Joy

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 Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  she slid into a deep bass B/we Moooonnn. I emerged from behind the bar. It was the look on Theresa’s face that gave me the courage to raise my voice: You saw me standing alone. My voice cracked and pitched with embarrassment and emotion. Theresa chewed her lower lip and cried. Do-wah-do, my friends backed me up. Peaches stood behind me, waving the painted blue moon back and forth in a wide arc over my head. But then you suddenly appeared before me, | extended my hand toward Theresa. And when I looked the moon had turned to gold! Peaches flipped the moon to the gold side. Everyone cheered. Peaches curtsied and continued swaying with the moon. Theresa reached for me. I finished the song dancing in her arms. I realized it was true, I wasn’t alone. I had love of my own. Do-wah-do, the chorus was soft and smooth. I pulled the handkerchief from my breast pocket and opened it carefully. Theresa lost it when she saw the ring. I cried, too. The moment really was perfect. I slid the ring on her finger. I had a speech all prepared about how much she meant to me but I couldn’t remember the words. “I love you,” I told her. “I love you so damn much.” “You're the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” Theresa whispered. She took my left hand in hers and ran her thumb lightly over the scar on my ring finger. “I want you to wear a band, too.” I shook my head sadly. “I thought about it, but I'd be too scared. I think if the cops ever took that ring from me I'd just go berserk.” Theresa touched her cheek. “If you’re afraid to lose what you love, you’ll never be able to let go and feel it. Pl put all my love for you in a ring if you'll wear it. And if someone ever takes it from you, all they'll be able to steal is a metal band. Then Pll go out and get you another ring and put all my love in that one. That way you'll never lose it, Jess. OK?” I nodded and buried my face in her neck. Do- wah-do, everyone in the whole bar sang to us as we swayed to their music. It was the sweetest moment of my life. Stone Butch Blues 143 THE POLICE REALLY STEPPED UP their harassment after the birth of gay pride. Cops scribbled down our license plate numbers and photographed us as we entered the bars. We held regular dances at a new gay bar, using police radios to alert everyone when the cops were about to raid us. We heard about weekly gay liberation and radical women’s meetings at the university, but Theresa was the only one in our crowd who knew her way around campus. It was still another world to the rest of us. Everything was changing so fast. I wondered if this was the revolution.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  The greenhouse looked like a grownup’s playhouse—a self-contained world. Humidity fogged the glass inside. I opened the door and stepped over the threshold. My boots sank into the wet straw strewn on the floor. I took a deep breath and inhaled the good smell of damp earth. Jan bent over a crate of violets. I recognized her strong, broad shoulders. Her hair had turned to silver. She rose and looked at me. Her glasses rested on top of her head. She slid them down to her nose. “Am I getting so old I can’t trust my own eyes?” she asked. “Ts that really you, Jess?” She wiped her hands on a towel and welcomed me into her arms. Jan stroked my hair and kissed my head as I cried. “I’ve thought about you so many times,” she whispered. My lip quivered. “TI didn’t really believe I lived in anyone’s memory except my own.” Jan patted my cheek. “I could never forget you. You were one of those baby butches I knew Pd grow old with. How long you here for? Where are you living? How’d you find this place?” “Manhattan,” I answered. “Frankie told me about your shop. There’s something I need to find out while Pm here, if I can. I want to find out whatever happened to Butch Al. I want to find out if she’s still alive.” Jan rubbed her face and sucked in her breath. “Well, if anyone could find out, it’s Edna. Did you see Ednar” I watched Jan’s face as I nodded. “Edna’s still in touch with Lydia, whose butch worked at the auto plant with Al for a long time.” My voice rose. “Do you think Lydia knows?” Jan shrugged. “She might. And Edna knows how to find Lydia.” I took a deep breath. “Would you ask Edna if she’d find out?” I watched Jan’s face as she said, “Sure, I’d be happy to.” That’s when I knew for sure Jan didn’t know Edna and I had been lovers. “Tell you what,” Jan smiled, “what say we all get together tonight for a drink?” It sounded excruciatingly painful, and unavoidable. I nodded. “Maybe Frankie would want to come too?” Jan slapped me on the shoulder. “Good idea.” She wrote down the address of the bar. When Jan opened the greenhouse door, the chilly air startled me. Her pick-up truck was parked in the garage behind the store. Next to it was an old Triumph motorcycle. Jan followed my eyes to the bike. “I haven’t ridden it for a long time but I keep it running, You want to use it while you’re here?” I smiled and nodded emphatically. It had been years since I straddled a motorcycle. Jan grinned as the bike sputtered to life. She squeezed my shoulder. “You are a sight for sore eyes. It’s good to see you, kid.” I waited till she was back inside the flower shop before I whispered out loud, “I’m not a kid anymore.” 307

