Loneliness

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

  I began to wash and bathe carefully and brush my hair to regulation smoothness (only “cads” used pomatum, Milman said) and when I was asked to recite, I would pout and plead prettily that I did not want to, just in order to be pressed. Sex was awakening in me at this time but was still indeterminate, I imagine; for two motives ruled me for over six months: I was always wondering how I looked and watching to see if people liked me. I used to try to speak with the accent used by the “best people” and on coming into a room I prepared my entrance. Someone, I think it was Vernon’s sweetheart, Monica, said that I had an energetic profile, so I always sought to show my profile. In fact, for some six months, I was more a girl than a boy, with all a girl’s self-consciousness and manifold affectations and sentimentalities: I often used to think that no one cared for me really and I would weep over my unloved loneliness. Whenever later, as a writer, I wished to picture a young girl, I had only to go back to this period in my consciousness in order to attain the peculiar view-point of the girl. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ LIFE IN AN ENGLISH GRAMMAR SCHOOL. Chapter II. If I tried my best, it would take a year to describe the life in that English Grammar School at R.... I had always been perfectly happy in every Irish school and especially in the Royal School at Armagh. Let me give one difference as briefly as possible. When I whispered in the class-room in Ireland, the master would frown at me and shake his head; ten minutes later I was talking again, and he’d hold up an admonitory finger: the third time he’d probably say, “Stop talking, Harris, don’t you see you’re disturbing your neighbour?” Half an hour later in despair he’d cry, “If you still talk, I’ll have to punish you.” Ten minutes afterwards: “You’re incorrigible, Harris, come up here” and I’d have to go and stand beside his desk for the rest of the morning, and even this light punishment did not happen more than twice a week, and as I came to be head of my class, it grew rarer. In England, the procedure was quite different. “That new boy there is talking; take 300 lines to write out and keep quiet.” “Please, Sir”, I’d pipe up—“Take 500 lines and keep quiet.” “But, Sir”—in remonstrance. “Take 1000 lines and if you answer again, I’ll send you to the Doctor”—which meant I’d get a caning or a long talking to. The English masters one and all ruled by punishment; consequently I was indoors writing out lines almost every day, and every half-holiday for the first year. Then my father, prompted by Vernon, complained to the Doctor that writing out lines was ruining my handwriting.

• From The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)

  On the way home from the office, my stomach sour from coffee, frustration, and boredom, I’d sway against strangers and read the subway ads for the tenth time. Because a novel—these words—is shared experience, a clumsy but sometimes funny conversation between two people in which one of them is doing all the talking, it will always be tighter and more luminous than that object called living. There is something so insipid about living that to do it at all requires heroism or stupidity, probably both. Living is all those days and years, the rushes; memory edits them; this page is the final print, music added. But for an instant imagine the process reversed, go with me back through the years, then be me, me all alone as I submit to the weight, the atmospheric pressure of youth, for when I was young I was exhausted by always bumping up against this big lummox I didn’t really know, myself. It was as though I’d been forced into solitary confinement with a stranger who had unaccountable tastes, aversions, rhythms. Come with me, then, up the concrete steps to the toilet door, place a dime in the box, turn the chrome handle, open the door a crack, and slip in. You’ll be surprised by how many silent men are standing around. This businessman has rested his expensive leather briefcase on the filthy sink and is leaning against a tile wall. On the floor a bum, reeking of sweet red wine, is sleeping it off, snoring loudly, a sound that draws a red line under the conspicuous silence. Both stalls, one doorless, the other with its door half open, house men sitting right on the porcelain (the seats have long since been stolen). Both occupants have dropped their pants to the damp floor but are leaning forward to conceal their erections. The mood of the room is a cheap alloy of tension and boredom. A train clatters in, you can hear the doors open and shut, then shoes ringing on the pavement in the cavernous station. And then you lean against the wall and, enduring seconds that pulse in your ear, stretch out your hand toward the crotch of the man beside you. Your action triggers vitality all around you. In a second this raw country boy at the urinal with the rosy forearms and red knuckles, the sickle of a vein superimposed on the hammer of his hand, has turned toward the room, brandishing a big red penis. An instant later everyone has converged on him, the men in the stalls emerge, one is kissing him, the second licking his testicles, a third man the penis, and another is standing beside him, arm around his waist, as though to lend him courage and companionship. The businessman with the expensive briefcase has planted his face between the farmboy’s buttocks in total disregard of his expensive trousers, which are getting damp and dirty on the floor, wet with backed-up sewage.

