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 Giovanni's Room (1956)

  To someone? Not something?" She was silent. 1 don't know/ she said at last, l3ut I'm beginning to think that women get attached to something really by default. They'd give it up, if they could, anytime, for a man. Of course they can't admit this, and neither can most of them let go of what they have. But I think it kills them—perhaps I only mean,' she added, after a moment, 'that it would have killed me.' What do you want, Hella? What have you got now that makes such a difference?' servant.' She laughed. It isn't what I've got It isn't even what I want. It's that you've got me. So now I can be—your obedient and most loving I felt cold. I shook my head in mock con- fusion. 1 don't know what you're talking about/ 'Why/ she said, Tm talking about my life. I've got you to take care of and feed and tor- ment and trick and love—I've got you to put up with. From now on, I can have a wonderful time complaining about being a woman. But I won't be terrified that I'm not one.' She looked at my face, and laughed. 'Oh, 111 be doing other things/ she cried. 1 won't stop being intelligent. Ill read and argue and think and all that— and I'll make a great point of not thinking your thoughts—and you'll be pleased because I'm 168 James Baldwin sure the resulting confusion will cause you to see that I've only got a finite woman's mind, after all. And, if God is good, you'll love me more and more and we'll be quite happy.' She laughed again. 'Don't bother your head about it, sweet- heart. Leave it to me/ Her amusement was contagious and I shook my head again, laughing with her. Tou're adorable,' I said. 1 don't understand you at all.* She laughed again. There,' she said, 'that's fine. We're both taking to it Uke ducks to water/ We were passing a bookstore and she stopped. 'Can we go in for just a minute?' she asked. There's a book I'd Uke to get. Quite/ she added, as we entered the shop, *a trivial book.' I watched her with amusement as she went over to speak to the woman who ran the shop. I wandered idly over to the farthest book shelf, where a man stood, his back to me, leafing through a magazine. As I stood beside him, he closed the magazine and put it down, and turned. We recognized each other at once. It was Jacques. Tienst' he cried. 'Here you are! We were be- ginning to think that you had gone back to America.' *Me?' I laughed. TNfo, I'm still in Paris. I've just been busy.' Then, with a terrible suspicion, I asked, Who's we?" 'Why/ said Jacques, with a hard, insistent smile, 'your baby. It seems you left him alone in that room without any food, without any money, without, even, any cigarettes. He finally

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  “You are white”, I cried, “don’t be absurd!” She shook her little head: “if you knew!” she said, “when I was a girl, a child, old white men, the best in town, used to say dirty words to me in the street and try to touch me—the beasts!” I gasped: I had had no idea of such contempt and persecution. When we were back in bed together: “tell me, Sophy dear, how you learned to move with me in time as you do and give me such thrills!” “Hoo!” she cried, gurgling with pleased joy, “that’s easy to tell. I was scared you didn’t like me, so this afternoon I went to wise ole niggah woman and ask her how to make man love you really! She told me to go right to bed with you and do that”, and she smiled. “Nothing more?” I asked: her eyes opened brightly, “Shu!” she cried, “if you want to do love again, I show you!” The next moment I was in her and now she kept even better time than at first and somehow or other the thick, firm lips of her sex seemed to excite me more than anyone had ever excited me. Instinctively the lust grew in me and I quickened and as I came to the short, hard strokes, she suddenly slipped her legs together under me and closing them tightly held my sex as in a firm grip and then began “milking” me—no other word conveys the meaning—with extraordinary skill and speed, so that in a moment I was gasping and choking with the intensity of the sensation and my seed came in hot jets while she continued the milking movement, tireless, indefatigable! “What a marvel you are!” I exclaimed as soon as I got breath enough to speak, “the best bedfellow I’ve ever had, wonderful, you dear, you!” All glowing with my praise, she wound her arms about my neck and mounted me as Lorna Mayhew had done once; but now what a difference! Lorna was so intent on gratifying her own lust that she often forgot my feelings altogether and her movements were awkward in the extreme; but Sophy thought only of me and, whereas Lorna was always slipping my sex out of her sheath, Sophy in some way seated herself on me and then began rocking her body back and forth while lifting it a little at each churning movement, so that my sex in the grip of her firm, thick lips had a sort of double movement. When she felt me coming as I soon did, she twirled half round on my organ half a dozen times with a new movement and then began rocking herself again, so that my seed was dragged out of me, so to speak, giving me indescribably acute, almost painful sensations. I was breathless thrilling with her every movement. “Had you any pleasure, Sophy?” I asked as soon as we were lying side by side again.

• From Henry and June (1986)

  Now I know why I have loved him. Even Fred, before he left us, seemed less tragic, and I confided to Henry that I didn’t want a perfect love from him, that I knew he was tired of all that, as I was, that I felt a surge of wisdom and humor, and that nothing could stop our relationship until we just didn’t want to make love any more. For the first time, I think I understand what pleasure is. And I am glad I laughed so much last night, and sang this morning, and moved irresistibly towards Henry. (Eduardo was still here when I left, carrying the package containing Henry’s curtains.) Just before this, my brother Joaquin and Eduardo were talking about Henry, in my presence. (Joaquin has read my journal.) They think that Henry is a destructive force who has elected me, the most creative of forces, to test his power on, that I have succumbed to the magic of tons of literature (it is true that I love literature), that I will be saved—I forget how, but somehow in spite of myself. And as I lay there, already happy because I had decided I would have my Henry today, I smiled. On the first page of a beautiful purple-covered diary book Eduardo gave me, with an inscription, I have already written Henry’s name. No Dr. Allendy for me. No paralyzing analysis. Just living.

