Excitement

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

Page 16 of 182 · 20 per page

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

  I never knew why I was given a scholarship to the California Labor School. It was a college for adults, and many years later I found that it was on the House Un-American Activities list of subversive organizations. At fourteen I accepted a scholarship and got one for the next year as well. In the evening classes I took drama and dance, along with white and Black grownups. I had chosen drama simply because I liked Hamlet's soliloquy beginning, “To be, or not to be.” I had never seen a play and did not connect movies with the theater. In fact, the only times I had heard the soliloquy had been when I had melodramatically recited to myself. In front of a mirror. It was hard to curb my love for the exaggerated gesture and the emotive voice. When Bailey and I read poems together, he sounded like a fierce Basil Rathbone and I like a maddened Bette Davis. At the California Labor School a forceful and perceptive teacher quickly and unceremoniously separated me from melodrama. She made me do six months of pantomime. Bailey and Mother encouraged me to take dance, and he privately told me that the exercise would make my legs big and widen my hips. I needed no greater inducement. My shyness at moving clad in black tights around a large empty room did not last long. Of course, at first, I thought everyone would be staring at my cucumber-shaped body with its knobs for knees, knobs for elbows and, alas, knobs for breasts. But they really did not notice me, and when the teacher floated across the floor and finished in an arabesque my fancy was taken. I would learn to move like that. I would learn to, in her words, “occupy space.” My days angled off Miss Kirwin's class, dinner with Bailey and Mother, and drama and dance. The allegiances I owed at this time in my life would have made very strange bedfellows: Momma with her solemn determination, Mrs. Flowers and her books, Bailey with his love, my mother and her gaiety, Miss Kirwin and her information, my evening classes of drama and dance.

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

  As we shook onto the shelf of the road the car nearly stalled and I stamped both feet again on the pedal and clutch. We made no progress and an awful amount of noise, but the motor didn't stop. I understood then that in order to go forward I would have to lift my feet off the pedals, and if I did so abruptly the car would shake like a person with St. Vitus Dance. With that complete understanding of the principle of motor locomotion, I drove down the mountainside toward Calexico, some fifty miles away. It is hard to understand why my vivid imagination and tendency toward scariness didn't provide me with gory scenes of bloody crashes on a risco de Mexico. I can only think that my every sense was concentrated on steering the bucking car. When it became totally dark, I fumbled over knobs, twisting and pulling until I succeeded in finding the lights. The car slowed down as I centered on that search, and I forgot to step on the pedals, and the motor gurgled, the car pitched and the engine stopped. A bumbling sound from the back told me that Dad had fallen off the seat (I had been expecting this to happen for miles). I pulled the hand brake and carefully considered my next move. It was useless to think of asking Dad. The fall on the floor had failed to stir him, and I would be unable to do so. No car was likely to pass us—I hadn't seen any motor vehicles since we passed the guard's house early in the day. We were headed downhill, so I reasoned that with any luck we might coast right up to Calexico—or at least to the guard. I waited until I formulated an approach to him before releasing the brake. I would stop the car when we reached the kiosk and put on my siddity air. I would speak to him like the peasant he was. I would order him to start the car and then tip him a quarter or even a dollar from Dad's pocket before driving on. With my plans solidly made, I released the brake and we began coasting down the slope. I also pumped the clutch and the accelerator, hoping that the action would speed our descent, and wonder of wonders the motor started again. The Hudson went crazy on the hill. It was rebelling and would have leaped over the side of the mountain, to all our destruction, in its attempt to unseat me had I relaxed control for a single second. The challenge was exhilarating. It was me, Marguerite, against the elemental opposition. As I twisted the steering wheel and forced the accelerator to the floor I was controlling Mexico, and might and aloneness and inexperienced youth and Bailey Johnson, Sr., and death and insecurity, and even gravity.

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

  T.V.’” “Class”—Miss Williams smirked and continued lazily without giving us permission to sit down—“although you are only in the seventh grade, I'm sure you wouldn't be so presumptuous as to sign a letter with an initial. But here is a boy in the eighth grade, about to graduate-blah, blah, blooey, blah. You may collect your valentines and these letters on your way out.” It was a nice letter and Tommy had beautiful penmanship. I was sorry I tore up the first. His statement that whether I answered him or not would not influence his affection reassured me. He couldn't be after you-know-what if he talked like that. I told Louise that the next time he came to the Store I was going to say something extra nice to him. Unfortunately the situation was so wonderful to me that each time I saw Tommy I melted in delicious giggles and was unable to form a coherent sentence. After a while he stopped including me in his general glances.

