Despair

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 Summer Sisters (1998)

  She tried to keep her eyes open but everything was so fuzzy. Suddenly she felt sick. She broke away and raced down to the water. She bounded out in the low tide … farther and farther, until the water caught the skirt of her dress, making it billow out around her like a parachute. Then she leaped like the deer she’d once seen in the pond, until the water was deep enough to carry her. She lay down … lay down and let the rise and fall of the sea carry her away. She could hear Caitlin’s voice screaming, “Oh my God … Vix … ” And Bru yelling, “Victoria … Victoria!” Then they were coming after her but she didn’t care. She was swimming now, swimming straight out like a mermaid, all the way to China, or whatever was on the other side. 20SHE WAS DREAMING of her own funeral. Tawny peered into the casket and yelled at her. Drugs, Victoria! After you promised … One joint! Vix argued, sitting straight up in the casket. One joint between four people . Tawny wouldn’t accept her feeble excuse. You see … you see now why we made you promise! But you broke your promise, didn’t you? Drugs and sex and … I don’t even want to think about what else. I should have sent you to parochial school . But I’m dead, Mother. What’s the point in being angry? Then act dead! Tawny shoved her back down and lowered the lid on the casket. The scene switched. Vix was in the ocean and it was dark. So dark. She kept slipping under. There was no point in struggling. She might as well give in to it. Suddenly she was grabbed from behind. She thrashed, kicked, screamed. Then she was being carried, no dragged, across the beach. Someone else was there, too. She could hear them whispering as they dumped her body into the back of a pickup truck. But it wasn’t really a truck, it was a hearse. They thought she was dead. She cried out and banged on the glass partition separating her from them. But it was no use. They couldn’t hear her. She awakened and sat upright, gasping, drenched with sweat. A terrible feeling washed over her, a feeling of impending doom. By sunrise she was dressed and throwing her clothes into the blue canvas duffel she’d bought with her own money to replace Tawny’s old suitcase. She had to escape. Now … before it was too late. As daylight lit the room Caitlin stirred. Vix stood absolutely still, willing her to stay asleep. But Caitlin opened her eyes, saw that Vix’s bed was neatly made, looked around, then focused on Vix and her duffel. “Don’t do this, Vix. Don’t ruin everything.” Vix felt like shouting at her, I’m not the one who ruined it! Even though she couldn’t remember everything about last night she remembered enough. It could have been another Vineyard disaster.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  I continued running until my side began to ache; then I half walked, half trotted, until the pain subsided; then I ran again. I had reached Stoke Newington and was headed south on the long straight road that led to Dalston, Shoreditch, and the City. Beyond that, I could not think: I had wit enough only to keep Stamford Hill - and her, and him - continually behind me; and to run. I was half-blind with weeping; my eyeballs felt swollen and hot in their sockets, my face was soaked with slobber, and growing icy. People must have stared as I passed by them; I believe one or two fellows reached out to pluck me by the arm; but I saw and heard them not, simply hurried, stumbling over my skirts, until sheer exhaustion made me slow my pace and look about me. I had reached a little bridge over a canal. There were barges on the water, but they were some way off yet, and the water below me was perfectly smooth and thick. I thought of that night, when Kitty and I had stood above the Thames, and she had let me kiss her ... I almost cried out at the memory. I placed my hands upon the iron rail: I believe that, for a second, I really considered heaving myself over it, and making my escape that way. But I was as cowardly, in my own fashion, as Kitty herself. I could not bear the thought of that brown water sucking at my skirts, washing over my head, filling up my mouth. I turned away and put my hands before my eyes, and forced my brain to stop its dreadful whirling. I could not, I knew, keep running all day. I should have to find a place to hide myself. I had nothing on me but my dress. I groaned aloud, and gazed about me again - but this time rather desperately. Then I held my breath. I recognised this bridge: we had driven over it every night since Christmas, on our way to Cinderella. The Britannia Theatre was nearby; and there was money, I knew, in our dressing-room. I set off, wiping my face with my sleeve, smoothing my dress and my hair. The door-man at the theatre eyed me rather curiously when he let me in, but was pleasant enough. I knew him well, and had often stopped to chat with him; today, however, I only nodded to him as I took my key, and hurried by without a smile. I didn’t care what he thought; I knew I should not be seeing him again.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  cuando me di cuenta que había estado esperando que mi vida comenzara —mi vida real— solo para darme cuenta que ya había ocurrido cuando no estaba prestando atención. Ese tren que estaba esperando para abordar, pasó a mi lado sin detenerse. Probablemente no habría una esposa, y nunca sabría lo que sería criar a mis hijos todos los días. En este punto, estoy demasiado acostumbrado a estar solo que soy como un hijo único. Y un hijo único no sabe cómo compartir sus cosas. Todd apuesta otro dólar, y yo salgo, seguido por Lin, Dutch y Eddie. Todd recoge el bote, y Dutch mezcla todas las cartas, repartiendo nuevamente. La música del piso de arriba, de repente, resuena cada vez más fuerte, y escucho pisadas en las escaleras seguidas por una puerta que se cierra. Los pies descalzos aparecen en el hueco de la escalera, las piernas se hacen más visibles a medida que descienden. Jordan se agacha, mirando debajo del techo del sótano. —Oye, ¿te importa si saco los Otter Pops7 del congelador? Todos la miran, girando sus cabezas, y hago un gesto, apenas apartando la mirada de mis cartas. —Sí, adelante —respondo rápidamente. Un calor líquido corre por mis brazos, y me miro la mano, luchando por concentrarme, porque ella es de lo único que estoy consciente ahora. Baja apresuradamente el resto de las escaleras, con pasos ligeros y rápidos como si tratara de no ser vista o escuchada mientras se lanza hacia la pared a mi derecha y levanta la tapa del gran congelador. La habitación se ha vuelto silenciosa, y no estoy seguro si los muchachos tienen miedo de hablar normalmente, porque hay una mujer en la habitación o si están distraídos. Miro mis cartas y busco en mi cerebro. ¿De qué estábamos hablando hace un minuto? Oh, niños. Claro. Escucho cosas que se mueven en el congelador y echo un vistazo, mi mirada inmediatamente cae a sus pies. Está de puntillas e inclinada, sosteniendo la tapa con una mano mientras rebusca en el enorme contenedor. Parece ser consciente de sus 7Helados pantalones cortos y que está agachada frente a una mesa de hombres, porque se endereza en unos pocos segundos y se baja los pantalones tanto como puede. Las uñas de sus pies están pintadas de un color rosa suave, y puedo decir que está usando un bikini debajo de su camisa gris. Las tiras son visibles atadas detrás de su cuello, y puedo ver más a través de los costados de su camiseta sin mangas, las que están recortadas, mostrando la piel curva y bronceada de su cintura. Los músculos en sus muslos se flexionan, y mi estómago se revuelve. Empiezo a mirar mis cartas, pero la veo metiendo su cabello detrás de sus orejas, y es entonces cuando noto los pequeños agujeros en la camiseta. En el hombro, por la costura. ¿Esa es…? —¿No es esa tu camiseta? —susurra Dutch, inclinado hacia mí.

