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 Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Objection 2: Further, wonder is the beginning of wisdom, being as it were, the road to the search of truth, as stated in the beginning of Metaph. i, 2. But “it is more pleasant to think of what we know, than to seek what we know not,” as the Philosopher says (Ethic. x, 7): since in the latter case we encounter difficulties and hindrances, in the former not; while pleasure arises from an operation which is unhindered, as stated in Ethic. vii, 12,13. Therefore wonder hinders rather than causes pleasure. Objection 3: Further, everyone takes pleasure in what he is accustomed to: wherefore the actions of habits acquired by custom, are pleasant. But “we wonder at what is unwonted,” as Augustine says (Tract. xxiv in Joan.). Therefore wonder is contrary to the cause of pleasure. On the contrary, The Philosopher says (Rhet. i, 11) that wonder is the cause of pleasure. I answer that, It is pleasant to get what one desires, as stated above ([1283]Q[23], A[4]): and therefore the greater the desire for the thing loved, the greater the pleasure when it is attained: indeed the very increase of desire brings with it an increase of pleasure, according as it gives rise to the hope of obtaining that which is loved, since it was stated above (A[3], ad 3) that desire resulting from hope is a cause of pleasure. Now wonder is a kind of desire for knowledge; a desire which comes to man when he sees an effect of which the cause either is unknown to him, or surpasses his knowledge or faculty of understanding. Consequently wonder is a cause of pleasure, in so far as it includes a hope of getting the knowledge which one desires to have. For this reason whatever is wonderful is pleasing, for instance things that are scarce. Also, representations of things, even of those which are not pleasant in themselves, give rise to pleasure; for the soul rejoices in comparing one thing with another, because comparison of one thing with another is the proper and connatural act of the reason, as the Philosopher says (Poet. iv). This again is why “it is more delightful to be delivered from great danger, because it is something wonderful,” as stated in Rhetor. i, 11. Reply to Objection 1: Wonder gives pleasure, not because it implies ignorance, but in so far as it includes the desire of learning the cause, and in so far as the wonderer learns something new, i.e. that the cause is other than he had thought it to be. [*According to another reading:—that he is other than he thought himself to be.]

• From Cleanness (2020)

  Then Z. said something else and again I didn’t understand, so he took his phone out of his pocket and typed, holding up the screen for me to read. This is a great night, he had written, and I looked up and said Yes, and we raised our glasses, clinking them before we drank. The music changed as we set our glasses down, there was a sudden assault of gaidi , the mountain bagpipes ubiquitous in Balkan folk music, and then a syncopated rush of drums that made both of us grin. It was a song we knew well, one of the big hits of Z.’s senior year, and we lifted our glasses again, toasting each other and the song and the memory of it we had. With the glass still at his lips Z. began to dance, he extended his other arm away from his body and twisted slightly from side to side, and though it was half ironic it made me feel a kind of pang, since it was for me, his dance, I was his only audience, it could only be for me. After a few seconds, he put his glass down, dropping his other arm too, abandoning his performance. But I raised my own arms, awkward and un-American, I shuffled a step toward him and he was in it again. It was like I had given him permission to dance, to be foolish in front of me, since I was so much more foolish, without his beauty or his youth, I was an old man in this place. But he smiled at me and I smiled back and we were dancing with each other, after a fashion, we made a little orbit together, a center of gravity. At one point I reached over and put my hand on his shoulder, a friendly gesture, casual, avuncular maybe, and then I let my hand slide down his arm and, as I felt him flex his bicep, that reflexive preening, I curled my fingers around the muscle there and squeezed, feeling how solid it was. I knew the gesture wasn’t casual anymore, that it showed too much, I was touching him as I had never allowed myself to touch a student before. But he wasn’t my student, I told myself, for one night we could face each other without all that, I could touch his arm and have all of that fall away.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  I couldn’t see D. at first, the area around the fountain was packed with people. Children ran around the fountain’s edge, weaving past their parents, bumping into strangers, and playing in the water, too, though there were signs forbidding it; they shrieked, arms pressed tight to their sides, as the spray soaked their clothes. But then I noticed him, he had hoisted himself onto the base of a lamppost and was scanning the crowd. I waved and his face brightened when he saw me. He was a few years younger than I, with shaggy black hair that hung into his eyes if he let it go too long between haircuts, as he had now. He wasn’t obviously beautiful but he was beautiful, it was a combination of charm and intelligence, a kind of earthy old-world grace, and of the wiry athleticism I felt when we hugged, a little awkwardly to spare the flower. You’ve been working out, I said when he pulled back, and he smiled, raising both his arms in a muscleman pose. It had taken me a while to be sure he was straight, he was so warm with his friends, he spoke a language of endearment, of casual caresses and kisses to the cheek and forehead, flirtation was his natural mode of congress with the world. This annoyed me sometimes in others, it could seem like a taunt, or a demand to be adored; but D.’s affection was genuine, a kind of blessing, it made you happy to be with him. He led me to the patch of shade he had claimed under the trees that grew near the wall of the Archaeological Museum, where he had been standing with two other people. One of these was his mother, whom I knew well, and I took the flower from my shirt and held it out to her, which made her laugh, she took it and then pulled me to her for a hug. I’m sure my face showed my surprise when D. introduced me to the older man standing with them; I had read his books, in Bulgarian and in English, he was the first writer I read when I decided years before to come to Sofia. Za men e chest , I said to him, shaking his hand, it’s an honor, and he smiled, less at the sentiment, I thought, than at the formality of what I had said, which was so out of tune with the festive atmosphere, with his friendship with D., which was old and deep, with the shorts and sneakers he was wearing, I was suddenly a little embarrassed. Cherries, I said in English, I had almost forgotten their weight in my hand, and I held the bag out to him. He laughed, and as he reached his hand in the awkwardness was gone. D. took each of us by a shoulder, beaming, and said how happy he was for us to meet.