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

  Because of his late-arriving but intense paternal sense, I was introduced to the most colorful characters in the Black underground. One afternoon, I was invited into our smoke-filled dining room to make the acquaintance of Stonewall Jimmy, Just Black, Cool Clyde, Tight Coat and Red Leg. Daddy Clidell explained to me that they were the most successful con men in the world, and they were going to tell me about some games so that I would never be “anybody's mark.” To begin, one man warned me, “There ain't never been a mark yet that didn't want something for nothing.” Then they took turns showing me their tricks, how they chose their victims (marks) from the wealthy bigoted whites and in every case how they used the victims' prejudice against them. Some of the tales were funny, a few were pathetic, but all were amusing or gratifying to me, for the Black man, the con man who could act the most stupid, won out every time over the powerful, arrogant white. I remember Mr. Red Leg's story like a favorite melody. “Anything that works against you can also work for you once you understand the Principle of Reverse. “There was a cracker in Tulsa who bilked so many Negroes he could set up a Negro Bilking Company. Naturally he got to thinking, Black Skin means Damn Fool. Just Black and I went to Tulsa to check him out. Come to find out, he's a perfect mark. His momma must have been scared in an Indian massacre in Africa. He hated Negroes only a little more than he despised Indians. And he was greedy. “Black and I studied him and decided he was worth setting up against the store. That means we were ready to put out a few thousand dollars in preparation. We pulled in a white boy from New York, a good con artist, and had him open an office in Tulsa. He was supposed to be a Northern real estate agent trying to buy up valuable land in Oklahoma. We investigated a piece of land near Tulsa that had a toll bridge crossing it. It used to be part of an Indian reservation but had been taken over by the state. “Just Black was laid out as the decoy, and I was going to be the fool. After our friend from New York hired a secretary and had his cards printed, Black approached the mark with a proposition. He told him that he had heard that our mark was the only white man colored people could trust. He named some of the poor fools that had been taken by that crook. It just goes to show you how whitefolks can be deceived by their own deception. The mark believed Black.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  “Yes. I have stomach problems, terrible stomach cramps. Problems with my bowel. I don’t know why I’m telling you this.” The word bowel made me giggle. “What kind of problems?” I said. “Like you can’t go or you go too much?” “Both,” he said. “It depends on the day.” “I’m sorry I’m laughing. I know it’s not funny. But it’s weird talking about this with a stranger.” “We all do it, you know.” “I know. Have you ever accidentally gone in your wet suit?” Now I was laughing so hard that tears formed in the corners of my eyes. He was grinning and treading water. “That’s privileged information,” he said. “I feel like we’re not intimate enough to go that far.” “Ah, okay, I understand. Good that you have your limits,” I said. “I don’t, it’s just—we would need to be more close for me to disclose something like that,” he said, smirking. “What would be more close?” “I don’t know,” he said. “Like if I had touched you before or something.” I felt surprised. I don’t know why I am always surprised when a man is attracted to me. Maybe because he was so beautiful and young. But I guess it made sense. Why else was he hanging around these rocks? “Do you want to touch me?” I asked. “Yes,” he said. “Where do you want to touch me?” I said coyly. He swam over to the edge of my rock. I suddenly felt nervous. “Hmmmmm,” he said. “Would you let me touch your ankle?” “My ankle?” I laughed. “Yeah, your ankle.” “Okay,” I said. “You can touch my ankle.” He ceremoniously lifted one hand, wiggled his fingers like a pianist, and gave my calf a little squeeze. I laughed. Then, he lightly cupped my ankle and massaged it gently, looking up at me. I stopped laughing. Slowly, he ran two fingers up and down the middle of my foot bone. He pressed each of the toes, one by one, and made his way around to the back where he gently massaged my Achilles tendon. “You have such cute ankles,” he said. When he was done massaging he sort of patted the top of my foot like a child’s head. Then he hugged my calf with his hand and head. It was weird as hell but it felt so good. “No,” he said. “I’ve never shit in a wet suit.” 25.“Doesn’t Venice make you want to shag everyone?” said Claire the next afternoon. “They’re all so scrummy.” She was getting her nails and toenails done at a salon in my neighborhood, preparing to meet David for their first real date—not just sex. I was sitting in the pedicure chair next to her but not getting anything done. “Beyond scrummy,” I said. “Well, I’m relieved to hear that you haven’t totally retired your pussy—at least in thought,” she said. “No,” I said. “Actually, I’ve been hanging out with this swimmer.” “A swimmer,” she said. “Like an Olympian?” “No, like ocean.”

