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.

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• From Cleanness (2020)

  None of them did, but they were paying attention, less interested maybe in the poem or what I was saying than in my excitement, which they observed like some freakish natural phenomenon, I thought. There’s a crowd making fun of the prostitute, I said, and that’s the one time Whitman separates himself, he says they laugh at you, but I do not laugh at you. And that’s the problem, I hurried on, that’s the problem with democracy, the danger of crowds, it’s the problem with the protests, too: how do you take a crowd and turn it into a populace, how do you take the voice of a crowd and turn it into the vox populi, the voice of a people. I glanced at the clock and saw that class was almost over, the bell would ring soon. People have to come together without losing their ability to think, Whitman calls it a “thoughtful merge,” the whole idea of democracy depends on it. And look, I don’t think a poem can do what he thought it could. He wanted his poem to be America, like magic, he wanted his poem to fix everything that was wrong with the country. Which was a lot! I said, trying to lighten the tone, which still is a lot, but what he did was to make an image of America that still feels like something I want to buy into, it still feels like the best image of ourselves. I stopped then, not knowing how to go on, and I was grateful when the bell rang, it let me raise my voice and say So go be poets, which released them from my overheated feeling and gave them permission to laugh. The sun had fully set now, and between the streetlamps in the park at NDK there was utter darkness. We passed the entrance to the underground passageway, where there was a metro stop now, still new, and also the toilets where men went for sex, where I had spent so many weekend evenings; walking with my student I felt the weird dissonance of my private and public lives. M. had been walking quietly, listening to the sound of the drums that drifted back to us from the front of the march. People weren’t shouting as we walked through the park at NDK, the mood was restrained, contemplative, a little respite from the noise. Some people had let their signs drop in the dark, tucking them under their arms, but others still held them aloft, and I saw that several people were wearing glow bracelets, little rings of light that hovered over their heads. I asked M. if she usually came with friends, if there were many students marching from the school.

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  I’d pump them for details about the places they lived as if they hailed from Greenland or Samoa. I’d give them my name and collect theirs on pieces of paper that thickened my wallet to a fistlike roundness. I worked my magic on these boys from Ballard and pretty soon it was old home week. I told them some of my amazing stories, like the one about the escaped lunatic who’d left his hook hanging on the door handle of Bobby Crow’s car, and they told me some of theirs. They were good friends with the cousin of a guy who’d lost his dick in an automobile accident. He crashed his convertible into a tree and his girlfriend was thrown high up into the branches. When the police got her down they found the guy’s dong in her mouth. If I didn’t believe them I could ask anyone from Ballard. When we ran out of true stories we told jokes. The Silver Saddle. The Glass Eye and the Wooden Leg. The Chinese Milkshake. One of them asked me if I smoked. “Do I smoke?” I said. “Is a bear Catholic? Does the Pope shit in the woods?” “Let’s go.” The four of us walked outside and sat down under some trees beside the football field. I noticed Arthur coming toward us. He stopped under the goalposts. I couldn’t believe he had followed me out here. The Ballard boys noticed him too. “Who’s that?” one of them asked. “Just a guy,” I said. “From your troop?” I nodded. “What’s his name?” “Arthur.” “As in King?” We all laughed. The Ballard boy held up a package of Hit Parades. “Hey Arthur,” he yelled. “Want a weed?” Arthur shook his head. He stuck his hands in his pocket and looked away. After a while he sauntered back toward the school. The Ballard boy passed the Hit Parades around. He took out another, smaller package and handed it to me; it was a six-pack of Trojans. I took out the one foilwrapped rubber left inside, looked at it, then put it back in the box and returned it to him. “That was full last night,” he said. We had a few cigarettes and went back to the school to catch our rides over to Glenvale, where we agreed to meet by the roller coaster. As soon as I got in the car, Dwight started talking about how sharp the Ballard drill team was and how our troop needed something like that, something that could really make it a force to contend with. He kept it up all the way to Glenvale. I got out of the car with him still talking and said I’d meet him later on. He looked at the overnight bag. “What do you need that for?” he asked. “That’s okay,” I said vaguely, and walked away from the car. I expected to hear him call me back, but he didn’t.