• From I'm Not a Mourning Person (2023)

  One of the reasons I’ve included humor in this book is because laughter helps us absorb and metabolize the medicine. Personally speaking, humor keeps me sane and, you guessed it, joyful. I need to poke fun at cancer, grief, death, and, most of all, myself. When I’m at my lowest, I look for something to laugh about. If I can’t find anything, I create it. MORE LIKE THISMany of the seeds planted throughout this book are meant to help us connect more deeply to ourselves and to what matters most in our lives. Whatever crossroads we find ourselves at, this level of self-connection will eventually build self-trust. And when that muscle of selftrust is strengthened, weathering uncertainty becomes less daunting. Yes, we may struggle and stumble again, but damned if we don’t know how to get back up. Think back on who you were a few years ago and all that you’ve navigated since. There were plenty of unknowns then (some of them unthinkable) and yet you managed to get here, to this place of wanting to heal and experience deeper authenticity. Hey, that’s something to be very proud of. Let your past survival be your prologue to thriving. Remember the post-traumatic growth we talked about in Chapter 5? Well, this is an important concept to keep in mind as you move ahead, with bravery, into your new life. You don’t have to wait for all the pieces to fall perfectly into place to start living more fully, or for the first time, or even again. It’s OK to rebuild, armed with the priceless insight you had to develop to survive—hard-won wisdom no one would ever choose to earn but which makes you more real and experienced for it. In different ways, we have all become more ourselves, and that’s a beautiful thing. You are and will always be a survivor. It’s OK to thrive once more. It’s OK to let go of old ways that no longer serve the person you’ve become—scars and all. Dad’s diagnosis, and subsequent death, woke me up. I’d trade all the awareness I’ve fought for, and any of the “positives,” if I could only go back to the way things were when he was here and we were us. No amount of personal growth is worth his loss. But the universe keeps expanding, slowing for no one. My new mantra: Don’t go back to sleep. Before we conclude our time together, I want to go back to Martha’s Vineyard with you. To that special restaurant with the magnificent view of the ocean and that profound and deeply moving advice my father gave me that I wasn’t ready to think about: “You know, love, I wish I had given myself more time like this. Your golden years aren’t promised. Figure out what your ‘more time like this’ looks like, and do it now. Make now your golden years.”

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  I returned to my chair to think, and soon found the solution. Next day I again crouched before the girl’s legs, choking with emotion. I put my pencil near her toes, and reached round between her legs with my left hand as if to get it, taking care to touch her calf. She shrieked, and drew back her legs, holding my hand tight between them, and cried: “What are you doing there!” “Getting my pencil”, I said humbly, “it rolled.” “There it is”, she said, kicking it with her foot. “Thanks” I replied, overjoyed, for the feel of her soft legs was still on my hand. “You’re a funny little fellow”, she said, but I didn’t care; I had had my first taste of Paradise and the forbidden fruit—authentic heaven! I have no recollection of her face: it seemed pleasant; that’s all I remember. None of the girls made any impression on me but I can still recall the thrill of admiration and pleasure her shapely limbs gave me. I record this incident at length, because it stands alone in my memory, and because it proves that sex-feeling may show itself in early childhood. One day about 1890 I had Meredith, Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde dining with me in Park Lane and the time of sex-awakening was discussed. Both Pater and Wilde spoke of it as a sign of puberty; Pater thought it began about 13 or 14 and Wilde to my amazement set it as late as 16. Meredith alone was inclined to put it earlier. “It shows sporadically”, he said, “and sometimes before puberty.” I recalled the fact that Napoleon tells how he was in love before he was five years old with a school-mate called Giacominetta, but even Meredith laughed at this and would not believe that any real sex-feeling could show itself so early. To prove the point, I gave my experience as I have told it here, and brought Meredith to pause: “very interesting”, he thought, “but peculiar!” “In her abnormalities”, says Goethe, “Nature reveals her secrets”; here is an abnormality, perhaps as such, worth noting. I hadn’t another sensation of sex till nearly six years later when I was eleven, since which time such emotions have been almost incessant. My exaltation to the oldest class in arithmetic got me into trouble by bringing me into relations with the headmistress, Mrs. Frost, who was very cross and seemed to think that I should spell as correctly as I did sums. When she found I couldn’t, she used to pull my ears and got into the habit of digging her long thumb-nail into my ear till it bled. I didn’t mind the smart; in fact, I was delighted, for her cruelty brought me the pity of the elder girls who used to wipe my ears with their pocket-handkerchiefs and say that old Frost was a beast and a cat.