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  We all turned toward the group of scabs who were near the plant door. Without a cordon of police for protection they scurried like rats. Several of them ran inside the factory and attempted to hold the door shut. Some of the strikers pulled at the door, struggling to get at them. Others chased scabs down the street. The police pulled back across the street. We set up a picket line right in front of the plant doors. “Contract! Contract!” We all cheered ourselves. “We won,” I shouted to Duffy. “We won!” He shook his head. “We won this battle. Tomorrow will be even rougher.” What a spoilsport, I thought. I saw Jan trembling. I signaled to Duffy that I was going to get her out of there. Jan and I walked a block away to her parked car. She leaned against the car door and heaved her guts up. Her hands were shaking so bad she almost couldn’t light her cigarette. I pulled out my Zippo. “I was scared back there,” she said. I nodded. “Me too.” “No,” she grabbed me by the shoulder. “I mean I didn’t think I could take it—not alone, not without Edna to go home to.” I flushed at the thought of going home to Edna. I pushed the thought back down. “I know, Jan,’ I whispered. “When you got busted, I suddenly remembered things I didn’t want to think about, like they were happening to me all over again.” She looked up at me and smiled gratefully. “You understand,” she said. I nodded and dropped my eyes. Jan crowed. “I can’t believe you guys got me out. It was unbelievable. I thought I was a goner and you guys got me out! Unfucking believable!’ We laughed until tears streamed down our faces. “T’ve gotta go back now,” I told her. “Why don’t you go home and get some rest.” Jan nodded. “Tomorrow morning? 7:00 A.M.?” I smiled and turned to go. Jan called to me, “You're a real friend, you know that?” If she only knew how I felt about Edna, she’d understand what a traitor I really was. I was sound asleep that night when Duffy called. “You were right,” he shouted. “We won it at the table tonight! And we got management to agree that Jack is out!” I tried to climb from the depth of sleep. “What? What did you say?” “Jess, we won!” he laughed. “The ratification meeting is tomorrow night. I want you to organize all the butches to come to the union meeting to vote, you got that?” “Sure,” I mumbled and hung up.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  The highway sliced between our projects and a huge field. It was against the rules to cross that road. There wasn’t much traffic on it. You'd have to stand in the middle of a lane for a long time in order to get hit. But I wasn’t supposed to cross that road. I did though, and no one seemed to notice. I parted the long brown grass that bordered the road. Once I passed through it I was in my own world. On the way to the pond I stopped to visit the puppies and dogs in the outside kennels connected to the back of the ASPCA building. The dogs barked and stood on their hind legs as I approached the fence. “Shhh!” I warned them. I knew no one was supposed to be back here. A spaniel pushed his nose through the chain- link fence. I rubbed his head. I looked around for the terrier I loved. He had only come to the fence once to greet me, sniffing cautiously. Usually, no matter how I coaxed, he’d lay with his head on his paws, looking at me with mournful eyes. I wished I could take him home. I hoped he went to a kid who loved him. “Are you a boy or a girl?” I asked the mongrel. “Ruff, ruff!” I didn’t see the ASPCA man until it was too late. “Hey, kid. What are you doing there?” Caught. “Nothing,” I said. “I wasn’t doing anything bad. I was just talking to the dogs.” He smiled a little. “Don’t put your fingers inside the fence, son. Some of ’em bite.” I felt the tips of my ears grow hot. I nodded. “I was looking for that little one with the black ears. Did a nice family take him?” Stone Butch Blues TN The man frowned for a moment. “Yes,” he said quietly. “He’s real happy now.” I hurried out to the pond to catch pollywogs in a jar. I leaned on my elbow and looked up close at the little frogs that climbed up on the sun-baked rocks. “Caw, caw!” A huge black crow circled above me in the air and landed on a rock nearby. We looked at each other in silence. “Crow, ate you a boy or a girl?” “Caw, caw!” I laughed and rolled over on my back. The sky was crayon blue. I pretended I was lying on the white cotton clouds. The earth was damp against my back. The sun was hot, the breeze was cool. I felt happy. Nature held me close and seemed to find no fault with me. On my way back from the fields I passed the Scabbie gang. They had found an unlocked truck parked on an incline. One of the older boys disengaged the emergency brake and made two of the younger boys from my side of the projects run under the truck as it rolled. “Jessy, Jessy {?? they taunted as they rushed toward me.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  These are almost imperceptible and are sometimes referred to as “premovements”). In this way, Steps 4 through 7 link together. Step 8. Restore self-regulation and dynamic equilibrium A direct consequence of discharge of the survival energy mobilized for fight-or-flight is the restoration of equilibrium and balance (as in the previous example of the spring). The nineteenth-century French physiologist Claude Bernard, considered the father of experimental physiology, coined the term homeostasis to describe “the constancy of the internal environment [milieu intérieur] as the condition for a free and independent life.” 57 More than a hundred and fifty years later, this remains the underlying and defining principle for the sustenance of life. However, since equilibrium is not a static process, I will use the term dynamic equilibrium instead of homeostasis to describe what happens when the nervous system becomes hyperaroused in response to threat and is then “reset,” only to be aroused and reset once again. This continual resetting both restores the prethreat level of arousal and promotes the shifting state (process) of relaxed alertness. Over time this contributes to the building of a robust resilience. Finally, the interoceptive experience of equilibrium, felt in viscera and in your internal milieu, is the salubrious one of goodness: that is, the background sense that—whatever you are feeling at a given moment, however dreadful the upset or unpleasant the arousal—you have a secure home base within your organism. Step 9. Reorient to the environment in the here and now Trauma could appropriately be called a disorder in one’s capacity to be grounded in present time and to engage, appropriately, with other human beings. Along with the restoration of dynamic equilibrium, the capacity for presence, for being in “the here and now,” becomes a reality. This occurs along with the desire and capacity for embodied social engagement. The capacity for social engagement has powerful consequences for health and happiness. As young children we are wired to participate in the social nervous systems of our parents and to find excitement and joy in such engagement. In addition, fascination with the face of another person generalizes to the environment and to the wonder of “newness.” Colors become vibrant, while one perceives shapes and textures as though seeing them for the first time—the very miracle of life unfolding. In addition, the social engagement system is intrinsically self-calming and is, therefore, built-in protection against one’s organism being “hijacked” by the sympathetic arousal system and/or frozen into submission by the more primitive emergency shutdown system. The social engagement branch of the nervous system is probably both cardioprotective and immuno-protective.