• From City of Night (1963)

  The angry angel who plays the swinger in the childgame of statues: here to sentence everyone to pass Eternity doing the same things over and over, with our own huge guilty knowledge of things done— because we had to do them. Or perhaps, more importantly, of things undone— because we couldnt do them .... Here to sentence us for living the only way we could.... Caught! — in whatever absurd fate life has apathetically but elaborately chosen to trap us in.... The Negroes in torn muslin tunics over their pants jazzed It with flaming sticks; a white band played Dixie; and a southunn laydy said to a southunn genelmun in a southunn voice: “Aint that gorjus now, all them coluhs?”—and a woman: “Y’all come rought on back,” to the stray cotton-candied children, “this instant—y’heuh?” And the Parade like a long column of giant worms passed squirming slowly: dragon heads, clown heads, monster heads: all with enormous rolling eyes: all peopled by sad mad clowns throwing out the glass beads. They flowed mysteriously along the streets like ships sailing on the surface of my mind. Then I had the feeling that I was in hell. To be swallowed by those monstrous apparitions; but before I can be swallowed, is it Possible that this nightmare city will suddenly flare into flames—set off from one of the torches carried by the contorted dancing snaking bodies? I imagine the floats devoured by flames, the clowns-turned-angels, the clowns-turned-devils sprouting wings to join that vast exodus to heaven... or hell... or nowhere; and seeing the costumed people determinedly laughing—and the skeletons, the jesters, the cannibals, the vampires, the ragdolls, the witches, the leopard-people—I imagined the razing fire sweeping this rotten city. People scream! Attempt to Escape! Flee the holocaust!... Entrapped!... I imagine the rubble of French irongrillwork, the cockroaches of this city scurrying out of their dank places, the balconies toppling— crash! —the peeling falling walls of the Cathedral.... The purification. Vengefully, I cling to the vision of that terrible apocalyptic fire. But the Parade winds on. Little children in weird hats run like scurrying, lost mice... in a maze. The Parade. The Caravan. The dark masked Ritual. Clowns passing dumbly throwing out glass beads: a pantomime of life itself. Later, I’ll remember....