• From The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)

  On cold winter nights, lit like a pumpkin from within by the flame of liquor, I’d cruise the corner of Christopher and a back street called Gay (any chance of commemorating a plaque there now to my hungry ghost?). I’d memorize the shop windows and run around the corner to the neighborhood bar for another drink. It was the most venerable gay bar in town, its greasy ceiling caked with an inch of accumulated dust, its photos of sporting and theatrical celebrities strangely irrelevant to its clientele. The owners were nervous that their bar, too, would be closed by the police and they instituted curious rules: no more than three men could stand in a conversational group, women were given free drinks, and mixed couples were warmly welcomed whereas the doorman sent away one out of every two single men. On some evenings he’d insist that everyone turn his back to the bar and face the windows and street, as though we were in a display, merely pretending to drink and laugh while actually modeling the new line of hopsack pants or wheat jeans, saddle shoes or penny loafers, and surfer haircuts. I’d had my slightly curly hair relaxed by the same dangerous chemical blacks used to “conk” their hair at that time; once it was properly limp it hung over my eyes in a languid swag. My fatness abolished the space between my mother and me. She was a thousand miles away in Chicago, but the distance between us was fingernail thin. Like her, I juggled an inner melancholy and surface cheer. Like her, I was always on stage in a role calculated to please. The strangers I wanted to win over were all men—indifferent men whose fierce desires for each other crackled just above my head. I remembered when I was a boy, after my mother was divorced. It was my eighth birthday. She thought we should celebrate it in an Italian restaurant on Rush Street. She liked to go there because she could meet men at the bar. We split a dish of green noodles and she drank Chianti. She kept smiling at a man at the bar. When my birthday cake was brought in, it created an excuse for the man to come over to our table. My mother was quick to offer him a piece of cake, and he bought her another small straw-covered bottle of Chianti. They arranged to meet later. For a while, she went out with him, but one day he stopped returning her calls. “It’s because I’m too fat,” she said. “I don’t eat much. I eat like a bird. It’s my metabolism. Some people are cursed with a slow metabolism. I have to eat. If I don’t eat, I get weak and can’t work. God knows I have few enough pleasures. Eating is a consolation. But I eat like a bird. You see what I eat.

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  The last day I ever pounded seasoning for souse was in the summer of my fourteenth year. It had been a fairly unpleasant summer, for me. I had just finished my first year in high school. Instead of being able to visit my newly found friends, all of whom lived in other parts of the city, I had had to accompany my mother on a round of doctors with whom she would have long whispered conversations that I was not supposed to listen to. Only a matter of the utmost importance could have kept her away from the office for so many mornings in a row. But my mother was concerned because I was fourteen and a half years old and had not yet menstruated. I had breasts but no period, and she was afraid there was “something wrong” with me. Yet, since she had never discussed this mysterious business of menstruation with me, I was certainly not supposed to know what all this whispering was about, even though it concerned my own body. Of course, I knew as much as I could have possibly found out in those days from the hard-to-get books on the closed shelf behind the librarian’s desk at the public library, where I had brought a forged note from home in order to be allowed to read them, sitting under the watchful eye of the librarian at a special desk reserved for that purpose. Although not terribly informative, they were fascinating books, and used words like menses and ovulation and vagina. But four years before, I had had to find out if I was going to become pregnant, because a boy from school much bigger than me had invited me up to the roof on my way home from the library and then threatened to break my glasses if I didn’t let him stick his thing between my legs. And at that time I knew only that being pregnant had something to do with sex, and sex had something to do with that thin pencil-like thing and was in general nasty and not to be talked about by nice people, and I was afraid my mother might find out and what would she do to me then? I was not supposed to be looking at the mailboxes in the hallway of that house anyway, even though Doris was a girl in my class at St. Mark’s who lived in that house and I was always so lonely in the summer, particularly that summer when I was ten. So after I got home I washed myself up and lied about why I was late getting home from the library and got a whipping for being late. That must have been a hard summer for my parents at the office too, because that was the summer that I got a whipping for something or other almost every day between the 4th of July and Labor Day.

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  It’s been very exciting to sit down with African and Caribbean women writers whom I’ve always wanted to meet. Octavia Butler is here also, and Andrea Canaan from New Orleans. I haven’t seen her in over a year, and the look in her eyes when she saw me made me really angry, but it also made me realize how much weight I’ve lost in the past year and how bad my color’s been since I came home from Australia. I’ve got to go see Dr. C. for a checkup when I get home. October 25, 1985 East Lansing I gave a brief talk tonight on “Sisterhood and Survival,” what it means to me. And first off I identified myself as a Black Feminist Lesbian poet, although it felt unsafe, which is probably why I had to do it. I explained that I identified myself as such because if there was one other Black Feminist Lesbian poet in isolation somewhere within the reach of my voice, I wanted her to know she was not alone. I think a lot about Angelina Weld Grimké, a Black Lesbian poet of the Harlem Renaissance who is never identified as such, when she is mentioned at all, although the work of Gloria Hull and Erlene Stetson recently has focused renewed attention upon her. But I never even knew her name when I was going to school, and later, she was the briefest of mentions in a list of “other” Harlem Renaissance writers. I often think of Angelina Weld Grimké dying alone in an apartment in New York City in 1958 while I was a young Black Lesbian struggling in isolation at Hunter College, and I think of what it could have meant in terms of sisterhood and survival for each one of us to have known of the other’s existence: for me to have had her words and her wisdom, and for her to have known I needed them! It is so crucial for each one of us to know she is not alone. I’ve been traveling a lot in the last two years since my children are grown, and I’ve been learning what an enormous amount I don’t know as a Black american woman. And wherever I go, it’s been so heartening to see women of Color reclaiming our lands, our heritages, our cultures, our selves—usually in the face of enormous odds. For me as an African-American woman writer, sisterhood and survival means it’s not enough to say I believe in peace when my sisters’ children are dying in the streets of Soweto and New Caledonia in the South Pacific. Closer to home, what are we as Black women saying to our sons and our nephews and our students as they are, even now, being herded into the military by unemployment and despair, someday to become meat in the battles to occupy the lands of other people of Color?