• From I'm Not a Mourning Person (2023)

  I call this surreal duality the both / and place. The joyful moments always have a tinge of sadness; the higher the high, the more prominent the awareness of my loss. Coming to grips with this is important because this both / and feeling never goes away. For example, it was thrilling to finish the first draft of this book. Then came the sadness as I remembered that I couldn’t call and tell him about it. But maybe the both / and is a more normal and realistic place—truer to a dynamic, three-dimensional life. I’m healthy, and I have cancer. I’m a life-loving person, and I have a lot of anxiety. I’m bighearted and closed off. I’m successful and unsuccessful (at a whole lot of things). Both/and. Sometimes it’s hard to fathom how we can hold opposite feelings and realities at the same time, but two things can be true at once, and our hearts are wise enough to hold the contradiction. In the months (and years) after Dad died, I felt guilty for even allowing myself to feel positive. Though parts of my life were awesome, it felt wrong to acknowledge anything other than the awful experience of Dad’s physical absence. Staying in the pain made me feel like I was staying connected to him. I wanted to be like those Italian ladies who wear long black dresses for the rest of their lives, because I unconsciously equated being happy with abandoning Dad. But the more space I gave myself to explore the subterranean world of emotions inside me, the more capable I was of embracing and holding the duality. The grief train and the celebrations. Joy isn’t exclusive to the good times; it can exist in the hard times, too. I learned this with my own diagnosis. In the beginning, getting sick helped me recalibrate—and that felt really good and useful. I learned how to take care of myself for the first time, and as I’ve shared, the results paid off. Though I was technically sick, I’d never felt better. My wake-up call woke up other parts of me, too. Parts that had also craved healing. But after a while, it was easy to go back to sleep. To slip into old, hardwired, comfortable patterns of being and relating, because they were familiar. I used to beat myself up about not staying in a perpetual state of awakeness, as if not living my life “like every day was my last” meant that I was lazy, ungrateful, or worse—willfully blowing off the hard-won wisdom I’d learned in the cancer trenches. Maybe you can relate in your own way. Of course, none of that is true. It’s why I often come back to Jung’s notion of orbiting. The idea that we circle around the same themes our entire lives.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  “Shuah!” she said smiling, “you’re very strong, and you—” she asked, “was you pleased?” “Great God!” I cried, “I felt as if all the hairs of my head were travelling down my backbone like an army! You are extraordinary, you dear!” “Keep me with you, Frank”, she whispered, “if you want me, I’ll do anything, everything for you: I never hoped to have such a lover as you. Oh, this child’s real glad her breasties and sex please you. You taught me that word, instead of the nasty word all white folk use; ‘sex’ is good word, very good!” and she crowed with delight. “What do colored people call it?” I asked: “Coozie”, she replied smiling, Coozie! good word too, very good! Long years later I heard an American story which recalled Sophy’s performance vividly. An engineer with a pretty daughter had an assistant who showed extraordinary qualities as a machinist and was quiet and well behaved to boot. The father introduced his helper to his daughter and the match was soon arranged. After the marriage, however, the son-in-law drew away and ’twas in vain that the father-in-law tried to guess the reason of the estrangement. At length he asked his son-in-law boldly for the reason: “I meant right, Bill”, he began earnestly, “but if I’ve made a mistake I’ll be sorry: waren’t the goods accordin’ to specification? Warn’t she a virgin?” “It don’t matter nothin’!” replied Bill, frowning. “Treat me fair, Bill”, cried the father, “war she a virgin?” “How can I tell?” exclaimed Bill, “all I can say is, I never know’d a virgin before that had that cinder-shifting movement.” Sophy was the first to show me the “cinder-shifting” movement and she surely was a virgin! As a mistress Sophy was perfection perfected and the long lines and slight curves of her lovely body came to have a special attraction for me as the very highest of the pleasure-giving type.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  The next moment I began caressing her red clitoris with my hot, stiff organ: Lorna sighed deeply once or twice and her eyes turned up; slowly I pushed my prick in to the full and drew it out again to the lips, then in again and I felt her warm love-juice gush as she drew up her knees even higher to let me further in: “Oh, it’s divine”, she sighed, “better even than the first time”, and when my thrusts grew quick and hard as the orgasm shook me, she writhed down on my prick as I withdrew, as if she would hold it, and as my seed spirted into her, she bit my shoulder and held her legs tight as if to keep my sex in her. We lay a few moments bathed in bliss. Then as I began to move again to sharpen the sensation, she half rose on her arm: “Do you know”, she said, “I dreamed yesterday of getting on you and doing it to you: do you mind, if I try—” “No, indeed!” I cried, “go to it: I am your prey!” She got up smiling and straddled kneeling across me and put my cock into her pussy and sank down on me with a deep sigh. She tried to move up and down on my organ and at once came up too high and had to use her hand to put my Tommy in again; then she sank down on it as far as possible: “I can sink down all right”, she cried smiling at the double meaning, “but I cannot rise so well! What fools we women are, we can’t master even the act of love; we are so awkward!” “Your awkwardness, however, excites me,” I said. “Does it?” she cried, “then I’ll do my best”, and for some time she rose and sank rhythmically; but as her excitement grew, she just let herself lie on me and wiggled her bottom till we both came. She was flushed and hot and I couldn’t help asking her a question: “Does your excitement grow to a spasm of pleasure?” I asked, “or do you go on getting more and more excited continually?” “I get more and more excited,” she said, “till the other day with you for the first time in my life the pleasure became unbearably intense and I was hysterical, you wonder-lover!”