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  —¡Jesús, Cam! —Dejo escapar, busco mi billetera y saco dinero—. ¡Aquí hay cien dólares por cinco minutos de tu tiempo! —Lo coloco con fuerza sobre la barra— . No quiero un baile, lo único que quiero... Ella gira, y no tengo tiempo para reaccionar antes que su rodilla conecte entre mis piernas, haciéndome caer hacia adelante. Gruño, jadeando cuando un dolor incandescente arde como balas en mi ingle, muslos y estómago. Cierro los ojos con fuerza, cayendo sobre una rodilla y un sudor frío me recorre todo el cuerpo. Escucho débilmente su voz en mi oreja. —No bailaría para ti ni aunque valieras mil millones de dólares y tu polla tuviera el sabor de un Tootsie Pop de cereza —dice con rabia—. Aléjate de mí y de mi hermana. Olvida que existió. Un malestar se enrolla a través de mí, y me toma un tiempo antes de poder respirar regularmente de nuevo. Para cuando soy capaz de levantarme, mis piernas están temblorosas y Cam se ha ido. Y también mis cien dólares. —No la amas, ¿verdad? —pregunta Dutch. Termino de apilar las cajas en el garaje, mi cuarto proyecto en la última semana para mantenerme ocupado cuando no estoy en el trabajo. Dutch está afuera, sentado en una silla de jardín, inclinado hacia delante, sus codos sobre sus rodillas y mirándome como si fuera un toro en una tienda de China, a punto de romper una mierda en cualquier momento. Han pasado nueve días desde que vi a mi hijo o a Jordan, y cada día que pasa siento que se están alejando cada vez más de mí. Como si hubiera seguido adelante y como si nunca hubiera existido para ella. Cualquier esperanza que tenía se está agotando rápidamente. He llamado, enviado mensajes de texto y dejado mensajes para ambos, y la única ventaja que tengo es una dirección para escribirle a Cole. Tuve que acosar a su reclutador para que me la consiguiera. Envié mi primera carta ayer.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  de entrada, mi espalda contra el armario—. Vayamos a algún sitio, solo nosotros. Hoy hay un espectáculo de medianoche. Vamos. Salgamos de aquí y alejémonos por un par de horas y hablaremos. Lo miro fijamente. —En algún lugar oscuro, ¿cierto? ¿En un teatro donde no seremos vistos? Me mira como si eso fuera exactamente lo que estaba pensando y lo lamenta, pero así son las cosas. —Lo solucionaremos. —Planta sus manos a ambos lados de mi cabeza en la puerta detrás de mí y se inclina—. Simplemente todavía no. No te vayas todavía. El entumecimiento que he sentido desde anoche flaquea y lo escucho en mi cabeza. No voy a ninguna parte. No voy a ninguna parte... No tengo dudas de que eso sea verdad. Y siempre será verdad, Pike no se aleja de sus responsabilidades. Siempre cuidará de mí. Y no puedo pensar en nada más que preferiría ser para él más que una obligación. No puedo ser como Cole o su trabajo, su casa o sus facturas. No soy una obligación. Soy cualquier otra cosa. —¿Me amas? —pregunto—. ¿Estás enamorado de mí? Sostiene mis ojos e incluso en la oscuridad, puedo ver que sus ojos están rojos, cansados y dolidos. Pero cuando abre la boca, no salen las palabras. Sacudo mi cabeza. —No importa, supongo. —Me rindo—. No tienes el valor, así que no serás para siempre. —Me enderezo, apretando mi mano alrededor de las correas de mis bolsas—. Y al final, acabarás siendo nada más que una pérdida de mi tiempo. Su rostro cae y se ve tan completamente derrotado. No tiene la convicción de hacer nada. Todo lo que sabe es que no quiere que me vaya. —Oh, esto es demasiado bueno —dice alguien—. Así que ese es tu perversión, ¿eh, Jordan? Pike y yo giramos nuestras cabezas rápidamente para ver que Jay acaba de salir de la cocina y entrar en la sala de estar. Pike deja caer sus manos y se endereza, fijando a Jay con una mirada dura.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Jay gruñe, escupiendo en el suelo y llevando su mano hacia sus labios y apartándola, inspeccionándola. —¡Tiraste uno de mis dientes! —espeta. —¡Sal de aquí! —grita Cole, extendiendo sus brazos—. ¡Vete! El sudor brilla en la frente de Pike y me mira con los mismos ojos que tenía la noche en que dormimos juntos por primera vez. Cuando me senté a horcajadas sobre él en mi cama, y me contempló, cediendo y dándome todo lo que tenía. Todo lo demás a nuestro alrededor desaparece. Aprieta sus puños a sus costados y su cuerpo está rígido, como si estuviera a punto de lanzarse contra mí, tomarme en sus brazos y llevarme lejos. —¿Ustedes dos? —Escucho decir a Cole. Parpadeo, Pike baja su mirada y el hechizo se rompe. Cole se interpone entre nosotros, mirando del uno al otro mientras la gente se dispersa lentamente y lo veo que comienza a conectar los puntos por la forma en que justo nos estábamos mirando el uno al otro. —¿Jordan? —Cole me presiona para que diga algo, pero solo bajo mi mirada, incapaz de mirarlo. Pike traga, respirando superficialmente. —Cole... —Oh, vete a la mierda —le dice Cole, interrumpiéndolo y retrocediendo. Pike da un paso, pero Cole gira y sale corriendo, fuera del patio y por la calle. Pike no lo sigue. Conoce a su hijo al menos tan bien como yo y Cole no escuchará nada esta noche. ¿Y qué diría Pike para mejorarlo de todos modos? El daño está hecho. Pike se queda allí, mirando a Cole y luciendo como si la vida le hubiera sido succionada. ¿Qué tiene ahora? Sacando mis llaves, bajo por la escalera del porche y camino hacia mi auto, sin detenerme, ni titubear cuando paso junto a Pike Lawson. Y tampoco me sigue. Ahora sé que dijo en serio lo que dio a entender anoche. No valgo la pena. **** Sé que todo es un desastre, escribo en mi teléfono.

