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 Between the World and Me (2015)

  Here is how I take the measure of my progress in life: I imagine myself as I was, back there in West Baltimore, dodging North and Pulaski, ducking Murphy Homes, fearful of the schools and the streets, and I imagine showing that lost boy a portrait of my present life and asking him what he would make of it. Only once—in the two years after your birth, in the first two rounds of the fight of my life—have I believed he would have been disappointed. I write you at the precipice of my fortieth year, having come to a point in my life—not of great prominence—but far beyond anything that boy could have even imagined. I did not master the streets, because I could not read the body language quick enough. I did not master the schools, because I could not see where any of it could possibly lead. But I did not fall. I have my family. I have my work. I no longer feel it necessary to hang my head at parties and tell people that I am “trying to be a writer.” And godless though I am, the fact of being human, the fact of possessing the gift of study, and thus being remarkable among all the matter floating through the cosmos, still awes me. I have spent much of my studies searching for the right question by which I might fully understand the breach between the world and me. I have not spent my time studying the problem of “race”—“race” itself is just a restatement and retrenchment of the problem. You see this from time to time when some dullard—usually believing himself white—proposes that the way forward is a grand orgy of black and white, ending only when we are all beige and thus the same “race.” But a great number of “black” people already are beige. And the history of civilization is littered with dead “races” (Frankish, Italian, German, Irish) later abandoned because they no longer serve their purpose—the organization of people beneath, and beyond, the umbrella of rights. If my life ended today, I would tell you it was a happy life—that I drew great joy from the study, from the struggle toward which I now urge you. You have seen in this conversation that the struggle has ruptured and remade me several times over—in Baltimore, at The Mecca, in fatherhood, in New York. The changes have awarded me a rapture that comes only when you can no longer be lied to, when you have rejected the Dream. But even more, the changes have taught me how to best exploit that singular gift of study, to question what I see, then to question what I see after that, because the questions matter as much, perhaps more than, the answers.

• From Pleasure Activism (2017)

  I also love mushrooms! I think they are truly magical, and I have had some delightful weird experiences of perceiving the world’s aliveness while tripping on mushrooms on multiple continents.6 In general, the role that fungi play in nature is wonderful—they are communicators, they process toxins, they break down dead material and make it serve life. I think fungi are a crucial part of any functional ecosystem, including our human ecosystems. But I also like to imagine mushrooms giving trees and squirrels hallucinations, for kicks. I went through a period in my twenties where I was doing ecstasy all the time, and I believe it saved my life, to be able to buy and swallow happiness when I could not figure it out internally.7 My pleasure goddess self definitely began to burst the seams of my post-sexual-trauma-frumpy-girl disorder during those years. I haven’t gone much further in the realm of drugs—a sniff or tab here, a recreational Vicodin or Percocet there. But I was once hospitalized with vampire bites,8 and they put me on an IV with Benadryl and Dilaudid. Within a day, I was lying about the amount of pain I was in so they would give me more of whichever one was making everything feel like a cloud. When I left the hospital, I understood that I could never play with injection drugs, not if I also wanted to do things with my life. I think of this as harm reduction (which you will learn a lot about in this book), basically reducing or limiting the harmful impact of drug use on my life. I love sex and drugs. I have an addictive personality, a gift and learning edge I inherited from my paternal grandmother, so I’ve learned to only engage those activities in substances I can moderate. Except sugar—so far that one tends to be all or nothing. Beliefs The other thing I want to share with y’all are a few foundational beliefs that shape everything else that will flow from me. I believe that all organizing is science fiction—that we are shaping the future we long for and have not yet experienced. I believe that we are in an imagination battle, and almost everything about how we orient toward our bodies is shaped by fearful imaginations. Imaginations that fear Blackness, brownness, fatness, queerness, disability, difference. Our radical imagination is a tool for decolonization, for reclaiming our right to shape our lived reality. Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements explores these ideas in depth.9 I believe that we are part of a natural world that is constantly changing, and we need to learn to adapt together and stay in relationship if we hope to survive as a species. Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds explores these concepts in depth.10

• From The Ultimate Guide to Orgasm for Women: How to Become Orgasmic for a Lifetime (2011)

  I can lose myself completely in a powerful orgasm. It’s like being ripped out from inside. It’s like planets colliding. Yes, the earth moves, but not before the Milky Way dissolves. Acknowledgments My heartfelt thanks to: Jesse Cougar, Caryn McClosky, Barbara Taylor, Joy Schulenburg, and Victoria Baker for their time, feedback, and support. Barbara, Bonnie, Bluejay, Catrayl, Carolyn, Chris, Cora, D’Arcy, Deborah, Devorah, Diane, Donna, Doris, Jacq, Jana, Judy, Kay, Laurie, Linci, Lisa Halse, Lisa Sacks, Maggie, Maluma, Maria, Marya, Molly, Nancy, Nora, Nyna, Pat, Robin, Sage, Sari, Tine, Tui, Vika, and all the other wonderful women who spent time talking with me or completed a questionnaire; also Bee, Dave, Rayner, and Wolfgang. The following people had private conversations with me and are quoted in the text: Lonnie Barbach, PhD, is the author of For Yourself: The Fulfillment of Female Sexuality, among many other books. Author and sex educator Joani Blank founded Good Vibrations, the first womancentered sex toy store in the U.S. Jwala is a Tantra teacher and the author of Sacred Sex: Ecstatic Techniques for Empowering Relationships. Dorrie Lane is the creator of the Wondrous Vulva Puppet. Anna Marti is an intimacy coach and speaker on bridging esoteric tantric teaching and western psychotherapeutic and somatic practices. Some of her quotes appeared in an interview conducted by the Society for Human Sexuality. NightOwl is a pagan writer and sex activist. Some of her quotes appeared in an interview conducted by the Society for Human Sexuality. Dr. Annie Sprinkle is an artist, sexologist, ecosexual, author, lecturer, and educator. Some of her quotes are from her DVD Sluts and Goddesses. Dr. Joan Spiegel is a sex therapist, psychologist, and homeopath. David Steinberg is the author of Erotic by Nature: A Celebration of Life, of Love, and of Our Wonderful Bodies and Photo Sex: Fine Art Sexual Photography Comes of Age. Deborah Sundahl is the producer of many DVDs on female ejaculation. She is the author of Female Ejaculation and the G-Spot: Not Your Mother’s Orgasm Book! Patricia Huntington Taylor is author of The Enchantment of Opposites: How to Create Great Relationships. The following people are quoted in the text of the book: Carolyn Gage is a lesbian author and playwright. Janet W. Hardy is co-author of The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships & Other Adventures. Alex Robboy, L.S.W., is a sex therapist and founder of the Center for Growth Inc. and How to Have Good Sex Inc. Beverly Whipple, PhD, co-author of The G Spot: And Other Discoveries About Human Sexuality, and Janet Lever, PhD, author of The Great Sex Weekend: A 48-Hour Guide to Rekindling Sparks for Bold, Busy, or Bored Lovers, were both very helpful. FOREWORD