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

  darkness with music flooding the car we could not stop ourselves from singing along, at first privately, then together. Pearl didn’t have a good voice but I never ragged her about it. That would have been too low, like ragging her about her bald spot. Anyway, you didn’t need a good voice for the songs we liked; you needed timing and inflection. Pearl had these, and she could do backup and harmony. You can’t sing harmony without leaning close together, taking cues from a nod, a sudden narrowing of the eyes, an intake of breath, and when it’s going well you have to smile. There’s no way not to smile. We did some songs well—“To Know Him Is to Love Him,” “My Happiness,” “Mister Blue,” most of the Everly Brothers—and we sang them as if to each other, smiling, face to face. Until Dwight came out of the tavern. Then we turned off the radio and leaned back into our comers. Dwight walked toward the car with my mother following a few steps behind, her arms crossed, her eyes on the ground. She didn’t look like a winner now. Dwight got in smelling of bourbon. My mother stayed outside. She said she wouldn’t get in unless Dwight gave her the keys. He just sat there, and after a time she got in. As he pulled the car out of the lot my mother gnawed at her lower lip and watched the road come at us. “Please, Dwight,” she said. “Please, Dwight,” he mimicked. As we went into the first curve I felt Pearl’s fingers sinking into my forearm. “Please, Dwight,” I said. “Please, Dwight,” he said. And then he took us through the turns above the river, tires wailing, headlights swinging between cliff and space, and the more we begged him the faster he went, only slowing down for a breath after the really close calls, and then laughing to show he wasn’t afraid.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  Probably it had something to do with the weather, the fact that the most recent protests had remained peaceful; Sofia is wonderful in springtime, and even with the unseasonable heat it was a glorious spring. At Orlov Most the little vendor stalls were heaped with flowers and with cherries, swollen and voluptuously red; old women brought them from their villages, they were the most delicious cherries I had ever tasted. I bought some now from a round squat woman who called out sladki, sladki, promising they were sweet. She put great handfuls in a plastic sack, a bread bag turned inside out—I saw she had a whole heap of these sacks next to her in a garbage bag, she must have been collecting them all winter. The bag she handed me was half full, more than I wanted, she had filled it before I could tell her to stop. She was wearing a thin, formless housedress with a floral pattern, almost a nightgown, the kind of thing my own grandmother wore, and her hair was the same, too, cut short and curled; probably the resemblance was why I stopped, though her hair wasn’t my grandmother’s gray but dyed a bright shade of red I had only ever seen in the Balkans. She weighed the cherries on an old balance scale, as she did so trying to sell me her flowers, that was all she had on her table, cherries and country flowers, daisies and black-eyed Susans and Queen Anne’s lace, laid out in piles and also in prebundled bouquets, one of which she held out to me. For your girlfriend, she said, go on, she will be so happy. I laughed, thanking her but not taking the flowers, and she shrugged, disappointed. But she smiled again when I handed her a bill for five leva, telling her to keep the change, and she insisted I take a single black-eyed Susan, which I did, I would feel awkward carrying it through the streets but it would have been rude to refuse. I thanked her and slipped into the stream of people walking along the boulevard. Nearly everyone was headed for the protests, they carried signs and noisemakers, one man swung a bullhorn at his waist. They were young people mostly, some of them with shaved heads or dyed hair, the various strands of Sofia’s alternative scene, a kind of neo-hippie style of torn jeans and denim jackets; but really there were people of all kinds, men and women coming from the office, couples pushing bikes or strollers, one young man with his daughter on his shoulders, her ringlets of brown hair crowned with a chain of flowers. People were laughing, the mood wasn’t angry at all, it was ebullient, and I slipped the stem of the black-eyed Susan through the buttons of my shirt, so that the bright head hung at my heart. That put me in mind of something, a flower for a heart, there was a line of a poem I almost remembered, something from O’Hara or Reverdy; I couldn’t quite catch it but the feel of it made me smile. Police were in the street directing traffic, ushering the last cars through before they closed the boulevard for the march, but for now we stayed on the sidewalk, moving more slowly as it grew more crowded, which just increased our fellow feeling: people smiled to one another in a way that was unusual in Sofia, couples drew closer together, parents pulled their children near, keeping a hand on the top of their heads, on the nape of their necks. Bulgarian flags were everywhere, dangling from breast pockets or the straps of backpacks, one woman had four or five of them tucked into the long braid of her hair. Children waved them in the air, and some adults did, too, though we hadn’t made it to the protest yet. Or maybe we had, we were the protest already, I guess, we had become a kind of parade. The cherries burst in my mouth, firm and ripe, sweet with a dark sweetness, gorgeous, like a low frequency. I spat the pits in my palm and dropped them a little guiltily into the gutter.