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

  In quiet pathways, the mystics walked with God and, though they did not repudiate the sacramental system, they called attention to the religion of the heart as the seat of religion. The Imitation of Christ was written once, for all ages. The Church had found its proper definition as the body of the elect and that idea stood in direct antithesis to the theory the hierarchy worked upon. The preaching of the Waldenses had been condemned by the Fourth Lateran Council, but there was a growing popular demand for instruction as well as the spectacle of the mass, and the catechetical manuals laid stress upon the sermon. The Albigenses had been completely blotted out, but the principles of Lollardism and Hussitism continued to flow, though as little rills. The Inquisition was still doing its work, but in Germany schools for all classes of children were being taught. The laity was asserting its rights in the domain of learning and culture. These influences were silently preparing the soil for the new teachings. In the 15th century, a potent force stirred Europe as Europe had never been stirred by it before,—Commerce. The industrial change, then going on, deserves more than a passing reference as a factor preparing the mind for intellectual and religious innovation. This, at least, is true of the German people. Explorations and the extension of commerce have, in more periods than one, preceded a revival of missionary enterprise. But, of all the centuries, none is so like the 19th as the last century of the Middle Ages,—vital with humanistic forces of all kinds. It was a time of revolution in the methods of trade and the comforts and prices of living. The world could never be again just what it had been before. There was marked restlessness among the artisan and peasant classes. This industrial unrest was adapted to encourage and to beget unrest in things ecclesiastical and to accustom the mind to the thought of change there. From Italy, whose harbors were the outfitting points for fleets during the Crusades, the centre of trade had shifted to the cities north of the Alps and to the Portuguese coast. Nürnberg, Ulm, Augsburg and Constance in Southern Germany; Bruges, Antwerp and other cities along the lower Rhine and in Flanders; and the cities of the Hanseatic League were bustling marts, turning out new and wonderful products of manufacture and drawing the products of the outside world through London, Lisbon, Lyons and Venice. Energy and enterprise were making Germany rich and her mercantile houses had their representatives and depots in Venice, Antwerp and other ports.1340 Methods of business, such as to-day are suggesting grave problems to the political economist and moralist, were introduced and flourished. Trading companies and monopolies came upon the stage and startled the advocates of the old feudal ways by the extent and boldness of their operations.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  I was in high school, trying with some friends to run a small Christian Studies group. We decided one term that we would do a series of studies about Jesus, each beginning with “Why?” The topics included such questions as: Why was Jesus born? Why did Jesus live? Why did Jesus die? Why did Jesus rise again? And why will he return? (I don’t think we had one on why Jesus ascended, though we should have.) Anyway, for some reason I was assigned the task of preparing and leading the second of these: Why did Jesus live? I soon realized, even as a raw teenager, that I had drawn the short straw. After all, if you were given Jesus’s birth, you could talk about the incarnation, about God becoming man. We all had memories of Christmas sermons, and we knew how important it was that Jesus wasn’t just an ordinary human being: he was God in person. There was even the whole question of the virgin birth. No shortage of material there. The same was true too for the person who was to speak about Jesus’s death. Even at that tender age we knew not only that it was important to say “he died for our sins,” but to push a little bit farther and ask how that happened, how it made sense. For myself, that is, so to speak, where I came in: my earliest memory of personal faith was when, as a very small boy, I was overwhelmed, reduced to tears, by the thought that Jesus died for me. What the cross says about the love of God has always been central and vital for me. I don’t think we schoolboys quite grasped the range of what is called “atonement theology.” But we knew there were some important questions to look at and some important and central beliefs to grasp hold of. So too with the resurrection. And, indeed, the second coming. Again, I’m not sure we went very deep or even necessarily explored the most helpful biblical passages. But these were thrilling topics. There was plenty to talk about, plenty to chew over, plenty to make us not only think hard, but also celebrate the excitement of believing in Jesus and of trying to live as a Christian. But what about that question in the middle—my question? Why did Jesus live ? What, in other words, about the bit between the stable and the cross? There were, after all, Christmas carols and other hymns that took Jesus straight “from his poor manger to his bitter cross.” Did it matter that, according to the four gospels, he had a short period of intense and exciting public activity at the latter end of his life? What truth could we learn from it? Why did it have to be like that? Does it matter that he did all those things, that he said all those things, that he was all those things?

• From How God Became King (2012)

  In the year 1900, a book was published that changed the imagination of America. Its creator, L. Frank Baum, had stumbled into writing fantasy fiction some years before, mostly to while away time spent on the road as a traveling salesman. But The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was an instant hit, and Baum never looked back. Three years later, the show of the same name (but without the “Wonderful”) opened on Broadway. In one form or another, the story has been delighting audiences young and old ever since. Baum, as I said, never looked back—in more ways than one. He wrote several sequels to the Wizard, but never a prequel. Almost a hundred years later, in 1995, Gregory Maguire remedied this omission—and changed the way a new generation would understand the original book and the original show. He published a book entitled Wicked, in which the Wicked Witch of the West was not always so wicked. All sorts of new light is shed on why things were as they were when Dorothy, the heroine of the original story, came to the land of Oz. By 2003, exactly a century after the original Broadway show, Wicked opened as a musical and is running there and elsewhere in the world to this day. The idea of telling the “previous history” of an already famous story is not, of course, new. J. R. R. Tolkien published his celebrated fantasy novel The Hobbit in 1937 and followed it with the magnum opus The Lord of the Rings in 1954–55. But it was left to his son, Christopher, to assemble the bits and pieces that his father had written about the far distant history of Middle-Earth in The Silmarillion (1977) and the massive twelve-volume History of Middle-Earth (1983–96). Happily, we are not in the same position with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Their backstory was written long ago, and it is readily available. But—perhaps to our surprise!—many people, reading the gospels today, read them not only as if that backstory did not exist, but as if there was a different backstory altogether. For people in that position, rediscovering the proper backstory will mean that, like those who return to The Wizard of Oz after reading or experiencing Wicked, they will see the main story itself in a whole new light. The first speaker of our quadraphonic sound system to be turned up is this: the four gospels present themselves as the climax of the story of Israel. All four evangelists, I suggest, deliberately frame their material in such a way as to make this clear, though many generations of Christian readers have turned down the speaker to such an extent that they have been able, in effect, to ignore it. In order to grasp this point we need to take a step back. We need to think about the ways in which the story of Israel was being told at the time. The Strange Story of Israel