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  “You’re Irish”, I said, smiling at her. “I am”, she replied, “how did ye guess?” “Because I was born in Ireland too”, I retorted. “You were not!” she cried emphatically, more for pleasure than to contradict. “I was born in Galway”, I went on and at once she became very friendly and poured me out some milk warm from the cow, and when she heard I had had no breakfast and saw I was hungry, she pressed me to eat and sat down with me and soon heard my whole story or enough of it to break out in wonder again and again. In turn she told me how she had married Mike Mulligan, a longshoreman who earned good wages and was a good husband but took a drop too much now and again, as a man will when tempted by one of “thim saloons.” It was the saloons, I learned, that were the ruination of all the best Irishmen and “they were the best men anyway, an’—an’—” and the kindly, homely talk flowed on, charming me. When the breakfast was over and the things cleared away I rose to go with many thanks but Mrs. Mulligan wouldn’t hear of it. “Ye’re a child”, she said, “an’ don’t know New York: it’s a terrible place and you must wait till Mike comes home an’—” “But I must find some place to sleep”, I said, “I have money.” “You’ll sleep here”, she broke in decisively, “and Mike will put ye on yer feet; sure he knows New York like his pocket, an’ yer as welcome as the flowers in May, an’—” What could I do but stay and talk and listen to all sorts of stories about New York, and “toughs” that were “hard cases” and “gunmen” an’ “wimmin that were worse—bad scran to them.” In due time Mrs. Mulligan and I had dinner together, and after dinner I got her permission to go into the Park for a walk, but “mind now and be home by six or I’ll send Mike after ye”, she added laughing. I walked a little way in the Park and then started down-town again to the address Jessie had given me near the Brooklyn Bridge. It was a mean street, I thought, but I soon found Jessie’s sister’s house and went to a nearby restaurant and wrote a little note to my love, that she could show if need be, saying that I proposed to call on the 18th, or two days after the ship we had come in was due to return to Liverpool. After that duty which made it possible for me to hope all sorts of things on the 18th, 19th or 20th, I sauntered over to Fifth Avenue and made my way up town again. At any rate I was spending nothing in my present lodging.

• From I'm Not a Mourning Person (2023)

  In fact, there were way more things right with me than wrong. Finally, I reached for the strongest medicine in my toolkit: self-love. I looked in the bathroom mirror, and with all the compassion I could muster, I said: “I love you, Kris. I am here for you. Whatever happens, we’ll figure it out together.” When I first started telling myself stuff like this, I felt like a big cheeseball. Thank God no one can see me. But I could soon see how words of self-love really worked. So I repeated them over and over until I was relaxed enough to get my ass back to the waiting area in time to be escorted to the room I knew by heart. Three chairs, a privacy curtain, and an exam table with a disposable paper sheet (presumably in case you shit yourself). I took my usual seat, fixed my eyes on the doorknob, and silently repeated my bathroom mantras. As soon as Dr. D., my good-natured oncologist, entered, I felt a spike of adrenaline. This was the moment. Good news or bad, my body was jacked. One of the things I appreciate about Dr. D. is his bedside manner. He always bounces into the room with a smile on his face and gets right to it. No excruciating small talk. “Hey! Good to see you. So, everything looks really great,” he said. Every cell of my body relaxed as he continued on: “We’re thrilled with how well you’re still doing. If you feel comfortable enough, we’re confident that it would be safe for you to have even more time between scans. You can come back in three to five years if you want—whatever works for you.” Sweet Jesus. After comparing 16 years of my scans, the doctors’ consensus was that my cancer was stable enough to give me more breathing room between checkups. “Are you serious!?” I exclaimed. “This is incredible! Thank you so much, Dr. D.! I’ll be back in five.” The force of my enthusiastic response surprised even me. But after nearly two decades of anxiety-provoking doctors’ appointments, I was ready to leave fear in my rearview. As I was doing a happy dance in my head, Brian interjected: “Let’s go with three.” For him, five years felt like too much time to allow, as cancer can be a trickster and show up at the most unlikely times. Oh, and the lump in my arm? Turns out it was a glamorous fatty tumor. No metastasis. That night Brian and I toasted my milestone with an expensive glass of champagne at a fancy hotel bar. Perhaps I could even retire my lucky underwear (the elastic had certainly seen better days). When I called my parents to share the news, they were ecstatic.