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  I feel trapped on a lonely star. Someone else is very sick next door, and the vibes are almost too painful to bear. But I must stop saying that now so glibly. Someday something will, in fact, be too painful to bear and then I will have to act. Does one simply get tired of living? I can’t imagine right now what that would be like, but that is because I feel filled with a fury to live—because I believe life can be good even when it is painful—a fury that my energies just don’t match my desires anymore. December 25, 1985 Arlesheim Good morning, Christmas. A Swiss bubble is keeping me from talking to my children and the women I love. The front desk won’t put my calls through. Nobody here wants to pierce this fragile, delicate bubble that is the best of all possible worlds, they believe. So frighteningly insular. Don’t they know good things get better by opening them up to others, giving and taking and changing? Most people here seem to feel that rigidity is a bona fide pathway to peace, and every fiber of me rebels against that. December 26, 1985 Arlesheim Adrienne [Rich] and Michelle [Cliff] and Gloria [Joseph] just called from California. I feel so physically cut off from the people I love. I need them, the sharing of grief and energy. I am avoiding plunging directly into the nightmare of liver cancer as a fact of my life by edging into it like an icy bath. I am trying to edge my friends into it, too, without having to deal with more of their fury and grief than I can handle. There is some we share, and that mutual support makes us closer and more resolved. But there is some that they will have to deal with on their own, just as there is some fury and grief that I can only meet in a private place. Frances has been so true and staunch here. It is more difficult for her sometimes because she does not have the fount of desperate determination that survival is generating inside me. There is so much to keep track of. I think it’s crucial that I not only suffer this but record, in the fullness and the lean, some of the raw as well as digested qualities of now. Last night there was a Christmas full moon, and it felt like a hopeful sign. I stood out in the road in front of the hospital under the full moon on Christmas night and thought about all of my beloved people, the women I love, my children, my family, all the dear faces before my eyes. The moon was so clear and bright, I could feel her upon my skin through Helen’s fur coat.

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

  I have a tendency to isolate myself like a sick animal when my pain hits a tipping point (thanks, trauma). My closest true-blue friend, Marie, always catches the scent when I’m up to shenanigans like this. “Hey, just send me a smoke signal and let me know you’re OK.” Proactively offer specific support (bring the lasagna, watch the kids, run errands, help with funeral arrangements—OMG, please help with those . . . that stuff is so hard). And don’t just offer to help the week the loss happens. If you can, keep going, or at least keep checking in. Once the postdeath preparations, funerals, and celebrations of life are over, everyone else goes back to normal. But there is no normal for those left behind. Continuing to acknowledge the milestone dates (death anniversaries, birthdays, graduations) is the very definition of kindness. Share and research resources, including the specific phone numbers and contact information (therapists, counselors, bodyworkers, or, if you’re my crew, psychic mediums on speed dial). Give advice when appropriate and invited, but don’t meddle or judge. Huh? But how am I supposed to know the difference? I get it. I’m a fountain of feedback, so this tip is really just for me (wink, wink). Butting in on other people’s business, when your participation isn’t wanted, rarely feels good to them. Sometimes it can come off as shaming, corrective, or even patronizing, as if the other person is a dummy for not knowing. Other times it might feel like you can’t slow down enough to tune in to the person you’re trying to help. Again, if you’re like me, giving unsolicited advice (even when it’s great!) is as automatic and involuntary as breathing. In that case, you might say something like, “Do you want advice right now, or do you want to brainstorm, or do you just want to get it off your chest?” Asking permission never hurts. Remember, pain needs to be witnessed, not polished. You can also be honest about your discomfort: “I don’t know how to act and I’m afraid to get it wrong, but I love you and I want to try. Please tell me if I mess up.” Then stay open to hearing what’s helpful and what really isn’t. ACCEPTING HELP (FOR THOSE WHO ARE GRIEVING) I don’t know about you, but I’m a master list maker. I have multiple “to-do” lists going at once, and I take great comfort each time I draw a line through a completed task. Sometimes I even add a task I’ve already done, just to have the satisfaction of the strikethrough. Well, for most of us, when we are grieving, list making and task blasting falls away and apart, deep into the abyss of grief, loss, and unwanted change.

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  Having spent the last thirty years of my life traveling here and abroad talking to professional, legal, and mental health groups plus working with thousands of parents and children in divorced families, it’s clear that we’ve created a new kind of society never before seen in human culture. Silently and unconsciously, we have created a culture of divorce. It’s hard to grasp what it means when we say that first marriages stand a 45 percent chance of breaking up and that second marriages have a 60 percent chance of ending in divorce. What are the consequences for all of us when 25 percent of people today between the ages of eighteen and forty-four have parents who divorced? What does it mean to a society when people wonder aloud if the family is about to disappear? What can we do when we learn that married couples with children represent a mere 26 percent of households in the 1990s and that the most common living arrangement nowadays is a household of unmarried people with no children?1 These numbers are terrifying. But like all massive social change, what’s happening is affecting us in ways that we have yet to understand. For people like me who work with divorcing families all the time, these abstract numbers have real faces. When I think about people I know so well, including the “children” you’ve met in this book, I can relate to the millions of children and adults who suffer with loneliness and to all the teenagers who say, “I don’t want a life like either of my parents.” I can empathize with the countless young men and women who despair of ever finding a lasting relationship and who, with a brave toss of the head, say, “Hey, if you don’t get married then you can’t get divorced.” It’s only later, or sometimes when they think I’m not listening, that they add softly, “but I don’t want to grow old alone.” I am especially worried about how our divorce culture has changed childhood itself. A million new children a year are added to our march of marital failure. As they explain so eloquently, they lose the carefree play of childhood as well as the comforting arms and lap of a loving parent who is always rushing off because life in the postdivorce family is so incredibly difficult to manage. We must take very seriously the complaint of children like Karen who declare, “The day my parents divorced is the day my childhood ended.”