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  Lamb HE LIVES WITH A terrible feeling in his gut twenty-four hours a day. He gobbles Maalox tablets by the handful. He cries at the drop of a hat. He can’t understand what’s happened. Abby is careful not to blame him, not to blame anyone. Phoebe calls it wanderlust. Some people are born with it, she tells him. Whatever it is, he’s not sure he can bear it. She refused to see him in Barcelona. Sent a messenger to his hotel with the name and address of a lawyer in New York instead. Refused to see him! His precious daughter. How can he help her if she won’t let him? He’ll forgive her anything. He just wants her to come home. Come home, Caitlin, and be a mother to your baby! Sharkey What did they expect? Abby SHE THINKS OF Grandmother Somers in her forties, taking in Dorset and Lamb. She’s past fifty, menopausal, but feels young, younger than she has in years. And more relaxed. Maybe it’s the hormones. Maybe it’s Maizie. It’s as if she and Lamb have changed places. He’s the anxious one now, carrying around a baby monitor, checking on Maizie three or four times during the night. Sometimes she’ll find him standing over Maizie’s crib, watching her breathe, tears streaming down his face. He’s listening to the Beatles again, for the first time since John Lennon was killed. She tries to reassure him. Maizie will be fine. She’ll grow up strong and confident, surrounded by loving adults, with cousins and step-siblings for company. They’ll set limits, guide her, teach her to be responsible. But the way he looks at her when she talks about Maizie’s future breaks her heart. She dreads the day Caitlin comes waltzing back into their lives, expecting to take Maizie away with her. Even though Caitlin has signed the papers relinquishing all rights—giving her and Lamb physical custody, while they share legal custody with Bru—she knows biological mothers have an edge in court. But she won’t give up Maizie easily! Well, Abby ... her own mother says, you’ve finally got your little girl.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  She pushed me to the doorway, but here I held fast to the gate, and begged her. ‘Please, Diana! Let me only collect my things!’ I looked past her, to Dickie, and Maria: the gazes they turned upon me were livid and blurred, with the wine and with the chase, and held not one soft spark of sympathy. I looked at all the ogling ladies in their fluttering costumes. ‘Help me, can’t you?’ I cried to them. ‘Help me, for God’s sake! How many times have you not gazed at me and wanted me! How many times have you not come to say how handsome I am, how much you envy Diana the owning of me. Any one of you might have me now! Any one of you! Only, don’t let her put me into the street, into the dark, without a coin on me! Oh! Dam’ you all for a set of bitches, if you let her do such a thing, to me!’ So I cried out, weeping all the time I spoke, then turning to wipe my running nose on the sleeve of my cheap frock. My cheek felt twice its ordinary size, and my hair was matted where I had lain upon it; and at last, the ladies turned their eyes from me in a kind of boredom - and I knew myself done for. My hands slid from the gate, Diana pushed me, and I stumbled into the alleyway beyond. Behind me came my sailor’s bag, to land with a smack on the cobbles at my feet. I raised my eyes from it to look once more upon Diana’s house. The windows of the drawing-room were rosy with light, and ladies were already picking their way across the grass towards them. I caught a glimpse of Mrs Hooper; of Dickie, fixing her monocle to her watery eye; of Maria; and of Diana. A few strands of her dark hair had come loose from their pins, and the wind was whipping them about her cheeks. Her housekeeper said something to her, and she laughed. Then she closed the door, and turned the key in it; and the lights and the laughter of Felicity Place were lost to me, for ever. Chapter 4 T he Star, when we reached it at noon the next day, turned out to be not a tenth as smart as those marvellous West End halls before which we had leaned, with Mr Bliss, to dream of Kitty’s triumph; even so, however, it was quite alarmingly handsome and grand. Its manager at this time was a Mr Ling; he met us at the stage door and took us to his office, to read aloud the terms of Kitty’s contract and secure her signature upon it; but then he rose and shook our hands and shouted for the call-boy, and had us shown, rather briskly, to the stage.

• From City of Night (1963)

  And I was thinking: It has to happen—I have to be liberated again. No matter what kind of whirling his words have set off within me, I must undo it all. Yes, I knew suddenly... as if it would be the last time... that he must want me again, on my own terms—and that, then, his probing words, their impact on me (my own dangerous thoughts, even now, slowly threatening to succumb to what everything in the world indicates is the most murderous of all myths... Love)—all will be erased.... I took the money he had placed earlier on the table for me—the money which, I knew clearly now, had rested there as a test, and I put it into the pocket of my pants on the floor. Then I lay beside him. I reached again for his hand, and I placed it again on my body. And this time his hand was very, very, cold.... His hand didnt move. And then I pushed it with mine. He turned sideways, toward me, and our bodies touched closely.... For a moment I didnt move—and then I turned away quickly. I leaned back. Now the movements of his hands are his own. “This is the answer?” he asked, smiling strangely. “Yes,” I said. And this time, beyond what I was coaxing him to do, it had to be something else. The symbolic significance! I thought—echoing his words and many other words? And so it had to be this: He turned over on his stomach. My body pressed against his, entering him.... Then it was over. The orgasms have made us strangers again. All the words between us are somehow lost, as if, at least for this moment, they have never been spoken. I washed slowly and dressed. The sound of the anarchy outside is beating on my senses, summoning me. If only for this dangerous time, something vastly important, for me, had been reestablished, I told myself. And yet—... Yet, instead of triumph... I felt abject, crushing defeat. I stood over Jeremy still lying in bed. Complete strangers. I looked at the crumpled white sheets. But was that so? Were we indeed strangers? Or had we, rather, known each other too intimately? Had we searched too hard and found too much of the despised world in each of us? He was looking at me smiling. Smiling at me, perhaps. Perhaps smiling at himself. Smiling wryly maybe at the whole world which had determined all that had been said in this room—by him, by me. All that had happened. That wry smile seemed to be a judgment on the world. I leaned over him and I kissed him on the lips. And I was thinking: Yes, maybe youre right. Maybe I could love you. But I wont. The grinding streets awaited me. CITY OF NIGHT

