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 Wild (2012)

  “Okay,” I said, and wrote Eddie’s address, though in truth my connection to Eddie in the four years since my mother died had become so pained and distant I couldn’t rightly consider him my stepfather anymore. I had no “home,” even though the house we built still stood. Leif and Karen and I were inextricably bound as siblings, but we spoke and saw one another rarely, our lives profoundly different. Paul and I had finalized our divorce the month before, after a harrowing yearlong separation. I had beloved friends whom I sometimes referred to as family, but our commitments to each other were informal and intermittent, more familial in word than in deed. Blood is thicker than water, my mother had always said when I was growing up, a sentiment I’d often disputed. But it turned out that it didn’t matter whether she was right or wrong. They both flowed out of my cupped palms. “Here you are,” I said to the woman, sliding the form across the counter in her direction, though she didn’t turn to me for several moments. She was watching a small television that sat on a table behind the counter. The evening news. Something about the O. J. Simpson trial. “Do you think he’s guilty?” she asked, still looking at the TV. “It seems like it, but it’s too soon to know, I guess. We don’t have all the information yet.” “Of course he did it!” she shouted. When she finally gave me a key, I walked across the parking lot to a door at the far end of the building, unlocked it and went inside, and set my things down and sat on the soft bed. I was in the Mojave Desert, but the room was strangely dank, smelling of wet carpet and Lysol. A vented white metal box in the corner roared to life—a swamp cooler that blew icy air for a few minutes and then turned itself off with a dramatic clatter that only exacerbated my sense of uneasy solitude. I thought about going out and finding myself a companion. It was such an easy thing to do. The previous years had been a veritable feast of one- and two- and three-night stands. They seemed so ridiculous to me now, all that intimacy with people I didn’t love, and yet still I ached for the simple sensation of a body pressed against mine, obliterating everything else. I stood up from the bed to shake off the longing, to stop my mind from its hungry whir: I could go to a bar. I could let a man buy me a drink. We could be back here in a flash.

• From Another Country (1962)

  “That’s very touching.” Eric pulled the sheet up to his navel. Vivaldo watched him. “You’re going to be very lonely,” he said, suddenly. Eric looked over at Vivaldo, and shrugged. “So are you, if it comes to that. If it comes to that,” he added, after a moment, “I’m lonely now.” Vivaldo was silent for a moment. When he spoke, he sounded very sad and gentle. “Are you? Will you be—when your boy gets here?” Then Eric was silent. “No,” he said, finally. He hesitated. “Well—yes and no.” Then he looked at Vivaldo. “Are you lonely with Ida?” Vivaldo looked down. “I’ve been thinking about that—or I’ve been trying not to think about that—all morning.” He raised his eyes to Eric’s eyes. “I hope you don’t mind my saying—well, hell, anyway, you know it—that I’m sort of hiding in your bed now, hiding even in your arms maybe—from Ida, in a way. I’m trying to get something straight in my mind about my life with Ida.” He looked down again. “I keep feeling that it’s up to me to resolve it, one way or another. But I don’t seem to have the guts. I don’t know how. I’m afraid to force anything because I’m afraid to lose her.” He seemed to flounder in the depths of Eric’s silence. “Do you know what I mean? Does it make any sense to you?” “Oh, yes,” said Eric, bleakly, “it makes sense, all right.” He looked over at Vivaldo with a smile, and dared to say, “Maybe, at this very moment, while both of us are huddled here, hiding from things which frighten us—maybe you love me and I love you as well as we’ll ever love, or be loved, in this world.”

• From Wild (2012)

