They stood for a minute looking up at the stars, so much larger and brighter than stars seen in England. From a pond on the farther side of the villa, came the queer, hoarse chirping of innumerable frogs singing their prehistoric love songs. A star fell, shooting swiftly earthward through the darkness, THE WELL OF LONELINESS 353

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

  The style of the fourth Gospel differs widely from the ecclesiastical writers of the second century, and belongs to the apostolic age. It has none of the technical theological terms of post-apostolic controversies, no allusions to the state of the church, its government and worship, but moves in the atmosphere of the first Christian generation; yet differs widely from the style of the Synoptists and is altogether unique in the history of secular and religious literature, a fit expression of the genius of John: clear and deep, simple as a child, and mature as a saint, sad and yet serene, and basking in the sunshine of eternal life and love. The fourth Gospel is pure Greek in vocabulary and grammar, but thoroughly Hebrew in temper and spirit, even more so than any other book, and can be almost literally translated into Hebrew without losing its force or beauty. It has the childlike simplicity, the artlessness, the imaginativeness, the directness, the circumstantiality, and the rhythmical parallelism which characterize the writings of the Old Testament. The sentences are short and weighty, coordinated, not subordinated. The construction is exceedingly simple: no involved periods, no connecting links, no logical argumentation, but a succession of self-evident truths declared as from immediate intuition. The parallelism of Hebrew poetry is very apparent in such double sentences as: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you;" "A servant is not greater than his lord; neither one that is sent greater than he that sent him;" "All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that hath been made." Examples of antithetic parallelism are also frequent: "The light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not;" "He was in the world, and the world knew him not;" "He confessed, and denied not;" "I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish." The author has a limited vocabulary, but loves emphatic repetition, and his very monotony is solemn and impressive. He uses certain key-words of the profoundest import, as Word, life, light, truth, love, glory, testimony, name, sign, work, to know, to behold, to believe. These are not abstract conceptions but concrete realities. He views the world under comprehensive contrasts, as life and death, light and darkness, truth and falsehood, love and hatred, God and the devil, and (in the first Epistle) Christ and Antichrist.

• From Unbought and Unbossed: Transgressive Black Women, Sexuality, and Representation (2014)

  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 The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)

  Nor did anyone in that rich Detroit suburb, the home of the “auto-mobility,” drive a ten-year-old station wagon with a rusting fender and just one new door, which was painted a different color. Everything was cozy inside the car, with its blasting heat, its tinny radio, and, in the back, a can of turpentine and the rack for paintings. Outside, the snow was draping the luxuriant black pines in white. Away from her school and mine, we both relaxed. I imagined she no longer had to observe everything with the exhausting attention of someone always expected to have an aesthetic opinion. Nor did she have to behave with that deliberateness required of someone who lives in a small society where no rules are explicit but every action may be setting a precedent. After all, the art academy students were all free to do exactly as they pleased, a terrible responsibility, and even their teachers were painters with odd personal habits, including the urge to be alone. Here were sixty young people, men and women, some of them away from their rural, religious homes for the first time, and they were all expected to paint great paintings, move nearly wordlessly into and out of each other’s austere single beds, listen to Bach or Charlie Parker, and wear strange clothing that ostracized them from the prep school boys as well as from the furred gentry of the adjacent estates . In town Maria and I felt better. At least I did. The streets had been cleared, traffic lights lidded in snow burned like mad eyes, Christmas shoppers submitted to their forced labor, there were other cars cruising around as old and dirty as ours, everyone seemed busy and indifferent—the rich anonymity of the city. Maria invited me for a hamburger, not at the fancy Petite Auberge where “half-pounders” were loaded with melting Roquefort, but, as she said, “At that adorable greasy spoon.” From my mother I’d learned that “nice” people should always frequent “nice” places, but here was Maria, certifiably nice, who relished the diner, twirled on the metal stool like a bobby-soxer, and punched out tunes on the jukebox. “Don’t you just love the Everly Brothers?” she asked. I shrugged, but I think in that one remark Maria changed my way of seeing things. My father was rich in his remote but solid way, and my mother, divorced from him ten years earlier, was poor in her flamboyant way, squandering money on clothes and economizing on food. They each disapproved of each other; my father especially disapproved of my mother; the net effect was to confuse me. I never felt right in any setting. That I also feared I might be some sort of pansy only made me feel all the more weird. I wanted to escape my childhood world and be superior to it. I’d read about Oscar Wilde. Wilde made brilliant repartee, but not in a void. People had listened, remembered his words.