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

  I answer that, In every object of appetite or of pleasure two things may be considered, namely the thing which is desired or which gives pleasure, and the aspect of appetibility or pleasurableness in that thing. Now according to Boethius (De Hebdom.) that which is can have something besides what it is, but ‘being’ itself has no admixture of aught else beside itself. Hence that which is desirable or pleasant can have an admixture of something rendering it undesirable or unpleasant; but the very aspect of pleasurableness has not and cannot have anything mixed with it rendering it unpleasant or undesirable. Now it is possible for things that are pleasurable, by participation of goodness which is the aspect of appetibility or pleasurableness, not to give pleasure when they are apprehended, but it is impossible for that which is good by its essence not to give pleasure when it is apprehended. Therefore since God is essentially His own goodness, it is impossible for the Godhead to be seen without joy. Reply to Objection 1: The wicked will know most clearly that Christ is God, not through seeing His Godhead, but on account of the most manifest signs of His Godhead. Reply to Objection 2: No one can hate the Godhead considered in itself, as neither can one hate goodness itself. But God is said to be hated by certain persons in respect of some of the effects of the Godhead, in so far as He does or commands something contrary to their will [*Cf. [5116]SS, Q[34], A[1]]. Therefore the vision of the Godhead can be painful to no one. Reply to Objection 3: The saying of Augustine applies when the thing apprehended previously by the intellect is good by participation and not essentially, such as all creatures are; wherefore there may be something in them by reason of which the affections are not moved. In like manner God is known by wayfarers through His effects, and their intellect does not attain to the very essence of His goodness. Hence it is not necessary that the affections follow the intellect, as they would if the intellect saw God’s essence which is His goodness. Reply to Objection 4: Grief denotes not a disposition but a passion. Now every passion is removed if a stronger contrary cause supervene, and does not remove that cause. Accordingly the grief of the damned would be done away if they saw God in His essence. Reply to Objection 5: The indisposition of an organ removes the natural proportion of the organ to the object that has a natural aptitude to please, wherefore the pleasure is hindered. But the indisposition which is in the damned does not remove the natural proportion whereby they are directed to the Divine goodness, since its image ever remains in them. Hence the comparison fails.

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

  ORIGEN. Morally, one may say that the sun, which shall be darkened, is the Devil, who shall be convicted in the end of the world, that whereas he is darkness, he has feigned himself to be the sun; the moon, which seems to receive its light from this sun, is the Church of the wicked, which professes to have and to give light, but then convicted with its sinful dogmas, shall lose its brightness; and all those who, either by false teaching, or false virtues, promised truth to men, but led them astray by lies, these are fitly called stars falling from, so to say, their own heaven, where they were raised on high, exalting themselves against the knowledge of God. For illustration of this discourse, we may apply that place in Proverbs, which says, The light of the just is unquenchable, but the light of the wicked shall be quenched. (Prov. 4:18.) Then the brightness of God shall appear in every one who has borne the image of the heavenly; and they of heaven shall rejoice, but they of earth shall lament. AUGUSTINE. (Ep. 199, 39.) Or, the Church is the sun, moon, and stars, to which it is said, Fair as the moon, bright as the sun. Then shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light (Song of Solomon 6:10.), because in that ungoverned fury of wicked persecutors, the Church shall not be seen. Then shall the stars fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven shall be shaken, because many, who seemed to be shining in God’s grace, shall give way to their persecutors, and shall fall, and even the stoutest believers shall be shaken. And these things shall be after the tribulation of those days, not because they shall happen when the whole persecution is overpast, but because the tribulation shall be first, that the falling away may come after. And because it shall be so throughout all those days, it shall be after the tribulation of those days, yet on those very days. And they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. CHRYSOSTOM. He adds this, that having heard of the cross, they should not now imagine a similar degradation. AUGUSTINE. (Ep. 199, 41.) The first and most apparent meaning of this is of that time when He shall come to judge the quick and the dead in His body—that body in which He sits at the right hand of the Father, in which He died and rose again and ascended into heaven. As we read in the Acts of the Apostles; He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight, (Acts 1:9.) upon which it was said by the Angels, He shall so come as ye hare seen Him go into heaven, we may reasonably believe that He will come again, not only in the same body, but also in a cloud.

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

  THEOPHYLACT. He also looks up to heaven, that He may teach us to seek our food from God, and not from the devil, as they do who unjustly feed on other men’s labours. By this also He intimated to the crowd, that He could not be opposed to God, since He called upon God. And He gives the bread to His disciples to set before the multitude, that by handling the bread, they might see that it was an undoubted miracle. It goes on: And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments. Twelve baskets of fragments remained over and above, that each of the Apostles, carrying a basket on his shoulder, might recognise the unspeakable wonder of the miracle. For it was a proof of overflowing power not only to feed so many men, but also to leave such a superabundance of fragments. Even though Moses gave manna, yet what was given to each was measured by his necessity, and what was over and above was overrun with worms. Elias also fed the woman, but gave her just what was enough for her; but Jesus, being the Lord, makes his gifts with superabundant profusion. BEDE. (ubi sup.) Again, in a mystical sense, the Saviour refreshes the hungry crowds at the day’s decline, because, either now that the end of the world approaches, or now that the Sun of justice has set in death for us, we are saved from wasting away in spiritual hunger. He calls the Apostles to Him at the breaking of bread, intimating that daily by them our hungry souls are fed, that is, by their letters and examples. By the five loaves are figured the Five Books of Moses, by the two fishes the Psalms and Prophets. THEOPHYLACT. Or the two fishes are the discourses of fishermen, that is, their Epistles and Gospel. BEDE. (ubi sup.) wThere are five senses in the outward man, which shews that by the five thousand men are meant those who, living in the world, know how to make a good use of external things. GREGORY. (Mor. 16, 55) The different ranks in which those who ate lie down, mark out the divers churches which make up the one Catholicx. But the Jubilee rest is contained in the mystery of the number fifty, and fifty must be doubled before it reaches up to a hundred. As then the first step is to rest from doing evil, that afterwards the soul may rest more fully from evil thoughts, some lie down in parties of fifty, others of a hundred.