  Doug, Tom, and Greg were wading in the shallow spot where I’d cleaned up a few hours before. Beyond them, the water raged in torrents, rushing over boulders as big as my tent. I thought of the snow I’d soon be encountering if I continued on with the ice ax I didn’t yet know how to use and the white ski pole with its cute little pink wrist strap that had come to me only by chance. I hadn’t yet begun to think about what was next on the trail. I’d only listened and nodded when Ed told me that most of the PCT hikers who’d come through Kennedy Meadows in the three weeks he’d been camped here had opted to get off the trail at this point because of the record snowpack that made the trail essentially unpassable for most of the next four or five hundred miles. They caught rides and buses to rejoin the PCT farther north, at lower elevations, he told me. Some intended to loop back later in the summer to hike the section they’d missed; others to skip it. He said that a few had ended their hikes altogether, just as Greg had told me earlier, deciding to hike the PCT another, less record-breaking year. And fewer still had forged ahead, determined to make it through the snow. Grateful for my cheap camp sandals, I picked my way over the rocks that lined the riverbed toward the men, the water so cold my bones hurt. “I got something for you,” said Doug when I reached him. He held his hand out to me. In it was a shiny feather, about a foot long, so black it shone blue in the sun. “For what?” I asked, taking it from him. “For luck,” he said, and touched my arm. When he took his hand away, the place where it had been felt like a burn—I could feel how little I’d been touched in the past fourteen days, how alone I’d been. “So I was thinking about the snow,” I said, holding the feather, my voice raised over the rush of the river. “The people who bypassed? They were all here a week or two before us. A lot more snow has melted by now, so maybe it’ll be okay.” I looked at Greg and then at the black feather, stroking it. “The snow depth at Bighorn Plateau on June first was more than double what it was the same day last year,” he said, tossing a stone. “A week isn’t going to make much of a difference in that regard.”

• From Little Women (1868)

  I'll talk all day if you'll only set me going. Beth says I never know when to stop." "Is Beth the rosy one, who stays at home good deal and sometimes goes out with a little basket?" asked Laurie with interest. "Yes, that's Beth. She's my girl, and a regular good one she is, too." "The pretty one is Meg, and the curly-haired one is Amy, I believe?" "How did you find that out?" Laurie colored up, but answered frankly, "Why, you see I often hear you calling to one another, and when I'm alone up here, I can't help looking over at your house, you always seem to be having such good times. I beg your pardon for being so rude, but sometimes you forget to put down the curtain at the window where the flowers are. And when the lamps are lighted, it's like looking at a picture to see the fire, and you all around the table with your mother. Her face is right opposite, and it looks so sweet behind the flowers, I can't help watching it. I haven't got any mother, you know." And Laurie poked the fire to hide a little twitching of the lips that he could not control. The solitary, hungry look in his eyes went straight to Jo's warm heart. She had been so simply taught that there was no nonsense in her head, and at fifteen she was as innocent and frank as any child. Laurie was sick and lonely, and feeling how rich she was in home and happiness, she gladly tried to share it with him. Her face was very friendly and her sharp voice unusually gentle as she said... "We'll never draw that curtain any more, and I give you leave to look as much as you like. I just wish, though, instead of peeping, you'd come over and see us. Mother is so splendid, she'd do you heaps of good, and Beth would sing to you if I begged her to, and Amy would dance. Meg and I would make you laugh over our funny stage properties, and we'd have jolly times. Wouldn't your grandpa let you?" "I think he would, if your mother asked him. He's very kind, though he does not look so, and he lets me do what I like, pretty much, only he's afraid I might be a bother to strangers," began Laurie, brightening more and more. "We are not strangers, we are neighbors, and you needn't think you'd be a bother. We want to know you, and I've been trying to do it this ever so long. We haven't been here a great while, you know, but we have got acquainted with all our neighbors but you." "You see, Grandpa lives among his books, and doesn't mind much what happens outside. Mr.

• From Little Women (1868)

  was handed about like refreshments, returned to the parlor on Father Laurence's arm. The others paired off as before, and this arrangement left Jo companionless. She did not mind it at the minute, for she lingered to answer Hannah's eager inquiry. "Will Miss Amy ride in her coop (coupe), and use all them lovely silver dishes that's stored away over yander?" "Shouldn't wonder if she drove six white horses, ate off gold plate, and wore diamonds and point lace every day. Teddy thinks nothing too good for her," returned Jo with infinite satisfaction. "No more there is! Will you have hash or fishballs for breakfast?" asked Hannah, who wisely mingled poetry and prose. "I don't care," and Jo shut the door, feeling that food was an uncongenial topic just then. She stood a minute looking at the party vanishing above, and as Demi's short plaid legs toiled up the last stair, a sudden sense of loneliness came over her so strongly that she looked about her with dim eyes, as if to find something to lean upon, for even Teddy had deserted her. If she had known what birthday gift was coming every minute nearer and nearer, she would not have said to herself, "I'll weep a little weep when I go to bed. It won't do to be dismal now." Then she drew her hand over her eyes, for one of her boyish habits was never to know where her handkerchief was, and had just managed to call up a smile when there came a knock at the porch door. She opened with hospitable haste, and started as if another ghost had come to surprise her, for there stood a tall bearded gentleman, beaming on her from the darkness like a midnight sun. "Oh, Mr. Bhaer, I am so glad to see you!" cried Jo, with a clutch, as if she feared the night would swallow him up before she could get him in. "And I to see Miss Marsch, but no, you haf a party," and the Professor paused as the sound of voices and the tap of dancing feet came down to them. "No, we haven't, only the family. My sister and friends have just come home, and we are all very happy. Come in, and make one of us." Though a very social man, I think Mr. Bhaer would have gone decorously away, and come again another day, but how could he, when Jo shut the door behind him, and bereft him of his hat? Perhaps her face had something to do