• From The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)

  In this studio with the bluish light reflected off the late-afternoon snow and the sound of outdoor voices traveling easily as over water, I felt a new form of comfort. Paul was beside me, blinking and thinking, a bird on spindly legs regarding his own gaudily cerebral paintings. A year before I’d wanted to be a Buddhist monk, but now I thought I’d prefer to be an artist of some sort. I wondered what Paul was thinking. Was he busily proposing and rejecting solutions, or was he staring into a void of indecision, of fear about going on with the work? I couldn’t tell, since he did not like to talk. His silences were enough like my father’s to fill me with grave anticipation. But he himself was completely different—as thin as my father was fat, as deferential as my father was overbearing, as open to new ideas as my father was closed. On the particle-board partition that separated his cubicle from the next, Paul had thumbtacked things that might inspire him: a reproduction from Time of an Arshile Gorky drawing; a National Geographic photo of neon-bright tropical fish darting through dun-colored fans of coral; a pencil sketch he had scrawled on a paper place mat from Howard Johnson’s. I glanced at my watch and realized I had to hurry back to school for the ringing of the next bell—I was on waiter duty at supper time. “How wonderful it must be to have long hours of freedom,” I said. Behind the glinting, anarchist’s glasses Paul’s eyes looked exhausted: “Someday you’ll have more freedom than you’ll want.” I could see his freedom was glued to him like a leech. Every day he looked thinner, older, more fragile, almost like someone recently dead who appears in our dreams, unshaved and reproachful. At the party in Jim Coburn’s studio (he made stained glass) I started talking to Maria. I’d never before been to a grown-up party as a grown-up and I’m sure I took it more seriously than anyone else there—I must be the only one alive who still remembers that casual event, a birthday drink in the middle of the afternoon. Maria was wearing a man’s shirt of white Oxford cloth; the button-down collar was unbuttoned and tipped up in back, so that it framed her long pale neck. In the hollow of her neck there was a smudge of red paint, just where a grandmother in a play might have worn a cameo on a black ribbon.

• From The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)