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  Rusty was getting it down for me when Smoke happened to mention that if we wanted another chance he’d let us keep the points we’d already earned and apply them toward a bigger prize. The Ballard boys had no money so they took their ashtrays, but I shelled out a quarter and told Smoke to deal. This time I came close to what I needed for the clock radio. “Can I keep the points again?” I asked. Smoke and Rusty looked at each other. “No way,” Rusty said. “The boss’ll kill us.” “Fuck the boss,” Smoke said. “The boss ain’t here.” Smoke set me up again. I thought I’d won the points I needed but Smoke said, “Too bad, Jack. Star Straddle.” “Star Straddle?” “Right. Star Straddle. See this star here? You got one on that section too. Means you have to straddle. Straddle’s minus forty. You damn near got her, though, Jack buddy.” I asked if I could try again. Smoke leaned over the counter and peered up and down the midway. “I don’t see him coming. How about it?” he said to Rusty. “Okay, but hurry it up,” Rusty said. “Our ass is grass if he catches us.” “You better do quadruplets,” Smoke told me. “Quadruplets?” I had my wallet open. Smoke plucked out a one and said, “That’s the idea. You get four times as many points this way. Kinda speeds things up.” I went way over what I needed for the clock radio. I was almost up to the binoculars. Smoke whooped, but Rusty sucked in his cheeks. “You trying to give everything away?” he said. “Can I do quadruplets again?” I asked. Smoke said I could. He also said I could play two boards if I wanted, and the second board would have the same number of points as the one I was playing now. That would give me a chance at two big prizes instead of just one. “Goddamnit, Smoke,” Rusty said. I was staring into my wallet. Smoke pulled out a couple of ones and dealt me six disks off the stack, three to each board. The Ballard boys pressed around to see how I’d made out. “I got it!” I yelled. Smoke shook his head. “Almost, buddy. Moon Forfeit. Moon Forfeit should cost you fifty points but I think we can let it go at thirty. Whaddya say, Rusty?” Rusty grumbled. Finally he said okay. At Smoke’s suggestion I opened another board and upped the stakes from quadruplets to double-quadruplets. “Watch for the boss,” Smoke said. “Get a move on,” Rusty said. “Shit,” Smoke said, “Texas Sandtrap. You almost had it, Jack.” The Ballard boys cheered me on. I opened two more boards and played all five for double-quads. My score rose on Carolina Snowflakes and Wizard Wheels, then fell again on Banana Splits, Lonely Hearts, Black Diamonds. I left my wallet on the counter and Smoke took what I owed as he dealt the disks.

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  Transgression is an aphrodisiac, and sometimes secrets are a source of autonomy, or a backlash against lack of privacy. What could be more titillating than a whispered phone call in the bathroom? Finally, the harried mom can feel like a woman again; her lover knows nothing about the broken Lego set or the plumber who failed to show up for the second time. An illicit liaison can be catastrophic, but it can also be a liberation, a source of strength, a healing. Frequently it is all these things at once. When the intimacy is gone, when we no longer talk, when we haven’t been touched in years, we are more vulnerable to the kindness of strangers. When the kids are young and needy, extramarital appreciation can feel like a tonic. When they’re older and gone, empty nesters may seek replenishment elsewhere. If our health fails us, or if we’ve just been visited by death, we may experience outbursts of dissatisfaction, a cry for something better. Some affairs are acts of resistance; others happen when we offer no resistance at all. Straying can sound an alarm for the marriage, signaling an urgent need to pay attention. Or it can be the death knell that follows a relationship’s last, gasping breath. I question the widespread view that infidelity is always a symptom of deeper problems in a relationship. Affairs are motivated by myriad forces; not all of them are directly related to flaws in the marriage. As it happens, plenty of adulterers are reasonably content in their relationships. So was Doug. But he wanted more. He couldn’t articulate what it was exactly, only that it had something to do with more frequent sex. Together, Doug and I explore the anatomy of his passion, and I come to understand what needs are met in his tumultuous relationship with Naomi. For him, sex is a place of emotional nourishment and a sanctuary. It is love incarnate. Through sex he reaches an egoless oblivion that makes him feel at one with the world. Passion grants Doug ultimate relief from the unbearable aloneness of being. “It’s like I’m gone; it washes everything out. That kind of absolute focus, total attention, somehow releases me from myself. I stop thinking, the sensation washes up my spine, through my brain, and out. But there’s no observing of what’s going on.” Lovemaking is all-encompassing. With Naomi, Doug is able to maintain this high-octane, transcendent sex. In part, this is because erotically they are made of the same cloth. But, more important, the very structure of their affair, and of all affairs, lends itself to passion. Affairs are risky, dangerous, and labile, all elements that fuel excitement. In the self-contained universe of adulterous love you are secluded from the rest of the world, and your bond is strengthened by the secrecy that surrounds it.

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  They had talked it over and come up with a plan they wanted us to consider. This was that I should come alone to Paris and live with them and go to school with my cousins, one of whom, Kathy, was my age and would be able to help me make friends and learn the ropes. While I lived with them my mother would be free to get away from Dwight and look for work. Once she got settled, really settled—say in a year or so—I could rejoin her. My uncle referred to a check he’d apparently enclosed, saying he was sorry he couldn’t send more. He hoped my mother would give every consideration to his plan, which seemed to him a good one. In the future he thought it would be best if she wrote him herself. “What do you think?” my mother asked. “I don’t know,” I said. “Paris.” She said, “Just think of it. You in Paris.” “Paris,” I said. She nodded. “So what do you think?” “I don’t know. What about you?” “He has some pretty good points. It would be a great experience for you, living in Paris. And it would give me some time to see how things go here.” I was trying to be sober and so was she, but we ended up grinning at each other. “Just don’t say anything about the check,” my mother said. DWIGHT WAS ALL for packing me off to Paris. The thought that I would soon be leaving softened him and disposed him toward reminiscence. He said that his travels during the war had given him a whole nother outlook on life. He gave me advice on how to treat Frenchmen, and counseled me to be broad-minded when confronted with their effeminate customs. I heard a lot about the French people’s appetite for frogs, and learned that this was how they came to be known as Frogs by the people of other nations. From a set of pre-World War I English encyclopedias he had bought at a yard sale, Dwight read me long passages on French history (tumultuous, despotic, distinguished by the Gallic taste for conspiracy and betrayal), French culture (full of Gallic wit and high spirits, but generally derivative, superficial, arid, and atheistic), and the French national character (endowed with a certain Gallic warmth and charm, but excitable, sensual, and, on the whole, unreliable). Pearl burned. She could not accept that I was going to live in Paris. I added to her unhappiness by treating her with condescension. I also condescended to Arthur and my other friends, as if they had served their purpose and were already dematerializing into quaint, vaporous memories. At school I asked for and received permission to take time off from my regular studies to complete a series of “special projects” on the history, culture, and national character of France.