• From Little Women (1868)

  a strong arm to lean upon, a familiar face to smile at her, and a kind voice to talk delightfully for her alone. The quaint old garden had sheltered many pairs of lovers, and seemed expressly made for them, so sunny and secluded was it, with nothing but the tower to overlook them, and the wide lake to carry away the echo of their words, as it rippled by below. For an hour this new pair walked and talked, or rested on the wall, enjoying the sweet influences which gave such a charm to time and place, and when an unromantic dinner bell warned them away, Amy felt as if she left her burden of loneliness and sorrow behind her in the chateau garden. The moment Mrs. Carrol saw the girl's altered face, she was illuminated with a new idea, and exclaimed to herself, "Now I understand it all—the child has been pining for young Laurence. Bless my heart, I never thought of such a thing!" With praiseworthy discretion, the good lady said nothing, and betrayed no sign of enlightenment, but cordially urged Laurie to stay and begged Amy to enjoy his society, for it would do her more good than so much solitude. Amy was a model of docility, and as her aunt was a good deal occupied with Flo, she was left to entertain her friend, and did it with more than her usual success. At Nice, Laurie had lounged and Amy had scolded. At Vevay, Laurie was never idle, but always walking, riding, boating, or studying in the most energetic manner, while Amy admired everything he did and followed his example as far and as fast as she could. He said the change was owing to the climate, and she did not contradict him, being glad of a like excuse for her own recovered health and spirits. The invigorating air did them both good, and much exercise worked wholesome changes in minds as well as bodies. They seemed to get clearer views of life and duty up there among the everlasting hills. The fresh winds blew away desponding doubts, delusive fancies, and moody mists. The warm spring sunshine brought out all sorts of aspiring ideas, tender hopes, and happy thoughts. The lake seemed to wash away the troubles of the past, and the grand old mountains to look benignly down upon them saying, "Little children, love one another." In spite of the new sorrow, it was a very happy time, so happy that Laurie could not bear to disturb it by a word. It took him a little while to recover from

• From Another Country (1962)

  He hesitated. “Well—yes and no.” Then he looked at Vivaldo. “Are you lonely with Ida?” Vivaldo looked down. “I’ve been thinking about that—or I’ve been trying not to think about that—all morning.” He raised his eyes to Eric’s eyes. “I hope you don’t mind my saying—well, hell, anyway, you know it—that I’m sort of hiding in your bed now, hiding even in your arms maybe—from Ida, in a way. I’m trying to get something straight in my mind about my life with Ida.” He looked down again. “I keep feeling that it’s up to me to resolve it, one way or another. But I don’t seem to have the guts. I don’t know how. I’m afraid to force anything because I’m afraid to lose her.” He seemed to flounder in the depths of Eric’s silence. “Do you know what I mean? Does it make any sense to you?” “Oh, yes,” said Eric, bleakly, “it makes sense, all right.” He looked over at Vivaldo with a smile, and dared to say, “Maybe, at this very moment, while both of us are huddled here, hiding from things which frighten us—maybe you love me and I love you as well as we’ll ever love, or be loved, in this world.” Vivaldo said, “I don’t know if I can accept that, not yet. Not yet. As well—maybe. Well, surely.” He looked up at Eric. “But it’s not, really, is it? very complete. Look. This day is almost over. How long will it be before such a day comes for us again? Because we’re not kids, we know what life is like, and how time just vanishes, runs away—I can’t, really, like from moment to moment, day to day, month to month, make you less lonely. Or you, me. We aren’t driven in the same directions and I can’t help that, any more than you can.” He paused, watching Eric with enormous, tormented eyes. He smiled. “It would be wonderful if it could be like that; you’re very beautiful, Eric. But I don’t, really, dig you the way I guess you must dig me. You know? And if we tried to arrange it, prolong it, control it, if we tried to take more than what we’ve—by some miracle, some miracle, I swear—stumbled on, then I’d just become a parasite and we’d both shrivel. So what can we really do for each other except—just love each other and be each other’s witness? And haven’t we got the right to hope—for more? So that we can really stretch into whoever we really are? Don’t you think so?”