• From Giovanni's Room (1956)

  CIOVANNI'SROOM 145 andbyIwas inthe street,withall thesetorn billsin my handand everybodystaring atme. I did not laiowwhat todo,I hated to walk away but Iknewif anything more happened, thepo- licewould come and Guillaumewouldhave me putin jail. But Iwill see himagain, Iswearit, and on that day — T He stopped and sat down, staring at the wall. Thenhe turnedto me. He watched mefor a long time,in silence. Then,Ifyouwere not here,' he said,very slowly, *this would be the endof Giovanni.' I stood up.T)on'tbe silly,'I said. It'snot so tragicas allthat.' I paused.'Guillaume'sdisgust- ing. They all are. But it's notthe worst thing that ever happenedto you. Is it?' TVIaybe everythingbad that happens toyou makes youweaJcer,' saidGiovanni,asthough he hadnot heardme, *and soyou canstand less and less.' Then, lookingup at me,TMo. The worst thing happened to me longago andmy life has beenawful since thatday.You are notgoing to leaveme, are you?' Ilaughed,'Of coursenot.'Istartedshaking thebrokenglassoff ourblanketontothe floor. 1 do not know whatI would do if you left me.'For the firsttimeIfelt the suggestion of a threat in hisvoice—orIputit there. 1 have been alone solong—I donot think Iwould be able toliveifI had tobe aloneagain.' Tou aren't alone now,'I said.And then, quickly, for I could not,atthat moment, have 146 James Baldwin endured his touch:'Shall we go for a walk? Come —out of this roomfora minute/ 1 grinned and cuffed him roughly, football fashion, on the neck. Then we clung togetherforaninstant. I pushed him away. I'll buyyoua drink,' I said. *Andwill you bring me home again?' he asked. Tes. I'll bringyou homeagain/ *Je faime, tu sais?' *]ele sais,mon vieux' He went to thesinkandstarted washing his face. He combed his hair. Iwatchedhim. He grinned atmeinthe mirror,looking,suddenly, beautiful and happy. And young —I had never in my lifebeforefeltso helplessor soold. 'But we will be alright 1' he cried.*N'est'Ce pas?' 'Certainly,' I said. He turned from themirror. He wasserious again. 'But youknow — I do not know how long it willbebefore I find another job. And wehave almostnomoney. Doyouhaveanymoney? Did any moneycomefrom New York foryoutoday?' 'No money came from New York today,' I said,calmly,'butI havea little moneyin my pocket.' I tookit alloutand putitonthe table. 'About four thousandfrancs.' 'Andr — hewentthrough his pockets, scat- teringbillsandchange. He shrugged andsmiled at me,that fantasticallysweetand helpless and movingsmile. *Je m'excuse, I went alittle mad.' He went down on hishandsand knees and

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  If you suspect infidelity, then it must be true. This suspecting the worst and acting on it without thought and without delay is surely the most dangerous recipe for a stable relationship that anyone could devise. Nothing Lasts BILLY SIGHED RESIGNEDLY and shrugged. “To go on with the scenario, I was married for five years. We met when I was twenty-seven and she was twenty-five. I was managing one of the plants. She was a waitress in the bakery restaurant. I was also going to junior college in the morning to get a management degree. It wasn’t a very good course but it was all I could afford. I think by then I’d gotten over being so scared of women and had decided to do something about being so alone. She was nice to be around. She smiled a lot. She was no beauty but neither was I. We soon found out that we had a lot in common. Her folks divorced when she was eight and she had a pretty miserable childhood, lots of moving around, money worries, and a hard time making friends because of all the moves. She was a lonely kid just like me. We agreed that it was the unhappiest time of our lives. We both understood how to put on a cheery face for the world and feel different inside. So we decided it was better to be together and that we would be less lonely.” “Were you pretty optimistic at that time?” He looked forlorn. “I don’t know whether I ever loved her or whether she loved me. How in hell would anyone love me anyway? What did I know about finding a wife? I thought at the time that it probably wouldn’t last.” “Why did you think that it wouldn’t last?” “Because nothing in my life lasts,” he said grimly. Then he broke into a grin. “You haven’t noticed this little black cloud that follows me around?” He waved his arm at an imaginary cloud over his head. “It’s like the weather. If things look fair, just wait a minute. That’s how I live.” “What were you looking for in a wife?” Billy looked startled. “Come again?” “I just wondered what kind of person you thought would make you happy.” “I never thought much about that. I figured I didn’t know any movie stars that week,” he chuckled, “but a nice decent woman who wouldn’t cheat and who could make a place look like a home would do fine.” When a Child of Divorce Marries Another Child of Divorce I’VE TALKED ABOUT how children of divorce have trouble handling conflict in marriage. They are terrified of arguments that might start them down the same path as their parents. When a child of divorce marries another child of divorce, these problems and anxieties are doubled. 2 Children of divorce are often drawn to one another via their common histories.