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  Finally she bought a poor man’s Geiger counter, a black light that was supposed to make uranium trace glow, and we started for Salt Lake City. She figured there must be ore somewhere around there. The fact that nobody else had found any meant that we would have the place pretty much to ourselves. To tide us over she planned to take a job with the Kennecott Mining Company, whose personnel officer had responded to a letter of inquiry she’d sent from Florida some time back. He had warned her against coming, said there was no work in Salt Lake and that his own company was about to go out on strike. But his letter was so friendly! My mother just knew she’d get a job out of him. It was as good as guaranteed. So we drove on through the desert. As we drove, we sang—Irish ballads, folk songs, big-band blues. I was hooked on “Mood Indigo.” Again and again I worldwearily crooned “You ain’t been blue, no, no, no” while my mother eyed the temperature gauge and babied the engine. Then my throat dried up on me and left me croaking. I was too excited anyway. Our trail was ending. Burma Shave ads and bullet-riddled mileage signs ticked past. As the numbers on those signs grew smaller we began calling them out at the top of our lungs. I didn’t come to Utah to be the same boy I’d been before. I had my own dreams of transformation, Western dreams, dreams of freedom and dominion and taciturn self-sufficiency. The first thing I wanted to do was change my name. A girl named Toby had joined my class before I left Florida, and this had caused both of us scalding humiliation. I wanted to call myself Jack, after Jack London. I believed that having his name would charge me with some of the strength and competence inherent in my idea of him. The odds were good that I’d never have to share a classroom with a girl named Jack. And I liked the sound. Jack. Jack Wolff. My mother didn’t like it at all, neither the idea of changing my name nor the name itself. I did not drop the subject. She finally agreed, but only on condition that I attend catechism classes. Once I was ready to be received into the Church she would allow me to take Jonathan as my baptismal name and shorten it to Jack. In the meantime I could introduce myself as Jack when I started school that fall. My father got wind of this and called from Connecticut to demand that I stick to the name he had given me. It was, he said, an old family name. This turned out to be untrue.

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  said yes, he said, “The next time he does it, kill him.” Then he asked to speak to my mother again. After she hung up I told her what he’d said to me. “Sounds real nice,” she said. “Don’t bank on it.” “He said you would come too.” “Hah! That’s what he thinks. I’d have to be crazy to do that.” Then she said, “Let’s see what happens.” MY MOTHER DROVE me down to Seattle for the tests. I took the verbal section in the morning and immediately began to enjoy myself. I recognized, behind the easyseeming questions on vocabulary and reading comprehension, a competitive intelligence out to tempt me with answers that were not correct. The tricks had a smugness about them that provoked me. I wanted to confound these sharpies, show them I wasn’t as dumb as they thought I was. When the monitor called the tests in I felt suddenly alone, as if someone had walked out on me in the middle of a good argument. The other boys who were taking the test gathered in the hallway to compare answers. They all seemed to know each other. I did not approach them, but I watched them closely. They wore rumpled sport coats and baggy flannel pants. White socks showing above brown loafers. I was the only boy there in a suit, a salt-and-pepper suit I’d gotten for eighth-grade graduation, now too small for me. And I was the only boy there with a “Princeton” haircut. The others had long hair roughly parted and left hanging down across their foreheads, almost to their eyes. Now and then they tossed their heads to throw the loose hair back. The effect would have been careless on just one of them, but it was uniform, an effect of style, and I took note of it. I also took note of the way they talked to each other, their predatory, reflexive sarcasm. It interested me, excited me; at certain moments I had to make an effort not to laugh. As they spoke they smiled ironically, and rocked on their heels, and tossed their heads like nickering horses. After lunch I walked around the campus. The regular students had not yet returned from their Christmas vacation, and the quiet was profound. I found a bench overlooking the lake. The surface was misty and gray. Until they rang the bell for the math test I sat with crossed legs and made believe I belonged here,

• From Cleanness (2020)