• From Another Country (1962)

  But I don’t like for them to take it out on Vivaldo, he’s having a rough enough time as it is.” And, after a moment, she added, under her breath, “So am I.” Cass said nothing, for she was too astonished. So far from imagining herself and Ida to be friends, she had long ago decided that Ida disliked and distrusted her. But she did not sound that way now. She sounded lonely and troubled. “I wish you’d come up and have one drink with me up there,” Ida said. She kept twisting the ring on her little finger. Cass thought, at once, I’ll feel terribly out of place up there, and if you’re meeting someone, what’s the good of my coming along? But she sensed, somehow, that she could not say this, that Ida needed a woman to talk to, if only for a few minutes, even if the woman were white. “Okay,” she said, “but just one drink. I’ve got to hurry home to Richard.” As she said this, both she and Ida laughed. It was almost the first time they had ever laughed together; and this laughter revealed to Cass that Ida’s attitude toward her had been modified by Ida’s knowledge of her adultery. Perhaps Ida felt that Cass was more to be trusted and more of a woman, now that her virtue, and her safety, were gone. And there was also, in that sudden and spontaneous laughter, the very faintest hint of blackmail. Ida could be freer with Cass now, since the world’s judgment, should it ever be necessary to face it, would condemn Cass yet more cruelly than Ida. For Ida was not white, nor married, nor a mother. The world assumed Ida’s sins to be natural, whereas those of Cass were perverse. Ida said, “Men are a bitch, aren’t they, baby?” She sounded sad and weary. “I don’t understand them, I swear I don’t.” “I always thought you did,” said Cass, “much better than I ever have.” Ida smiled. “Well, that’s all a kind of act. Besides it’s not hard to deal with a man if you don’t give a damn about him. Most of the jokers I’ve had to deal with weren’t worth shit. And I’ve always expected all of them to be like that.” Then she was silent. She looked over at Cass, who sat very still, looking down. The cab was approaching Times Square. “Do you know what I mean?” “I don’t know if I do, or not,” Cass said. “I guess I don’t. I’ve only dealt with—two men—in my whole life.” Ida looked at her, speculatively, a small, sardonic smile touching her lips. “That’s very hard to believe. It’s hard to imagine.” “Well! I was never very pretty. I guess I led a kind of sheltered life. And—I got married very young.”

• From Another Country (1962)

  Beneath them Rufus walked, one of the fallen—for the weight of this city was murderous—one of those who had been crushed on the day, which was every day, these towers fell. Entirely alone, and dying of it, he was part of an unprecedented multitude. There were boys and girls drinking coffee at the drugstore counters who were held back from his condition by barriers as perishable as their dwindling cigarettes. They could scarcely bear their knowledge, nor could they have borne the sight of Rufus, but they knew why he was in the streets tonight, why he rode subways all night long, why his stomach growled, why his hair was nappy, his armpits funky, his pants and shoes too thin, and why he did not dare to stop and take a leak. Now he stood before the misty doors of the jazz joint, peering in, sensing rather than seeing the frantic black people on the stand and the oblivious, mixed crowd at the bar. The music was loud and empty, no one was doing anything at all, and it was being hurled at the crowd like a malediction in which not even those who hated most deeply any longer believed. They knew that no one heard, that bloodless people cannot be made to bleed. So they blew what everyone had heard before, they reassured everyone that nothing terrible was happening, and the people at the tables found it pleasant to shout over this stunning corroboration and the people at the bar, under cover of the noise they could scarcely have lived without, pursued whatever it was they were after. He wanted to go in and use the bathroom but he was ashamed of the way he looked. He had been in hiding, really, for nearly a month. And he saw himself now, in his mind’s eye, shambling through this crowd to the bathroom and crawling out again while everyone watched him with pitying or scornful or mocking eyes. Or, someone would be certain to whisper Isn’t that Rufus Scott? Someone would look at him with horror, then turn back to his business with a long-drawn-out, pitying, Man! He could not do it—and he danced on one foot and then the other and tears came to his eyes. A white couple, laughing, came through the doors, giving him barely a glance as they passed. The warmth, the smell of people, whiskey, beer, and smoke which came out to hit him as the doors opened almost made him cry for fair and it made his empty stomach growl again.