• From On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019)

  Because being knocked down was already understood, already a given, it was the skin you wore. To ask What’s good? was to move, right away, to joy. It was pushing aside what was inevitable to reach the exceptional. Not great or well or wonderful, but simply good. Because good was more often enough, was a precious spark we sought and harvested of and for one another. Here, good is finding a dollar caught in the sewer drain, is when your mom has enough money on your birthday to rent a movie, plus buy a five-dollar pizza from Easy Frank’s and stick eight candles over the melted cheese and pepperoni. Good is knowing there was a shooting and your brother was the one that came home, or was already beside you, tucked into a bowl of mac and cheese. That’s what Trevor said to me that night as we climbed out of the river, the black droplets dripping from our hair and fingertips. His arm slung across my shivering shoulder, he put his mouth to my ear and said, “You good. You heard, Little Dog? You good, I swear. You good.” — After we put Lan’s urn in the ground, polished her grave one last time with cloth rags soaked in wax and castor oil, you and I return to our hotel in Saigon. Soon as we enter the dingy room with its choking air conditioner, you turn off all the lights. I stop midstride, not sure what to make of the sudden dark. It’s early afternoon and the motorbikes can still be heard honking and puttering on the street below. The bed creaks, you had sat down. “Where am I?” you say. “Where is this?” Not knowing what else to say, I say your name. “Rose,” I say. The flower, the color, the shade. “Hong,” I repeat. A flower is seen only toward the end of its life, just-bloomed and already on its way to being brown paper. And maybe all names are illusions. How often do we name something after its briefest form? Rose bush, rain, butterfly, snapping turtle, firing squad, childhood, death, mother tongue, me, you. Only when I utter the word do I realize that rose is also the past tense of rise. That in calling your name I am also telling you to get up. I say it as if it is the only answer to your question—as if a name is also a sound we can be found in. Where am I? Where am I? You’re Rose, Ma. You have risen.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  She sighed, opened the paper carefully, folded it, and put it aside. When Ruth took the cover off the sewing machine she gasped. I could tell by the way her fingers trailed across the machine how happy it made her. “I'll make you a suit,” she whispered. I beamed. “Really?”? Ruth nodded and bit her knuckles. She stood up and walked over to the half- decorated evergreen. “This is for you.” She handed me a flat package. It was a book called Gay American History. My hands trembled as I leafed through the pages. “Look,” Ruth took the book from my hands and turned to the index. “Remember I told you about what I read in a drag magazine about how people like us used to be honored? Look at this whole section about Native societies. But, wait, look at this.’ She flipped the pages. “This whole part is about women like you who lived as men.” Tears clouded my vision. Esperanza looked at the title and shook her head. “I wish we weren’t always lumped into gay.” Ruth changed the subject, as was her way. She handed me a package wrapped in red tissue paper. “Open this.” Inside was a watercolor of a face filled with emotion, looking up at a host of stars. It was a beautiful face, a face ’d never seen before. It was my face. “Let me see that, honey,” Tanya reached fot it. “Ooh, Ruth. That’s nice. That looks just like him.” “Ruth,” I chewed my lip. “Do I really look like this?” She nodded and smiled through her tears. “When I thought you might die, I started to sketch yout face. I wanted something more than my memories of you to remain. Your eyes were closed, but I could shut my own and remember the way the color of your eyes changes in the light.” Ruth sat down next to me on the couch. We put our arms around each other and rocked. Esperanza and Tanya sat on the floor near us. My chin ached and trembled. “You know,” I told them, “I’ve been searching for you all for such a long time. I can’t believe I’ve finally found you.” I squeezed Ruth tightly in my arms as we both cried. Esperanza rested her hand on my thigh. “Do you know what my name means?” I shook my head. “No, but it sure is pretty.” She smiled and looked at me with a sure, unwavering expression. “Esperanza,” she explained— “it means hope.” Stone Butch Blues 293 IT WAS THE FIRST DAY of spring, when everyone who lives in this city agrees to feel good at the same time—a day when it seems as though every woman, man and child is flirting with my difference. I browsed at the farmer’s market in Union Square, killing time. The sun dipped behind the buildings to the west