  E, kopele , N. said, bastard, slow down, why are you rushing, and Z. turned and smiled, still walking, moving backward along the street. We don’t want to be late, we’ll miss the show, he said. He made a motion with his hips, a little Turkish shimmy, before he turned back around. The club was a short walk away, on Tsar Osvoboditel, part of a complex that housed one of the city’s most luxurious hotels. We showed our lichni karti to the two men stationed at the door, their torsos obscene with muscle, and then descended a long carpeted staircase that was lit dimly by red lights set high along the walls. There were mirrors mounted every few feet, and I found myself stealing glances as we passed, seeing how incongruous a group we made, wondering what people would make of my presence with these men so much younger than I, still boys really. The music got louder as we approached the glass doors separating the corridor from the club proper, and it overwhelmed me as Z. pulled them open and we stepped through into a cavernous, dark room strafed by lights that spun somewhere above us. The air was heavy with cigarette smoke, abrasive as sand, despite the new law that had passed months before; I could see it hanging beneath the only steady illumination, above the bar in the center of the room, where four men in identical black suits were mixing drinks. We made our way single file through the crowded space, toward the corner farthest from the entrance, where there were a few unclaimed tables, small and chest-high, each with an ashtray and an unopened bottle of gin. Nearer the bar people stood with bottles and glasses, moving their shoulders and hips, dancing in place. There wasn’t a dance floor, though what else could be the point of the place; the music was so loud it was almost impossible to talk, after only a minute of it my ears ached. A young woman walked over to us, holding a tray above her head as she angled her way through the crowd. She wore a white blouse several sizes too small, exposing her navel and buttoned just barely above her breasts, which she allowed to touch Z., casually erotic, as she leaned over and brought her face to his. She shouted something into his ear as she placed three glasses and a small bucket of ice on the table. He reciprocated her gesture, putting an arm around her shoulder, and N. and I looked at each other and laughed. Z. was always theatrical with women, a cartoon Lothario at sixteen who had grown into real seduction; it was like he breathed sex as he exchanged comments with the server, they could almost have been kissing as they moved mouth to ear.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  A young woman walked over to us, holding a tray above her head as she angled her way through the crowd. She wore a white blouse several sizes too small, exposing her navel and buttoned just barely above her breasts, which she allowed to touch Z., casually erotic, as she leaned over and brought her face to his. She shouted something into his ear as she placed three glasses and a small bucket of ice on the table. He reciprocated her gesture, putting an arm around her shoulder, and N. and I looked at each other and laughed. Z. was always theatrical with women, a cartoon Lothario at sixteen who had grown into real seduction; it was like he breathed sex as he exchanged comments with the server, they could almost have been kissing as they moved mouth to ear. But then Z. drew back, letting his arm fall from her shoulder, and looked at her in disbelief. He jerked his head in a single vertical motion, a decided no. He started to turn toward N. but the waitress pressed her hand to his chest and gestured for him to come back. She spoke longer this time, her hand on his chest, balancing the empty tray on the table. Now Z. did turn to N., shouting into his ear, and N. shouted to me in turn that to stay at the table we had to buy the gin. Okay, I shouted back, how much, and when he told me 160 leva, 80 euro, I burst out laughing, making Z. and N. laugh, too. But the woman didn’t laugh, she shrugged, all her seductiveness gone. It’s crazy, Z. shouted, but the alternative was to stand in the packed space between the bar and the booths, where you could hardly breathe, what would be the point of that, and so I pulled out my billfold. One night, I said, my throat already raw with shouting and with smoke, and they smiled and pulled out their wallets. No no, I said, wagging my forefinger, I didn’t want them to spend their money. I had gone to the bankomat earlier that day, my wallet was full of bills, and I drew out several to hand to the woman, who smiled again, opening the gin and a can of tonic and pouring us our first drinks before she spun away.

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  If given half a chance, loving partners can fill the intensity void with transcendence. Animals have sex; eroticism is exclusively human. It is sexuality transformed by the imagination. In fact, you don’t even need the act of sex to have a full erotic experience, though sex is often hinted at, envisioned. Eroticism is the cultivation of excitement, a purposeful quest for pleasure. Octavio Paz likens eroticism to the poetry of the body, the testimony of the senses. Like a poem, it is not linear; it meanders and twists back on itself. It shows us what we see not with our eyes but with the eyes of our spirit. Eroticism reveals to us another world inside this world. The senses become servants of the imagination, letting us see the invisible and hear the inaudible. Eroticism, intertwined as it is with imagination, is another form of play. I think of play as an alternative reality midway between the actual and the fictitious, a safe space where we experiment, reinvent ourselves, and take chances. Through play we suspend disbelief—we pretend something is real even when we damn well know it is not. Earnestness has no place here. Play, by definition, is carefree and unself-conscious. The great theoretician of play, Johan Huizinga, maintained that a fundamental feature of play is that it serves no other purpose. The purposelessness associated with play is hard to reconcile with our culture of high efficiency and constant accountability. More and more, we measure play by its benefits. We play squash for cardiovascular conditioning; we take our kids to dinner to expand their palates; we go on vacation to recharge. Yet if we’re plagued by self-awareness, obsessed with outcomes, or fearful of judgment, our enjoyment is inevitably compromised. When we are children, play comes to us naturally, but our capacity for play collapses as we age. Sex often remains the last arena of play we can permit ourselves, a bridge to our childhood. Long after the mind has been filled with injunctions to be serious, the body remains a free zone, unencumbered by reason and judgment. In lovemaking, we can recapture the utterly uninhibited movement of the child, who has not yet developed self-consciousness before the judging gaze of others. Erotic Intelligence Every so often, I meet couples who get it, who maintain a sense of playfulness with each other, in and out of the bedroom. They are physically and sensually alive—two people whose desire for one another hasn’t been left to languish. Even in our culture of immediate gratification, they’re able to see seduction as an end in itself. Johanna continues to bewitch her boyfriend of ten years by setting up rendezvous in motels in a nearby suburb.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  Z. took the carton from me and screwed the lid back on, shaking it vigorously and for far too long, making us laugh again. It was the second flask of vodka, the second carton of juice, the second time Z. had taken in hand the mixing of our drinks. He would have poured for us if we had had anything to use as cups; instead we drank straight from the carton, which he handed to me first and then to N. before drinking from it himself. We were on a narrow street in the city center, standing beneath a streetlamp in front of the little twenty-four-hour shop where we had bought our supplies. It was already late, but we had an hour or so before the concert at the club that was our real destination. Sofia is famous for these clubs, where the city’s wealthy dance and drink; they’re called chalgoteki, after the pop-folk music they play. I had never been to one before. But now, since I was leaving Sofia, Z. had insisted that at least once I should have what he called a real Bulgarian night out, and the lure of him had overcome all my aversion to drunkenness and noise. I was eager for it, even, I planned to enjoy myself, to dance and drink, to relax in the company of these boys I genuinely liked, to be their friend for an evening and not their teacher.