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  The Sapphire Sapphos are a group of Lesbians of Color who had invited me to a special dinner at their regular monthly meeting. It was held at the Clubhouse, a cozy wooden building at the back of a city lot. Coming in out of the D.C. winter storm felt like walking into an embrace. The roaring fireplace, the low-beamed wooden room filled with beautiful Black and Brown women, a table laden with delicious foods so obviously cooked with love. There was sweet potato pie, rice and red beans, black beans and rice, pigeon peas and rice, beans and pimentos, spaghetti with Swedish meatballs, codfish and ackee, spinach noodles with clam sauce, five-bean salad, fish salad, and other salads of different combinations. On gaily decorated trays and platters, a profusion of carefully prepared dishes waited proudly: steamed fish and fried fish and fish pâté, cornbread and succulent collard greens, stir-fry vegetables with ginger and tree ears, startling and deliciously sensual. There was roti and almond bread, Jamaican harddough bread and sweet rolls, johnnycake and sourdough biscuits. And the punch! A cut-glass punchbowl filled with cassis and mineral water with a blessing of rum, fresh fruit floating seductively on top. The whole spread reflected a dreamlike fullness of women sharing color and food and warmth and light—Zami come true. It filled me with pleasure that such a space could finally come to pass on an icy Tuesday evening in Washington, D.C., and I said so. Majote from Haiti looked exactly like Ginger, and we danced the night down. January 19, 1984 New York City I watched the movie King on TV tonight, and it brought those days of 1968 vividly back to me—the hope and the pain and the fury and the horror coming so close upon the possibility of change, a bare month after I’d left the Black student poets and my first meeting with Frances, at Tougaloo College in Mississippi. That night at Carnegie Hall when the Tougaloo Choir sang with Duke Ellington. A wealth of promise, of the student singers with their beautiful young Black faces, believing. I was there to cover the concert for the Jackson, Mississippi, Clarion Star Ledger. “What the world needs now is love,” they sang. Halfway through the song, the master of ceremonies interrupted to say that Dr. Martin Luther King had just been shot. “What the world needs now is love,” they sang, tears lining their faces on stage catching the light, tears rolling down Mr. Honeywell’s cheeks. “What the world needs now is love,” they sang, his dark rhythmic arms directing the voices through all their weeping. And Dr. King is dead dead dead.

• From Heptaméron (1559)

  rich, and so highly qualified. Should the said Lord of Bour- bon agree to this marriage, why there she is at the point she desires, Duchess of Bourbonnais and Auvergne, and lady of that great heritage. If, on the contrary, he refuses, it will be necessary to bring this action, prosecute it vigorously, employ in it the authority of the king and my lady his mother, and spare nought to further it. This will make him bethink him- self, however intractable he may be, and he will be very glad to return into favour by this means. If not, as he is a cour- ageous prince, when he finds himself threatened with the loss of all his possessions, titles, and dignities, he will do something extraordinary, and will choose rather to abandon his country (as M. du Bellay says) than to live in it in a necessitous con- dition. He will withdraw out of the realm, and by so doing he will confiscate all. So that he cannot fail to do what is desired, be it how it may."* The Constable of Bourbon having rejected, and even it is said with disdain, the offer of marriage made to him, the suit was brought before the parliament, and was decided in favour of the Duchess of Angouleme. But the pleasure brought her by this triumph over her haughty adversary was not of long duration. A few months after he was despoiled of all his estates, Charles of Bourbon quitted France, and entered the service of Charles ^'. In the following year, 1524, he drove the French out of Italy, and on the 24th of Februar}', 1525, he defeated them in the famous battle of Pavia, in which Francis I. was taken prisoner, after receiving five wounds. The Duchess of Angouleme, as Regent of France, displayed great courage and ability under this heavy calamity. She soon received from her captive son the letter containing that memorable phrase — "Z>^ toutes choses ne nicest demeure que r/ionneur, et la vie qui est sauvc " — " I have lost all but honour and life." This letter was a great joy to her. Margaret wrote respecting it to her brother, " Your letter has had such an effect of Madame, and of all those who love you, that it * Histoire de Bmirbon, p. 226 r°. Dcs desseins des professions nobles et publiques, &c., &c. Par Ant. de Laval. Paris, 1605. QUEEN OF NA VARRE. xxi has been to us a Holy Ghost after the sorrow of the passion. .... Madame has felt her strength so greatly redoubled, that all day and evening not a minute is lost for your affairs, so that you need not have any pain or care about your realm and your children."