• From Stripped: Las Vegas (2021)

  My parents bought me my first one when I was 16 for my birthday. Just like the walls of my house, I loved how I could take something the way that I see the world and put it just right up on my body. It's another way for me to show what I'm about through piercing. I do have my tongue split. - [Camera Woman] Hi Ryan. [chattering] [placid music] - I started playing hockey when I was about five years old. I liked being aggressive and pushing boys around. It made me feel very powerful. [skates thumping] - [Man] Whoa, that was a shot. - I really prioritize playtime. I think playing just for the sake of play is the best thing I can do for my mental health. And so, being able to play hockey and get a workout in, it's fantastic and it's so fun. [match scraping] [upbeat music] - When I light my sage, It's the first thing that I do in the morning. It gets rid of all the bad energies that's in the house. [placid music] I light my candles for peace and for protection. It just helps me set the tone for my day. If I don't do it, the whole day is out of whack. - Anytime I can take a day off, get out the house, be in the desert, hiking, fuck yeah, bring it on. I try to keep a balance of being September and being who I am at home. And when you live in a city like this that never fucking sleeps, it is so hard to keep that balance. [feet thumping] [birds chirping] - [Recorder] All right, can you hear me? - [Galaxciii] Yes. - [Recorder] All right, cool. We're gonna run it from the top, okay? - [Galaxciii] Okay. - [Recorder] You ready? - Mm-hmm. [upbeat music] Making music has been more of an eye opening experience when I'm sober. ♪ You wanna fuck with me now that I'm on ♪ ♪ They were just dissing, now dissing my song ♪ ♪ So you drink a 40 while I smoke my bong ♪ ♪ Take chances no more I can't stand ♪ ♪ People that lie to your face when they ran ♪ ♪ They try to offend you just know that they can ♪ ♪ Act like they don't like you but they is a fan ♪ I am so much more clear headed. I feel so much more inspired. My whole entire life I was saying I've wrote poems, and my vision is becoming a reality, because now I can clearly see that vision. I'm not drunk, I'm not high. [upbeat music] He'll send me beats and I'll go through them, choose ones that I feel most inspired by. And then, I will just start writing from there. Like this song right here, I love this beat. I started writing to it the other day and I just instantly just started going at it.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  D. kissed her cheek, and she thanked me again for the flower, which she held with her free hand as she and the writer set off for the metro stop a few blocks away, leaving D. and me alone. He looked at me and smiled, shrugging a little. He’s a great writer, he said, but he’s wrong about this. I didn’t say anything; I wanted to take up the writer’s side of things, but I knew I would lose the argument—I didn’t have any arguments, really, just feelings, he would have laughed at them. And anyway the drums started beating then, and air horns blared, and there was a shift in the crowd, which grew still and then very slowly began to move. D. sighed. Okay, he said, I guess it’s time, and he swung his backpack off his shoulder to take out a large camera, which he hung around his neck. It was his first time at the protests, too, he had followed them in the news but hadn’t come out until tonight, to play the role of journalist, not citizen—he would wander around talking to people, he said, gathering material. There was another blast of horns, and D. invited me to join him. But I would have been in the way, and I wanted to be on my own for a bit, I told him I would find him later. The crowd was moving more decisively now, I stood for a while at the fountain and watched it pass. People held their signs at attention, not using them for shade anymore, and everywhere I saw the word OSTAVKA , resignation, the protesters’ primary demand. A golden retriever twisted among the crowd, unleashed, his tail crazily wagging, until he paused in front of a young girl with Bulgarian flags painted on her cheeks, who patted him once or twice before he rushed off again. I was there to join them, but something held me back. I stood scanning the crowd until I saw, among all the Bulgarian red and green and white, a little rainbow flag, then another, a whole group of five or six people waving them alongside their posterboard signs. I knew them, or most of them, they were activists I had met over the years, and I cut through the crowd toward them. S. greeted me first, tucking his posterboard under his arm to shake my hand. He was in his midtwenties, tall, with longish brown hair he frequently tossed out of his eyes, the gesture of an eighties pop star. He had come in from Varna, where he ran one of the only activist organizations I had heard of outside of Sofia. It had been in the news lately, they had tried to organize what he called an LGBT film festival, though it was really just a few chairs and a DVD player in a café.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  We had to walk sideways and single file to make it through the crowd, though people tried to make room for us, smiling and moving out of our way as best they could. We must have been a familiar sight, two friends helping a third, and again I had the feeling of belonging with them, which was warm and present and drowned out my premonition of shame. We climbed the stairs and pushed out into the night, nodding at the two bouncers who didn’t acknowledge us, and I sucked in great breaths as if I had been starving for air. Z. stumbled again, leaning hard against me, and we sat on the stairs to wait for the cab N. had called. Z. bent forward, his elbows propped on his knees, and moaned, and N. and I laughed at him. Mnogo si slab, be , I said, you’re very weak, I expected better, and I gripped his shoulder to pull him to me. But then he slipped or lost his balance and fell across my