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  One of them was a strange docility, almost paralysis, with men of the tyrant breed. Another was a contradictory hatred of coercion. She’d never been able to spank me. The few times she tried I came away laughing. She couldn’t even raise her voice convincingly. That wasn’t the way she wanted to be with me, and she didn’t think I needed it anyway. Marian thought otherwise. Sometimes at night I heard the two of them arguing about me, Marian strident, my mother quiet and implacable. It was just the age I was going through, she said. I’d grow out of it. I was a good boy. ON HALLOWEEN, TAYLOR and Silver and I broke out some windows in the school cafeteria. The next day two policemen came to school and several boys with bad reputations were called out of class to talk to them. Nobody thought of us, not even of Taylor, who had a recorded history of window breaking. The reason nobody thought of us was that at school, in the presence of really tough kids who got into fights and talked back to teachers, we were colorless and mild. At the end of the day the principal came on the public address system and announced that the guilty parties had been identified. Before taking action, however, he wanted to give these individuals a chance to come forward on their own. A voluntary confession now would work greatly in their favor later on. Taylor and Silver and I avoided looking at each other. We knew it was a bluff, because we’d been in the same classroom all day long. Otherwise the trick would have worked. We didn’t trust each other, and any suspicion that one of us was weakening would have created a stampede of betrayal. We got away with it. A week later we came back after a movie to break some more windows, then chickened out when a car turned into the parking lot and sat there with its engine running for a few minutes before driving away. Instead of making us more careful, the interest of the police in what we’d done elated us. We became selfimportant, cocksure, insane in our arrogance. We broke windows. We broke streetlights. We opened the doors of cars parked on hills and released the emergency brakes so they smashed into the cars below. We set bags of shit on fire and left them on doorsteps, but people didn’t stamp them out as they were supposed to do; instead they waited with weary expressions as the bags burned, now and then looking up to scan the shadows from which they felt us watching them. We did these things in darkness and in the light of day, moving always to the sound of breaking glass and yowling cats and grinding metal. And we stole. At first we stole as part of our general hoodlum routine, and for Taylor and Silver it never had any more importance than that.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  Poetry! I exclaimed, sitting up straight in my chair, which had the effect I wanted; they all turned to me, silent, less obe dient than bewildered. I looked at them a moment, a kind of caesura, and then I repeated it, Poetry, as though it were the obvious answer to a question, the answer they already knew. That’s what poets can do, I said, poets and artists; they give us ideas to buy into, for whole countries to buy into. Like Whitman, I said, whom they had all studied, he was part of the tenth-grade curriculum; my own tenth-graders were reading him now, Song of Myself , and I found it was a different poem because of the protests, which became the context for our reading, though I had read it dozens of times I read it differently now. Think of what he wants to do in that poem, I said, and when the country was at war with itself, absolutely broken; he wants to make an image of America anyone can buy into. Like that miraculous section, and I used that word, miraculous, I was getting excited, I was getting swept up in Whitman as I always did, it was what I loved about him and what I mistrusted, too, the feelings he could arouse that could swamp judgment. That section where all he does is name things, I said, well, not things, people, it’s just a list, he wants it to include everyone, he wants to find a place for everyone. An equal place, I went on, though I was talking too much now, and a place in his affection, too. There are those wonderful moments he puts in parentheses, like a whisper, do you remember, where he tells us he loves the person he’s just named. That’s what he thought democracy was, I said, a poem that named things and made an occasion for you to love them; he wanted to stitch America up, I said, he wanted to break all the divisions down. There’s only one time he does the opposite, it’s in that same list, where he puts a prostitute right next to the president, do you remember?