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  When the coasts are clear, I will be yours. I swear it.’ ‘Is there no other way?’ he asked her. ‘None. I know that it is never going to happen. Don’t dwell upon the possibilities. It just can’t be done. In any case what kind of a person are you, to have designs upon another man’s wife? My body is not for auction.’ Aurelius sighed very deeply. He was depressed by what he had heard, and with sorrowful countenance he replied to her. ‘Ma dame,’ he said, ‘you have set me an impossible task. There is no choice for me now. I must die a piteous death.’ And with these words he turned and walked away. Now the rest of the company came and joined them, not realizing the conversation that had passed between them. They paraded through the garden walks, and soon began singing and dancing again until the setting of the sun. The horizon dimmed its light. The night came upon them. So they went back to their homes in peace and happiness - all except Aurelius, of course, who returned to a house of woe. He saw no remedy but in death. He felt his breast, and it was as cold as ice. He fell down on his knees and raised his hands to heaven. He prayed - he knew not what. He was out of his mind with grief. He did not know what to say or what to do, so instead he set up a long low complaint to the gods in heaven. He addressed the sun first of all. ‘Fair Apollo,’ he prayed, ‘you are god and governor of every living thing on earth. You lend the time and give the season for every plant and flower and tree. Just as you take care of Nature, great god, will you take care of your poor servant Aurelius? Cast your eye upon the wretch who kneels before you. Oh god above! I am lost. My lady has condemned me to death, but I am innocent. Through your divine kindness have some pity on my plight. I know well enough, great Phoebus, that you could help me best - next to Dorigen, of course. I know that you can work all things to your will. Please tell me what I ought to do. Please give me hope. ‘I know that your sister, Lucina, full of grace, is the mistress of the moon. She is also the principal goddess of the sea and the tides; she has dominion even over Neptune in the affairs of the deep. You know better than I do, Lord Phoebus, that she likes nothing better than to be lit by your fire. So she follows you through the firmament, and in turn the mighty seas follow her as their lawful protector and deity; she holds sway over every stream and brook. So this is my request to you, great lord. Perform this miracle for me, or I will die.

• From Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)