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

  Two of John’s cardinals met Sigismund at Como, Oct. 13, 1413, and discussed the time and place of the new synod. John preferred an Italian city, Sigismund the small Swabian town of Kempten; Strassburg, Basel, and other places were mentioned, but Constance, on German territory, was at last fixed upon. On Oct. 30 Sigismund announced the approaching council to all the prelates, princes, and doctors of Christendom, and on Dec. 9 John attached his seal to the call. Sigismund and John met at Lodi the last of November, 1413, and again at Cremona early in January, 1414, the pope being accompanied by thirteen cardinals. Thus the two great luminaries of this mundane sphere were again side by side.288 They ascended together the great Torazzo, close to the cathedral of Cremona, accompanied by the lord of the town, who afterwards regretted that he had not seized his opportunity and pitched them both down to the street. Not till the following August was a formal announcement of the impending council sent to the Kaufhaus Gregory XII., who recognized Sigismund as king of the Romans.289 Gregory complained to Archbishop Andrew of Spalato, bearer of the notice, of the lateness of the invitation, and that he had not been consulted in regard to the council. Sigismund promised that, if Gregory should be deposed, he would see to it that he received a good life position.290 The council, which was appointed for Nov. 1, 1414, lasted nearly four years, and proved to be one of the most imposing gatherings which has ever convened in Western Europe. It was a veritable parliament of nations, a convention of the leading intellects of the age, who pressed together to give vent to the spirit of free discussion which the Avignon scandals and the schism had developed, and to debate the most urgent of questions, the reunion of Christendom under one undisputed head."291 Following the advice of his cardinals, John, who set his face reluctantly towards the North, reached Constance Oct. 28, 1414. The city then contained 5500 people, and the beauty of its location, its fields, and its vineyards, were praised by Nieheim and other contemporaries. They also spoke of the salubriousness of the air and the justice of the municipal laws for strangers. It seemed to be as a field which the Lord had blessed.292 As John approached Constance, coming by way of the Tirol, he is said to have exclaimed, "Ha, this is the place where foxes are trapped." He entered the town in great style, accompanied by nine cardinals and sixteen hundred mounted horsemen. He rode a white horse, its back covered with a red rug. Its bridles were held by the count of Montferrat and an Orsini of Rome. The city council sent to the pope’s lodgings four large barrels of Elsass wine, eight of native wine, and other wines.293

• From The Pisces (2018)

  I had no idea what it was. Good. i’ve always wanted to fuck there. wear lingerie and I’ll fuck you in your sweet little pussy and asshole I’d never thought of my pussy as little. Maybe it was big. What if I had a huge pussy? Also, my asshole? I had never had anal and it seemed terrifying to me. I knew, through all of the butt songs the kids listened to on campus, that the ass was a big thing now. Apparently everyone was eating each other’s assholes and putting things in them. But then why did he want me to wear lingerie? It seemed kind of retro, not contemporary at all like anal. Now that I thought of it, though, anal sex was a timeless act. The Romans all fucked each other in the ass. I felt like I didn’t know anything. But also I was excited. what color I asked. It was like I had become a puppet. I just wanted to please him. Black bra black panties. and garters. meet me in the lobby at 1 pm All of my underwear was white and kind of threadbare. I had never been a sexy-lingerie kind of girl. It never went with my aesthetic. Also, I had a propensity for yeast infections. Whenever I wore anything other than cotton there were issues. So I called Claire. “I’m going to be having sex…at a hotel…he’s getting a room for the night…the graphic designer, not the chimpanzee one. He wants me to wear lingerie. Do you know where I should go to get something cute? Victoria’s Secret?” “Victoria’s Secret? You’re joking,” she laughed. “That’s faff. Let me take you somewhere good.” I skipped group and met her in Brentwood at a place called La Boom Boom. Immediately I could tell it was way out of my price range: a hybrid of Mercedes-keyed tight-bodied moms in yoga pants and potential porn stars. You couldn’t tell who were the moms and who were the porn stars, but they all definitely had money. Who were these women buying lingerie in the middle of the day? I guess this was what everyone did in L.A. The place reminded me of being inside a black-and-pink birthday present. The walls were pink with black velvet stripes and there were little pink chocolates on a table. I ate some. “Come on,” said Claire. “Don’t be scared.” “How much do you think this stuff is?” “Just go in there,” said Claire, pointing to one of the little pink changing rooms. “I’ll bring you stuff. What size are you?” “I’m a 32 B on the top last time I checked,” I said. “But barely. I have no idea what I am on the bottom.”