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  What has happened, you might ask, to our instinctual emotions, as described by Darwin? The answer is simply that they are still there. However, the critical intermediary steps that Darwin failed to recognize were later discovered by the carriers of his legacy, the ethologists. A scene from an upland meadow helps to illustrate the differentiation of feelings and emotions. While you are strolling leisurely in an open meadow, a shadow suddenly moves in the periphery of your vision. Instinctively, all of your movement is arrested (with the feeling of a startle); reflexively you crouch in a somewhat flexed posture. After this momentary “arrest response,” your head automatically turns in the direction of the shadow or sound. You attempt to localize and identify the source. Your neck, back, legs and feet muscles all coordinate so that your whole body turns and then extends. Your eyes narrow, while your pelvis and head shift horizontally, giving you an optimal view of the surroundings and an ability to focus panoramically. This initial two-phase action pattern is an instinctive orientation preparing you to respond flexibly to many possible contingencies; it generates the feeling tone of “expectant curiosity.” The initial arrest-crouch flexion response minimizes detection by possible predators and possibly offers some protection from falling objects. Primarily, though, it provides a convulsive jerk that interrupts any motor patterns already in motion. Then, through scanning, it flexibly prepares you for the fine-tuned behaviors of exploration (for sources of food, shelter and mating) or for defense against predation (experienced as danger and not fear). If it had been an eagle taking flight that cast the shadow, a further orientation of tracking-pursuit would likely occur. Adjustments of postural and facial muscles coordinate unconsciously. The new “attitude of interest,” when integrated with the contour of the rising eagle image, is perceived as the feeling of excitement . This aesthetically pleasing sense, recognized as the feeling of enjoyment, is affected by past experience. It may also, however, be one of the many powerful archetypal predispositions or undercurrents that each species has developed over millennia of evolutionary time. Most Native Americans, for example, have a very special, spiritual, mythic relationship with the eagle. Is this a coincidence, or is there something imprinted deeply within the structures of the brain, body and soul of the human species that responds intrinsically to the image of eagle with a correlative excitement and awe? Most organisms possess dispositions, if not specific approach/avoidance responses, to large moving contours. * If the initial shadow had been from a raging grizzly bear (rather than from a rising eagle), a very different reaction would have been evoked: the preparation to flee . This is not, as James discovered, because we think “bear,” evaluate it as dangerous and then run. It is because the contours and features of the large, looming, approaching animal cast a particular light pattern upon the retina of the eye.

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  Now came the part that always flummoxed Ernest: How to begin a conversation with a woman? He took out Mann’s The Holy Sinner, which he had bought the day before, and laid it open on the table, the title clearly visible. Perhaps it would provide the opening gambit in a conversation—if, that is, she chose a table nearby. Ernest glanced nervously around the half-empty café. Plenty of free tables. He nodded when she passed, and Artemis nodded in response as she made her way to an empty table. But then, mirabile dictu—a couple of seconds later she backed up. “Oh, The Holy Sinner,” she, incredibly, remarked. “What a surprise!” A bite! A bite! But Ernest wasn’t sure how to reel his catch in. “I—er—I beg your pardon,” he stammered. He was in shock—the shock of a resignedly unsuccessful fisherman who is astounded by a tug on his line. He had used the book lure countless times through the years and not even once had had a nibble. “That book,” she explained. “Why, I read The Holy Sinner years ago, but I’ve never seen anyone else reading it.” “Oh, I love it, and go back to it every few years. I love some of Mann’s shorter works too and am just starting to reread all of him. This one is the first.” “I just reread The Transposed Head,” Artemis said. “What’s next on your list?” “I’m doing them in the order I treasure them. Next’ll be the Joseph and His Brothers tetralogy. And then, perhaps, Felix Krull. But,” he half rose, “won’t you sit down?” “And last?” asked Artemis, setting her bagel and coffee on the table and sitting down across from him. “The Magic Mountain,” Ernest responded, not missing a beat, revealing neither his sheer astonishment at hooking this catch nor his uncertainty about how to reel it in. “It just hasn’t aged well—Settembrini’s endless conversations strike me now as tedious. Also, at the bottom of the list is Doctor Faustus. The musicological concerns are just too technical and, I’m afraid, boring.” “I agree with you entirely,” said Artemis, reaching into her shoulder bag and extracting a ripe black avocado and several plastic bags of seeds, “though I never cease to be fascinated with the Nietzsche-Leverkühn connection.” “Oh, I’m sorry, I haven’t introduced myself—lost in our conversation. I’m Ernest Lash.” “I’m Artemis,” she said as she peeled her avocado, spread half of it on her bagel, and topped it with sprinkles of various seeds. “Artemis; a lovely name. You know, it’s warming up outside. How about grabbing a table and joining your twin out there?” Ernest had industriously done his homework. “My twin?” Artemis pondered as they moved to a table in the sun. “My twin? Oh, Apollo! The golden sunlight of brother Apollo. You are an unusual man—all my life I’ve lived with my name, and you’re the first person who has ever said that to me.”