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  Justine shrugged. “This one you’ve got to figure out on your own.” “Thanks a lot.” Edna walked in the door. We couldn’t pretend to be casual. She held my eyes as she walked over to me. She smoothed my lapels and kissed me lightly on the lips. My heart was thumping. Edna led me by the hand into the backroom. I put my drink down on the table and started to sit down, but Edna pulled me toward the dance floor. This was a moment P’d dreamed of. The pleasure of the dance was so exquisite, I almost couldn’t stand it. I only opened my eyes once while the music was playing. I saw Jan watching us. Although she was only silhouetted, I recognized her jealous rage. In an instant, she was gone. Edna pulled back and looked at me. “What’s wrong?” she asked. My eyes brimmed with tears. She put her fingertips on my cheek and drew me closer. “Did I do something wrong?” I couldn’t explain that I was afraid I'd just lost Jan, too. Edna led me back to the table. “Edna,” I began. She shook her head. “TI don’t like the sound of that. You don’t have to explain,” she said as she gathered her purse and coat in her arms. “Wait,” I told her. “You don’t understand.” She dropped her coat wearily. “I want you so much, it’s driving me crazy. It’s just doesn’t feel right.” Edna didn’t say a word. This was my job to try to explain. “T can’t stop thinking about you.” She leaned forward and rested her hand on my uninjured arm, but she still didn’t speak. “Remember something you told me, about people having seasons? You just broke up with Jan and you’re hurting. I love Jan, too—she’s my friend.” Edna dropped her head and then raised it. Her eyes were filled with sadness. “I thought you were going to tell me I was too old for you.” “T don’t think you’re old at all, Edna. I think ’m a little too young for you. Pm not really talking about age, so much, as about being grown-up. Sometimes I imagine walking into the bar with you and being an instant elder because you’re on my arm.” Edna still didn’t speak. She sure wasn’t making this any easier for me. “And sometimes when I get so confused about what to do, I think you could make sense of the world to me.” Edna smiled gently.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  We talked all day long too. The owners only rented our hands, not our brains. But even talking had to be negotiated when it was on the bosses’ time. If we seemed to be having too much fun, laughing and enjoying ourselves too much, the foreman would come up behind us and hit the solid wooden worktables with a lead pipe while he growled, “Get to work.” Then we'd all look at our hands as we worked and press our lips together in silent anger. I think the foreman sometimes got nervous after he’d done that, sensing the murderous glances he recetved moments after he turned his back. But he was assigned to keep us under control. That required keeping us divided. We came from many different nationalities and backgrounds. About half the women on the line were from the Six Nations. Most were Mohawk or Seneca. What we shared in common was that we worked cooperatively, day in and day out. So we remembered to ask about each other’s back or foot pains, family crises. We shated small bits of our culture, favorite foods, or revealed an embarrassing moment. It was just this potential for solidarity the foreman was always looking to sabotage. It was done in little ways, all the time: a whispered lie, a cruel suggestion, a vulgar joke. But it was hard to split us up. The conveyor belt held us together. Within weeks I was welcomed into the citcle, teased, pelted with questions. My differences were taken into account, my sameness sought out. We worked together, we talked, we listened. And then there were songs. When the whistle first blew in the mornings there was a shared physical letdown among all the women and men who worked between its imperative commands. We lumbered to out feet, stood silently in line to punch in, and took out places on the assembly line—next to each other, Stone Butch Blues $1 facing each other. We worked the first few moments in heavy silence. Then the weight was lifted by the voice of one of the Native women. They were social songs, happy songs that made you feel real good to hear them, even if you had no idea what the words meant. I listened to the songs, trying to hear the boundaries of each word, the patterns and repetitions. Sometimes one of the women would explain to us later what the song meant, or for which occasion or time of year it was sung, There was one song I loved the best. I found myself humming it after I punched out in the afternoons. One day, without thinking, I sang along, The women pretended not to notice, but they smiled at each other with their eyes, and sang a little louder to allow me to raise my own voice a bit. After that I started looking forward to the songs in the morning, Some of the other non-Native women learned songs, too. It felt good to sing together.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  At such moments, your mind will be naturally filled with all kinds of information and practice, ripe for a peak experience. Second, you must plan on giving yourself uninterrupted time with the work—as many hours in the day as possible, and as many days in the week. For this purpose, you have to rigorously eliminate the usual level of distractions, even plan on disappearing for a period of time. Think of it as a type of religious retreat. Steve Jobs would close the door to his office, spend the entire day holed up in the room, and wait until he fell into a state of deep focus. Once you become adept at this, you can do it almost anywhere. Einstein would notoriously go into such a deep state of absorption that he would lose himself in the city streets or while sailing on a lake. Third, the emphasis must be on the work, never on yourself or the desire for recognition. You are fusing your mind with the work itself, and any intrusive thoughts from your ego or doubts about yourself or personal obsessions will interrupt the flow. Not only will you find this flow immensely therapeutic, but it will also yield uncannily creative results. For the time period that the actress Ingrid Bergman was engaged in a particular film project, she poured every ounce of her energy into it, forgetting everything else about her life. Unlike other actors, who gave greater importance to the money they earned or the attention they received, Bergman saw only the opportunity to completely embody the role she was to play and bring it to life. For this purpose, she would engage with the writers and the director involved, actively altering the role itself and some of the dialogue, making it more real; they would trust her in this, because her ideas were almost always excellent and were based on deep thinking about the character. Once she had gone far enough in the writing and thinking process, she would go through days or weeks feeling herself fuse with the role, and not interacting with others. In doing so, she could forget about all the pain in her life—the loss of her parents when she was young, her abusive husband. These were the moments of genuine joy in her life, and she translated such peak experiences to the screen. Audiences could sense something profoundly realistic in her performances, and they identified unusually intensely with the characters she played. Knowing she would periodically have such experiences, and the results that went with them, kept her moving past the pain and sacrifices that she demanded of herself. Look at this as a form of religious devotion to your life’s work. Such devotion will eventually yield moments of union with the work itself, and a type of ecstasy that is impossible to verbalize until you have experienced it.