  But so far they have been able to talk one another into sticking it out. For instance, one of the members, the one who’d had the article published, called me last week and told me she was on the verge of giving up because she hadn’t sold anything else in the months since her piece came out. She said in an Eeyore-like voice that she thought she could drink again safely now that she’d been sober for seven years, and she’d decided that I could, too, since I’d also been sober for seven years. Her plan was to come pick me and Sam up, and then we’d drive around until we found a biker bar with child care. I made sounds of empathy and reminded her that she’d been this stuck before. Short assignments, I whispered. Shitty first drafts. She mewled. I asked if there was anyone in her writing group who might be helpful. But she said no, she couldn’t call them, she knew they were all doing well, that they’d all had a great week, and that anyway they probably got together every few days without telling her and exchanged their favorite derisive stories about her and rolled their eyes. I told her to sit down and write about how she felt, and that maybe all her loneliness and paranoia would turn out to be great material. She said she wasn’t paranoid. She just worried that all her friends got together in small groups and talked meanly about her. But right then she got a call on the other line. It turned out to be someone in her writing group who was also really depressed, and she asked me if she could call right back. Then I didn’t hear from her the rest of the day. Finally I called her back, worried that she was sitting in her car in the garage with the engine running and an old Leslie Gore tape on the stereo. But it turned out that the person who’d called her was really on the ward, really depressed, and he is a wonderful, beautiful, funny writer who was badly abused as a child. She deeply believes in him, so she gave him a rousing pep talk, and right after hanging up, she got back to work on her book, and she had in fact been working ever since until I’d called and interrupted her. Someone to Read Your DraftsThere’s an old New Yorker cartoon of two men sitting on a couch at a busy cocktail party, having a quiet talk. One man has a beard and looks like a writer. The other seems like a normal person. The writer type is saying to the other, “We’re still pretty far apart. I’m looking for a six-figure advance, and they’re refusing to read the manuscript.” Now, I’ve been wrong before, but I’d bet you anything that this guy never shows his work to other writers before trying to get someone to buy it.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  ‘Almighty God, through whose will and foresight the whole world is governed, You create nothing without a purpose. Yet why, then, did You create these fearful rocks below me? They are so dark and so destructive. They seem more like a foul fault in creation than the work of a wise and benevolent deity. Why did You let them issue from Your hand? There is no living thing that cannot be harmed by them. Any man or bird or beast - from any point of the compass - can be broken against them. These sinister rocks do nothing but harm. Do You know, Lord, how many men and women have been shipwrecked? Of course You do. The rocks of the ocean have killed many hundreds of thousands of people, all of them lost and forgotten. It is said that You loved humankind so much that You fashioned it in Your own image. It seemed then that You were bestowing a great boon. How then is it possible that You should create these evil rocks that do nothing but provoke death and disaster? No possible good can come from them. ‘I believe theologians argue that Your providence is such that all things turn out for the best. I myself cannot follow their arguments about destiny and free will. I say only this. May the God who made the winds blow, preserve my husband! That is all. The scholars can dispute as much as they like. I pray only that all the rocks in the world are consigned to hell for my husband’s sake.’ So Dorigen, in tears, would express her grief. Her friends began to realize that these walks by the sea were not doing her any good. Quite the opposite. So they set about finding some other place to entertain her. They took her to cool rivers and to holy wells; they took her to dances and other celebrations; they taught her to play chess and backgammon. Then one morning, at the rising of the sun, they came into a garden where they had laid out food and drink to accompany their revels all that day. This was on 6 May, a fair morning when the sweet showers had brought forth the leaves and flowers of early spring; they had been arrayed so carefully throughout the garden that there was no other display like it in the world. It was like a garden in paradise. The scent and brightness of the flowers would have lightened any heart, except for one bowed down with sorrow or distress. It was a place of beauty and delight. After they had eaten, the lords and ladies set out to sing and dance - all of them, that is, except for Dorigen, who still made her moan. There was no dancing for her if her husband was not part of the happy company. Still she sat on one side, not in solitary retreat, and hoped that her sorrow might lessen a little.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  He took his leave of her, and she stood there astonished. All the blood drained from her face. She had never believed that it would come to this. She was trapped. ‘How could this happen?’ she asked herself. ‘How could he have performed such a miracle? Or monstrosity? It is against the course of nature.’ She returned to her home in sorrow and perplexity. She could hardly make her way back. For two days she wept and wailed. She cried aloud, and on occasions fainted away. It was pitiful to see her. She could confide in no one, of course. And, as it happened, Arveragus was away from home. She could speak only to herself and, in the privacy of her own chamber, with pale and sorrowful face, she uttered her lament. ‘Alas, Dame Fortune, I am caught upon your wheel. You have trapped me unawares, and there is no escape. There is no conclusion for me but death or dishonour. I must choose one or the other. The truth is that I would rather forfeit my life than my honour. Death would be preferable to the loss of virtue and the loss of name. I would be quiet and sinless in the grave. Have not many noble wives, and young maidens, killed themselves rather than sacrifice their bodies? I know many examples. ‘When the thirty cursed tyrants of Athens slew Phidon at a feast, they ordered his daughters to be stripped naked and brought before them. They were forced to dance and perform like prostitutes, slipping in their father’s blood, so that the foul lust of the tyrants could be satisfied. God curse the wicked men! The poor maidens were filled with shame and horror and, rather than lose their virginity, they broke away and rushed to a well in a nearby courtyard. They plunged in, and drowned themselves.

• From Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)

  But knowing the source of all our stuff deprives it of its magic, because then the material feels mundane, clichéd; you didn’t have to discover it because it was already there for all to see. You may start to feel that you are trying to pass off a TV dinner as home cooking. We have all been there, and it feels like the end of the world. It’s like a little chickadee being hit by an H-bomb. Here’s the thing, though. I no longer think of it as block. I think that is looking at the problem from the wrong angle. If your wife locks you out of the house, you don’t have a problem with your door. The word block suggests that you are constipated or stuck, when the truth is that you’re empty. As I said in the last chapter, this emptiness can destroy some writers, as do the shame and frustration that go with it. You feel that the writing gods gave you just so many good days, maybe even enough of them to write one good book and then part of another. But now you are having some days or weeks of emptiness, as if suddenly the writing gods are saying, “Enough! Don’t bother me! I have given to you until it hurts! Please. I’ve got problems of my own.” The problem is acceptance, which is something we’re taught not to do. We’re taught to improve uncomfortable situations, to change things, alleviate unpleasant feelings. But if you accept the reality that you have been given—that you are not in a productive creative period—you free yourself to begin filling up again. I encourage my students at times like these to get one page of anything written, three hundred words of memories or dreams or stream of consciousness on how much they hate writing—just for the hell of it, just to keep their fingers from becoming too arthritic, just because they have made a commitment to try to write three hundred words every day. Then, on bad days and weeks, let things go at that. [image file=Image00006.jpg] I remind myself nearly every day of something that a doctor told me six months before my friend Pammy died. This was a doctor who always gave me straight answers. When I called on this one particular night, I was hoping she could put a positive slant on some distressing developments. She couldn’t, but she said something that changed my life. “Watch her carefully right now,” she said, “because she’s teaching you how to live.” I remind myself of this when I cannot get any work done: to live as if I am dying, because the truth is we are all terminal on this bus. To live as if we are dying gives us a chance to experience some real presence. Time is so full for people who are dying in a conscious way, full in the way that life is for children. They spend big round hours.