lap, and a single fluent stream of vomit struck the pavement beside my shoes. He stayed in that position, draped across my lap, and I bent over him, as if to shield him from something, and rubbed his back, the fabric of his shirt damp with sweat. Ne se chuvstvam dobre , he said, pushing himself upright, I don’t feel well, and N. told him not to worry, they were going home, he would sleep it off. They would go to Z.’s apartment, which was somewhere nearby, the studio his family kept and that Z. had claimed as his own, a place to take girls and have small gatherings, it was only big enough for five or six people, he had told me. He was still slumped against me, I could feel his heat against my side. When the cab came we stood, N. and I pulling Z. up and leading him to the car. Will you be okay, I asked as Z. pulled his legs in, half lying across N.’s lap. But you’re coming, N. said, don’t you want to come with us, we can hang out at Z.’s place, and Z. echoed him, saying Yes, come, Gospodine , his voice slurred with drink. I stood with my hand on the car, hesitating, wanting to join them and imagining what might still happen, the possibilities of privacy with Z., I was tempted to try them. But I stepped back instead. No, I said, I have to go home, it’s too late already. But thank you for tonight, I said, I had so much fun, thank you. It was a great night, Z. said, letting his head fall as I swung the door shut. I didn’t have to wait long for another taxi to appear, one pulled up almost right away, letting a couple out in front of the club.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  I thanked her and slipped into the stream of people walking along the boulevard. Nearly everyone was headed for the protests, they carried signs and noisemakers, one man swung a bullhorn at his waist. They were young people mostly, some of them with shaved heads or dyed hair, the various strands of Sofia’s alternative scene, a kind of neo-hippie style of torn jeans and denim jackets; but really there were people of all kinds, men and women coming from the office, couples pushing bikes or strollers, one young man with his daughter on his shoulders, her ringlets of brown hair crowned with a chain of flowers. People were laughing, the mood wasn’t angry at all, it was ebullient, and I slipped the stem of the black-eyed Susan through the buttons of my shirt, so that the bright head hung at my heart. That put me in mind of something, a flower for a heart, there was a line of a poem I almost remembered, something from O’Hara or Reverdy; I couldn’t quite catch it but the feel of it made me smile. Police were in the street directing traffic, ushering the last cars through before they closed the boulevard for the march, but for now we stayed on the sidewalk, moving more slowly as it grew more crowded, which just increased our fellow feeling: people smiled to one another in a way that was unusual in Sofia, couples drew closer together, parents pulled their children near, keeping a hand on the top of their heads, on the nape of their necks. Bulgarian flags were everywhere, dangling from breast pockets or the straps of backpacks, one woman had four or five of them tucked into the long braid of her hair. Children waved them in the air, and some adults did, too, though we hadn’t made it to the protest yet. Or maybe we had, we were the protest already, I guess, we had become a kind of parade. The cherries burst in my mouth, firm and ripe, sweet with a dark sweetness, gorgeous, like a low frequency. I spat the pits in my palm and dropped them a little guiltily into the gutter. My phone buzzed with a text from D., telling me to meet him at the fountain in front of the Presidency.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  The highly coordinated pulsing rhythm of the jellyfish, navigating in the surging sea, is an example of this coherent functioning. As organisms became increasingly differentiated and complex, first as fish and later as reptiles and mammals, the motor systems were fundamentally refined, and the organization gradually became more social in mammalian development. Our early hominid ancestors were social creatures who needed to be able to rapidly alert each other about novelty, danger and other emergencies. In addition, they needed to be able to predict each other’s behaviors, to establish hierarchies and to facilitate deception. The best way to hone those skills was by observing, and trusting, their own inner processes. In “Cells That Read Minds,” Sandra Blakeslee quotes the neurophysiologist Giacomo Rizzolatti: 120 “We are exquisitely social creatures. Our survival depends on understanding the actions, intentions and emotions of others. Mirror neurons allow us to grasp the minds of others not through conceptual reasoning but through direct simulation. By feeling—not by thinking. ” To facilitate survival in an increasingly complex and socially mediated world, a new mammalian adaptation evolved: feeling states. Feelings are never neutral; they exist along what is called a “hedonic continuum” designating affective spectrum from unpleasant to pleasant. We never feel a neutral emotion. Whereas the amoeba either reflexively retracts when poked (avoidance) or moves toward something nourishing (approach), higher animals “feel into” such movements as being either pleasurable or painful. External sense organs transmute physical stimuli and convert them into nerve impulses registering sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. Ubiquitous internal sensors monitor a multitude of physiological and visceral processes and sort them into comfortable and uncomfortable. Such was the wisdom imparted by William James—that it is the scanning of our internal sensations that becomes the crucible of feeling. A mammal baby does not have to learn that the taste of sugar is “good” and a hard pinch or a tummy ache is “bad.” The ingestion of sugar is necessary for energy production, hence the pleasure attraction; while the pinch can cause