  Like everything else in the art academy, her room had a distinctive odor I’ve never encountered since except once, recently, in the Chanel boutique of a Paris department store. I almost asked the saleswoman what the smell could be, but the most important things in our intimate lives can’t be discussed with strangers, except in books. I was flushed from the wine, which, like an old-fashioned movie director, had edited out the entrances and exits and now was tracing a halo around the starlet’s profile. Everything in the common room had been chosen by the great Finnish architect who’d built the school, from the molded blond plywood chair I was sitting in to the unbleached muslin curtains. Outside, saltimbanques of snow were leaping up and flipping backward. That first visit I noticed several things about Maria that don’t usually go together—her hard intellectual zeal, for she was telling me about John Dewey’s Art and Experience , and her motherly kindness and love of coziness, for she’d tucked a down comforter over my legs, something she called a “bleemo” and that years later I realized must be a funny German-American pronunciation of plumeau . She did have a sharp way of arguing ideas, of saying “Nonsense!” or “What rubbish!” which reminded me of our English exchange student, who, despite his shingles and shyness, was intellectually combative. Of course, Maria was sufficiently American to smile every time she called me a “total idiot.” She worried I might find her room drafty . “You should try our dorms,” I said. “Deep freeze. Their tribute to Merrie Olde England.” She poured out a cup of tea to sober me up for my return to school. “I picture your school as far more decadent than ours.” “No such luck,” I said. Because they were both men, I was more drawn to Ivan and Paul than to Maria, at least at first. I was always trying to figure out their schedules, to find them in, to visit them without troubling them. I spaced out my visits. When I ran into Maria a week later, she was standing beside a broken-down old station wagon and talking to a tall woman in coveralls. When introduced, the woman shook my hand with a hot hand she drew out of a rawhide workman’s glove. Maria invited me to climb in beside her and drive into town. During my three years at school I’d been downtown only twice; it was strictly against the rules. It was snowing. The wipers slowly and noisily creaked against the dirty windows. We peered out of the portholes they cleared as the car crept down suburban lanes past the distant yellow lights of mansions. The bald tires slid on the ice. Maria said, “Shit,” and flashed me a tiny smile at her daring, for young ladies did not say such words.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  5 As soon as the king’s order spread, the Israelites gave in abundance the first fruits of grain, new wine, [olive] oil, honey, and of all the produce of the field; and they brought in the tithe of everything abundantly. 6 The sons of Israel and Judah who lived in the cities of Judah also brought in the tithe of oxen and sheep, and the tithe of sacred gifts which were consecrated to the LORD their God, and placed them in heaps. 7 In the third month [at the end of wheat harvest] they began to make the heaps, and they finished them in the seventh month. 8 When Hezekiah and the rulers came and saw the heaps, they blessed the LORD and His people Israel. 9 Then Hezekiah questioned the priests and Levites about the heaps. 10 Azariah the high priest of the house of Zadok answered him, “Since the people began to bring the offerings into the house of the LORD , we have had enough to eat with plenty left over, for the LORD has blessed His people, and this great quantity is left over.” 11 Then Hezekiah told them to prepare rooms [for storage] in the house of the LORD , and they prepared them. 12 They faithfully brought in the contributions, the tithes, and the sacred (dedicated) things. Conaniah the Levite was in charge of them, and Shimei his brother was second [in authority]. 13 Jehiel, Azaziah, Nahath, Asahel, Jerimoth, Jozabad, Eliel, Ismachiah, Mahath, and Benaiah were overseers directed by Conaniah and Shimei his brother by the appointment of King Hezekiah, and Azariah was the chief officer of the house of God. 14 Kore the son of Imnah the Levite, keeper of the East Gate, was in charge of the voluntary offerings to God, to apportion the contributions for the LORD and the most holy things. 15 Under his authority were Eden, Miniamin, Jeshua, Shemaiah, Amariah, and Shecaniah in the cities of the priests, to distribute faithfully their portions to their brothers (relatives) by divisions, whether great or small, 16 without regard to their genealogical registration, to the males from thirty years old and upward—everyone who entered the house of the LORD for his daily obligations—for their service in accordance with their duties by their divisions; 17 as well as the priests who were registered genealogically according to their fathers’ households, and the Levites from twenty years old and upward, by their duties and by their divisions. 18 The genealogical registration included all their little children, their wives, and their sons and daughters, for the whole assembly, because they consecrated themselves faithfully in holiness. 19 Also for the sons of Aaron, the priests, who were in the pasture lands of their cities or in each and every city, there were men who were designated by name to give portions to every male among the priests and to everyone genealogically registered among the Levites.