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  They keep you real busy but you don’t get tired. You’re never tired. And no medicine either. Everyone’s healthy. Strong. You know? Once a week you got to meet with God. Either him or St. Peter. You got to report on how things are going. But there’s no wrong answers in heaven. There’s no report cards . Me? I’m gonna be a ballet dancer or maybe an ice princess like in the Olympics. Just twirl around all day and eat Fruit Roll-Ups . Zillions of puppies … that’s what they got up in heaven. The softest dogs you’ve ever seen. And no poop. I don’t know what happens to the poop but it’s not in heaven. Because heaven’s clean. All those fluffy white clouds. And these zillions of puppies just jumping from cloud to cloud and you get to run and chase them all day . Abby called Vix. “What can I do to help? Would you like something delivered to the editing room … something besides pizza?” Abby kept her in touch, kept them all in touch. Daniel was doing well in his second year at Yale Law, but not as well as he’d thought. Gus was finishing his master’s in journalism at Columbia and had been offered a job in Albuquerque, of all places. Sharkey was turning into a brilliant scientist. And Caitlin, as she already knew, was a latter-day Zelda Fitzgerald with castanets. “Should we start making plans for graduation?” Abby asked. “Are your parents coming? Can we throw a party or do you and Bru have other plans?” She couldn’t begin to think about graduation. She was consumed by her thesis. She discovered creative energies she didn’t even know she had. She’d fall into bed exhausted after midnight and be up at six to start again. She had to keep up with her regular courses, too. Just because it was senior year she wasn’t off the hook. This was Harvard, after all. And a Harvard degree stood for something. Just ask any graduate. Bru said, “I’ll be glad when it’s done. I don’t like anything that keeps us apart.” He asked her to talk sexy to him over the phone. “Tell me what you want me to do to you. Tell me what you’d do to me.” So she told him. Natalie Ponzo talked up Five Minutes in Heaven . It was suggested she send a copy to WGBH. She had an interview with the producers of Nova who offered a summer internship but not a real job. She thanked them and sent a copy to Jocelyn, who was working at an industrial film production house in New York. Jocelyn showed the tape around but cautioned Vix against taking a job with her company. It was a job leading nowhere, she’d discovered. She had to waitress weekends to make ends meet. She’d already given notice.

• From Little Women (1868)

  My very best go-to-concert-and-theater bonnet." "I beg your pardon, it was so small, I naturally mistook it for one of the flyaway things you sometimes wear. How do you keep it on?" "These bits of lace are fastened under the chin with a rosebud, so," and Meg illustrated by putting on the bonnet and regarding him with an air of calm satisfaction that was irresistible. "It's a love of a bonnet, but I prefer the face inside, for it looks young and happy again," and John kissed the smiling face, to the great detriment of the rosebud under the chin. "I'm glad you like it, for I want you to take me to one of the new concerts some night. I really need some music to put me in tune. Will you, please?" "Of course I will, with all my heart, or anywhere else you like. You have been shut up so long, it will do you no end of good, and I shall enjoy it, of all things. What put it into your head, little mother?" "Well, I had a talk with Marmee the other day, and told her how nervous and cross and out of sorts I felt, and she said I needed change and less care, so Hannah is to help me with the children, and I'm to see to things about the house more, and now and then have a little fun, just to keep me from getting to be a fidgety, broken-down old woman before my time. It's only an experiment, John, and I want to try it for your sake as much as for mine, because I've neglected you shamefully lately, and I'm going to make home what it used to be, if I can. You don't object, I hope?" Never mind what John said, or what a very narrow escape the little bonnet had from utter ruin. All that we have any business to know is that John did not appear to object, judging from the changes which gradually took place in the house and its inmates. It was not all Paradise by any means, but everyone was better for the division of labor system. The children throve under the paternal rule, for accurate, steadfast John brought order and obedience into Babydom, while Meg recovered her spirits and composed her nerves by plenty of wholesome exercise, a little pleasure, and much confidential conversation with her sensible husband. Home grew homelike again, and John had no wish to leave it, unless he took Meg with him. The Scotts came to the Brookes' now, and everyone found the little house a cheerful place, full of happiness, content, and family love. Even Sallie Moffatt liked to go there.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  Some couples reach a point when they mostly or totally stop having sex. Although nonsexual couples are less likely to feel satisfied with their relationship than couples who continue to have sex, some are relatively content. The degree of importance given to sex varies tremendously, particularly among older couples. Many continue to enjoy active sex lives, some more than ever because they have extra time together and no worries about pregnancy. Others evolve into nonsexual companions. You might find it distressing that there are so many nonidyllic relationship options. But there’s another way of looking at it. The many faces of couplehood can be inspiring, for they demonstrate the adaptability and endurance of long-term connections, even in an age when commitments so often seem transitory. As partners free themselves from the tyranny of one predetermined style, love finds more ways to flourish. If both intimacy and passion are to thrive beyond the limerent period, there must be a recognition that the two spring from separate and distinct motives. Intimacy is engendered by the desire to know every detail of the other’s dreams and fears. Passion, however, is felt when one gazes at the beloved from a distance and appreciates him or her as an individual who can never be fully known. 10SIGNPOSTS TO EROTIC HEALTHEvaluate your sexual well-being from the paradoxical perspective. While exploring the many dimensions of eroticism, you’ve undoubtedly wished, as I have, that it could be simpler, more predictable. But in the realm of eros, where expectations are so frequently shattered, where obstacles and emotions can either enhance or inhibit passion, and where almost everything is more complex than it first appears, drawing definitive conclusions from what we’ve learned is anything but easy. This lack of certainty is especially apparent when we try to describe key characteristics of healthy eroticism—our goal in this chapter. Evaluating health from the familiar pathology perspective is relatively straightforward. If a doctor doesn’t diagnose an illness, you’re considered healthy. Making the proper diagnosis might be tricky, but the concept is reassuringly uncomplicated. Following a similar line of thinking, psychologists and sex therapists tend to conceptualize sexual health as the absence or reduction of distressing symptoms such as sexual dysfunctions, inhibited desire, incompatibilities between partners, or compulsive urges to reenact unfulfilling or harmful turn-ons. With rare exceptions, clients who make progress in resolving symptoms like these do indeed feel happier and healthier. It is erroneous, however, to assume they all would have been better off without their symptoms in the first place.