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  I listened tonight to these young poets, particularly the women of Color, reading their work, and it was wonderful for me to know that the real power of my words is not the pieces of me that reside within those words, but the life force—the energy and aspirations and desires at the complex core of each one of these women—which has been aroused to use and to answer my words. Gloria, Johnnetta, and I—three of the founding mothers of the Sisterhood in Support of Sisters in South Africa—within that precious space where we sit down together in my intricate life. The young poets shining like gold fire in the sun, their many-colored faces awash with pride and determination and love. Beth and Yolanda, daughter and old friend, my words coming out of their mouths illuminated exactly by who they are themselves, so different from each other and from me. The revelation of hearing my work translated through the beings of these women I love so dearly. Frances, smiling like a sunflower and really there; my sister Helen looking pleased and a part of it all; and Mabel Hampton, tough and snappy and hanging in, all eighty-three years of her! Charlotte’s* generous perfume, and I remember the sureness in her voice once, saying, “Well, we did what we had to do, and I think we changed the world!” Alexis† and her twinkling eyes, Clare’s‡ warm graciousness. And Blanchie,§ resplendent and cheeky in her tuxedo, orchestrating it all with her particular special flair, mistress of ceremonies to quite a party! December 15, 1985 Arlesheim, Switzerland So here I am at the Lukas Klinik while my body decides if it will live or die. I’m going to fight like hell to make it live, and this looks like the most promising possibility. At least it’s something different from narcotics and other terminal aids, which is all Dr. C. had to offer me in New York City in lieu of surgery when I told her how badly I hurt in my middle. “Almost everything I eat now makes me sick,” I told her. “Yes, I know,” she said sorrowfully, writing me a prescription for codeine and looking at me as if there was nothing left she could do for me besides commiserate. Even though I like her very much, I wanted to punch her in her mouth. I have found something interesting in a book here on active meditation as a form of self-control. There are six steps: 1.​Control of Thought Think of a small object (i.e., a paper clip) for five minutes, exclusively. Practice for a month. 2.​Control of Action Perform a small act every day at the same time. Practice, and be patient. 3.​Control of Feeling (equanimity) Become aware of feelings and introduce equanimity into experiencing them—i.e., be afraid, not panic-stricken. (They’re big on this one around here.) 4.​Positivity (tolerance) Refrain from critical downgrading thoughts that sap energy from good work.

• From Heptaméron (1559)

  whence proceed the repose and the health of the body. Tf you ask me what I do to be so cheerful and so healthy at 50 advanced an age, it is that as soon as I rise I read the Holy Scriptures. I see and contemplate the will of God, who sent his Son on earth to announce to us that holy word and that good news which promises the pardon of all sins, and the payment of all debts, by the gift he has made us of his love, passion, and merits. This idea affords me such joy that I take my psalter, and sing with my heart and pronounce with my lips, as humbly as I can, the beautiful canticles with which the Holy Spirit inspired David and other sacred authors. The pleasure I derive from them is so ravishing that I regard as blessings the evils which befall me every day, because I have in my heart through faith Him who has suffered all these evils for me. Before supper, I retire in like manner to feed my soul with reading. In the evening I review all I have done in the day ; I ask pardon for my faults ; I thank God for his graces, and lie down in his love, fear, and peace, assured against all evils. This, my children, is what has long been my amusement, after having searched well, and found none more solid and more satisfying. It seems to me, then, that if you will give yourselves every morning for an hour to reading, and say your prayers devoutly during mass, you will find in this solitude all the charms which cities could afford. In fact, he who knows God finds all things fair in him, and without him everything ugly and disagreeable. Take my advice, therefore, I entreat you, if you wish to find happiness in life." " Those who have read the Holy Scriptures," said Hircan, "as I believe we have done, will confess, madam, that what you have said is true. But you must also consider that we are not yet so mortified but that we have need of some amuse- ment and corporeal pastime. When we are at home we have the chase and hawking, which make us forget a thousand bad thoughts ; the ladies have their household affairs, their needle- work, and sometimes dancing, wherein they find laudable exercise. I propose, then, on the part of the men, that you TO THE HEPTAMERON. 9 as the eldest lady, read to us in the morning the history ol the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the great and won- drous things he has done for us. After dinner until vespers we must choose some pastime which may be agreeable to the body and not prejudicial to the soul. By this means we shall pass the day cheerfully."

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  bumping against the rear door of Europe spread-eagled across the globe their crystal balls poised over Africa ass-up for old glory. Your turn now jessehelms come on its time to lick the handwriting off the walls. The Politics of Addiction 17 luxury condominiums electronically protected from criminal hunger​the homeless seeking a night’s warmth across from the soup kitchen St. Vincent’s Hospital razor wire covering the hot air grates. Disrobed need shrieks through the nearby streets. Some no longer beg. a brown sloe-eyed boy picks blotches from his face eyes my purse shivering white dust a holy fire in his blood at the corner​fantasy parodies desire​replaces longing Green light.​The boy turns back to the steaming grates. Down the street in a show-window camera​Havana the well-shaped woman smiles waves her plump arm along half-filled market shelves excess expectation dusts across her words “Si hubieran capitalismo hubiesen tomates aquí!” “If we had capitalism tomatoes would be here now.” Today Is Not the Day I can’t just sit here staring death in her face blinking and asking for a new name by which to greet her I am not afraid to say unembellished I am dying but I do not want to do it looking the other way. Today is not the day. It could be but it is not. Today is today in the early moving morning sun shining down upon the farmhouse in my belly lighting the wellswept alleys of the town growing in my liver intricate vessels swelling with the gift of Mother Mawu or her mischievous daughter Afrekete​Afrekete​my beloved feel the sun of my days surround you binding our pathways we have water to carry honey to harvest bright seed to plant for the next fair we will linger exchanging sweet oil along each other’s ashy legs the evening light a crest on your cheekbones. By this rising some piece of our labor is already half-done the taste of loving doing a bit of work having some fun riding my wheels so close to the line my eyelashes blaze. Beth dangles her stethoscope over the rearview mirror Jonathan fine-tunes his fix on Orion working through another equation youth taut as an arrow stretched to their borders the barb sinking in so far it vanishes from the surface. I dare not tremble for them only pray laughter comes often enough to soften the edge. And Gloria​Gloria whose difference I learn with the love of a sister​you​you in my eyes bright appetite​light playing along your muscle as you swing. This could be the day. I could slip anchor and wander to the end of the jetty uncoil into the waters a vessel of light​moonglade ride the freshets to sundown and when I am gone another stranger will find you coiled on the warm sand beached treasure​and love you for the different stories your seas tell and half-finished blossoms growing out of my season trail behind with a comforting hum. But today is not the day. Today. [April 22, 1992] Notes