• From Vox (1992)

  “And a few houses. The streetlight is photo-activated, and watching it come on is really one of the most beautiful things.” “What time is it there?” “Um—six-twelve,” he said. “Is it dark there yet?” “No. Is it there?” “Not completely,” she said. “It doesn’t feel really dark to me until the little lights on my stereo receiver are the brightest things in the room. That’s not strictly true, but it sounds good, don’t you think? What hand are you holding the phone with?” “My left,” he said. “What are you doing with your right hand?” “My right hand is, at the moment, my fingers are resting in the soil of a potted plant somebody gave me, that isn’t doing too well. I’m sort of moving my fingers in the soil.” “What kind of a plant?” “I can’t remember,” he said. “The soil has several round polished stones stuck in it. Oh wait, here’s the tag. No, that’s just the price tag. An anonymous mystery plant.” “You haven’t told me what you’re wearing,” she said. “I am wearing … I’m wearing, well, a bathrobe, and flip-flops with blue soles and red holder-onners. I’m new to flip-flops—I mean since moving out here. They’re good in the morning for waking up. On weekends I put them on and I walk down to the corner and buy the paper, and the feeling of that thong right in the crotch of your toe—man, it pulls you together, it starts your day. It’s like putting your feet in a bridle.” “Are you ‘into’ feet?” she asked. “No no no no no no no no. On women? No. They’re neutral. They’re about like elbows. In my own case, I do …” “What?” “Well, I do very often, when I’m about to come, I seem to like to rise up on the balls of my feet. It’s something about the tension of all the leg muscles and the, you know, the ass muscles, it puts all the nerves in communication, it’s as if I’m coming with my legs. On the other hand, when I do it I sometimes feel like some kind of high school teacher, bouncing on his heels, or like some kind of demagogue, rising up on tiptoe and roaring out something about destiny.” “And then, at the very top of your relevé , you come into a tissue,” she said. “Yep.”

• From Vox (1992)

  And the little moving indicator on our stereo was lit with a yellow light, and I knew where all the stations were on the dial, and I’d spin the knob and the yellow indicator would glide up and down the radio cityscape like a cab up and down some big central boulevard, and each station was an intersection, in a neighborhood with a different ethnic mix, and if the red sign came on saying STEREO I might idle there for a while, or the cabbie might run the light, passing the whole thing by as it exploded and disappeared behind me. And sometimes I’d thumb the dial very slowly, sort of like I was palming a steering wheel, and move up, move up, in the silence of the muted stretches, and then suddenly I’d pierce the rind of a station and there would be this crackling hopped-up luridly colored version of a song that sounded for a second much better than I knew the song really was, like that moment in solar eclipses when the whole corona is visible, and then you slide down into the fertile valley of the station itself, and it spreads out beneath you, in stereo, with a whole range of middle and misty distances.” “That’s true!” she said. “It is true? That’s bad, because it means that I still have to come up with an imaginary thing, right?” “I’m afraid so.” “But my imagination doesn’t work that way,” he said. “It doesn’t just hop to at the snap of a finger. What do you want the imaginary thing I tell you to be about?” “I think that it should be about … my beads and my silverware, since they’re all laid out for us.” “Well,” he said. There was a pause. “Once there was a guy who, urn, needed his fork repaired. No, I can’t. I’m sorry. You tell me something more.” “It’s your turn.” “I need more confidences from you first. I need to be charged up with a stream of confidences flowing from you to me.” “Come on now,” she said. “Give it a try.” “Yeah, but I don’t think I can just be handed an assignment like that. I’m pedestrian. I think I have tp stay with the truth.” “All right, tell me what the most recent thing or event was that aroused you.” “The idea of making this call,” he said. “Before that.” “Let me think back,” he said. “The Walt Disney character of Tinker Bell. I was just leaving the video store, and I came to this big cardboard display of Peter Pan , the Walt Disney cartoon Peter Pan , which has just been rereleased, with a TV beside it playing the movie.” “When was this?” “This was today, about an hour and a half ago, I guess.