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  By the time I was four, I was pretty good with Dad's pistol, a big black six-shot revolver, and could hit five out of six beer bottles at thirty paces. I'd hold the gun with both hands, sight down the barrel, and squeeze the trigger slowly and smoothly until, with a loud clap, the gun kicked and the bottle exploded. It was fun. Dad said my sharpshooting would come in handy if the feds ever surrounded us. Notes: The body trained to hold a recoil at four — paramilitary parenting as inheritance. Pairs with EDU on the survivalist household and LSM on doctrinal-childhood-with-no-script. ```yaml ni-v1 passage_code: GCM-015 scene_context: scene_type: memory_scene age: 4 setting: "desert yard, bottle-target practice" characters: ["Jeannette (4)", "Dad (Rex Walls)"] narrative_function: setup psychological_engine: desire: type: belonging intensity: 6 object_of_desire: "father's approval; paramilitary competence" obstacle: type: physical description: "a four-year-old body absorbing a revolver's recoil" shame: type: unknown intensity: 0 behavior: action_taken: "held the six-shot revolver with both hands, hit five of six beer bottles" outcome: immediate: "paternal pride; the fun of the shot" long_term: "survivalist inheritance installed in the body" internal_dialogue: "It was fun" emotional_state: before: calm during: triumphant after: triumphant identity_tension: conflict_axis: body_vs_mind conflict_type: desire_vs_self_story resolution_type: transformation resolution_status: transformed_into_identity narrative_craft: sensory_modes: [physical, kinesthetic, auditory] voice_type: reflective time_distance: retrospective relationship: dynamic: idealization pairings: - Escape - Secrets of Polygamy ``` --- ## Supplement — erotic, sexual, and embodied intimacy GCM is a memoir of a body forced past adult thresholds before puberty arrives. The erotic-leaning material is almost entirely violation-shaped — Billy Deel, Erma, Stanley, Kenny Hall — with the pool scene and the framing dance between Mom's body and the daughter who wants to disown it standing in for what desire-without-violation would look like. Walls' voice is plain, dry, slightly arch. Keep the register flat. Per the EDU / LSM annex convention: lead-in + wind-down preserved. --- **PASSAGE GCM-E01** — Billy Deel's father, the exposed penis Speaker: Jeannette Walls, age 8 Charge: 4 Arc stage: installation Themes: drunk parent, exposed body, child as audience The funny thing Billy wanted to show me was in his house, which was dark inside and smelled like pee, and was even messier than our house, although in a different way. … On one of the mattresses, Billy's father was snoring unevenly. His mouth hung open, and flies were gathered in the stubble of his beard. A wet stain had darkened his pants nearly to his knees. His zipper was undone, and his gross penis dangled to one side. I stared quietly, then asked, "What's the funny thing?" "Don't you see?" said Billy, pointing at his dad. "He pissed himself!" Billy started laughing. Notes: The first adult genital Walls reports seeing is a passed-out alcoholic father's, presented as a comedy beat by his eight-year-old son. Body shame routed through humor. Pairs with HE on Appalachian alcoholic-parent register. ```yaml ni-v1 passage_code: GCM-E01 scene_context: scene_type: memory_scene age: 8 setting: "Billy Deel's house, mattress room" characters: ["Jeannette (8)", "Billy Deel", "Billy's father (passed out)"] narrative_function: setup psychological_engine: desire: type: belonging intensity: 3 object_of_desire: "friendship with Billy; to understand the 'funny thing'" obstacle: type: social description: "the scene she has been brought to see — an adult body exposed as punchline" shame: type: public_exposure_shame intensity: 6 behavior: action_taken: "stared quietly; asked, 'What's the funny thing?'" outcome: immediate: "Billy pointed to the pissed-in pants and laughed" long_term: "adult male genital first encountered as comedy of collapse" internal_dialogue: "Billy started laughing" emotional_state: before: confused during: ashamed after: numb identity_tension: conflict_axis: body_vs_mind conflict_type: desire_vs_self_story resolution_type: dissociation resolution_status: unresolved narrative_craft: sensory_modes: [visual, olfactory, emotional] voice_type: reflective time_distance: retrospective relationship: dynamic: absent_other pairings: - HE - Stripped Nashville ``` --- **PASSAGE GCM-E02** — The shed, Billy's hand on her shorts Speaker: Jeannette Walls, age 8 Charge: 5 Arc stage: installation Themes: hand-on-clothes, knowing what it was, the kids opening the door His other hand was unbuttoning his own pants. To stop him, I put my hand down there, and when I touched it, I knew what it was, even though I had never touched one before. The other kids heard the ruckus and came running. One of them opened the shed door, and Billy and I scrambled out, pulling on our clothes. "I kissed Jeannette!" Billy yelled. "Did not!" I said. "He's a liar! We just got into a fight, that's all." He was a liar, I told myself all the rest of the day. I hadn't really kissed him, or at least it didn't count. My eyes had been open the entire time. Notes: The eight-year-old's silent, post-shed self-correction — *my eyes had been open the entire time* — as the first installation of adult deniability. Pairs with EDU on the body's pre-language interpretive frame. ```yaml ni-v1 passage_code: GCM-E02 scene_context: scene_type: memory_scene age: 8 setting: "shed, then rest-of-day" characters: ["Jeannette (8)", "Billy Deel", "other kids"] narrative_function: aftermath psychological_engine: desire: type: safety intensity: 8 object_of_desire: "to un-make what just happened; to keep her standing with the other kids" obstacle: type: internal description: "the body knows; the story has to be rewritten" shame: type: post_act_shame intensity: 8 behavior: action_taken: "denied kissing him; told herself it didn't count because her eyes were open" outcome: immediate: "the kids believed neither, moved on" long_term: "deniability-as-cover installed on top of the body's record" internal_dialogue: "My eyes had been open the entire time" emotional_state: before: anxious during: ashamed after: dissociated identity_tension: conflict_axis: true_self_vs_performed conflict_type: desire_vs_self_story resolution_type: dissociation resolution_status: repressed_again narrative_craft: sensory_modes: [physical, emotional] voice_type: confessional time_distance: retrospective relationship: dynamic: power_imbalance pairings: - Stripped Nashville - Escape ``` --- **PASSAGE GCM-E03** — Kenny Hall, the dollar bill, the wanker Speaker: Jeannette Walls, age ~11 Charge: 3 Arc stage: mechanism Themes: developmentally disabled neighbor's crush, child traffickers, body as bargaining chip When I was friendly to the oldest, Kenny Hall, who was forty-two, he developed a powerful crush on me. The other kids in the neighborhood teased Kenny by telling him that if he gave them a dollar or stripped down to his skivvies and showed them his wanker, they'd arrange for me to go on a date with him. On a Saturday night, if he'd been set up like that, he'd come stand on the street in front of our house, sobbing and hollering about me not keeping our date, and I'd have to go down and explain to him that the other kids had played a trick on him and that, although he did have many admirable qualities, I had a policy against dating older men. Notes: An eleven-year-old as the unwitting currency in a neighborhood game where a forty-two-year-old man is goaded to undress. Walls' "policy against dating older men" line is the dry register of the whole memoir. ```yaml ni-v1 passage_code: GCM-E03 scene_context: scene_type: memory_scene age: 11 setting: "Welch street in front of the Walls house, Saturday night" characters: ["Jeannette (11)", "Kenny Hall (42, developmentally disabled)", "neighborhood kids"] narrative_function: escalation psychological_engine: desire: type: safety intensity: 6 object_of_desire: "to defuse the scene; to keep her self-possession" obstacle: type: social description: "neighborhood kids using her as bait; the grown man's sobbing on her street" shame: type: public_exposure_shame intensity: 5 behavior: action_taken: "went down and explained the prank; cited a 'policy against dating older men'" outcome: immediate: "Kenny soothed; kids continue the prank" long_term: "body-as-bargaining-chip frame installed at 11" internal_dialogue: "a policy against dating older men" emotional_state: before: anxious during: vigilant after: resigned identity_tension: conflict_axis: individual_vs_group conflict_type: desire_vs_public_image resolution_type: compromise resolution_status: partially_integrated narrative_craft: sensory_modes: [auditory, emotional, visual] voice_type: detached time_distance: retrospective relationship: dynamic: power_imbalance pairings: - HE - Escape ``` --- **PASSAGE GCM-E04** — "Red bush coming in" Speaker: Jeannette Walls, age 13 Charge: 3 Arc stage: permission Themes: pubic hair, locker-room voice, "collar got to match the cuffs" "Hey, 'Nitia!" one of the women shouted. "Your white friend's got a red bush coming in!" "What did you expect?" Dinitia asked. "That's right," I said. "Collar got to match the cuffs." It was a line I'd heard Dinitia use. She smiled at it, and the women all shrieked with laughter. One of the dancers bumped her hip up against me. I felt welcome enough to give a saucy bump back. Notes: The first time Walls' adolescent body is named in plain language by women — and named by them as a thing-to-be-laughed-with rather than punished or hidden. Pairs directly with TVM "the workshop" passage and with LSM-G06 (twelve, the granted mirror). ```yaml ni-v1 passage_code: GCM-E04 scene_context: scene_type: dialogue age: 13 setting: "pool locker room, Welch" characters: ["Jeannette (13)", "Dinitia", "women dancers"] narrative_function: interpretation psychological_engine: desire: type: belonging intensity: 8 object_of_desire: "to be held in plain-language women's laughter" obstacle: type: internal description: "white self-consciousness; unfamiliarity with the register" shame: type: body_shame intensity: 3 behavior: action_taken: "delivered a borrowed line back; bumped hip against dancer" outcome: immediate: "women shrieked with laughter; the ribbing became inclusion" long_term: "body named as a thing-to-be-laughed-with, not punished" internal_dialogue: "It was a line I'd heard Dinitia use" emotional_state: before: anxious during: confused after: triumphant identity_tension: conflict_axis: true_self_vs_performed conflict_type: desire_vs_self_story resolution_type: expression resolution_status: partially_integrated narrative_craft: sensory_modes: [auditory, physical, visual] voice_type: confessional time_distance: retrospective relationship: dynamic: reciprocal pairings: - The Vagina Monologues - Breast Archives ``` --- **PASSAGE GCM-E05** — The pool, the cannonballs, "I'd never felt cleaner" Speaker: Jeannette Walls, age 13 Charge: 4 Arc stage: reclamation Themes: pool day, splashing, chlorine, body restored to play Dinitia and I stayed in the pool all morning, splashing, practicing the backstroke and the butterfly. She flailed around in the water almost as much as I did. We stood on our hands and stuck our legs out of the water, did underwater twists, and played Marco Polo and chicken with the other kids. We climbed out to do cannonballs and watermelons off the side, making big geyserlike splashes intended to drench as many people sitting poolside as possible. The blue water sparkled and churned white with foam. By the time the free swim was over, my fingers and toes were completely wrinkled, and my eyes were red and stinging from the chlorine, which was so strong it wafted up from the pool in a vapor you could practically see. I'd never felt cleaner. Notes: The body returned to its element. The flat closing line — *I'd never felt cleaner* — sits opposite the burn passage as the corpus's reclamation pole. Pairs with TCW (Yuknavitch) on swimming as body-as-pure-function. ```yaml ni-v1 passage_code: GCM-E05 scene_context: scene_type: memory_scene age: 13 setting: "swimming pool, Welch free-swim morning" characters: ["Jeannette (13)", "Dinitia", "other kids at pool"] narrative_function: aftermath psychological_engine: desire: type: freedom intensity: 9 object_of_desire: "the body returned to its own motion, unarmored" obstacle: type: internal description: "the scar, the self-consciousness, the class-body she had been taught" shame: type: unknown intensity: 0 behavior: action_taken: "cannonballs, watermelons, underwater twists, Marco Polo" outcome: immediate: "wrinkled fingers, red eyes, chlorine in the air" long_term: "the reclamation pole of the book — 'I'd never felt cleaner'" internal_dialogue: "I'd never felt cleaner" emotional_state: before: yearning during: triumphant after: calm identity_tension: conflict_axis: true_self_vs_performed conflict_type: desire_vs_self_story resolution_type: expression resolution_status: openly_integrated narrative_craft: sensory_modes: [physical, visual, kinesthetic, olfactory] voice_type: triumphant time_distance: retrospective relationship: dynamic: reciprocal pairings: - TCW - Breast Archives ``` --- **PASSAGE GCM-E06** — Stanley's hand under the cushions Speaker: Jeannette Walls, age 13 Charge: 5 Arc stage: installation Themes: serial encroachment, the second hand, "hurried out to Mom" I felt Stanley's hand creeping onto my thigh. I looked at him, but he was staring at the *Hee Haw* Honeys so intently that I couldn't be sure he was doing it on purpose, so I knocked his hand away without saying anything. A few minutes later, the hand came creeping back. I looked down and saw that Uncle Stanley's pants were unzipped and he was playing with himself. Notes: The grooming geometry — first encroachment plausible, second encroachment unmistakable, the body's protocol of escalation. Mirror of GCM-009 with the explicit body sentence. Direct **Stripped Nashville** pair on perpetrator escalation as somatic curriculum. ```yaml ni-v1 passage_code: GCM-E06 scene_context: scene_type: memory_scene age: 13 setting: "Uncle Stanley's couch, Hee Haw on TV" characters: ["Jeannette (13)", "Uncle Stanley"] narrative_function: climax psychological_engine: desire: type: safety intensity: 9 object_of_desire: "the hand off her thigh; to be unmolested" obstacle: type: physical description: "perpetrator's repeated encroachment; his unzipped pants" shame: type: public_exposure_shame intensity: 9 behavior: action_taken: "knocked hand away silently; looked down, saw what was happening" outcome: immediate: "she hurried out to the mother" long_term: "grooming geometry installed; the second encroachment is the memoir's body-sentence" internal_dialogue: "I couldn't be sure he was doing it on purpose" emotional_state: before: anxious during: vigilant after: rageful identity_tension: conflict_axis: body_vs_mind conflict_type: desire_vs_safety resolution_type: dissociation resolution_status: unresolved narrative_craft: sensory_modes: [physical, visual, auditory] voice_type: distressed time_distance: retrospective relationship: dynamic: power_imbalance pairings: - Stripped Nashville - Secrets of Polygamy ``` --- **PASSAGE GCM-E07** — "Poor Stanley. He's so lonely." Speaker: Rose Mary Walls (the mother) → Jeannette Charge: 5 Arc stage: mechanism Themes: maternal denial, perpetrator-pity, daughter rerouted "Mom, Uncle Stanley is behaving inappropriately," I said. … Mom cocked her head and looked concerned. "Poor Stanley," she said. "He's so lonely." Notes: Six words from the parent that completely re-route the daughter's body-report. Pairs with EDU on parental refusal and CBM / HE on poor mothers protecting men they'd rather not lose. ```yaml ni-v1 passage_code: GCM-E07 scene_context: scene_type: dialogue age: 13 setting: "kitchen, just after the couch encroachment" characters: ["Jeannette (13)", "Rose Mary (mother)"] narrative_function: aftermath psychological_engine: desire: type: safety intensity: 10 object_of_desire: "maternal recognition; the perpetrator named" obstacle: type: social description: "maternal mythmaking; the rule to protect the men in the household" shame: type: family_shame intensity: 9 behavior: action_taken: "named the behavior as inappropriate" outcome: immediate: "'Poor Stanley. He's so lonely.'" long_term: "second installation — the daughter's body-report is sealed over with pity for the perpetrator" internal_dialogue: "Uncle Stanley is behaving inappropriately" emotional_state: before: vigilant during: anxious after: resigned identity_tension: conflict_axis: individual_vs_group conflict_type: desire_vs_family_expectation resolution_type: suppression resolution_status: repressed_again narrative_craft: sensory_modes: [auditory, emotional] voice_type: mournful time_distance: retrospective relationship: dynamic: disillusionment pairings: - Escape - Stripped Nashville ``` --- **PASSAGE GCM-G01** — The pink dress, the flames climbing the stomach Speaker: Jeannette Walls, age 3 Charge: 5 Arc stage: installation Themes: skin grafts, upper thigh, ribs, stomach, chest The doctors said I was lucky to be alive. They took patches of skin from my upper thigh and put them over the most badly burned parts of my stomach, ribs, and chest. They said it was called a skin graft. When they were finished, they wrapped my entire right side in bandages. Notes: Body inventory in three sentences — donor site, recipient sites, the wrapping. Pairs with EDU's burn passages and with TVM on the named body part. ```yaml ni-v1 passage_code: GCM-G01 scene_context: scene_type: clinical_quote age: 3 setting: "hospital, post-graft" characters: ["Jeannette (3)", "doctors"] narrative_function: setup psychological_engine: desire: type: safety intensity: 7 object_of_desire: "the body repaired; the body named in medical vocabulary" obstacle: type: physical description: "the burn itself; the skin-graft procedure" shame: type: body_shame intensity: 4 behavior: action_taken: "received grafts; was wrapped" outcome: immediate: "patches of skin from upper thigh to stomach, ribs, chest" long_term: "the scar that will be measured against the adolescent hand at 13" internal_dialogue: "They said it was called a skin graft" emotional_state: before: numb during: numb after: vigilant identity_tension: conflict_axis: body_vs_mind conflict_type: desire_vs_self_story resolution_type: transformation resolution_status: partially_integrated narrative_craft: sensory_modes: [physical, visual] voice_type: clinical time_distance: retrospective pairings: - Breast Archives - The Vagina Monologues ``` --- **PASSAGE GCM-G02** — Peeling the scab Speaker: Jeannette Walls, age 3 Charge: 4 Arc stage: management Themes: own hand on own scab, talking-scabs game, the nurses' rule Every couple of days, the nurses changed the bandages. They would put the used bandage off to the side, wadded and covered with smears of blood and yellow