• From On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019)

  We had eggs sautéed in diced tomatoes and fish sauce over rice for dinner. I was wearing a grey-red plaid button-up from L.L.Bean. You were in the kitchen, washing up, humming. The TV was on, playing a rerun of Rugrats, Lan clapping to the animated show. One of the bulbs in the bathroom buzzed, the wattage too strong for the socket. You wanted to go buy new ones at the drugstore but decided to wait for your wages from the salon so we could also get a box of Ensure for Lan. You were okay that day. You even smiled twice through the cigarette smoke. I remember it. I remember it all because how can you forget anything about the day you first found yourself beautiful? I turned the shower off and, instead of toweling and dressing before the steam on the door mirror cleared, like I normally would, I waited. It was an accident, my beauty revealed to me. I was daydreaming, thinking about the day before, of Trevor and me behind the Chevy, and had stood in the tub with the water off for too long. By the time I stepped out, the boy before the mirror stunned me. Who was he? I touched the face, its sallow cheeks. I felt my neck, the braid of muscles sloped to collarbones that jutted into stark ridges. The scraped-out ribs sunken as the skin tried to fill its irregular gaps, the sad little heart rippling underneath like a trapped fish. The eyes that wouldn’t match, one too open, the other dazed, slightly lidded, cautious of whatever light was given it. It was everything I hid from, everything that made me want to be a sun, the only thing I knew that had no shadow. And yet, I stayed. I let the mirror hold those flaws—because for once, drying, they were not wrong to me but something that was wanted, that was sought and found among a landscape as enormous as the one I had been lost in all this time. Because the thing about beauty is that it’s only beautiful outside of itself. Seen through a mirror, I viewed my body as another, a boy a few feet away, his expression unmoved, daring the skin to remain as it was, as if the sun, setting, was not already elsewhere, was not in Ohio. I got what I wanted—a boy swimming toward me. Except I was no shore, Ma. I was driftwood trying to remember what I had broken from to get here. —

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  Feeling a part of that tenuous experiment of life is a kind of reverse grandiosity—you are not disturbed by your relative smallness but rather ecstatic at the sense of being a drop in this ocean. Then, overwhelmed by the afflictions I suffered in connection with my sons, I sent again and inquired of the god what I should do to pass the rest of my life most happily; and he answered me: “Knowing thyself, O Croesus—thus shall you live and be happy.” . . . [But] spoiled by the wealth I had and by those who were begging me to become their leader, by the gifts they gave me and by the people who flattered me, saying that if I would consent to take command they would all obey me and I should be the greatest of men—puffed up by such words, when all the princes round about chose me to be their leader in the war, I accepted the command, deeming myself fit to be the greatest; but, as it seems, I did not know myself. For I thought I was capable of carrying on war against you; but I was no match for you. . . . Therefore, as I was thus without knowledge, I have my just deserts. —Xenophon, The Education of Cyrus A 12 Reconnect to the Masculine or Feminine Within You The Law of Gender Rigidity ll of us have masculine and feminine qualities—some of this is genetic, and some of it comes from the profound influence of the parent of the opposite sex. But in the need to present a consistent identity in society, we tend to repress these qualities, overidentifying with the masculine or feminine role expected of us. And we pay a price for this. We lose valuable dimensions to our character. Our thinking and ways of acting become rigid. Our relationships with members of the opposite sex suffer as we project onto them our own fantasies and hostilities. You must become aware of these lost masculine or feminine traits and slowly reconnect to them, unleashing creative powers in the process. You will become more fluid in your thinking. In bringing out the masculine or feminine undertone to your character, you will fascinate people by being authentically yourself. Do not play the expected gender role, but rather create the one that suits you. The Authentic Gender As a young girl, Caterina Sforza dreamed of great deeds that she would be a part of as a member of the illustrious Sforza family of Milan. Born in 1463, Caterina was the daughter out of wedlock of a beautiful Milanese noblewoman and Galeazzo Maria Sforza, who became Duke of Milan upon the death of his father in 1466. As duke, Galeazzo ordered that his daughter be brought into the castle, Porta Giovia, where he lived with his new wife, and that she be raised like any legitimate member of the Sforza family.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  She nodded to silence me. “Yes, I do know, but it came out just fine.” We both noticed Duffy standing nearby, waiting to congratulate me. “You were right, Jess,” he told me, as he pumped my hand. “The union did win the game. My first instincts were wrong, I’m sorry.” I got myself an ice-cold beer and a piece of fried chicken and sat down alone under a tree. The air was hot, the breeze was cool. I felt on top of the world. 96 Leslie Feinberg JIM BONEY DIDN’T SHOW UP for work on Monday. I was glad. I wouldn’t have admitted this to anyone, but I was still scared of him. So when he called in sick Monday morning I walked around the plant feeling a little smug. Jack pulled me off the line and led me to a die cutter, which punched school flashcards into the shape of decks. Normally one of the guys used a powerful air hose to blow away the trim before it jammed the machine. “The air hose is being fixed,” Jack shouted over the roar of the machinery. “You assist Jan when she needs help loading her skids. Every once in a while, you brush the shit off the press, like this.” He ran his hand across the face of the die cutter in the split second between punches. “Don’t let it jam,” he warned me, before he walked away. Jan looked at the machine and back at me. “Be cateful,” she cautioned. I watched the die cutter punch the decks, trying to learn its rhythm like a song. My hand darted out and quickly brushed some of the trim away. I got most of it. My hands were trembling. When you work around machines you grow to respect their mesmerizing power. I tried to stay in sync with the punch press. Just once my hand was slow. Just once was all it took. It happened so fast. One moment my fingers were all connected to me. The next moment I could feel my ring finger lying against my palm. My blood spurted in an arc across the machine, the decks of catds stacked on skids, and the wall in front of me. I tried not to look at my left hand, but I did. My stomach heaved before my mind could even understand what my eyes saw. I couldn’t have been heard over the thunder of the machines, but it didn’t matter. I couldn’t make a sound. Everything took place in slow motion. Jan waved her arms and shouted. People came near but froze in horror. It occurred to me I should go to the hospital. I knew I couldn’t drive my motorcycle. As I walked to the door I wondered if I had enough bus fare. Walter and Duffy ran after me. The next thing I remember was being in a car. Walter had his arm around me. Duffy was driving and