• From Blue Nights (2011)

  Until that instant when Lenny mentioned the bassinette it had all happened very fast. Until the bassinette it had all seemed casual, even blithe, not different in spirit from the Jax jerseys and printed cotton Lilly Pulitzer shifts we were all wearing that year: on New Year’s weekend 1966 John and I had gone to Cat Harbor, on the far side of Catalina Island, on Morty Hall’s boat. Morty Hall was married to Diana Lynn. Diana was a close friend of Lenny’s. At some point on the boat that weekend (presumably at a point, given the drift of the excursion, when we were having or thinking about having or making or thinking about making a drink) I had mentioned to Diana that I was trying to have a baby. Diana had said I should talk to Blake Watson. Blake Watson had delivered her and Morty’s four children. Blake Watson had also delivered the adopted daughter of Howard and Lou Erskine, old friends of Nick and Lenny’s (Howard had gone to Williams with Nick) who happened to be on the boat that weekend. Maybe because the Erskines were there or maybe because I had mentioned wanting a baby or maybe because we had all had the drink we were thinking about having, the topic of adoption had entered the ether. Diana herself, it seemed, had been adopted, but this information had been withheld from her until she was twenty-one and it had become necessary for some financial reason that she know. Her adoptive parents had handled the situation by revealing the secret to (this had not seemed unusual at the time) Diana’s agent. Diana’s agent had handled the situation by taking Diana to lunch at (nor at the time had this) the Beverly Hills Hotel. Diana got the news in the Polo Lounge. She could remember fleeing into the bougainvillea around the bungalows, screaming. That was all. Yet the next week I was meeting Blake Watson. When he called us from the hospital and asked if we wanted the beautiful baby girl there had been no hesitation: we wanted her. When they asked us at the hospital what we would call the beautiful baby girl there had been no hesitation: we would call her Quintana Roo. We had seen the name on a map when we were in Mexico a few months before and promised each other that if ever we had a daughter (dreamy speculation, no daughter had been in the offing) Quintana Roo would be her name. The place on the map called Quintana Roo was still not yet a state but a territory. The place on the map called Quintana Roo was still frequented mainly by archaeologists, herpetologists, and bandits. The institution that became spring break in Cancún did not yet exist. There were no bargain flights. There was no Club Med. The place on the map called Quintana Roo was still terra incognita. As was the infant in the nursery at St. John’s.

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

  In like manner the accidental reward which is added to the essential has the character of a crown. For a crown signifies some kind of perfection, on account of its circular shape, so that for this very reason it is becoming to the perfection of the blessed. Since, however, nothing can be added to the essential, but what is less than it, the additional reward is called an “aureole.” Now something may be added in two ways to this essential reward which we call the “aurea.” First, in consequence of a condition attaching to the nature of the one rewarded: thus the glory of the body is added to the beatitude of the soul, wherefore this same glory of the body is sometimes called an “aureole.” Thus a gloss of Bede on Ex. 25:25, “Thou . . . shalt make another little golden crown,” says that “finally the aureole is added, when it is stated in the Scriptures that a higher degree of glory is in store for us when our bodies are resumed.” But it is not in this sense that we speak of an aureole now. Secondly, in consequence of the nature of the meritorious act. Now this has the character of merit on two counts, whence also it has the character of good. First, to wit, from its root which is charity, since it is referred to the last end, and thus there is due to it the essential reward, namely the attainment of the end, and this is the “aurea.” Secondly, from the very genus of the act which derives a certain praiseworthiness from its due circumstances, from the habit eliciting it and from its proximate end, and thus is due to it a kind of accidental reward which we call an “aureole”: and it is in this sense that we regard the aureole now. Accordingly it must be said that an “aureole” denotes something added to the “aurea,” a kind of joy, to wit, in the works one has done, in that they have the character of a signal victory: for this joy is distinct from the joy in being united to God, which is called the “aurea.” Some, however, affirm that the common reward, which is the “aurea,” receives the name of “aureole,” according as it is given to virgins, martyrs, or doctors: even as money receives the name of debt through being due to some one, though the money and the debt are altogether the same. And that nevertheless this does not imply that the essential reward is any greater when it is called an “aureole”; but that it corresponds to a more excellent act, more excellent not in intensity of merit but in the manner of meriting; so that although two persons may have the Divine vision with equal clearness, it is called an “aureole” in one and not in the other in so far as it corresponds to higher merit as regards the way of meriting. But this would seem contrary to the meaning of the gloss quoted above. For if “aurea” and “aureole” were the same, the “aureole” would not be described as added to the “aurea.” Moreover, since reward corresponds to merit, a more excellent reward must needs correspond to this more excellent way of meriting: and it is this excellence that we call an “aureole.” Hence it follows that an “aureole” differs from the “aurea.”