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  Jon’s findings, amazing in their own right, were surpassed by the next phase of the research. When patients were given the placebo plus Naloxone, the placebo response was completely negated. Naloxone is a drug that has absolutely no effect whatsoever when administered to a sober individual (not unlike the effect of Viagra on an individual whose dosage is followed by a leisurely walk with the dog). However, when administered in the emergency room to addicts who have overdosed on heroin, it makes them stone sober in seconds. The mode of action of Naloxone is as an opiate antagonist. This means that Naloxone attaches to opioid receptors throughout the brain, thereby blocking the attachment and action of both the exogenous opiate drugs, including morphine and heroin, as well as the body’s own endogenous (internally self-generated) opiates, called endorphins. What Jon and his colleagues had demonstrated with these experiments was that the brain possesses its own pain mediating system. The analgesic effect of these endogenous endorphins can be just as powerful as the strongest known opioid drugs like morphine! What occurred to me at Esalen was the possibility that I had witnessed the effects of opiate withdrawal during our Monday sessions. This was in stark contrast to Thursdays, when the previous night’s opiate orgy, stimulated by the hyperventilating catharsis, produced a “stoned,” spaced-out group of participants. These Thursday groups were populated by community members who had recently gotten their drug fix on Wednesday and did not crave another one. In particular, I wondered if the intense emotional abreactions I observed on Mondays were a method by which participants released their own internal opiates (endorphins), essentially giving themselves a fix, not unlike a shot of morphine. Excited about my hypothesis, I telephoned my brother. Since it was not yet known that the brain regions and neural pathways responsible for physical and emotional pain were nearly identical, Jon’s response was not encouraging. “Peter,” he said, pitying my naïveté, “don’t be silly,” while managing to get in a well-deserved jab at his older sibling—a rivalry reasserted. However, a few years later, Bessel van der Kolk replicated Jon’s experiment.165 This time the focus was on Naloxone’s blocking the endorphins released by emotional, rather than physical, pain. He studied a common treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) administered, at that time, to Vietnam vets in the nation’s VA hospitals. These unfortunate soldiers were repeatedly provoked into “reliving” their horrific battlefield experiences. In this “therapy,” they were forced, for example, to watch gory war movies like Platoon with their arms tied to a chair. These exposures frequently catapulted the veterans into intense emotional abreactions. However, when Naloxone was administered before these cathartic sessions (depriving them of their self-induced endorphin rush) they soon lost interest in taking part in further “therapeutic” sessions.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  After this reassurance, Sammy ran into the bedroom instead of out the door. This was a clear signal that he felt less threatened and more confident of our support. Children may not state verbally whether they want to continue, so take cues from their behavior and responses. Respect their wishes in whatever way they choose to communicate them. Children should never be rushed to move through an episode too fast or forced to do more than they are willing and able to do. Just like with Sammy, it is important to slow down the process if you notice signs of fear, constricted breathing, stiffening or a dazed (dissociated) demeanor. These reactions will dissipate if you simply wait, quietly and patiently, while reassuring the child that you are still by his side and on his side. Usually, the youngster’s eyes and breathing pattern will indicate when it’s time to continue. 2. Distinguish between fear, terror and excitement.Experiencing fear or terror for more than a brief moment during traumatic play will not help the child move through the trauma. Most children will take action to avoid it. Let them! At the same time, try and discern whether it is avoidance or escape. The following is a clear-cut example to help in developing the skill of “reading” when a break is needed and when it’s time to guide the momentum forward. When Sammy ran down to the creek, he was demonstrating avoidance behavior. In order to resolve his traumatic reaction, Sammy had to feel that he was in control of his actions rather than driven to act by his emotions. Avoidance behavior occurs when fear and terror threaten to overwhelm both children and adults. With kids this behavior is usually accompanied by some sign of emotional distress (crying, frightened eyes, screaming). Active escape, on the other hand, is exhilarating. Children become excited by their small triumphs and often show pleasure by glowing with smiles, clapping their hands or laughing heartily. Overall, the response is much different from avoidance behavior. Excitement is evidence of the child’s successful discharge of emotions that accompanied the original experience. This is positive, desirable and necessary. Trauma is transformed by changing intolerable feelings and sensations into desirable ones. This can only happen at a level of activation that is similar to the activation that led to the traumatic reaction in the first place. If the child appears excited, it is OK to offer encouragement and continue as we did when we clapped and danced with Sammy. However, if the child appears frightened or cowed, give reassurance, but don’t encourage any further movement. Instead, be present with your full attention and support, waiting patiently until a substantial amount of the fear subsides. If the child shows signs of fatigue, take a rest break.

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  In one gesture she cleverly captured and subverted the whole issue: how to retrieve the lover from the mother. Leo feared expressing the rawness of his desire to the mother of his children, a woman too worthy of love and respect. Carla took a risk, interrupted the pattern, and invited him into an erotic complicity. She uncloaked the repression and became a sexually provocative, slutty woman who demanded to be paid. In the midst of this explicitly staged endorsement of blatant sexuality, Leo’s lustfulness was finally unleashed. Escaping the Siege of Family Life Having a child is one of our grand aspirations. In a way we reproduce, be it biologically or through the other ways we create a family, so as not to die. We carve a place in the cycle of life and become inscribed in the course of history. We extend ourselves beyond mortality by leaving something, some one, behind: a representative of our union. In this way, having a child speaks of desire. It is a pure, life-affirming act. How cruel to see it erode the force that brought it into being. There is no question that children make the erotic connection more difficult to sustain. There are the demands for routine without which family life cannot function, but which undermine sexual spontaneity. There is the undeniable stress on the couple’s resources: less time, money, and energy to spend on each other. There is the sexual invisibility of the American mother, which is so deeply rooted in our psyche that men and women alike conspire to deny maternal sexuality. There are the many ways we shut ourselves down sexually in the family, acting under the assumption that we need to keep sex hidden from children in order to protect them. For many parents, the idea of a secret garden inspires everything from acute guilt and anxiety to the more benign gradations of embarrassment. We are afraid that our adult sexuality will somehow damage our kids, that it’s inappropriate or dangerous. But whom are we protecting? Children who see their primary caregivers at ease expressing their affection (discreetly, within appropriate boundaries) are more likely to embrace sexuality with the healthy combination of respect, responsibility, and curiosity it deserves. By censoring our sexuality, curbing our desires, or renouncing them altogether, we hand our inhibitions intact to the next generation. There are so many reasons to give up on sex that those who don’t are champions in their own right. The brave and determined couples who maintain an erotic connection are, above all, the couples who value it.