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

  Your father died in a plane crash . (He didn’t.) Your parents were married on a yacht. (They weren’t.) The wedding dress is in the attic. (It wasn’t.) Grandma was a fabulist known for regaling us with elaborate stories from her life, like the time she went to King George’s coronation in England with her then-husband, Sir Rodgers. (We think there were three husbands, but we’re not totally sure.) Accordingly, her explanations about my biological father’s absence were similarly grand, unverifiable, and ever changing. More than once, I listened to her yarn-spinning and thought, Really? Even as a child, I knew to take her stories about my mythical father with a hefty grain of salt. Perhaps she just wanted me to believe that fairy tales were possible (well, except for the one about the plane crash). But as far as I was concerned, there was no magic to be found—only the gaping hole of paternal absence. I never fact-checked these stories with my mother, because not talking about him was one of our unspoken rules. Like a lot of kids, I didn’t have to be explicitly told that this topic was off-limits. I could sense her pain and trauma around whatever had happened between them. The last thing I wanted was to add more hurt, risking distance between me and the only parent I had. So I resigned myself to waiting. When I was older, I’d figure out the truth on my own. Meanwhile, his searing absence seemed to grow hotter every year. More years without a father didn’t lessen the pain; in fact, my loneliness grew, especially when I compared myself to my friends’ families. My family was not a “normal” family. And that meant that I wasn’t “normal,” either. Then Ken arrived. To my amazement, Ken was much better than “normal.” His presence and care helped fill the paternal hole in my heart with a stable, consistent love I had never known. He came to my after-school activities and parent-teacher conferences. And yes, he took me out for sundaes, but not after I received As on my report card (which I never did). Instead, he would take me out after I had owned my screwups, like the time I admitted to shoplifting a barrette at the mall. My mom wanted to murder me, but Ken calmed her down and then took me and the stolen accessory to the store manager so I could apologize. He had the good sense to know my sheer embarrassment would be enough to cure my sticky fingers—which it did. In all my earlier father fantasies, I hadn’t known that what I really wanted was a dad who got me, who not only saw me for me but loved me for me.

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

  Our biggest goals for the day may just be to get out of bed and out of pajamas—the same ones we’ve been wearing for four days straight. When we’re hurting, we often hear the line “Please let me know how I can help.” While it’s a genuine and heartfelt overture, we’re likely in no condition to provide friends and family with our daily/weekly schedule and details of our lives, even if we could use the help. This is where I suggest assigning one close friend (you know, the superorganized, bossy type) to field all the offers for help and organize and assign them into doable tasks. Whether it’s walking a pet, picking up a prescription, grabbing groceries, driving kids to activities, dropping off meals, or even setting up an Amazon wish list, this person in command can be an invaluable resource for you. You may feel awkward about receiving this kind of support, but chances are, they are happy to be able to do some actual good. Take a deep breath and say yes. If you’re like so many of us, you may need to get over feeling like you’re a burden to someone. Put yourself in their shoes. If the situation were reversed, you’d be right there offering practical or emotional support—gladly. Trust that those offering really do want to help. Just like you would want to help them. Think of it this way: Giving feels good. Don’t rob the person of that feeling because accepting help is out of your comfort zone. There are also going to be moments (lots of them) when you have no frickin’ idea what you need, because you’re overwhelmed. For such occasions, here are a few go-tos: “I’m not sure right now, but I could use a hug,” and “I’m not sure right now, but could you ask me later in the week?” Then take a few moments to calmly reflect. It could be something as easy as “The next time you go to the store, would you mind grabbing some soup? I’m so not up to cooking right now.” One way or another, trust that support will find you when you need it most. COCKTAIL PARTY RESPONSES After a major life shake-up, going out and engaging in social situations can be tricky. We’re already raw, and the prospect of having our wounds exposed is like getting an anxiety colonic. When I feel the need for protection, I make sure to have a few cocktail party responses in my back pocket, just in case someone asks me what is going on in my life. “I haven’t seen you in ages, what’s new?” What I want to say: “My dad’s dead, my dog’s dead, I feel dead!”