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

  During Clement’s rule, Rome lived out one of the picturesque episodes of its mediaeval history, the meteoric career of the tribune Cola (Nicolas) di Rienzo. Of plebeian birth, this visionary man was stirred with the ideals of Roman independence and glory by reading the ancient classics. His oratory flattered and moved the people, whose cause he espoused against the aristocratic families of the city. Sent to Avignon at the head of a commission, 1343, to confer the highest municipal authority upon the pope, he won Clement’s attention by his frank manner and eloquent speech. Returning to Rome, he fascinated the people with visions of freedom and dominion. They invested him on the Capitol with the signiory of the city, 1347. Cola assumed the democratic title of tribune. Writing from Avignon, Petrarch greeted him as the man whom he had been looking for, and dedicated to him one of his finest odes. The tribune sought to extend his influence by enkindling the flame of patriotism throughout all Italy and to induce its cities to throw off the yoke of their tyrants. Success and glory turned his head. Intoxicated with applause, he had the audacity to cite Lewis the Bavarian and Charles IV. before his tribunal, and headed his communications with the magnificent superscription, "In the first year of the Republic’s freedom." His success lasted but seven months. The people had grown weary of their idol. He was laid by Clement under the ban and fled, to appear again for a brief season under Innocent V. Avignon was made papal property by Clement, who paid Joanna of Naples 80, 000 florins for it. The low price may have been in consideration of the pope’s services in pronouncing the princess guiltless of the murder of her cousin and first husband, Andreas, a royal Hungarian prince, and sanctioning her second marriage with another cousin, the prince of Tarentum. This pontiff witnessed the conclusion of the disturbed career of Lewis the Bavarian, in 1347. The emperor had sunk to the depths of self-abasement when he swore to the 28 articles Clement laid before him, Sept. 18, 1343, and wrote to the pope that, as a babe longs for its mother’s breast, so his soul cried out for the grace of the pope and the Church. But, if possible, Clement intensified the curses placed upon him by his two predecessors. The bull, which he announced with his own lips, April 13, 1346, teems with rabid execrations. It called upon God to strike Lewis with insanity, blindness, and madness. It invoked the thunderbolts of heaven and the flaming wrath of God and the Apostles Peter and Paul both in this world and the next. It called all the elements to rise in hostility against him; upon the universe to fight against him, and the earth to open and swallow him up alive. It blasphemously damned his house to desolation and his children to exclusion from their abode.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  These books are not long. They are hardly War and Peace —but they are every bit as much page-turners as some of the great novels. We need to shed some inhibitions and experiment with ways of allowing the gospels to speak their message afresh. Preachers and teachers too need to face the challenge of communicating the excitement and drama of an entire book, so that hearers are led both into fresh worship then and there and into an eagerness to read it, and live it, for themselves. Equally, we need to try new ways of praying the gospels. Many have used, with great profit, the Ignatian method of entering into a story, becoming a character within it. Think of yourself as a bystander or onlooker as you watch Jesus asleep in the boat with the disciples panicking all around him, or as an extra guest at the supper table, suddenly wondering, “Lord, it’s not me, is it?” Stay there long enough to hear what he has to say to you in particular. That method is well known, and rightly so. But there are ways of doing this corporately too. Again, be innovative. Read the gospels for all they’re worth; and they’re worth a lot more than we have usually supposed. Consider, for instance, reading through Matthew and allowing the Lord’s Prayer, which Matthew puts at the center of the Sermon on the Mount, to become the prayer you pray after each chapter or section to sum up and draw together all that you’ve been reading. Or try doing the same with John’s gospel, using Jesus’s great High-Priestly Prayer in chapter 17. The point is that if it’s true that in Jesus God was genuinely “becoming king,” that is something that cannot remain a matter of mere “information,” something we learn about with our heads. It’s something we must pray, something that, through prayer, must become a new reality in our lives and our communities . This whole book has been about new reality, the new reality of Jesus and his launching of God’s kingdom. The new reality of a story so explosive (unlike the muddled, murky, “self-help” world of the noncanonical gospels!) that the church in many generations has found it too much to take and so has watered it down, cut it up into little pieces, turned it into small-scale lessons rather than allowing its full impact to be felt. Part of the tragedy of the modern church, I have been arguing, is that the “orthodox” have preferred creed to kingdom, and the “unorthodox” have tried to get a kingdom without a creed. It’s time to put back together what should never have been separated.