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  Can’t you see?” My mom shook her head. “Poor little colored boy lost his mother. What a shame.” I panicked. Was I crazy? Is she not my mother? I started bawling. “You’re my mother. You’re my mother. She’s my mother. She’s my mother.” She shrugged again. “So sad. I hope he finds his mother.” The cashier nodded. She paid him, took our groceries, and walked out of the shop. I dropped the toffee apple, ran out behind her in tears, and caught up to her at the car. She turned around, laughing hysterically, like she’d really got me good. “Why are you crying?” she asked. “Because you said you weren’t my mother. Why did you say you weren’t my mother?” “Because you wouldn’t shut up about the toffee apple. Now get in the car. Let’s go.” By the time I was seven or eight, I was too smart to be tricked, so she changed tactics. Our life turned into a courtroom drama with two lawyers constantly debating over loopholes and technicalities. My mom was smart and had a sharp tongue, but I was quicker in an argument. She’d get flustered because she couldn’t keep up. So she started writing me letters. That way she could make her points and there could be no verbal sparring back and forth. If I had chores to do, I’d come home to find an envelope slipped under the door, like from the landlord. Dear Trevor, “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.” —Colossians 3:20 There are certain things I expect from you as my child and as a young man. You need to clean your room. You need to keep the house clean. You need to look after your school uniform. Please, my child, I ask you. Respect my rules so that I may also respect you. I ask you now, please go and do the dishes and do the weeds in the garden. Yours sincerely, Mom I would do my chores, and if I had anything to say I would write back. Because my mom was a secretary and I spent hours at her office every day after school, I’d learned a great deal about business correspondence. I was extremely proud of my letter-writing abilities. To Whom It May Concern: Dear Mom, I have received your correspondence earlier. I am delighted to say that I am ahead of schedule on the dishes and I will continue to wash them in an hour or so. Please note that the garden is wet and so I cannot do the weeds at this time, but please be assured this task will be completed by the end of the weekend. Also, I completely agree with what you are saying with regard to my respect levels and I will maintain my room to a satisfactory standard.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  I answer that, The pleasure of contemplation can be understood in two ways. In one way, so that contemplation is the cause, but not the object of pleasure: and then pleasure is taken not in contemplating but in the thing contemplated. Now it is possible to contemplate something harmful and sorrowful, just as to contemplate something suitable and pleasant. Consequently if the pleasure of contemplation be taken in this way, nothing hinders some sorrow being contrary to the pleasure of contemplation. In another way, the pleasure of contemplation is understood, so that contemplation is its object and cause; as when one takes pleasure in the very act of contemplating. And thus, according to Gregory of Nyssa [*Nemesius, De Nat. Hom. xviii.], “no sorrow is contrary to that pleasure which is about contemplation”: and the Philosopher says the same (Topic. i, 13; Ethic. x, 3). This, however, is to be understood as being the case properly speaking. The reason is because sorrow is of itself contrary to pleasure in a contrary object: thus pleasure in heat is contrary to sorrow caused by cold. But there is no contrary to the object of contemplation: because contraries, as apprehended by the mind, are not contrary, but one is the means of knowing the other. Wherefore, properly speaking, there cannot be a sorrow contrary to the pleasure of contemplation. Nor has it any sorrow annexed to it, as bodily pleasures have, which are like remedies against certain annoyances; thus a man takes pleasure in drinking through being troubled with thirst, but when the thirst is quite driven out, the pleasure of drinking ceases also. Because the pleasure of contemplation is not caused by one’s being quit of an annoyance, but by the fact that contemplation is pleasant in itself: for pleasure is not a “becoming” but a perfect operation, as stated above ([1303]Q[31], A[1]).