tissue damage, feels painful and is, therefore, to be avoided. Similarly, a very light touch can give us an uncomfortable creepy feeling simply because crawly things, in the evolutionary past, were likely to be poisonous. Our most compelling feelings of badness (avoidance) and goodness (approach) derive from visceral sensations such as nausea or belly warmth. Hedonic feelings are also important for group cohesion and, therefore, for survival. As an example, when we exhibit behaviors that are beneficial to the group, such as nurturance and cooperation, we are rewarded by feeling good. We may even rescue someone (or give them one of our kidneys) even though it may put our own life at risk. On the other hand, when we do something that may endanger the group, such as coveting another’s mate or possessions, or endangering one’s children, we are shamed and shunned. These feelings can be so distressing as to cause illness or even death.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  “I did what I had to do then,” she went on, “but it’s time to let go. I was so afraid of my hurt … but even more afraid of my anger. It’s like, if I felt what I felt, I might hurt Henry somehow … It doesn’t make sense logically, but that’s what was all twisted up inside of me.” She adds, “But I don’t need to do that anymore.” Miriam takes a full easy breath and says with a broad joyful grin, “That breath took me and tickled me and laughed me.” She laughs freely, looks around the room, then slowly at my face. She puts her hands to her face—first, to cover it in embarrassment, but then gently holds and strokes it shyly. Tears roll down her cheeks. “I feel finished … for now, I mean,” she says. “I know there’s other stuff, but I just want to sit in your yard by the river for a few minutes, then take a walk … Thanks … See you next week.” Bonnie: A Forgotten MomentThe mind has forgotten but the body has not—thankfully. —Sigmund Freud Bonnie is not an aggressive person, but she is by no means a pushover, either. Most of her peers and friends see her as well adjusted, even-handed and assertive. It was therefore surprising to her colleagues, and to herself, when for no apparent reason she became increasingly submissive and unpredictably explosive. At the point when her behavior threatened her relations with her colleagues, she became concerned. During my Berkeley training class in 1974, Bonnie raised her hand when I requested a volunteer for a demonstration session. This was to be a demonstration that would start solely with symptoms or behavior issues rather than with any recall of a compelling event. I will frequently work without a historical link in order to prevent the client from bypassing bottom-up processing and prematurely jumping to an abstract, interpretational level. Neither I nor Bonnie’s classmates knew her “story” when she elected to work with me on her symptoms in front of the group. Bonnie herself did not make the connection between her behavioral changes and an event that had transpired a year and a half earlier and that, as far as she was concerned, was irrelevant. I asked Bonnie to recall a recent encounter with a colleague that illustrated her sudden shift in behavior, and then we both noted her bodily reactions. Bonnie described feeling a sinking sensation in her belly. I noticed that her shoulders were hunched over and brought that to her attention. When asked to describe how she felt in that position, she replied, “It makes me hate myself.” Bonnie was taken aback by this sudden outburst of self-loathing. Rather than analyzing why she felt that way, I guided Bonnie back to the sensations in her body.‡ After a pause she reported that her “heart and mind were racing a million miles an hour.”

• From Cleanness (2020)

  There were maybe seven or eight tables in our corner of the room, almost all of them taken by groups of young people, some of them high school students, I thought, two or three couples gathered at each. N. waved to catch our attention, then pointed back to the entrance, nodding to Z. before he left. Z. mouthed something at me but I didn’t understand, the music was too loud, and after he repeated it to no avail he dropped his hands to his crotch and mimed a man pissing, his hand curled as if around an impossibly large cock. I laughed, both because it was funny and because it hid the other thing I felt. I mocked him, first holding my hand up, curled like his, making a doubtful face, and then I dropped both hands to my own crotch, as if holding a cock twice as large, three times, and Z. laughed too, a genuine laugh, I thought, though it wasn’t very funny, and both of us seemed a little embarrassed once the laughter had passed. Then Z. said something else and again I didn’t understand, so he took his phone out of his pocket and typed, holding up the screen for me to read. This is a great night, he had written, and I looked up and said Yes, and we raised our glasses, clinking them before we drank.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  I was still groggy with sleep when I turned into the main room, and I stood uncomprehending for a moment before I realized that R. had rearranged things in the night. He had moved the table to the middle of the room, and had placed my winter boots on top of it, beside the little tree we had bought earlier that week. Sticking up from the boots there were packages wrapped in newspaper, his Christmas gifts for me; he must have hidden them somewhere after he arrived, he must have gotten out of bed in the night, careful not to wake me, he must have been quiet as he moved the furniture. I caught my breath at it, I felt a weird pressure and heat climb my throat. I felt like my heart would burst, those were the words for it, the hackneyed phrase, and I was grateful for them, they were a container for what I felt, proof of its commonness. I was grateful for that, too, the commonness of my feeling; I felt some stubborn strangeness in me ease, I felt like part of the human race.