stuff and little pieces of burned skin. … At night I would run my left hand over the rough, scabby surface of the skin that wasn't covered by the bandage. Sometimes I'd peel off scabs. The nurses had told me not to, but I couldn't resist pulling on them real slow to see how big a scab I could get loose. Once I had a couple of them free, I'd pretend they were talking to each other in cheeping voices. Notes: The body's own surface as game-piece. A toddler turning her own injury into a small theater company. Pairs with EDU's "junkyard hands" registers — the child using injury as the only material at hand. ```yaml ni-v1 passage_code: GCM-G02 scene_context: scene_type: memory_scene age: 3 setting: "hospital bed at night" characters: ["Jeannette (3)", "nurses (as absent rule-givers)"] narrative_function: aftermath psychological_engine: desire: type: belonging intensity: 5 object_of_desire: "play, company, something to do with her own body" obstacle: type: internal description: "the nurses' rule against peeling scabs; the body as the only available material" shame: type: body_shame intensity: 2 behavior: action_taken: "ran her hand over scab; peeled it slowly; made scabs talk to each other" outcome: immediate: "imagined cheeping voices; small theater of self" long_term: "body-as-game-piece register installed at 3" internal_dialogue: "I couldn't resist pulling on them real slow" emotional_state: before: numb during: tender after: calm identity_tension: conflict_axis: body_vs_mind conflict_type: desire_vs_self_story resolution_type: transformation resolution_status: partially_integrated narrative_craft: sensory_modes: [physical, kinesthetic, auditory] voice_type: reflective time_distance: retrospective pairings: - Breast Archives - Bigorexia ``` --- **PASSAGE GCM-G03** — The skin graft scar, hand-sized Speaker: Jeannette Walls, age 13 Charge: 4 Arc stage: management Themes: scar size measurement, "outstretched hand," self-conscious I was going on thirteen and self-conscious, so I planned to slip my bathing suit on underneath my dress … The scar on my ribs was about the size of my outstretched hand, and Dinitia noticed it immediately. Notes: Walls measures the scar against her own thirteen-year-old hand. The body of the wound and the body that wears it, given the same unit of measurement. Pairs with **Breast Archives** on the scar measured against time and grown body. ```yaml ni-v1 passage_code: GCM-G03 scene_context: scene_type: reflection age: 13 setting: "poolside, about to undress" characters: ["Jeannette (13)", "Dinitia"] narrative_function: interpretation psychological_engine: desire: type: belonging intensity: 7 object_of_desire: "to be seen without flinching; to cross the undressing threshold" obstacle: type: internal description: "self-consciousness; the remembered hand-size of the scar" shame: type: body_shame intensity: 6 behavior: action_taken: "measured the scar against her outstretched hand; stepped out of her clothes" outcome: immediate: "Dinitia noticed immediately" long_term: "scar reframed as the measurable unit of a girl growing into herself" internal_dialogue: "about the size of my outstretched hand" emotional_state: before: anxious during: ashamed after: tender identity_tension: conflict_axis: body_vs_mind conflict_type: desire_vs_self_story resolution_type: expression resolution_status: partially_integrated narrative_craft: sensory_modes: [physical, visual] voice_type: reflective time_distance: retrospective relationship: dynamic: reciprocal pairings: - Breast Archives - The Vagina Monologues ``` --- **PASSAGE GCM-G04** — Brian's hands between his legs Speaker: Jeannette Walls (witness, age 11–12) Charge: 5 Arc stage: installation Themes: child's protective gesture, sewing-kit cover, brother's tears I went into Grandpa's bedroom and saw Erma kneeling on the floor in front of Brian, grabbing at the crotch of his pants, squeezing and kneading while mumbling to herself and telling Brian to hold still, goddammit. Brian, his cheeks wet with tears, was holding his hands protectively between his legs. Notes: Eleven-year-old male body forced into the protective posture. The body's instinctive geometry of self-cover. Pairs with EDU on the child's body that knows before the language does. ```yaml ni-v1 passage_code: GCM-G04 scene_context: scene_type: memory_scene age: 11 setting: "Grandpa's bedroom, Welch" characters: ["Jeannette (11, witness)", "Erma (grandmother)", "Brian (brother, ~9)"] narrative_function: climax psychological_engine: desire: type: safety intensity: 10 object_of_desire: "Brian untouched; the scene ended" obstacle: type: social description: "grandmother's household authority; sewing-kit cover" shame: type: family_shame intensity: 9 behavior: action_taken: "witnessed; her brother shielded himself with both hands" outcome: immediate: "Brian's hands between his legs; his cheeks wet with tears" long_term: "the body's instinctive geometry of self-cover archived in the sister's memory" internal_dialogue: "squeezing and kneading while mumbling to herself" emotional_state: before: vigilant during: rageful after: grieving identity_tension: conflict_axis: individual_vs_group conflict_type: desire_vs_family_expectation resolution_type: expression resolution_status: unresolved narrative_craft: sensory_modes: [visual, physical, auditory] voice_type: distressed time_distance: retrospective relationship: dynamic: power_imbalance pairings: - Stripped Nashville - Secrets of Polygamy ``` --- **PASSAGE GCM-G05** — The Hee Haw screen and the unzipped pants Speaker: Jeannette Walls, age 13 Charge: 5 Arc stage: installation Themes: masturbation as ambient, the stare elsewhere, the shielded daughter I looked down and saw that Uncle Stanley's pants were unzipped and he was playing with himself. Notes: One sentence. The body sentence that the household will spend the next decades not having. Pairs with EDU and CBM on the room where the obvious is forbidden to be named. ```yaml ni-v1 passage_code: GCM-G05 scene_context: scene_type: sensory_flash age: 13 setting: "Uncle Stanley's couch, Hee Haw ambient" characters: ["Jeannette (13)", "Uncle Stanley"] narrative_function: climax psychological_engine: desire: type: safety intensity: 9 object_of_desire: "to have seen wrong; for the sentence not to be what it is" obstacle: type: physical description: "the unmistakable body sentence in front of her" shame: type: public_exposure_shame intensity: 9 behavior: action_taken: "looked down; registered the sentence" outcome: immediate: "the one-sentence fact of the scene" long_term: "the sentence the household will spend decades not having" internal_dialogue: "his pants were unzipped and he was playing with himself" emotional_state: before: vigilant during: ashamed after: rageful identity_tension: conflict_axis: body_vs_mind conflict_type: desire_vs_safety resolution_type: dissociation resolution_status: unresolved narrative_craft: sensory_modes: [visual, physical] voice_type: detached time_distance: retrospective relationship: dynamic: power_imbalance pairings: - Stripped Nashville - Secrets of Polygamy ``` --- **PASSAGE GCM-G06** — Mom's body, swan-diving Speaker: Jeannette Walls (adult, NYC) Charge: 3 Arc stage: late_life Themes: maternal body remembered, swan-dive, painted-in-the-desert … still she reminded me of the mom she'd been when I was a kid, swan-diving off cliffs and painting in the desert and reading Shakespeare aloud. Her cheekbones were still high and strong, but the skin was parched and ruddy from all those winters and summers exposed to the elements. Notes: The mother's body remembered as an instrument of motion (swan-diving) and a surface eroded by weather. Pairs with **Breast Archives** on the body in time and on the daughter who watches her mother age into difficulty. ```yaml ni-v1 passage_code: GCM-G06 scene_context: scene_type: reflection age: 30 setting: "taxi, looking through window at mother at Dumpster" characters: ["Jeannette (adult, ~30)", "Rose Mary (mother, homeless)"] narrative_function: interpretation psychological_engine: desire: type: belonging intensity: 8 object_of_desire: "the mother of childhood back; the body remembered as motion" obstacle: type: structural description: "the actual mother's body — parched, matted, homeless" shame: type: class_shame intensity: 7 behavior: action_taken: "let the older image of the mother overlay the current one" outcome: immediate: "the swan-diving-painter-in-the-desert mother remembered" long_term: "the daughter who watches her mother age into difficulty" internal_dialogue: "still she reminded me of the mom she'd been when I was a kid" emotional_state: before: anxious during: grieving after: tender identity_tension: conflict_axis: past_vs_present conflict_type: desire_vs_self_story resolution_type: compromise resolution_status: partially_integrated narrative_craft: sensory_modes: [visual, emotional, kinesthetic] voice_type: mournful time_distance: retrospective relationship: dynamic: disillusionment pairings: - Breast Archives - HE ``` --- **PASSAGE GCM-G07** — Buck-naked, big pillowy behinds Speaker: Jeannette Walls, age 13 Charge: 4 Arc stage: permission Themes: black women's bodies, dancing, breast-against-breast Others had big pillowy behinds and huge swinging breasts, and they were bumping their butts together and pushing their breasts up against each other as they danced. … One of the naked ones came over and stood in front of me, her hands on her hips, her breasts so close I was terrified her nipples were going to touch me.