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

  I ask, stupidly, and we make a plan to meet after dinner by the bar on the private beach. He says he will wait there for me as no one comes on that beach at night. I calmly rise from my seat despite the thumping of my heart. He catches my arm as I turn to go and pulls me down toward him so that my lips meet his for a kiss as passionate as it is quick. I have been rendered speechless, so I touch my lips with my index finger, give a small smile and walk away. It takes every iota of self-restraint I have not to leap down the beach, cackling with glory and laughter. Instead, I walk slowly, attempting to sashay, knowing he is watching my every step. Back at the pool, the kids and Michael have disappeared so I dig my phone out of my bag and call Tina, who knows Blaze from her recent vacation here. I silently plead for her to pick up and when she finally does, I blurt out, “Tina, I have a date with Blaze tonight.” “Mama, what are you talking about? You just got there! Hang on, I’m at pick-up, school just let out. I have to tell Alexandra and Sarah, they’re right here,” she says, and I hear shouts of kids in the background as she excitedly tells Alexandra and Sarah that I’m calling from the Caribbean and I have a date with the object of my fantasy. There is joyous shrieking and laughter all around and then Tina comes back on the line, saying, “We are so excited for you. Tell us everything. And be safe!” I call #6, feeling the need to confess, wanting to give him one last chance to say he can’t have me sleeping with another man, but he doesn’t answer. CHAPTER 44Lost CondomsI still find it challenging to put my own needs up there with my kids’ needs, but I know it’s the only way forward. I have to take care of myself properly if I am to take care of them the way I want to, which means not just managing their basic care but showing by example how to live a life with joy, serenity, kindness and compassion. If I do not give myself opportunities to feel happy or at peace or filled up as a woman, how will I be a mother who can share these qualities with her children? I am consumed with feelings of guilt, terrified that if I let myself thrive in my life outside of motherhood I am sacrificing my children. Friends and books keep telling me I must grab the oxygen mask first for myself and second for the kids, but it sounds like validation for selfish behavior.

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

  I am moved that this room has been given such attention to detail, especially when the rest of the place has a just-moved-in feel. He offers me a glass of wine and we sit on the beige L-shaped sofa. The television is on but muted, and I can see the local news flickering. He seems distracted by the TV, his eyes darting over every few minutes to follow the news stories, but he makes no move to turn it off. He asks me what I want to do for the evening and I tell him that he gets to decide since we are on his turf. He decides to take me for a drive in his convertible down to the water, where there is a bar he likes. First, he has to change his clothes. He goes into his bedroom but leaves the door open, and I can see him pull his T-shirt over his head before turning the corner toward the closet. I think back to my first night of sex, with #1, how I nervously took off all my clothes while he was in the bathroom, and I wonder again if this is a cue. Am I supposed to follow him to his room? Did he want me to, but not want to say it for fear of being too forward? If he didn’t want me to, wouldn’t he have closed his door? I set my glass of wine on a sports magazine on the coffee table and walk quietly to his bedroom, where I lean against the doorway, watching him get dressed. He has put on a pair of jeans and is buttoning a purple-and-white checked Oxford shirt. When he sees me watching him, he asks if his outfit looks OK. “Yes, it looks quite good,” I respond, a smile slowly forming. “But maybe don’t go through all the trouble of buttoning it.” He comes to the doorway and faces me, coyly asking, “Oh no? What should I do with it?” “Let me see what’s underneath it,” I say, my fingers already undoing the top button. When I finish with the bottom button, I let my hand linger on his stomach. His ab muscles are rock-hard, his six-pack defined and angular. He stands still, watching me eye him, not making a move closer to me but not moving away either. “I think we should have sex before we leave,” I state matter-of-factly. “Oh really?” he says, laughing. “You can’t wait, huh?” “Of course I can wait,” I say. “I just don’t want to.” I put my hands on his shoulders so that I can push the shirt down his arms and off. He has the firefighter body of my dreams, each muscle distinct and firm without being excessively bulky. I unsnap the narrow belt cinching my dress in and then pull down the flimsy straps so that I can shimmy out of it.