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  When Debbie wanted a house, he bought her a little house. Had she asked for shoes or a dress, he would have happily purchased these items for her. But she wanted her husband to talk to her in the evenings. She was lonely and wanted companionship. She was bored and wanted to go out dancing. These requests he found baffling and disconcerting. He failed utterly to observe the mounting distress or the rising anger that prompted these requests. Like others, he ignored all the signs of the coming storm. The woman became increasingly agitated and left in a towering rage. The men were shattered. Vulnerability and Resilience B Y THE END of the interview I was keenly aware of how much Billy had suffered and how hard it had been for him to grow up with hardly any help from his family after the divorce. I was also impressed with his courage and perseverance. Despite his poor physical health, lack of education, and continuing sadness, he held a responsible, well-paying job that required skill, attention to detail, and an ability to make quick decisions. He had taken full responsibility for himself in recovering from a serious depression. And he had been able to live a life of extraordinary isolation and sadness without succumbing to alcoholism and drug abuse. He had survived each day while hoping that it would be his last. Last seen, Billy was starting a new relationship with a seemingly nice woman who had her own problems but was willing to work on the relationship. They at least had a fighting chance. I was also aware of how, with the help of his wry humor and courage, Billy had been able to hold on to his integrity and honesty. In all he was very likable, friendly, and generous. But he had been unhappy for most of his life. What happened to Billy and how could his life have been different? This child suffered a great deal because his vulnerability was matched by a bleak, unsupportive environment that set in after the divorce. During the predivorce years when his mother took care of him, he was at the head of his class, had friends, and was a happy kid despite his handicap. His father never gave much personal support but he did pay for Billy’s medical needs, games, books, and special tutors that were part of his everyday life. But after the divorce and his mother’s remarriage, Billy lost all that had kept him afloat. With her new priorities, Billy’s mother went from chief protector to chief critic of her young son. He was hurt, bewildered, and angry.

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  October 25, 1985 East Lansing I gave a brief talk tonight on “Sisterhood and Survival,” what it means to me. And first off I identified myself as a Black Feminist Lesbian poet, although it felt unsafe, which is probably why I had to do it. I explained that I identified myself as such because if there was one other Black Feminist Lesbian poet in isolation somewhere within the reach of my voice, I wanted her to know she was not alone. I think a lot about Angelina Weld Grimké, a Black Lesbian poet of the Harlem Renaissance who is never identified as such, when she is mentioned at all, although the work of Gloria Hull and Erlene Stetson recently has focused renewed attention upon her. But I never even knew her name when I was going to school, and later, she was the briefest of mentions in a list of “other” Harlem Renaissance writers. I often think of Angelina Weld Grimké dying alone in an apartment in New York City in 1958 while I was a young Black Lesbian struggling in isolation at Hunter College, and I think of what it could have meant in terms of sisterhood and survival for each one of us to have known of the other’s existence: for me to have had her words and her wisdom, and for her to have known I needed them! It is so crucial for each one of us to know she is not alone. I’ve been traveling a lot in the last two years since my children are grown, and I’ve been learning what an enormous amount I don’t know as a Black american woman. And wherever I go, it’s been so heartening to see women of Color reclaiming our lands, our heritages, our cultures, our selves—usually in the face of enormous odds. For me as an African-American woman writer, sisterhood and survival means it’s not enough to say I believe in peace when my sisters’ children are dying in the streets of Soweto and New Caledonia in the South Pacific. Closer to home, what are we as Black women saying to our sons and our nephews and our students as they are, even now, being herded into the military by unemployment and despair, someday to become meat in the battles to occupy the lands of other people of Color? How can we ever, ever forget the faces of those young Black american soldiers, their gleaming bayonets drawn, staking out a wooden shack in the hills of Grenada? What is our real work as Black women writers of the diaspora? Our responsibilities to other Black women and their children across this globe we share, struggling for our joint future? And what if our sons are someday ordered into Namibia, or Southwest Africa, or Zimbabwe, or Angola? Where does our power lie and how do we school ourselves to use it in the service of what we believe?

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  “You know, it’s too painful to remember. I worked like a dog. I was exhausted most of the time. I came home and fell asleep. I sure drank more than was good for me. I taught myself to go without dinner because I was too upset and lonely when I had to eat alone. So I had breakfast and lunch at work and no supper. I had to get up at four so I had a good excuse to go to bed real early.” PassivityALTHOUGH BILLY SUFFERED with special physical difficulties, his story is familiar. Many young men from divorced families enter adulthood feeling lonely and utterly unlovable.1 They are not angry like Paula or Larry, or unable to separate like Karen, but instead they are depressed and defeated. Billy was a poster child for this group. “You said that you were worried about being betrayed? Has anyone ever cheated on you?” “When I was twenty-three, I met this woman who sort of asked whether she could stay with me. She wasn’t bad-looking so I said okay. We lived together for four months and I was getting to like her. Then one day I came home unexpectedly from a business trip. She had told me that she was going to be out with her girlfriends, but when I arrived, she was driving by, cute as a button, riding on the back of a guy’s motorbike.” “What did you do?” “Do?” Again that startled look. “Nothing. I didn’t even mention it. I just moved out three weeks later without saying a word. I left all my belongings. It took me two years to write to her but I didn’t mail the letter.” I was amazed at his reluctance to confront or even ask her. “Billy, why didn’t you mention it?”