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

  IT WAS 1955 and we were driving from Florida to Utah, to get away from a man my mother was afraid of and to get rich on uranium. We were going to change our luck. We'd left Sarasota in the dead of summer, right after my tenth birthday, and headed West under low flickering skies that turned black and exploded and cleared just long enough to leave the air gauzy with steam. We drove through Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, stopping to cool the engine in towns where people moved with arthritic slowness and spoke in thick, strangled tongues. Idlers with rotten teeth surrounded the car to press peanuts on the pretty Yankee lady and her little boy, arguing among themselves about shortcuts. Women looked up from their flower beds as we drove past, or watched us from their porches, sometimes impassively, sometimes giving us a nod and a flutter of their fans. Every couple of hours the Nash Rambler boiled over. My mother kept digging into her little grubstake but no mechanic could fix it. All we could do was wait for it to cool, then drive on until it boiled over again. (My mother came to hate this machine so much that not long after we got to Utah she gave it away to a woman she met in a cafeteria.) At night we slept in boggy rooms where headlight beams crawled up and down the walls and mosquitoes sang in our ears, incessant as the tires whining on the highway outside. But none of this bothered me. I was caught up in my mother's freedom, her delight in her freedom, her dream of transformation.

• From Real Sex for Real Women (2008)

  Background: Martin, 60 years old, and Victoria, 62 years old, have been married for 11 years. They have a close relationship and have supported each other through illness—Martin has diabetes and back problems, and Victoria had breast cancer, which she has just recently recovered from. The problem: Victoria’s sex drive waned considerably after she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and didn’t return when she got better. … They hadn’t had sex in almost three years. … Victoria’s response to Martin’s request for sex was, “I’m over 60. Who has sex in their 60s?” What happened? Martin and Victoria tried all of the steps I recommended—as a result they started cuddling, caressing, and being playful with each other again. In time this also led to sex. Martin said he found it extremely arousing to look at erotica with Victoria. She, in turn, loved the vibrator: “One night with it and I felt like a new woman.”

• From The Great Believers (2018)

  "He unlinked his arm from Fiona's and he turned toward Asher, and he grabbed the back of Asher's head and kissed him. Whether Asher was just showing off for the camera, Yale didn't care, but Asher fully returned the kiss, his fingers in Yale's hair, his tongue on Yale's. Yale could taste the salt on his lips, felt Asher's thick stubble against his own smoother chin even as the entire city fell away around them. … He went back to the kiss in his mind. He could live there a long time. It was warm there, and good."

• From When Breath Becomes Air (2016)

  When you come to one of the many moments in life where you must give an account of yourself, provide a ledger of what you have been, and done, and meant to the world, do not, I pray, discount that you filled a dying man's days with a sated joy, a joy unknown to me in all my prior years, a joy that does not hunger for more and more but rests, satisfied. In this time, right now, that is an enormous thing.

• From Between the World and Me (2015)

  [image file=image_rsrcR0.jpg] When I look back, I know that I was then getting the message from all over. By that time my friends included a great number of people with ties to different worlds. “Make the race proud,” the elders used to say. But by then I knew that I wasn’t so much bound to a biological “race” as to a group of people, and these people were not black because of any uniform color or any uniform physical feature. They were bound because they suffered under the weight of the Dream, and they were bound by all the beautiful things, all the language and mannerisms, all the food and music, all the literature and philosophy, all the common language that they fashioned like diamonds under the weight of the Dream. Not long ago I was standing in an airport retrieving a bag from a conveyor belt. I bumped into a young black man and said, “My bad.” Without even looking up he said, “You straight.” And in that exchange there was so much of the private rapport that can only exist between two particular strangers of this tribe that we call black. In other words, I was part of a world. And looking out, I had friends who too were part of other worlds—the world of Jews or New Yorkers, the world of Southerners or gay men, of immigrants, of Californians, of Native Americans, or a combination of any of these, worlds stitched into worlds like tapestry. And though I could never, myself, be a native of any of these worlds, I knew that nothing so essentialist as race stood between us. I had read too much by then. And my eyes—my beautiful, precious eyes—were growing stronger each day. And I saw that what divided me from the world was not anything intrinsic to us but the actual injury done by people intent on naming us, intent on believing that what they have named us matters more than anything we could ever actually do. In America, the injury is not in being born with darker skin, with fuller lips, with a broader nose, but in everything that happens after. In that single exchange with that young man, I was speaking the personal language of my people. It was the briefest intimacy, but it captured much of the beauty of my black world—the ease between your mother and me, the miracle at The Mecca, the way I feel myself disappear on the streets of Harlem. To call that feeling racial is to hand over all those diamonds, fashioned by our ancestors, to the plunderer. We made that feeling, though it was forged in the shadow of the murdered, the raped, the disembodied, we made it all the same. This is the beautiful thing that I have seen with my own eyes, and I think I needed this vantage point before I could journey out. I think I needed to know that I was from somewhere, that my home was as beautiful as any other.