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

  I bounced on the branch and flapped my arms. Then I put my hands in my pockets and strolled out along the branch until it broke. I didn’t feel myself land, but I heard the wind leave me in a rush. I was rolling sideways down the hillside with my hands still in my pockets, rolling around and around like a log, faster and faster, picking up speed on the steep cement. The cement ended in a drop where the earth below had washed away. I flew off the edge and went spinning through the air and landed hard and rolled downhill through the ferns, bouncing over rocks and deadfall, the ferns rustling around me, and then I hit something hard and stopped cold. I was on my back. I could not move, I could not breathe. I was too empty to take the first breath, and my body would not respond to the bulletins I sent. Blackness came up from the bottom of my eyes. I was drowning, and then I drowned. WHEN I OPENED my eyes I was still on my back. I heard voices calling my name but I did not answer. I lay amidst a profusion of ferns, their fronds glittering with raindrops. The fronds made a lattice above me. The voices came closer and still I did not answer. I was happy where I was. There was movement in the bushes all around me, and again and again I heard my name. I bit the inside of my cheek so I wouldn’t laugh and give myself away, and finally they left. I spent the night there. In the morning I walked down to the main road and thumbed a ride home. My clothes were wet and torn, but except for a certain tenderness down the length of my back I was unhurt, just creaky from my night on the ground. Dwight was at the kitchen table when I came in. He looked me over and said—quietly, he knew he had me this time—“Where were you last night?” I said, “I got drunk and fell off a cliff.” He grinned in spite of himself, just as I knew he would. He let me off with a lecture and some advice about hangovers while my mother stood by the sink in her bathrobe, listening without expression. After Dwight dismissed me she followed me down the hall. She stopped in my doorway, arms crossed, and waited for me to look at her. Finally she said, “You’re not helping anymore.” NO, BUT I was happy that night, listening to them search for me, listening to them call my name. I knew they wouldn’t find me. After they went away I lay there smiling in my perfect place. Through the ferns above me I saw the nimbus of the moon in the dense, dark sky. Cool beads of water rolled down the ferns onto my face.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  But for us it is always too late, she said. When N. gets his diploma he has to find a job, right away, a good job in England, if he doesn’t he has to come back here, and if he comes back here it will be very hard for him to leave again, do you understand, if he comes back here he will be trapped. I know you care about him, she said, settling back in her chair, I know your heart, and she hesitated, groping for the phrase, your heart is in the right place, but what you say isn’t true for us, please, you must help him see that. N. groaned when I repeated this to him the next morning at school. You see, he said, she won’t listen, it’s impossible to talk to her. It’s because she loves you, I said, it’s a way of loving you, and he sighed and looked away. Well, N. said at the restaurant table, lowering his hands before Z. interrupted him—Listen up, Gospodine , he said, you’re going to like this. N. smiled at me. No more law school, he said, I’m transferring, in the fall I’ll be doing literature. There was a cheer around the table, as several students said Chestito , congratulations, and all of us raised our glasses. But what about your mother, I asked after we drank, how did you convince her? N.’s smile widened. It was easy, he said, I just failed all my classes, and everyone laughed. I don’t approve of your methods, I said, though I was laughing too, and Z. raised his glass and said To whatever works, and we toasted again. We toasted on the street, too, after a fashion, lifting the carton to one another before we drank. This had been our plan, to leave the others after dinner and drink together, just the three of us, a prelude to more drinking at the club. We passed the carton as we walked the narrow streets, but the second or third time it made the circuit I handed it directly to Z. Hey, he said, trying to give it back to me, you can’t skip your turn. But I didn’t take it. I need to slow down, I said, I can’t drink as much as you. I was already feeling it, the wine from earlier and the vodka we were drinking too quickly now, I could feel the edges of myself softening, a kind of tingling, like a limb waking up. It was dangerous to drink so much; I didn’t have a sense of who I would be if I got really drunk, I had never let myself go like that, as men around me did in my childhood, it was another way I had always been unlike them. Gospodine , Z. said, his voice heavy with disappointment, come on now, and he shook the carton, still holding it out to me, don’t let us down. All right, I said, relenting.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  Atop the largest of those hills sat the jagged ruins of Tsarevets, Turnovo’s main attraction, a medieval fortress that fell to the Ottomans five centuries ago, a symbol of former greatness that’s at once a source of pride and a shadow cast over the present. A view of Tsarevets, and of the rest of the town from a neighboring hill, was the primary draw of the hotel where the taxi dropped us off. It was a nice hotel, it cost more than I would usually have wanted to pay, but its luxury was like a grand gesture abandoned, the large room with its gorgeous view filled with furniture and linens in various stages of disrepair. Even so, we felt a little flare of happiness on entering it; R. dropped his bags and stepped onto the bed, jumping up and down a few times, and I laughed with him, even as I sensed, just past the edges of what we felt, a hovering dread. It was a habit of mine, to rush toward an ending once I thought I could see it, as if the fact of loss were easier to bear than the chance of it. I didn’t want that to happen with R., I struggled against it; he was worth struggling for, I thought, as was the person I found I