• From The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)

  The afternoon had been warm enough to melt the snow on the sidewalk, but now it had frozen white as milk glass. I felt a small secret pride in being with someone so handsome. His carefully combed hair froze stiff. His salient cheekbones shone and caught the passing lights. The intimacy between us seemed as sudden and transitionless as in a dream. When we reached a dark side street, he put my mittenless hand in his pocket and held it without saying anything. His apartment was big and underfurnished, as though a flood had scattered the contents of a single room over several. He sat me on a straight-back chair stranded in the middle of a carpetless wood floor, but when he stepped back and saw me marooned there he laughed and invited me into his bedroom. His name, he said, was Fred. His window cast a yellow trapezoid on the pure blue snow outside. The wind had traced in snow the black bark of the tree below. A soft tango was playing on the radio. He switched off the light. The snow looked fluffier, almost as though it had risen slightly. We sprawled side by side, athwart the bed, fully dressed, our wet shoes on the floor, staring at the ceiling. Fred’s voice and the tango explored the folds of my brain like a deadly parasite, whose progress can’t be detected except after it slowly starts to unsnap higher functions. In the center of the ceiling a pressed metal rosette had lost detail under each new layer of paint. Fred’s voice made my ear glow, or was it the cold? He told me that he’d just been released from a mental hospital. “I was in for a year. That’s why I don’t want to sleep with you right away. I’m very tender, just like a crayfish between shells.” We both laughed at the image. Our remarks slowed and scattered; a composer wouldn’t have had an easy time scoring them. My feet were warming up. Fred seemed really perfect because he needed me. I had a function to serve. Ordinarily I couldn’t imagine what use I could be to anyone. I asked him what he was studying. He said he was finishing a degree in English. “I’m writing on Herrick, on his ‘Corinna’s Going a-Maying,’ which is odd to think of in the snow.” A long sighing silence, the sigh of contentment. “What does ‘green-gown’ mean?” I asked. “A ‘green-gown’ is a tumble in the grass. I suppose it’s like a birthday suit.” And we both laughed together. “But surely you already knew that. You had to know it in order to ask,” and we both laughed harder. I liked the way our laughs sounded, although I still cringed at the sound of my speaking voice. I couldn’t lower it. Physically I could, but psychologically it felt presumptuous, as though it were arrogant to sound like a man instead of a boy. He told me his story.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  21 “He selected the best [land] for himself, For there the leader’s portion was reserved; Yet he came with the leaders of the people; He carried out the justice (righteous will) of the LORD , And His ordinances (judgments) with Israel.” [Num 32:29–33 ] 22 Of Dan he said, “Dan is a lion’s cub, That leaps forth from Bashan.” 23 Of Naphtali he said, “O Naphtali, satisfied with favor, And full of the blessing of the LORD , Take possession of the sea [of Galilee] and the south.” 24 Of Asher he said, “More blessed than sons is Asher; May he be favored by his brothers, And may he dip his foot in oil. 25 “Your strongholds will be iron and bronze, And as your days are, so will your strength, your rest and security be. 26 “There is none like the God of Jeshurun (Israel), Who rides the heavens to your help, And through the skies in His majestic glory. 27 “The eternal God is your refuge and dwelling place, And underneath are the everlasting arms; He drove out the enemy from before you, And said, ‘Destroy!’ 28 “So Israel dwells in safety and security, The fountain of Jacob alone and secluded, In a land of grain and new wine; His heavens also drop down dew. 29 “Happy and blessed are you, O Israel; Who is like you, a people saved by the LORD , The Shield of your help, And the Sword of your majesty! Your enemies will cringe before you, And you will tread on their high places [tramping down their idolatrous altars].” Deuteronomy 34 The Death of Moses 1 a N OW MOSES went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is opposite Jericho. And the LORD showed him all the land, from Gilead to Dan, 2 and all Naphtali and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah to the western sea (Mediterranean Sea), 3 and the Negev (South country) and the plain in the Valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, as far as Zoar. 4 Then the LORD said to him, “This is the land which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there.” 5 So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD . 6 And He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-peor; but no man knows where his burial place is to this day. 7 Although Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, his eyesight was not dim, nor his natural strength abated.