• From The Argonauts (2015)

  Why did it take me so long to find someone with whom my perversities were not only compatible, but perfectly matched? Then as now, you spread my legs with your legs and push your cock into me, fill my mouth with your fingers. You pretend to use me, make a theater of heeding only your pleasure while making sure I find mine. Really, though, it’s more than a perfect match, as that implies a kind of stasis. Whereas we’re always moving, shape-shifting. No matter what we do, it always feels dirty without feeling lousy. Sometimes words are a part of it. I can remember, early on, standing beside you in a friend’s cavernous fourth-floor painting studio in Williamsburg at night (she was out of town), completely naked, more construction workers outside, this time building some kind of luxury high-rise across the street, their light towers flooding the studio with orange shaft and shadow, as you asked me to say aloud what I wanted you to do to me. My whole body struggled to summon any utterable phrase. I knew you were a good animal, but felt myself to be standing before an enormous mountain, a lifetime of unwillingness to claim what I wanted, to ask for it. Now here you were, your face close to mine, waiting. The words I eventually found may have been Argo, but now I know: there’s no substitute for saying them with one’s own mouth. Sodomitical maternity was on full display in A. L. Steiner’s 2012 installation Puppies and Babies—an anarchic, colorful, blissed-out collection of snapshots, culled from Steiner’s personal archive, of friends in various states of public and private intimacy with the titular creatures. Steiner says the installation started as a kind of joke, the joke coming from “the fact that sometimes I’d find myself shooting puppies/dogs and babies and what for? Were they part of my ‘work’? How did/could they fit in to the highbrow genre of labels often attached to my work—installation-based, for mature audiences, political, etc?”

• From Looking for Alaska (2005)

  Hyde’s class isn’t total bullshit.” And both of us lying on our sides, she smiled, our noses almost touching, my unblinking eyes on hers, her face blushing from the wine, and I opened my mouth again but this time not to speak, and she reached up and put a finger to my lips and said, “Shh. Shh. Don’t ruin it.” fifty-one days before THE NEXT MORNING, I didn’t hear the knocking, if there was any. I just heard, “UP! Do you know what time it is?!” I looked at the clock and groggily muttered, “It’s seven thirty-six.” “No, Pudge. It’s party time! We’ve only got seven days left before everyone comes back. Oh God, I can’t even tell you how nice it is to have you here. Last Thanksgiving, I spent the whole time constructing one massive candle using the wax from all my little candles. God, it was boring. I counted the ceiling tiles. Sixty-seven down, eighty-four across. Talk about suffering! Absolute torture.” “I’m really tired. I—” I said, and then she cut me off. “Poor Pudge. Oh, poor poor Pudge. Do you want me to climb into bed with you and cuddle?” “Well, if you’re offering—” “NO! UP! NOW!” She took me behind a wing of Weekday Warrior rooms—50 to 59—and stopped in front of a window, placed her palms flat against it, and pushed up until the window was half open, then crawled inside. I followed. “What do you see, Pudge?” I saw a dorm room—the same cinder-block walls, the same dimensions, even the same layout as my own. Their couch was nicer, and they had an actual coffee table instead of COFFEE TABLE . They had two posters on the wall. One featured a huge stack of hundred-dollar bills with the caption THE FIRST MILLION IS THE HARDEST . On the opposite wall, a poster of a red Ferrari. “Uh, I see a dorm room.” “You’re not looking, Pudge. When I go into your room, I see a couple of guys who love video games. When I look at my room, I see a girl who loves books.” She walked over to the couch and picked up a plastic soda bottle. “Look at this,” she said, and I saw that it was half filled with a brackish, brown liquid. Dip spit. “So they dip. And they obviously aren’t hygienic about it. So are they going to care if we pee on their toothbrushes? They won’t care enough, that’s for sure. Look. Tell me what these guys love.” “They love money,” I said, pointing to the poster. She threw up her hands, exasperated. “They all love money, Pudge. Okay, go into the bathroom. Tell me what you see there.” The game was annoying me a little, but I went into the bathroom as she sat down on that inviting couch. Inside the shower, I found a dozen bottles of shampoo and conditioner. In the medicine cabinet, I found a cylindrical bottle of something called Rewind.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  West was greatly delighted and started singing a hymn as we set to work. I partnered the carpenters, all the rest joined turn by turn, and thus we went on until 7 a.m. There was still a good deal to do. I therefore suggested to West that the engineer might now be asked to get up and try again to start the engine, so that if we succeeded we might finish in time. West woke him up, and he immediately went into the engine room. And lo and behold! the engine worked almost as soon as he touched it. The whole press rang with peals of joy. ‘How can this be? How is it that all our labours last night were of no avail, and this morning it has been set going as though there were nothing wrong with it?’ I enquired. ‘It is difficult to say,’ said West or the engineer, I forget which. ‘Machines also sometimes seem to behave as though they required rest like us.’ For me the failure of the engine had come as a test for us all, and its working in the nick of time as the fruit of our honest and earnest labours. The copies were despatched in time, and everyone was happy. This initial insistence ensured the regularity of the paper, and created an atmosphere of self- reliance in Phoenix. There came a time we deliberately gave up the use of the engine and worked with hand-power only. Those were, to my mind, the days of the highest moral uplift for Phoenix. 100POLAK TAKES THE PLUNGEIt has always been my regret that, although I started the Settlement at Phoenix, I could stay there only for brief periods. My original idea had been gradually to retire from practice, go and live at the Settlement, earn my livelihood by manual work there, and find the joy of service in the fulfilment of Phoenix. But it was not to be. I have found by experience that man makes his plans to be often upset by God, but, at the same time where the ultimate goal is the search of truth, no matter how a man’s plans are frustrated, the issue is never injurious and often better than anticipated. The unexpected turn that Phoenix took and the unexpected happenings were certainly not injurious, though it is difficult to say that they were better than our original expectations. In order to enable every one of us to make a living by manual labour, we parcelled out the land round the press in pieces of three acres each. One of these fell to my lot. On all these plots we, much against our wish, built houses with corrugated iron. Our desire had been to have mud huts thatched with straw or small brick houses such as would become ordinary peasants, but it could not be. They would have been more expensive and would have meant more time, and everyone was eager to settle down as soon as possible.

• From The Argonauts (2015)

  Perhaps this is why psychologist D. W. Winnicott’s notion of “feeling real” is so moving to me. One can aspire to feel real, one can help others to feel real, and one can oneself feel real—a feeling Winnicott describes as the collected, primary sensation of aliveness, “the aliveness of the body tissues and working of body-functions, including the heart’s action and breathing,” which makes spontaneous gesture possible. For Winnicott, feeling real is not reactive to external stimuli, nor is it an identity. It is a sensation—a sensation that spreads. Among other things, it makes one want to live. Some people find pleasure in aligning themselves with an identity, as in You make me feel like a natural woman—made famous by Aretha Franklin and, later, by Judith Butler, who focused on the instability wrought by the simile. But there can also be a horror in doing so, not to mention an impossibility. It’s not possible to live twenty-four hours a day soaked in the immediate awareness of one’s sex. Gendered selfconsciousness has, mercifully, a flickering nature. A friend says he thinks of gender as a color. Gender does share with color a certain ontological indeterminacy: it isn’t quite right to say that an object is a color, nor that the object has a color. Context also changes it: all cats are gray, etc. Nor is color voluntary, precisely. But none of these formulations means that the object in question is colorless. The bad reading [of Gender Trouble] goes something like this: I can get up in the morning, look in my closet, and decide which gender I want to be today. I can take out apiece of clothing and change my gender: stylize it, and then that evening I can change it again and be something radically other, so that what you get is something like the commodification of gender, and the understanding of taking on a gender as a kind of consumerism…. When my whole point was that the very formation of subjects, the very formation of persons, presupposes gender in a certain way—that gender is not to be chosen and that “performativity” is not radical choice and it’s not voluntarism…. Performativity has to do with repetition, very often with the repetition of oppressive and painful gender norms to force them to resignify. This is not freedom, but a question of how to work the trap that one is inevitably in.