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  But he isn’t the only one at fault. For her part, Jackie has transferred her sense of sexual self-worth to him, and I recommend that she take it back. He should not have a monopoly on her sexuality. “Jackie, how long has it been since you flirted?” I ask her. “Can you open yourself up to the eyes of other men, so that Philip isn’t the sole source of your sexual validation?” Philip starts to twitch in his chair. “Just a minute,” he says. “Don’t worry, I’m not suggesting tit for tat here,” I reassure him. “But your wife is a very attractive woman, and if you can’t see that, why shouldn’t she hear it from someone else?” Along these same lines, I also suggest that they create new E-mail accounts reserved exclusively for erotic exchanges between them—their thoughts, memories, fantasies, and seductions. I point out that this correspondence is not meant to be about the problems in their relationship, it is meant to be a space for play. I want them to use cyberspace to elicit curiosity, a sense of intrigue, and a kind of wholesome anxiety. Writing has many advantages over talking. You get to say your fill, craft your response, and give voice in writing to things your lips dare not utter. It provides a built-in distance, and I hope this will help dismantle their inhibitions. By Valentine’s Day Jackie has eased into the art of seduction. She’s playful and daring, not only in her E-mails with Philip, but with other men as well. Several months later she tells me, “Your urging me to get a sense of myself from other men besides Philip has been very good for me.” She started doing things with her male friends, going to concerts and galleries, and she has generally been more flirtatious. “Nothing big, you know, but it’s been fun to be out there again, talking to men who are not my husband, knowing they enjoy my company. And now, Philip’s every word or look isn’t the most important thing in my life.” Jackie’s new confidence has left Philip slightly unmoored, and that turns out to be a good thing. He is intrigued by the way she writes to him, and is surprised to find that in the graphic lexicon of sex, she can certainly hold her own. All this sexualizes her in his eyes. Freed from the predictability of a script, he takes a second look.

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  I get so resentful that I am stuck in this house, in this family, inside my body. All I want to say is leave me alone, don’t bother me.’” Ryan shared with me the unexpected denouement of the evening. “I started out shocked and then defensive and then angry. But, weirdly, the more she was going on and on, the more I wanted her. She was on fire. At first I thought, oh, just quit the diatribe; but then I was captivated by her, I identified with her, and in a strange way I felt closer to her and more turned on than I had in a long time. My fascination with Barbara vanished. And I knew that if I’d married Barbara I’d be longing for Christine.” “And you didn’t have to work for it,” I say. “I couldn’t have sent you home with an assignment that would have had this kind of result.” I explain to him that his renewed desire came from her reassertion of her separateness and her dreams. When she voiced her unrequited longings, she gave Ryan permission to unleash his. It’s all highly impractical sometimes. The same scenario with a different couple might have triggered a fear of abandonment that would have caused the fight of the century. Nobody can plan for this; that’s the point. Desire is an enigma; it’s insubordinate, and it chafes at impositions. That evening, Ryan was receptive to Christine. In her honesty, he discovered her again. Even more important, he was choosing her again, and it’s the act of choosing, the freedom involved in choosing, that keeps a relationship alive. The flambé that Ryan and Christine savored that night had nothing efficient or expedient to it. It wasn’t a task they could incorporate into their weekly routine. Christine rattled the cage, and Ryan was dislodged. She claimed her individuality, and the end result was greater intimacy. Desire emerged from a paradox: mutually recognizing the limitations of married life created a bond between them; acknowledging otherness inspired closeness. There is no way to “institutionalize” or create a personal marital policy for this couple that will somehow ensure that they will go on having, or ever again have, this experience. As a therapist I acknowledge that setting up some kind of programmatic reinforcement to help them maintain this newfound glow is beyond my ability. But even though I can’t turn this into an assignment or exercise, the fact that it happened may wake them up to a different kind of reality. It’s my hope that it will change the way they look at themselves and each other. “A Paradox to Manage, Not a Problem to Solve” What makes sustaining desire over time so difficult is that it requires reconciling two opposing forces: freedom and commitment. So it’s not only a psychological or practical problem; it’s also a systemic one. That makes it harder to “work at.” It belongs to the category of existential dilemmas that are as unsolvable as they are unavoidable.