• From Little Women (1868)

  I pray he may, and try to be all he believes me, for I love my gallant captain with all my heart and soul and might, and never will desert him, while God lets us be together. Oh, Mother, I never knew how much like heaven this world could be, when two people love and live for one another!" "And that's our cool, reserved, and worldly Amy! Truly, love does work miracles. How very, very happy they must be!" and Jo laid the rustling sheets together with a careful hand, as one might shut the covers of a lovely romance, which holds the reader fast till the end comes, and he finds himself alone in the workaday world again. By-and-by Jo roamed away upstairs, for it was rainy, and she could not walk. A restless spirit possessed her, and the old feeling came again, not bitter as it once was, but a sorrowfully patient wonder why one sister should have all she asked, the other nothing. It was not true, she knew that and tried to put it away, but the natural craving for affection was strong, and Amy's happiness woke the hungry longing for someone to 'love with heart and soul, and cling to while God let them be together'. Up in the garret, where Jo's unquiet wanderings ended stood four little wooden chests in a row, each marked with its owners name, and each filled with relics of the childhood and girlhood ended now for all. Jo glanced into them, and when she came to her own, leaned her chin on the edge, and stared absently at the chaotic collection, till a bundle of old exercise books caught her eye. She drew them out, turned them over, and relived that pleasant winter at kind Mrs. Kirke's. She had smiled at first, then she looked thoughtful, next sad, and when she came to a little message written in the Professor's hand, her lips began to tremble, the books slid out of her lap, and she sat looking at the friendly words, as they took a new meaning, and touched a tender spot in her heart. "Wait for me, my friend. I may be a little late, but I shall surely come." "Oh, if he only would! So kind, so good, so patient with me always, my dear old Fritz. I didn't value him half enough when I had him, but now how I should love to see him, for everyone seems going away from me, and I'm all alone." And holding the little paper fast, as if it were a promise yet to be fulfilled, Jo laid her head down on a comfortable rag bag, and cried, as if in opposition to the rain pattering on the roof. Was it all self-pity, loneliness, or low spirits? Or was it the waking up of a sentiment which had bided its time as patiently as its inspirer? Who shall say?

• From Talk Dirty to Me: An Intimate Philosophy of Sex (1994)

  “There are times when I spend an hour with somebody and nothing sexual goes on at all. There’ve been times when I wanted to say ‘You know, if you would make an appointment like this with your wife, rent a hotel room, and lie down on the bed and talk with your wife, you wouldn’t be having to lie down naked on a bed and talk with me like this.’ I’m a sex therapist, that’s my training.” Alex told me, “When these people come to you, they’re coming to you not only for sexual release—which often is the easiest part—but with emotional needs as well. Some are lonely. It’s almost as though they want a mommy for half an hour. It’s weird because often I’m half their age, and here they are like little babies suckling at my breast, getting nurtured. They’ve had a hard day and they need somebody to rub their head and tell them they’re okay. And a lot of the time they’re people who in real life you don’t care about, and you have to put all your own emotions on the shelf for that period of time.” Nina Hartley, a well-known porn actress, partly credits Our Bodies, Ourselves as influencing her to consider work as a stripper and in pornography. Much of that famous book’s message is female sexual self-determination and the value of the female body. Before she did porn, Hartley worked as a nurse. I also worked as a nurse for several years, and in studying prostitution, listening to the women involved, I’m repeatedly struck by how similar the jobs can be. As with prostitution, some women are just not suited to nursing. In both jobs you can have some, but not total, control over your clients, and in both cases some clients will be repulsive, obnoxious, needy, and unattractive, while others will be charming and fun. Both jobs have elements of unpredictability and stress, moments of great satisfaction. The rewards are often surprising, not necessarily what one expected, and frequently the rewards are private ones that can’t really be shared or explained. Both require a cheerful tolerance of the human body’s many quirks. I don’t think I’d be a very good prostitute for the same reason I wasn’t a particularly great nurse. I don’t love adrenaline, and both professions require an ability to shift gears at a moment’s notice, change moods and manners, depending on the situation. I’m too much the misanthrope to make the kind of psychic room a successful prostitute makes for her clients. Looking back, I can see ways in which prostitution might be the better job. There’s very little paperwork, for one thing.