• From The Argonauts (2015)

  These are interesting questions. They did not occur to me, however, while beholding Puppies and Babies. I’d like to think this is because the dreary binary that would pit casual snapshots of “adorable” puppies and babies and their myriad caretakers and companions against “highbrow” genres of art has come to strike me as a malodorous missive from the mainstream: at times unavoidable, but best left unsniffed. (See the 2012 Mother’s Day cover article in the New York Times Book Review, which began: “No subject offers a greater opportunity for terrible writing than motherhood…. To be fair, writing well about children is tough. You know why? They’re not that interesting. What is interesting is that despite the mind-numbing boredom that constitutes 95 percent of child rearing, we continue to have them.” Given that nearly every society on earth peddles the notion of having children as the ticket— perhaps the only ticket—to a meaningful life (all others being but a consolation prize)—and given that most have also devised all kinds of subtle to appalling ways to punish women who choose not to procreate—how could this latter proposition truly fascinate?) Puppies and Babies is a terrific antidote to such sneering, with its joy-swirl of sodomitical parenthood, caretaking of all kinds, and interspecies love. In one photo, a naked woman spoons two dogs at once. In another, artist Celeste Dupuy-Spencer squats with her dog at the edge of a lake, as if both are contemplating a long journey. Babies get born, cry, goof around, ride small tractors, pinch nipples, get held. Often, they nurse. One nurses—incredibly—while the nursing mother does a handstand. Another nurses at the beach. Alex Auder, pregnant and in leather dom gear, pretends to give birth to an inflatable turtle. A dog mounts a stuffed tiger. Another dog is festooned with orange flowers. Two pregnant women hold up their sundresses to rub their naked bellies together, a friendly frottage. Baby-lovers may gravitate to the baby photos, dog-lovers to the dogs, but the roughly equal wall space given to each places interspecies love firmly on par with human-human love. (Some photos feature both puppies and babies, in which case there’s no need to choose.) And while there are a lot of pregnant bodies here, this orgy of adoration is clearly open to anyone who wants to play. Indeed, one of the gifts of genderqueer family making— and animal loving—is the revelation of caretaking as detachable from—and attachable to—any gender, any sentient being.

• From Between the World and Me (2015)

  I arrived in Paris. I checked in to a hotel in the 6th arrondissement. I had no understanding of the local history at all. I did not think much about Baldwin or Wright. I had not read Sartre nor Camus, and if I walked past Café de Flore or Les Deux Magots I did not, then, take any particular note. None of that mattered. It was Friday, and what mattered were the streets thronged with people in amazing configurations. Teenagers together in cafés. Schoolchildren kicking a soccer ball on the street, backpacks to the side. Older couples in long coats, billowing scarves, and blazers. Twentysomethings leaning out of any number of establishments looking beautiful and cool. It recalled New York, but without the low-grade, ever-present fear. The people wore no armor, or none that I recognized. Side streets and alleys were bursting with bars, restaurants, and cafés. Everyone was walking. Those who were not walking were embracing. I was feeling myself beyond any natural right. My Caesar was geometric. My lineup was sharp as a sword. I walked outside and melted into the city, like butter in the stew. In my mind, I heard Big Boi sing: I’m just a playa like that, my jeans was sharply creased. I got a fresh white T-shirt and my cap is slightly pointed east.

• From Etched in Sand (2013)

  Calcaterra Then I flip the pen toward Camille. “You’re up.” She gently slides it from my grip and, with the confidence of a maestro, scrawls her name beneath mine, and then Cherie follows her lead before she heads back home to her young family. “Now that you both determined you won’t return to your mother’s care,” Ms. Davis says, looking at Camille and me, “you need to begin planning how you’ll live on your own as soon as you turn eighteen. The state only covers your foster care costs until then, unless you go to college.” “College?” I asked. “Granted, that comes with its own challenges—in fact, I have yet to see a foster kid go to college.” “What? Why?” “Well, think about it: It’s tough to hold down a job and make rent when you’re working hard to study. In any case, we’ll start teaching you how to live independently. Then, hopefully, one day you can make it on your own.” I glance at Camille, who’s giving Ms. Davis a look of daggers. After she leaves, Addie stands aside to let Camille and me pass from the kitchen. “Will you be joining us for dinner?” she says. “No thanks,” we call behind us. We close ourselves in Camille’s bedroom, and I stare up at her ceiling. “I don’t know how to feel,” I confess. She collapses with her head next to mine on the pillow. “Me neither.” Then as if on cue, we turn to each other and burst out laughing. We laugh so hard we begin to hyperventilate in tears until we roll off the bed, making two bony thuds on Addie’s floor. Eventually, I’m able to compose myself enough to mock our three full days of social workers and legal talk. “Congratulations!” I declare. “Now that you’ve just dumped your mother, you’ll be homeless again at eighteen . . . if you survive until then!” Camille wipes her tears and folds her arms across her bust as Ms. Davis is apt to do. “Listen, girls,” she says with fake empathy, “really, you don’t stand an icicle’s chance in hell. Just try not to end up a drug addict, an alcoholic, pregnant, a prostitute, or in jail.” “Like your mother!” I wail. That night Camille kisses me on the cheek and smooths my hair behind my ear. “What are you thinking about?” I sigh. “Rosie and Norm. Tomorrow after school I’m going to ask Addie if we can call them.” “I’m worried about them, too . . . but this is your day,” Camille says. “Do you think our birthday girl is going to get her wish?” I smile. All weekend we’d been trying to stay out of the way at our temporary foster home while also racing against Ms. Davis’s deadline to get the affidavit completed and signed on time . . . but through all the chaos, my sister remembered that today I turned fourteen.

• From The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones (2006)

  It's been a while since I felt that adrenaline-juiced exaltation, that "I can't believe I'm still alive!!" feeling that made me proud to be a New Yorker. A half-decaf mochaccino is a pretty poor substitute. I'm not alone. I can see it sometimes—the vestigial memory of sleaze past—in the faces of my fellow smokers, huddled in the cold outside their glass and steel office buildings, stoking up on nicotine before reentering their antiseptic, climate-controlled towers. I can see it in the disappointed faces of kids from Jersey, scouring Hell's Kitchen for a thirty-dollar whore and finding only Tweety and Goofy. "What happened?" they seem to say, their innocent expressions sagging as they put Dad's car back into gear, going home empty. What they came for is no longer there. UMAMI PURE AND UNCUT LUXURY As much as I love to espouse the "luxuriousness" of simple, often inexpensive things, the idea that a fifty-cent bowl of pho in Vietnam or a properly made bagel in New York can often be more satisfying than a fourteen-course tasting menu at Ducasse, sometimes you've just got to spend money. Lots of money. Sometimes, if you want the very best, you really do have to be the sort of person who can shrug off five hundred bucks for your dinner. Sometimes, a very high price tag does indeed translate directly into quality. Masa Takayama's tiny, thirteen-seat sushi bar-restaurant on the fourth floor of the unimpressive-looking shopping arcade at New York City's new Time Warner building is perhaps the best example of this principle. It's widely referred to as the most expensive dinner in the country. At Masa (as opposed to the less pricey Bar Masa next door) if you want to play, you've got to pay. And it's worth every dime. I'll go further. At three hundred fifty dollars per person as a starting point (that's before tax, tip, beverages, and any extras), it's a steal. It's the deal of the century. It's a completely over-the-top exercise in pure self-indulgence, like having sex with two five-thousand-dollar-a-night escorts at the same time—while driving an Aston Martin.