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

  And now you’re single and dating, like your life is going in reverse.” “It feels that way to me too, like I’m sowing the wild oats I should have sown in my 20s,” I say, and then tell her about my one-night stand with #1, my debacle with #2, my summer flings with #3 and #4, the disaster that #5 has turned out to be, the promising potential of #6. “Oh wow, you’ve been busy!” she says. ‘I’m impressed with how bold you’ve been and that you keep forging ahead even when you have experiences that aren’t positive.” “I’m surprised too that I haven’t been deterred by the more unpleasant experiences. The pros outweigh the cons I guess, and every date with a new man is an adventure. It’s exciting to walk in with no idea what to expect and see where it goes. And it turns out that I really love having sex. I feel like I’m insatiable. I imagine at some point the novelty will wear off, but right now I’m trying to make the most of it.” “Have you had anal sex?” she leans forward to quietly ask. “No, and it’s funny you should ask because a few of the men have asked me about it. I’m pretty open-minded, but that terrifies me. I’m squeamish even thinking about it.” “I swear to you it’s the best thing ever. It makes every other orgasm you’ve ever had feel like a warm-up. You just have to get over it mentally. When I have sex now that’s not anal, it’s totally humdrum,” she says. “Huh. I would not have expected you to say that. I will try to work up the courage,” I say. “Laura, please start writing all of this down. It might be cathartic for you and you have a lot of good stories,” she says. I give her a half-hearted reply, saying I will think about it but don’t think I have enough of an attention span to write coherently. * The barrage of phone calls and texts from #5 continue well into the night. Sometimes they’re sweet, “I will miss our morning hellos and the sound of your voice and the way your hair smells”, and sometimes full of fury, “I can’t believe I opened up to you, you’re such a liar, I never should have trusted you. And here I thought you were different from other women.” I text him back one time to let him know that I will not be responding anymore. The onslaught goes on for days. Lauren suggests that I block him but I am convinced he’s going to make an appearance at my building or wait for me after I drop Georgia at school, so I would rather get his texts and ignore them to know if he’s still at it or trailing off.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  These books are not long. They are hardly War and Peace—but they are every bit as much page-turners as some of the great novels. We need to shed some inhibitions and experiment with ways of allowing the gospels to speak their message afresh. Preachers and teachers too need to face the challenge of communicating the excitement and drama of an entire book, so that hearers are led both into fresh worship then and there and into an eagerness to read it, and live it, for themselves. Equally, we need to try new ways of praying the gospels. Many have used, with great profit, the Ignatian method of entering into a story, becoming a character within it. Think of yourself as a bystander or onlooker as you watch Jesus asleep in the boat with the disciples panicking all around him, or as an extra guest at the supper table, suddenly wondering, “Lord, it’s not me, is it?” Stay there long enough to hear what he has to say to you in particular. That method is well known, and rightly so. But there are ways of doing this corporately too. Again, be innovative. Read the gospels for all they’re worth; and they’re worth a lot more than we have usually supposed. Consider, for instance, reading through Matthew and allowing the Lord’s Prayer, which Matthew puts at the center of the Sermon on the Mount, to become the prayer you pray after each chapter or section to sum up and draw together all that you’ve been reading. Or try doing the same with John’s gospel, using Jesus’s great High-Priestly Prayer in chapter 17. The point is that if it’s true that in Jesus God was genuinely “becoming king,” that is something that cannot remain a matter of mere “information,” something we learn about with our heads. It’s something we must pray, something that, through prayer, must become a new reality in our lives and our communities. This whole book has been about new reality, the new reality of Jesus and his launching of God’s kingdom. The new reality of a story so explosive (unlike the muddled, murky, “self-help” world of the noncanonical gospels!) that the church in many generations has found it too much to take and so has watered it down, cut it up into little pieces, turned it into small-scale lessons rather than allowing its full impact to be felt. Part of the tragedy of the modern church, I have been arguing, is that the “orthodox” have preferred creed to kingdom, and the “unorthodox” have tried to get a kingdom without a creed. It’s time to put back together what should never have been separated. In Jesus, the living God has become king of the whole world. These books not only tell the story of how that happened. They are the central means by which those who read and pray them can help to make that kingdom a reality in tomorrow’s world. We have misunderstood the gospels for too long.