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  When I cast an oracle today it spoke of the Abyssmal again which of all the Hexagrams is very difficult but very promising in it water finds its own level, flowing out from the lowest point. And I cast another also that cautioned the superior man to seek his strength only in its own season. Martha what did we learn from our brief season when the summer grackles rang in my walls? one and one is too late now you journey through darkness alone leafless I sit far from my present house and the grackles’ voices are dying we shall love each other here if ever at all. II Yes foolish prejudice lies I hear you Martha that you would never harm my children but you have forgotten their names and that you are Elizabeth’s godmother. And you offer me coral rings, watches even your body if I will help you sneak home. No Martha my blood is not muddy my hands are not dirty to touch Martha I do not know your night nurse’s name even though she is black yes I did live in Brighton Beach once which is almost Rockaway one bitter winter but not with your night nurse Martha and yes I agree this is one hell of a summer. No you cannot walk yet Martha and no the medicines you are given to quiet your horrors have not affected your brain yes it is very hard to think but it is getting easier and yes Martha we have loved each other and yes I hope we still can no Martha I do not know if we shall ever sleep in each other’s arms again. III It is the middle of August and you are alive to discomfort. You have been moved into a utility room across the hall from the critical ward because your screaming disturbs the other patients your beside table has been moved also which means you will be there for a while a favorite now with the floor nurses who put up a sign on the utility room door I’M MARTHA HERE DO NOT FORGET ME PLEASE KNOCK. A golden attendant named Sukie bathes you as you proposition her she is very pretty and very gentle. The frontal lobe of the brain governs inhibitions the damage is after all slight and they say the screaming will pass. Your daughter Dorrie promises you will be as good as new, Mama who only wants to be Bad as the old.

• From Giovanni's Room (1956)

  afraid to tell me.' Giovanni laughed. 1 do not understand Americans at all,' he said. 1 don't see that there's anything very hard 104 to understand. We aren't married, you know/ James Baldwin 'But she is your mistress, no?' asked Giovanni. •Yes/ 'And she is still your mistress?' I stared at him. 'Of course/ I said. *Well then/ said Giovanni, 1 do not under- stand what she is doing in Spain while you are in Paris/ Another thought struck him. 'How old is she?' 'She's two years younger than I am.' I watched him. What's that got to do with it?' Is she married? I mean to somebody else, naturally.' I laughed. He laughed too. 'Of course not/ Well, I thought she might be an older wom- an,' said Giovanni, 'with a husband somewhere and perhaps she had to go away with him from time to time in order to be able to continue her affair with you. That would be a nice arrange- ment. Those women are sometimes very inter- esting and they usually have a httle money. If that woman was in Spain, she would bring back a wonderful gift for you. But a young girl, bouncing around in a foreign country by her- seK—I do not like that at all. You should find another mistress/ It all seemed very funny. I could not stop laughing. 'Do you have a mistress?' I asked him. 'Not now/ he said, 'but perhaps I will again one day.' He half frowned, half smiled. 'I don't seem to be very interested in women right now—I don't know why. I used to be. Perhaps • GIOVANNI'S ROOM 105 I will be again/ He shrugged. Terhaps it is be- cause women are just a little more trouble than I can afford right now. Et puis'—He stopped. I wanted to say that it seemed to me that he had taken a most peculiar road out of his trou- ble; but I only said, after a moment, cautiously: Tou don't seem to have a very high opinion of women.* 'Oh, women! There is no need, thank heaven, to have an opinion about women. Women are like water. They are tempting hke that, and they can be that treacherous, and they can seem to be that bottomless, you know?— and they can be that shallow. And that dirty.' He stopped. 1 perhaps don't like women very much, that's true. That hasn't stopped me from making love to many and loving one or two. But most of the time—most of the time I made love only with the body.' 'That can make one very lonely,' I said. I had not expected to say it. He had not expected to hear it. He looked at me and reached out and touched me on the cheek. Tes,' he said. Then: 'I am not trying to be mechant when I talk about women. I respect women—very much—for life, which is not hke the life of a man.' inside their

• From Giovanni's Room (1956)