• From Vox (1992)

  But the irrelevance of what she said made her smile, because she was sitting on the couch, and now the TV was on, and that tiny super high-pitched sound of electrically charged picture-tube glass, that sound that you can sometimes hear even if you’re walking along the street, if windows are open, that is the TV giving itself away, declaring itself, even with the volume off, that sound that your ear seems to be able to hear better and better in the evening, or appreciate better, that means privacy and at-homeness and closed curtains and secrecy too, because it’s like when you snuck downstairs at six in the morning to watch The Three Stooges and kept the sound extremely low so your parents wouldn’t detect it, but you always worried that even though super high-pitched sounds don’t carry well at all, you thought it might travel upstairs and the knowledge that you were up and watching The Three Stooges would trouble their dreams— that sound was in the room with me and Emily, and even though it was just faces at a press conference on C-SPAN, we knew what it really meant. She pointed at her tea and she said, ‘On second thought, could you maybe plop a little bourbon or something in this?’ So I did. I put the tape in, and the VCR made its little swallowing sound, and I turned the sound up, and then there was, without even an FBI warning or anything, there was the logo, this blue word ATOM , with this wow-wow-wow-wow sine-wave kind of music that focused in on a note while the word ATOM focused too. There was a little stylized spirograph atom even—it was kind of moving to see this symbol which once meant progress and science fiction and chemistry and then the evils of radiation, and now it just means ‘Hey, you’re going to have to take this sex film very seriously, as seriously as anything that requires a linear accelerator to discover, I mean you can pretend to laugh, and think how funny and ridiculous, but you aren’t really going to laugh, because no matter how many times you see X-rated filmed sex in your apartment, just by renting a tape, it still will have the power to shock you a little bit, it’s still always miraculous, always a blessing.’ And then there was a preview. I handed her the controller and I said, ‘Fast-forward anytime something bores you.’ I’d forgotten about previews—all that fast editing, without any progression, and the sudden jolt of bouncing frans, then a sudden come-shot.

• From City of Night (1963)

  I had expected, because of the urgency of the telegram, to find the Professor in a state of desperation. He wasnt: He lay smiling on the bed. “Ah, child, child, you did come.... No, I wasnt asleep—I had just adjusted my hearing aid—I dont want to miss out on any of its fitful morning gossip!... I am Delighted you came. Not that I didnt expect you to show up. I can tell sincerity just as I can guess weights, ages, heights—you see, I have not lived these sixty-odd years without learning something—and I must pass on to you some of the things I have learned of this ambiguous existence we call life. Now bring your chair and sit near me.” He reaches for a pastel cigarette—feels with the other hand about his back, touching frantically. “Larry!” he calls desperately. “Larry!” And when the malenurse appeared, the Professor pleaded breathlessly: “Where is my tape-measure?” I saw it lying on the floor, beside the bed. I picked it up and started to hand it to him. Before the Professor could take it, the malenurse snatched it from me and gave it to him himself. “Ah, thank you, child,” the Professor says, to me, ignoring the malenurse, “you have saved—...My Life—and I will explain how—soon—during one of our future interviews—...You may go now, Larry, I have to interview this young—angel!” Now he drapes the tape-measure familiarly about himself, and I notice the chubby fingers searching out a certain place on it. His eyes are nailed to it momentarily—he moves the red marker. “Ah!” He held his fingers on the mark, as if he were praying a rosary....