was with him. Then R. stopped jumping and stood at the foot of the bed, throwing his arms wide, and I stepped toward him for the second half of our ritual of homecoming in these temporary homes; and as I wrapped my arms around his waist and pressed my face to his chest, I felt a flood of relief, the release of something increasingly tightly wound. We left shortly after, our bags still unpacked, and began to explore the little town. It wasn’t like the other tourist towns in Bulgaria; in the shops there were handmade crafts among the mass-produced souvenirs, and in the old town, its vertiginous streets lined with National Revival houses, at first newly renovated but growing more decrepit as we climbed, there were artisans’ shops in which men and women looked up hopefully from their work, calling zapovyadaite , welcome, come in, to everyone who passed. A year before, the town had been crowded with tourists, their buses nosing through the tiny streets and their bags piled high in lobbies; but now there were few visitors, maybe because it was later in the season and the seaside had drawn them away, and we were often alone as we climbed the steep paths, the cobblestones shifting beneath us. One woman was standing in front of her shop, and beckoned us inside so fervently it would have been difficult to refuse. I glanced at R., who shrugged, and we walked over to her.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  I thanked her and slipped into the stream of people walking along the boulevard. Nearly everyone was headed for the protests, they carried signs and noisemakers, one man swung a bullhorn at his waist. They were young people mostly, some of them with shaved heads or dyed hair, the various strands of Sofia’s alternative scene, a kind of neo-hippie style of torn jeans and denim jackets; but really there were people of all kinds, men and women coming from the office, couples pushing bikes or strollers, one young man with his daughter on his shoulders, her ringlets of brown hair crowned with a chain of flowers. People were laughing, the mood wasn’t angry at all, it was ebullient, and I slipped the stem of the black-eyed Susan through the buttons of my shirt, so that the bright head hung at my heart. That put me in mind of something, a flower for a heart, there was a line of a poem I almost remembered, something from O’Hara or Reverdy; I couldn’t quite catch it but the feel of it made me smile. Police were in the street directing traffic, ushering the last cars through before they closed the boulevard for the march, but for now we stayed on the sidewalk, moving more slowly as it grew more crowded, which just increased our fellow feeling: people smiled to one another in a way that was unusual in Sofia, couples drew closer together, parents pulled their children near, keeping a hand on the top of their heads, on the nape of their necks. Bulgarian flags were everywhere, dangling from breast pockets or the straps of backpacks, one woman had four or five of them tucked into the long braid of her hair. Children waved them in the air, and some adults did, too, though we hadn’t made it to the protest yet. Or maybe we had, we were the protest already, I guess, we had become a kind of parade. The cherries burst in my mouth, firm and ripe, sweet with a dark sweetness, gorgeous, like a low frequency. I spat the pits in my palm and dropped them a little guiltily into the gutter. My phone buzzed with a text from D., telling me to meet him at the fountain in front of the Presidency.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  I couldn’t see D. at first, the area around the fountain was packed with people. Children ran around the fountain’s edge, weaving past their parents, bumping into strangers, and playing in the water, too, though there were signs forbidding it; they shrieked, arms pressed tight to their sides, as the spray soaked their clothes. But then I noticed him, he had hoisted himself onto the base of a lamppost and was scanning the crowd. I waved and his face brightened when he saw me. He was a few years younger than I, with shaggy black hair that hung into his eyes if he let it go too long between haircuts, as he had now. He wasn’t obviously beautiful but he was beautiful, it was a combination of charm and intelligence, a kind of earthy old-world grace, and of the wiry athleticism I felt when we hugged, a little awkwardly to spare the flower. You’ve been working out, I said when he pulled back, and he smiled, raising both his arms in a muscleman pose. It had taken me a while to be sure he was straight, he was so warm with his friends, he spoke a language of endearment, of casual caresses and kisses to the cheek and forehead, flirtation was his natural mode of congress with the world. This annoyed me sometimes in others, it could seem like a taunt, or a demand to be adored; but D.’s affection was genuine, a kind of blessing, it made you happy to be with him. He led me to the patch of shade he had claimed under the trees that grew near the wall of the Archaeological Museum, where he had been standing with two other people. One of these was his mother, whom I knew well, and I took the flower from my shirt and held it out to her, which made her laugh, she took it and then pulled me to her for a hug. I’m sure my face showed my surprise when D. introduced me to the older man standing with them; I had read his books, in Bulgarian and in English, he was the first writer I read when I decided years before to come to Sofia. Za men e chest, I said to him, shaking his hand, it’s an honor, and he smiled, less at the sentiment, I thought, than at the formality of what I had said, which was so out of tune with the festive atmosphere, with his friendship with D., which was old and deep, with the shorts and sneakers he was wearing, I was suddenly a little embarrassed. Cherries, I said in English, I had almost forgotten their weight in my hand, and I held the bag out to him. He laughed, and as he reached his hand in the awkwardness was gone. D. took each of us by a shoulder, beaming, and said how happy he was for us to meet. I offered the cherries to him, too, telling him to take the bag, I had had enough. You brought us gifts, D. said, flowers and cherries, you brought us springtime, he said, which made everyone laugh.