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  • • • Mom and Dad found a room in a boardinghouse a few blocks from Lori’s apartment. The steely-haired landlady helped them move in, and a couple of months later, when they fell behind on their rent, she put their belongings on the street and padlocked their room. Mom and Dad moved into a six-story flophouse in a more dilapidated neighborhood. They lasted there a few months, but when Dad set their room on fire by falling asleep with a burning cigarette in his hand, they got kicked out. Brian believed that Mom and Dad needed to be forced to be self-sufficient or they’d be dependent on us forever, so he refused to take them in. But Lori had moved out of the South Bronx and into an apartment in the same building as Brian, and she let them come stay with her and Maureen. It would be for just a week or two, Mom and Dad assured her, a month at the most, while they got a kitty together and looked for a new place. One month at Lori’s became two months and then three and four. Each time I visited, the apartment was more jam-packed. Mom hung paintings on the walls and stacked street finds in the living room and put colored bottles in the windows for that stained-glass effect. The stacks reached the ceiling, and then the living room filled up, and Mom’s collectibles and found art overflowed into the kitchen. But it was Dad who was really getting to Lori. While he hadn’t found steady work, he always had mysterious ways of hustling up pocket money, and he’d come home at night drunk and gunning for an argument. Brian saw that Lori was on the verge of snapping, so he invited Dad to come live with him. He put a lock on the booze cabinet, but Dad had been there under a week when Brian came home and found that Dad had used a screwdriver to take the door off its hinges and then guzzled down every single bottle. Brian didn’t lose his temper. He told Dad he had made a mistake by leaving liquor in the apartment. He said he’d allow Dad to stay, but Dad had to follow some rules, the first being that he stop drinking as long as he was there. “You’re the king of your own castle, and that’s the way it should be,” Dad replied. “But it’ll be a chilly day in hell before I bow to my own son.” He and Mom still had the white van they’d driven up from West Virginia, and he started sleeping in that. Lori, meanwhile, had given Mom a deadline to clean out the apartment. But the deadline came and went, and so did a second and a third. Also, Dad was always dropping by to visit Mom, but then they got into such screeching arguments that the neighbors banged on the walls. Dad starting fighting with them, too.

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  But when he falls asleep, he dreams only of Victoria. 31ON JANUARY 28, the Challenger shuttle blew up during takeoff, killing all the astronauts aboard, including Christa McAuliffe, and that night Vix fell apart, crying uncontrollably, banging her fists against the wall. What was the point? You worked your ass off, you struggled to get someplace, and wham! just like that, it could all come crashing down. Nothing made sense. She’d suppressed her feelings about Bru until that moment. But just like the shuttle, their love had come crashing down, over in a flash. Maybe the Countess was right after all. Live for the moment. There might be no tomorrow. And even if there is, nobody really gives a damn. Her hysteria frightened Maia, who ran down the hall to find Paisley. When the truth came out, she and Paisley exchanged such looks! “You broke up with Bru and you didn’t tell us?” Maia asked. “How could you keep something like that to yourself?” But she was a master at keeping it all to herself. She’d learned at the feet of an even greater master, hadn’t she? Deny … deny … deny … When they’d returned from vacation they’d had two weeks of reading time, two weeks to prepare for exams. She couldn’t tell them about Bru then, couldn’t allow herself to think about it. And if the shuttle hadn’t blown up she might have made it through the semester without confronting reality. “We didn’t exactly break up,” she explained. “We’re taking time off.” That was the truth, wasn’t it? They hadn’t broken up. No one ever said they were breaking up. “Whose idea … his or yours?” Maia asked. “We agreed.” “Who suggested it?” “Does it matter?” “Just tell me, okay …” “He did.” “Then he’s an idiot and you’re better off without him.” MaiaVICTORIA CAN BE so secretive! It doesn’t make being her friend easy. But for better or worse, they are friends. And friendship is what’s on her mind as she sits alone at the medical clinic waiting to be seen. She’s not going to stand back and watch Victoria flush it all down the toilet because of some guy. She’s not going to let her jeopardize her scholarship. They have two classes together and she happens to know Victoria hasn’t been keeping up with her reading. She’ll do whatever’s necessary to help —if only she doesn’t have cancer, because she’s discovered a dark spot on her foot that she’s almost sure is a melanoma. She just hopes it’s not too late. When her name is called she steps into the cubicle where a young doctor holds a magnifying glass to her foot and examines the spot. He doesn’t think it’s anything, he tells her, but he measures it anyway, then draws its shape on a page in her medical record. Come back in a month , he tells her, sooner if you notice any change . You’re not going to do a biopsy?