  104 James Baldwin to understand. We aren'tmarried,you know/ 'Butshe isyourmistress,no?'askedGiovanni. •Yes/ 'And sheis still your mistress?' I stared at him. 'Of course/ I said. *Well then/saidGiovanni,1 donotunder- standwhat sheisdoingin Spain whileyouare in Paris/Anotherthoughtstruckhim. 'Howold is she?' 'She'stwoyearsyoungerthan I am.' Iwatched him. What'sthatgot to dowithit?' Is she married? I mean to somebody else, naturally.' I laughed.Helaughedtoo. 'Of coursenot/ Well, Ithoughtshe might be anolder wom- an,' saidGiovanni,'with a husbandsomewhere and perhapsshe hadto go away withhim from time to timeinorder to beable to continue her affair withyou.Thatwouldbe a nicearrange- ment. Thosewomenaresometimesvery inter- esting and they usually have a httlemoney. If that womanwasinSpain,shewould bring back a wonderful giftforyou.Butayoung girl, bouncing aroundin a foreigncountryby her- seK —I do not like thatatall. Youshould find another mistress/ It all seemed veryfunny.I couldnot stop laughing.'Do youhave a mistress?' I askedhim. 'Notnow/he said, 'but perhapsIwill again one day.' He halffrowned, halfsmiled. 'I don't seem tobevery interestedinwomen right now —I don'tknowwhy.I used to be.Perhaps GIOVANNI'S ROOM 105 I willbe again/ He shrugged. Terhapsitis be- cause women arejust a little moretrouble than I canafford right now. Etpuis' — He stopped. I wanted to saythatit seemed tomethat he had taken a mostpeculiar roadout of his trou- ble; butI onlysaid,aftera moment,cautiously: Toudon'tseemto have a very highopinion of women.* 'Oh, women!Thereisno need,thank heaven, to havean opinion about women.Womenare like water.Theyaretempting hkethat,and they can be that treacherous, and theycanseem to bethat bottomless,you know? — and they can be that shallow. Andthat dirty.'He stopped. 1 perhapsdon'tlikewomen very much,that's true. That hasn't stoppedme from making love to manyandlovingoneortwo. Butmostofthe time —mostofthe time I made loveonlywith the body.' 'Thatcanmake onevery lonely,'I said.Ihad not expectedtosay it. He had not expectedto hearit. He looked at me andreachedoutand touched meon the cheek.Tes,'hesaid. Then: 'I amnot trying to be mechant whenI talkabout women. Irespect women— verymuch — for their inside life, which isnothkethe lifeofa man.' 'Women don't seem to likethat idea,' I said. *Oh, well,'saidGiovanni, 'theseabsurdwom- en running aroundtoday, fullof ideasandnon- sense,and thinkingthemselves equal to men — • quellerigoladel — they needto be beaten half 106 James Baldwin to death sothat theycan findoutwho rules the world/ I laughed. 'Didthewomenyou knew like to get beaten?' He smiled. 1 don'tknowif theylikedit.But a beating nevermade them go away.'Weboth laughed. Theywerenot,anyway, like thatsilly littlegirlof yours,wanderingallover Spain and sendingpostcardsback to Paris.What does she think she is doing? Does shewant youor does shenotwant you?' *Shewentto Spain,' I said, 'to find out/ Giovanniopened hiseyeswide.Hewasindig- nant. ToSpain? Whynot toChina? What is she doing,testing all the Spaniardsand com- paring themwithyou?' I wasa little annoyed. Toudon'tunderstand,' I said. 'She isaveryinteUigent,very complex girl; shewanted to goaway andthink/ What isthereto thinkabout?She sounds rather silly,I mustsay.Shejustcan'tmake up her mindwhatbed to sleepin.Shewants toeat her cake and she wants tohaveitall.' Ifshe wereinParis now/ I said, abruptly, *thenI would notbein thisroomwithyou.' Touwouldpossiblynotbe Uvinghere,' he conceded,^but we would certainly be seeing each other, whynot?' Why not?Supposeshefound out?' Toundout? Foundoutwhat?' 'Oh, stopit/I said. Tou know what there is to findout/

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  Crescent moon walking my sheets at midnight lonely in the palmetto thicket ​ counting persistent Canaveral lizards launch themselves through my air conditioner chasing equally determined fleas. In Gainesville the last time there was only one sister present who said ​ “I’m gonna remember your name and the next time you come there’ll be quite a few more of us, hear?” and there certainly was ​ a warm pool of dark women’s faces in the sea of listening. The first thing I did when I got home after kissing my honey was to wash my hair with small flowers and begin a five-day fast. Political Relations In a hotel in Tashkent the Latvian delegate from Riga was sucking his fishbones as a Chukwu woman with hands as hot as mine caressed my knee beneath the dinner table her slanted eyes were dark as seal fur we did not know each other’s tongue. “Someday we will talk through our children” she said “I spoke to your eyes this morning you have such a beautiful face” thin-lipped Moscow girls translated for us smirking at each other.

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  to respect themselves as well as each other. Now you have made loneliness holy and useful and no longer needed now your light shines very brightly but I want you to know your darkness also rich and beyond fear. “Never Take Fire from a Woman” My sister and I have been raised to hate genteelly each other’s silences sear up our tongues like flame we greet each other with respect meaning from a watchful distance while we dream of lying in the tender of passion to drink from a woman who smells like love. Between Ourselves Once when I walked into a room my eyes would seek out the one or two black faces for contact or reassurance or a sign I was not alone now walking into rooms full of black faces that would destroy me for any difference where shall my eyes look? Once it was easy to know who were my people. If we were stripped to our strength of all pretense and our flesh was cut away the sun would bleach all our bones as white as the face of my black mother was bleached white by gold or Orishala and how does that measure me? I do not believe our wants have made all our lies holy. Under the sun on the shores of Elmina a black man sold the woman who carried my grandmother in her belly he was paid with bright yellow coin that shone in the evening sun and in the faces of her sons and daughters. When I see that brother behind my eyes his irises are bloodless and without color his tongue clicks like yellow coins tossed up on this shore where we share the same corner of an alien and corrupted heaven and whenever I try to eat the words of easy blackness as salvation I taste the color of my grandmother’s first betrayal. I do not believe our wants have made all our lies holy. But I do not whistle his name at the shrine of Shopona I do not bring down the rosy juices of death upon him nor forget Orishala is called the god of whiteness who works in the dark wombs of night forming the shapes we all wear so that even cripples and dwarfs and albinos are scared worshipers when the boiled corn is offered. Humility lies in the face of history I have forgiven myself for him for the white meat we all consumed in secret before we were born we shared the same meal. When you impale me upon your lances of narrow blackness before you hear my heart speak mourn your own borrowed blood your own borrowed visions Do not mistake my flesh for the enemy do not write my name in the dust before the shrine of the god of smallpox for we are all children of Eshu god of chance and the unpredictable and we each wear many changes inside of our skin. Armed with scars healed