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

  Reply to Objection 2: Delight has the character of passion, properly speaking, when accompanied by bodily transmutation. It is not thus in the intellectual appetite, but according to simple movement: for thus it is also in God and the angels. Hence the Philosopher says (Ethic. vii, 14) that “God rejoices by one simple act”: and Dionysius says at the end of De Coel. Hier., that “the angels are not susceptible to our passible delight, but rejoice together with God with the gladness of incorruption.” Reply to Objection 3: In us there is delight, not only in common with dumb animals, but also in common with angels. Wherefore Dionysius says (De Coel. Hier.) that “holy men often take part in the angelic delights.” Accordingly we have delight, not only in the sensitive appetite, which we have in common with dumb animals, but also in the intellectual appetite, which we have in common with the angels. Whether bodily and sensible pleasures are greater than spiritual and intellectual pleasures?Objection 1: It would seem that bodily and sensible pleasures are greater than spiritual and intelligible pleasures. For all men seek some pleasure, according to the Philosopher (Ethic. x, 2,4). But more seek sensible pleasures, than intelligible spiritual pleasures. Therefore bodily pleasures are greater. Objection 2: Further, the greatness of a cause is known by its effect. But bodily pleasures have greater effects; since “they alter the state of the body, and in some they cause madness” (Ethic. vii, 3). Therefore bodily pleasures are greater. Objection 3: Further, bodily pleasures need to be tempered and checked, by reason of their vehemence: whereas there is no need to check spiritual pleasures. Therefore bodily pleasures are greater. On the contrary, It is written (Ps. 118:103): “How sweet are Thy words to my palate; more than honey to my mouth!” And the Philosopher says (Ethic. x, 7) that “the greatest pleasure is derived from the operation of wisdom.” I answer that, As stated above [1265](A[1]), pleasure arises from union with a suitable object perceived or known. Now, in the operations of the soul, especially of the sensitive and intellectual soul, it must be noted that, since they do not pass into outward matter, they are acts or perfections of the agent, e.g. to understand, to feel, to will and the like: because actions which pass into outward matter, are actions and perfections rather of the matter transformed; for “movement is the act produced by the mover in the thing moved” (Phys. iii, 3). Accordingly the aforesaid actions of the sensitive and intellectual soul, are themselves a certain good of the agent, and are known by sense and intellect. Wherefore from them also does pleasure arise, and not only from their objects.

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

  Reply to Objection 2: A like difference is to be observed in concupiscences also: so that delight corresponds to concupiscence, while joy corresponds to desire, which seems to pertain more to concupiscence of the soul. Hence there is a difference of repose corresponding to the difference of movement. Reply to Objection 3: These other names pertaining to delight are derived from the effects of delight; for “laetitia” [gladness] is derived from the “dilation” of the heart, as if one were to say “latitia”; “exultation” is derived from the exterior signs of inward delight, which appear outwardly in so far as the inward joy breaks forth from its bounds; and “cheerfulness” is so called from certain special signs and effects of gladness. Yet all these names seem to belong to joy; for we do not employ them save in speaking of rational beings. Whether delight is in the intellectual appetite?Objection 1: It would seem that delight is not in the intellectual appetite. Because the Philosopher says (Rhet. i, 11) that “delight is a sensible movement.” But sensible movement is not in an intellectual power. Therefore delight is not in the intellectual appetite. Objection 2: Further, delight is a passion. But every passion is in the sensitive appetite. Therefore delight is only in the sensitive appetite. Objection 3: Further, delight is common to us and to the irrational animals. Therefore it is not elsewhere than in that power which we have in common with irrational animals. On the contrary, It is written (Ps. 36:4): “Delight in the Lord.” But the sensitive appetite cannot reach to God; only the intellectual appetite can. Therefore delight can be in the intellectual appetite. I answer that, As stated above [1264](A[3]), a certain delight arises from the apprehension of the reason. Now on the reason apprehending something, not only the sensitive appetite is moved, as regards its application to some particular thing, but also the intellectual appetite, which is called the will. And accordingly in the intellectual appetite or will there is that delight which is called joy, but not bodily delight. However, there is this difference of delight in either power, that delight of the sensitive appetite is accompanied by a bodily transmutation, whereas delight of the intellectual appetite is nothing but the mere movement of the will. Hence Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xiv, 6) that “desire and joy are nothing else but a volition of consent to the things we wish.” Reply to Objection 1: In this definition of the Philosopher, he uses the word “sensible” in its wide acceptation for any kind of perception. For he says (Ethic. x, 4) that “delight is attendant upon every sense, as it is also upon every act of the intellect and contemplation.” Or we may say that he is defining delight of the sensitive appetite.