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  LORI WAS WORKING as a freelance artist specializing in fantasy, illustrating calendars and game boards and book jackets. Brian had joined the police force as soon as he turned twenty. Dad couldn’t figure out what he’d done wrong, raising a son who’d grown up to become a member of the gestapo. But I was so proud of my brother on the day he was sworn in, standing there in the ranks of the new officers, straight- shouldered in his navy blue uniform with its glittering brass buttons. Meanwhile, Maureen had graduated from high school and enrolled in one of the city colleges, but she never really applied herself and ended up living with Mom and Dad. She worked from time to time as a bartender or waitress, but the jobs never lasted long. Ever since she was a kid, she’d been looking for someone to take care of her. In Welch, the Pentecostal neighbors provided for her, and now in New York, with her long blond hair and wide blue eyes, she found various men who were willing to help out. The boyfriends never lasted any longer than the jobs. She talked about finishing college and going to law school, but distractions kept cropping up. The longer she stayed with Mom and Dad, the more lost she became, and after a while she was spending most of her days in the apartment, smoking cigarettes, reading novels, and occasionally painting nude self-portraits. That two-room squat was cramped, and Maureen and Dad would get into the worst screaming fights, with Maureen calling Dad a worthless drunk and Dad calling Maureen a sick puppy, the runt of the litter, who should have been drowned at birth. Maureen even stopped reading and slept all day, leaving the apartment only to buy cigarettes. I called and persuaded her to come up to see me and discuss her future. When she arrived, I scarcely recognized her. She’d bleached her hair and eyebrows platinum and was wearing dark makeup as thick as a Kabuki dancer’s. She lit one cigarette after another and kept glancing around the room. When I brought up some career possibilities, she told me that the only thing she wanted to do was help fight the Mormon cults that had kidnapped thousands of people in Utah. “What cults?” I asked. “Don’t pretend you don’t know,” she said. “That just means you’re one of them.”

• From Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)

  But knowing the source of all our stuff deprives it of its magic, because then the material feels mundane, clichéd; you didn’t have to discover it because it was already there for all to see. You may start to feel that you are trying to pass off a TV dinner as home cooking. We have all been there, and it feels like the end of the world. It’s like a little chickadee being hit by an H-bomb. Here’s the thing, though. I no longer think of it as block. I think that is looking at the problem from the wrong angle. If your wife locks you out of the house, you don’t have a problem with your door. The word block suggests that you are constipated or stuck, when the truth is that you’re empty. As I said in the last chapter, this emptiness can destroy some writers, as do the shame and frustration that go with it. You feel that the writing gods gave you just so many good days, maybe even enough of them to write one good book and then part of another. But now you are having some days or weeks of emptiness, as if suddenly the writing gods are saying, “Enough! Don’t bother me! I have given to you until it hurts! Please. I’ve got problems of my own.” The problem is acceptance, which is something we’re taught not to do. We’re taught to improve uncomfortable situations, to change things, alleviate unpleasant feelings. But if you accept the reality that you have been given—that you are not in a productive creative period—you free yourself to begin filling up again. I encourage my students at times like these to get one page of anything written, three hundred words of memories or dreams or stream of consciousness on how much they hate writing—just for the hell of it, just to keep their fingers from becoming too arthritic, just because they have made a commitment to try to write three hundred words every day. Then, on bad days and weeks, let things go at that. [image file=Image00006.jpg] I remind myself nearly every day of something that a doctor told me six months before my friend Pammy died. This was a doctor who always gave me straight answers. When I called on this one particular night, I was hoping she could put a positive slant on some distressing developments. She couldn’t, but she said something that changed my life. “Watch her carefully right now,” she said, “because she’s teaching you how to live.” I remind myself of this when I cannot get any work done: to live as if I am dying, because the truth is we are all terminal on this bus. To live as if we are dying gives us a chance to experience some real presence. Time is so full for people who are dying in a conscious way, full in the way that life is for children. They spend big round hours.

• From Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)

  Everyone would be so shocked to hear that this book had almost been thrown away. But my editor said, “I’m sorry.” I looked at him quizzically. “I am so, so sorry,” he said. “But it still doesn’t work.” He didn’t understand why certain things happened the way they did, or why some things happened to begin with, and most importantly, why so little happened at all. I sat there staring at him as if his face were melting. “I am so sorry,” he said, and for a while I was too stunned to cry. I kept touching my forehead, the way you pat your head to make sure your hair is Okay. I think I must have looked like Blanche DuBois on bad acid. Then I started to cry and told him I had to go right that very second. He said to phone him the next day. I said I would, although I did not actually expect to be alive then. Luckily, I was still drinking at the time. I went to the house where I was staying with old family friends, slammed down a dozen social drinks with them, and then took a cab to meet some other friends. I had a few hundred more drinks with them, and the merest bit of cocaine—actually, I began to resemble an anteater at one point. Then I went to a liquor store and got a half-pint of Irish whiskey and went back to the house where I was staying and had little social slugs of Bushmills straight from the bottle until I passed out. I was a little depressed when I woke up. I looked at my manuscript in my suitcase, thought about all those beautiful, hilarious, poignant people I had been working with for almost three years, and all of a sudden I was in a rage. I called my editor at home. He was not planning on going to work that day. He was a little depressed, too. “I am coming over,” I said, and there was a silence, and then he said, very tentatively, “Okay,” like he wanted to ask, “And will you be bringing your knives?” Then I went downstairs and caught a cab to his apartment. He let me in and tried to get me to sit down, but I was too crazy and disappointed and angry and crushed and humiliated and shocked. I held my manuscript to my chest like a baby. There were sections where friends who had read it had laughed out loud, or had called me, crying. There was some incredibly funny material in there, some important things no one else was writing about.