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  “T didn’t mean anything by it,’ Hazel said. “TI just think—” Anne cut in. “Hazel, eat your pie.” > y' I rolled my eyes with pleasure. “Did you make this pie?” Hazel smiled. “Anne makes the best elderberry pie in the Valley. You could ask anybody. You ever taste a pie that good?” Ruth dropped her eyes. “Well,” I said, “P’ve eaten Ruth’s elderberry pie.” I looked around nervously to see if I'd upset anyone by using the name I knew my friend by. Ruth shrugged. “I must say, ma’am, I can taste the family inspiration in your child’s pie.” “Well, that was some fancy footwork.” Anne smiled as I devoured the pie. Hazel rocked with laughter. “Anne, do you remember the time you shot your first deer?” Hazel began the story. “She was a city girl when she married my brother Cody. First winter she was here, she was hardly good for nothing. I’m going back fifty years now. So over breakfast one morning, my brother tells her he’s gonna go hunting. He told her that deer meat would help see them through the winter and sooner or later she’d have to learn to prepare it. I had told her I'd show her how. But she was willful. She told Cody: Tl shoot the damn deer. That’s the easy part. You clean the damn thing!’ Well, my brother just laughed and went upstairs to shave.” Anne picked up the story. “So, I was washing dishes, right over there,” she pointed. “I was wondering what the hell Pd gotten myself into marrying this man in the first place. Anyhoo, I look out the kitchen window and I see this buck standing in the clearing outside. I didn’t even stop to think. I got one of Cody’s guns and I shot that deer. I ran outside and started dragging it by the antlers. It was heavy, but I was so damn mad at Cody I had the strength of a bull. Cody comes downstairs a few minutes later and there’s a buck on the kitchen floor. I told him, ‘Now you clean the damn thing,” I knew laugher had rolled around the kitchen this way all weekend long. “Oh, I wish Pd a camera to show you Cody’s face. I can see it now.” Anne hooted. Her smile trembled. “I wish you could have met him,” she told me. “I think you would have liked him a lot. He was a real good man.” She sighed. “You want some more pie?” I nodded emphatically. Ruth shook her head. “You're gonna be puking purple all over the car.” Anne put her hands on her hips. “This boy’s not leaving this valley without tasting my grape pie.” I held up my hands in surrender. “Yes, ma’am.” “That’s better,” she said, putting an even larger slab of pie in front of me. Stone Butch Blues 319

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  All the drag queens were there: Justine and Peaches and Georgetta. Butch Al was there, and Ed. There were a few other people nearby, but shadows covered their faces. I discovered Rocco sitting next to me. She reached forward and stroked my cheek. I touched my own face. I felt the rough stubble of beard. I ran my hand across the flat plain of my chest. I felt happy in my body, comfortable among friends. ‘Wheres the others?” I asked. Justine nodded. “E:veryone’s going in different directions.” AA sense of loss washed over me. ‘Well never find each other again.” Peaches laughed gently. ‘Well find each other, child. Dont you worry.” I leaned forward and squeezed Peaches’ hand in mine. “Phase dont forget me. Please dont any of you forget me. I dont want to disappear.” Peaches put her arm around my shoulder and pulled me closer. “You're one of us, child. You abvays will be.” I felt panicky. “Do I really belong here with youe” Affectionate laughter rose to answer my question. One by one each person in the hut hugged me. I felt safe and loved in their arms. I looked up. The hut had no roof. The stars winked on and off like fireflies. The air was cool and scented with eucalyptus. I crossed my legs in front of the fire and warmed myself in Pleasure. ‘Wheres Theresa?” I asked. I woke up without hearing the answer. “Honey, wake up. Please.” I shook Theresa gently. She lifted her head off the pillow. “What is it, Jess? What’s wrong?” “T just had this really amazing dream.” Theresa rubbed her eyes. “I was in a place that felt very old, out in the woods. I was with Peaches and Justine and Georgetta. And Rocco was sitting next to me.” I didn’t know how to describe the feeling of the dream to Theresa. “I felt like I belonged with them, you know?” I could feel Theresa’s hand sweep once gently across the back of my T-shirt, then she began to drift back to sleep. “Theresa,” I shook her, insistently. She moaned. “I forgot to tell you this part. In the dream I had a beard and my chest was flat. It made me so happy. It was like a part of me that I can’t explain, you know?” Theresa shook her head. “What’s it mean, honey?” I crushed my cigarette. “It was about something old in me. It was about growing up different. All my life I didn’t want to feel different. But in the dream I liked it and I was with other people who were different like me.” Theresa nodded. “But you told me that’s how you felt when you found the bars.”