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

  The “public phase” began with my earliest attempts to go out into the world as a woman. My very first experience involved walking around a shopping mall for about fifteen minutes, followed by purchasing a milkshake at a fast-food drive-through window. The fact that nobody seemed to give me a second glance, and that the cashier said, “Thank you, ma’am,” as she handed me my change, completely blew me away. Like the mirror moments, these experiences of having my femaleness acknowledged in some small way were profound and moving. Over time, I continued to go out dressed in public more and more, typically doing rather mundane things such as going to museums or shopping. I always made sure that there were lots of people around and that I could easily “get away” in the event that something bad happened. Admittedly, the early sense of excitement associated with being dressed as female in public was enhanced by the inherent sense of danger that unfortunately plagues any public crossdressing experience. The fear, of course, was not merely that I would be noticed or “read” as a crossdresser (which happened on countless occasions during the many years that I publicly crossdressed), but that I might be targeted for violence if I was ever “found out” by the wrong person. It was during my public phase that I first began going to crossdresser support and social group meetings (this was in Kansas in 1994, before the word “transgender” came into vogue). They were my first opportunity to speak openly about my crossdressing and to meet others who shared that experience. It also provided me with the chance to learn some of the techniques that other crossdressers used to make their female appearance more convincing. I was fortunate enough to have an amazing crossdresser named Deborah take me under her wing. Among other things, she showed me how to use cosmetics to effectively cover my beard shadow, an invaluable skill for any crossdresser who wishes to be gendered by others as female. It’s common for people to dismiss crossdressers for what is perceived to be their exaggerated use of makeup. However, the truth of the matter is that crossdressers (unlike cissexual women) typically have beard shadows, which are perhaps the dominant visual cue we rely on when gendering people as male. While I would have preferred to have the privilege of forgoing makeup if I wished, my beard shadow made it virtually impossible for me to be regularly gendered as female without it.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  God is now, through Abraham, going to undo the plight of the human race and will thereby enable humans to pick up again the threads of the project that had been theirs from the start (looking after God’s world, making it fruitful, and peopling it), but that had been aborted through human rebellion. There is an exciting, and often ignored, inner core to the story of God and Abraham that points all the way forward to the gospels themselves. The larger framework for the story is the narrative sweep that goes all the way from the original creation through to the end of the book of Exodus (of course, there are still larger frameworks: the whole Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, and then the whole Old Testament itself; but let’s stay focused on Genesis and Exodus for the moment). The original creation story envisaged a God who was making a dwelling place for himself. The six “days,” or “stages,” of creation indicate, to those who understand the world of the ancient Near East, that creation itself, heaven and earth together, is a kind of temple, a dwelling place for God. And, as in all ancient temples (except the one in Jerusalem, for reasons that will become apparent), there was an “image” or statue of the god in question, so the creator God places into the “temple” of his heaven-and-earth creation his own “image,” human beings made to reflect him, to bring his creativity to birth in his world, and to reflect the praises of the world back to the creator. That, of course, is the heart of the story, which is then spoiled by the rebellion of God’s image-bearing creatures. One might be forgiven for supposing that this original intention had been lost sight of entirely in the story that then follows. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob find that God appears to them now here, now there, always unexpectedly, in different ways and guises. Sometimes they mark the spot with a stone, a shrine, or an altar. But then the story takes a nosedive into chaos. Joseph is sold into slavery in Egypt and, though this has the effect of saving the family from a famine, the long-term result is slavery.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  I looked down. There was my full bush with one giant chunk missing. The area was pink and had a few tiny dots of blood. My crotch looked like a furry mouth with one pulled tooth. “Darling, lie back. That was nothing.” “No!” I said. “Don’t do it, please. I’m done. I’m done.” “I can’t leave you like this. You’re going to go to mans like this?” she asked, pointing to my torn-up vagina. “I don’t care!” “I go gentler,” she said. I didn’t know what to do. We were sort of fighting. I was pushing her hands away and she was applying the wax. With the second strip I started to cry. “This is fucking insane,” I said. But I let her do my lips, which felt like she was searing off my vulva. I couldn’t believe that other women did this. Who were these people? Then she did my asshole, which she said she had to do, because it was “carrying around stink.” I’d been carrying around stink for thirty-eight years. When I got home I lay down with Dominic and held a package of frozen edamame to my vagina. I hated everything. Now the dress, the lipstick, even my hair color seemed stupid. I realized I didn’t care about any of this stuff, even the dress, which I had loved. It wasn’t about the dress. It was in the acquisition of the dress that there had been beauty. I thought about different kinds of happiness. There was the happiness I felt in all of the adrenaline of running around, a crazed happiness. This was a different happiness from the quiet peace of just being with Dominic. I kissed his ear. “Sorry I get so distracted,” I said. He sniffed at me. Suddenly I didn’t want to go out with Adam anymore. I fell asleep with the edamame defrosting on my vagina. But the next morning, my excitement—that sense of purpose—was oddly restored. I woke up to a text from Adam that said, see you tonight gorgeous. There was something about the morning of a date that tricked me. It tricked me out of the haze of being alive. Or perhaps it tricked me out of the sadness of knowing that one day I would die. It punctured the nothingness. Now I felt passion and love for everything. 12.Back at group, the word of the day seemed to have shifted from unavailable to triggered. In the safe space of Dr. Jude’s crap-filled office, everyone, it seemed, had recently been triggered by something.

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

  I thank her for her words to me months earlier, telling her they gave me clarity, that Michael and I are going to get divorced and I’m dating again. “Good girl!” she says in her most encouraging pediatrician voice. “You’re a hot catch. I’m sure you’re very popular on the dating scene. Can I please set you up with someone?” “Not yet, but eventually. I just started dating this man I like. I’ll let you know when it runs its course and you can do your matchmaking then,” I say. “No way, it’s too soon for you to be invested in one person. Just have fun for now. Keep dating the guy, but date other people too. Please, I have someone great for you. My best friend’s friend. He’s a lawyer, very successful, recently separated. I’m giving him your number,” she says with the authority I so love in doctors. “Give me a few weeks. I’m not good at juggling men,” I say. “Fine. I’m checking back in with you very soon,” she says, and ushers me out the door. * A couple of weeks later, on a Friday night, I go to a cocktail party at Tina’s apartment. She is a woman who was born to throw a soirée and does so as often as possible, with free-flowing wine and tequila and oysters and her famous clam dip. The kids play downstairs so that we can almost forget that they’re there except when they run up the long elegant staircase of her duplex for snacks. Hudson texts to ask if he can stay over at his friend’s house and I realize that I am down to just Georgia for the night so could sneak a visit over to see #6 if I leave her with Tina. When I ask Tina if that’s OK, I can barely finish my sentence before she says, “Mama, absolutely leave her here with us for the night, go, enjoy.” I call #6 and ask, “Hey, what are you up to?” “Oh you know, it’s Friday night and my harem is here, wearing me out.” “Want an addition to your harem?” I ask. “If it’s you, then yes. How have you come to be free?” he asks. I tell him I am not just free for the evening but have been given a one-night reprieve. “So where will you sleep?” he asks. “What are my options?” I say. When he asks if I want to sleep over, it feels like a significant invitation, our first sleepover. As nonchalantly as possible, I say that I will stop home to get a few things and then come over. I run downstairs to give Georgia a kiss goodbye and sing out a tipsy farewell to a group of my girlfriends. Johanna asks why I’m making such a hasty retreat. “Just got a booty call,” I say. “Ohhhhh,” she says. “Fun!” “Well you know me, Saturday night, legs up!” “But it’s only Friday,” she says, laughing.