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  50 This is my comfort in my affliction, That Your word has revived me and given me life. [Rom 15:4 ] 51 The arrogant utterly ridicule me, Yet I do not turn away from Your law. 52 I have remembered [carefully] Your ancient ordinances, O LORD , And I have taken comfort. 53 Burning indignation has seized me because of the wicked, Who b reject Your law. 54 Your statutes are my songs In the house of my pilgrimage. 55 O LORD , I remember Your name in the night, And keep Your law. 56 This has become mine [as the gift of Your grace], That I observe Your precepts [accepting them with loving obedience]. ח Heth. 57 The LORD is my portion; I have promised to keep Your words. 58 I sought Your favor with all my heart; Be merciful and gracious to me according to Your promise. 59 I considered my ways And turned my feet to [follow and obey] Your testimonies. 60 I hurried and did not delay To keep Your commandments. 61 The cords of the wicked have encircled and ensnared me, But I have not forgotten Your law. 62 At midnight I will rise to give thanks to You Because of Your righteous ordinances. 63 I am a companion of all who [reverently] fear You, And of those who keep and honor Your precepts. 64 The earth, O LORD , is full of Your lovingkindness and goodness; Teach me Your statutes. ט Teth. 65 You have dealt well with Your servant, O LORD , according to Your promise. 66 Teach me good judgment (discernment) and knowledge, For I have believed and trusted and relied on Your commandments. 67 Before I was afflicted I went astray, But now I keep and honor Your word [with loving obedience]. 68 You are good and do good; Teach me Your statutes. 69 The arrogant have forged a lie against me, But I will keep Your precepts with all my heart. 70 Their heart is insensitive like fat [their minds are dull and brutal], But I delight in Your law. 71 It is good for me that I have been afflicted, That I may learn Your statutes. 72 The law from Your mouth is better to me Than thousands of gold and silver pieces. י Yodh. 73 Your hands have made me and established me; Give me understanding and a teachable heart, that I may learn Your commandments. 74 May those who [reverently] fear You see me and be glad, Because I wait for Your word. 75 I know, O LORD , that Your judgments are fair, And that in faithfulness You have disciplined me. [Heb 12:10 ] 76 O may Your lovingkindness and graciousness comfort me, According to Your word (promise) to Your servant. 77 Let Your compassion come to me that I may live, For Your law is my delight.

• From Vox (1992)

  He dried the fork with a paper towel, and the rough places on the fork tore the paper, and that was too much for him, he almost felt like throwing the fork away, and he went to bed very dejected, wondering what the point of it all was. Okay? Now in this same city there was a jewelry store, that some might say was a little bit too trendy, but that was still a very nice place—they didn’t sell diamonds or emeralds or conventional big-ticket items like that, in fact it was called ‘Harvey’s Semi-Precious,’ after Harvey, the owner—and mostly it sold artisan stuff and collectibles. And you got a job there.” “I did?” she said. “What happened was, you went to a program in a university, and you got a masters in silversmithing, with some postgraduate work in pendant mounting and bead drilling, and you found that you had a very good eye, and you really were able to make bracelets and earrings and especially necklaces that looked good on people, not that looked good in the display case, in fact sometimes your work even looked a little strange, a little knobby and unsure of itself in the display case, but on the human form—divine. So you graduate from the program and it’s time to make a living, and you take your best work around to various jewelry places, and you get a mixed reaction, frankly, the world isn’t quite ready for you, and finally you take it to Harvey’s Semi-Precious, which you’ve avoided because in a way it’s a little down-market—it started as a head shop in fact, and Harvey’s this fairly old guy now with a big collection of fancy cigarette cases from the twenties that you find saddens you, and he’s got what you might call an old-world smell, but you interview with him, and he seems nice, and he’s very encouraging about your work, and you decide what the hay. But the only stipulation is, if you work for Harvey, you have to work in the store, in this small glass enclosure that kind of projects from one of the windows so that people walking by on the street can watch you work. You’re a little hesitant about that, but he draws the curtain open, tells you to take a seat, and it’s this nice little room, with many many small wooden drawers that are handy on either side, and a whole set of silversmithing tools that are mounted on little spring clips, and a nice flame there, a nice blue flame, with a yellow tip, and it really seems very cozy, and yet of course visible from the street, and so you start work. And Harvey could not be nicer—he treats you with kindly irony, and when you make a piece he especially likes, he is very appreciative.