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  me, but she restrained herself. So did I. I kissed the cheek she offered me. I saw Grant near the jukebox. A moment later I heard “Stand By Your Man” playing. Thanks, Grant. I asked Theresa to dance. She took her time smoothing my collar and adjusting my tie before she led me to the dance floor. We moved beautifully together. Meg told me later we looked as good as Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. All the while we were dancing, Theresa traced the back of my neck above my collar with her fingernails. She was driving me mad. I guess that was the point. I know I was driving her crazy, too, but I was being very, very careful doing it. Sometimes when you just move a little, carefully, it’s a whole lot more powerful than grinding, When the song finished I let go of her, but Theresa pulled me back. “I wasn’t trying to be mean to you at the plant. Did you think I was?” “No, it felt good.” She smiled. “TI don’t think I was very nice to you. I was just teasing you, to get your attention. I liked you.” I blushed. “Nobody ever flirted with me outside a bar before—I mean in the real world, you know? It made me feel normal.” She nodded like she really understood. We talked for a while about out lives. She was a rural girl from Appleton. She came right out and told me she got friends to drive her to this bar just to look for me. Then someone tapped Theresa on the shoulder. The women she rode to Buffalo with were leaving. She took my face in both her hands and kissed my mouth. I blushed from head to toe. She stood back and grinned at my color, proud of her work. “Tl make you dinner at my house next Saturday night if you want,” she offered. “You're on,” I said, still blushing. She scribbled her phone number down on a cocktail napkin. “Call me,” she shouted over her shoulder. “You can bet on it,” I answered. I was still blushing. You would have thought I’d won the Kentucky Derby the way everybody came over to congratulate me. I felt like a million bucks. I just wondered if P’d ever stop blushing. It took me all day Saturday to get ready—pick out the right clothes, bathe, shower, shower again. Then there were questions like which tie, cologne or no cologne? Something so sweet took a lot of care. I brought Theresa daffodils. When I handed them to her, her eyes filled with tears. I had a feeling nobody had treated her like someone special before. I silently vowed to always make her feel that way.

• From In the Dream House (2019)

  In Virginia, you ride horses through the woods and watch the sunrise over the Shenandoah mountains. The wedding is beautiful. At the reception, you all crowd into a photobooth. You don gloves. You hold a monocle over your eye. You cock a pipe against your lips. You drink, you dance. You love the way she bops on the dance floor, the dance of someone who has joy in her body. After the wedding you have to rip her little black dress off her body because the zipper is broken and you are both drunk and stoned and laughing. The next day, after you say good-bye to your friends, you sit in the car in the parking lot as she talks at you—your friends hate me, they’re jealous. An hour later you are still there, your head bent tearily against the window. The new bride walks by and notices you in your car. You see her slow down, her face crimped with puzzlement and concern. You shake your head ever so slightly, and she looks uncertain but mercifully she keeps walking so you can endure your punishment in peace. By the time you’ve wound out of the mountains and gotten back to a freeway, the bite of the fight has sweetened; whiskey unraveled by ice. Dream House as House in FloridaYou visit her parents’ house in the southernmost part of Florida. You fought the whole way down—at the Dulles airport she made you cry at a Sam Adams–branded restaurant and several strangers looked over with judgment as you pressed a napkin against your face like a consumptive—and you are relieved to be there. She has an ancient cat who immediately tries to bite you. Her mother is birdlike, too thin, and you are worried—for her, for yourself. Her father shows up later, pours himself a generously sized cocktail. Her family is funny and mean. They are different from your family, who you feel have never appreciated your mind. And there is only her and her two parents and you are jealous; there is no other word for it. They feed you. Chicken and Israeli couscous and cookies and kalamata olives and a bean salad with so much dill. Seafood and risotto and fresh fruit. You laugh. “Maybe we should move here,” you say, and her mother smiles brightly, and for a moment you feel like a scene in a movie, a boyfriend being plied by the culinary arts of the mother of your lover. You never see her mother eat, not once. “If you go out for a walk later,” her father says, drinking his third martini, “make sure you watch out for alligators.” “Alligators?” you repeat in alarm. “They probably wouldn’t attack you,” he says. The glass is, suddenly, empty. “Probably.”

• From Blue Like Jazz (2003)

  After I repented, things were different, but the difference wasn’t with my friend, the difference was with me. I was happy. Before, I had all this negative tension flipping around in my gut, all this judgmentalism and pride and loathing of other people. I hated it, and now I was set free. I was free to love. I didn’t have to discipline anybody, I didn’t have to judge anybody, I could treat everybody as though they were my best friend, as though they were rock stars or famous poets, as though they were amazing, and to me they became amazing, especially my new friend. I loved him. After I decided to let go of judging him, I discovered he was very funny. I mean, really hilarious. I kept telling him how funny he was. And he was smart. Quite brilliant, really. I couldn’t believe that I had never seen it before. I felt as though I had lost an enemy and gained a brother. And then he began to change. It didn’t matter to me whether he did or not, but he did. He began to get a little more serious about God. He gave up television for a period of time as a sort of fast. He started praying and got regular about going to church. He was a great human being getting even better. I could feel God’s love for him. I loved the fact that it wasn’t my responsibility to change somebody, that it was God’s, that my part was just to communicate love and approval. When I am talking to somebody there are always two conversations going on. The first is on the surface; it is about politics or music or whatever it is our mouths are saying. The other is beneath the surface, on the level of the heart, and my heart is either communicating that I like the person I am talking to or I don’t. God wants both conversations to be true. That is, we are supposed to speak truth in love. If both conversations are not true, God is not involved in the exchange, we are on our own, and on our own, we will lead people astray. The Bible says that if you talk to somebody with your mouth, and your heart does not love them, that you are like a person standing there smashing two cymbals together. You are only annoying everybody around you. I think that is very beautiful and true. Now, since Greg Spencer told me about truth, when I go to meet somebody, I pray that God will help me feel His love for them. I ask God to make it so both conversations, the one from the mouth and the one from the heart, are true. 19 Love How to Really Love Yourself