• From Another Country (1962)

  Advertising men were there, drinking double shots of bourbon or vodka, on the rocks; college boys were there, their wet fingers slippery on the beer bottles; lone men stood near the doors or in corners, watching the drifting women. The college boys, gleaming with ignorance and mad with chastity, made terrified efforts to attract the feminine attention, but succeeded only in attracting each other. Some of the men were buying drinks for some of the women—who wandered incessantly from the juke box to the bar—and they faced each other over smiles which were pitched, with an eerie precision, between longing and contempt. Black-and-white couples were together here—closer together now than they would be later, when they got home. These several histories were camouflaged in the jargon which, wave upon wave, rolled through the bar; were locked in a silence like the silence of glaciers. Only the juke box spoke, grinding out each evening, all evening long, syncopated, synthetic laments for love. Rufus’ eyes had trouble adjusting to the yellow light, the smoke, the movement. The place seemed terribly strange to him, as though he remembered it from a dream. He recognized faces, gestures, voices—from this same dream; and, as in a dream, no one looked his way, no one seemed to remember him. Just next to him, at a table, sat a girl he had balled once or twice, whose name was Belle. She was talking to her boy friend, Lorenzo. She brushed her long black hair out of her eyes and looked directly at him for a moment, but she did not seem to recognize him. A voice spoke at his ear: “Hey! Rufus! When did they let you out, man?” He turned to face a grinning chocolate face, topped by processed hair casually falling forward. He could not remember the name which went with the face. He could not remember what his connection with the face had been. He said, “Yeah, I’m straight, how you been making it?” “Oh, I’m scuffling, man, got to keep scuffling, you know”—eyes seeming to press forward like two malevolent insects, hair flying, lips and forehead wet. The voice dropped to a whisper. “I was kind of strung out there for awhile, but I’m straight now. I heard you got busted, man.” “Busted? No, I’ve just been making the uptown scene.” “Yeah? Well, crazy.” He jerked his head around to the door in response to a summons Rufus had not heard. “I got to split, my boy’s waiting for me. See you around, man.” Cold air swept into the bar for a moment, then steam and smoke settled again over everything. Then, while they stood there, not yet having been able to order anything to drink and undecided as to whether or not they would stay, Cass appeared out of the gloom and noise. She was very elegant, in black, her golden hair pulled carefully back and up.

• From Another Country (1962)

  “Rufus ain’t going to kill nobody but himself,” she said, “if he don’t find a friend to help him.” She paused, half-in, half-out of the cab. “You the only friend he’s got in the world, Vivaldo.” He gave her some money for the fare, looking at her with something, after all these months, explicit at last between them. They both loved Rufus. And they were both white. Now that it stared them so hideously in the face, each could see how desperately the other had been trying to avoid this confrontation. “You’ll go there now?” he asked. “You’ll go to my place?” “Yes. I’ll go. You go on back to Rufus. Maybe you can help him. He needs somebody to help him.” Vivaldo gave the driver his address and watched the taxi roll away. He turned and started back the way they had come. The way seemed longer, now that he was alone, and darker. His awareness of the policeman, prowling somewhere in the darkness near him, made, the silence ominous. He felt threatened. He felt totally estranged from the city in which he had been born; this city for which he sometimes felt a kind of stony affection because it was all he knew of home. Yet he had no home here—the hovel on Bank Street was not a home. He had always supposed that he would, one day, make a home here for himself. Now he began to wonder if anyone could ever put down roots in this rock; or, rather, he began to be aware of the shapes acquired by those who had. He began to wonder about his own shape. He had often thought of his loneliness, for example, as a condition which testified to his superiority. But people who were not superior were, nevertheless, extremely lonely—and unable to break out of their solitude precisely because they had no equipment with which to enter it. His own loneliness, magnified so many million times, made the night air colder. He remembered to what excesses, into what traps and nightmares, his loneliness had driven him; and he wondered where such a violent emptiness might drive an entire city. At the same time, as he came closer to Rufus’ building, he was trying very hard not to think about Rufus.

• From Another Country (1962)

  But holding the love of her children, and helping them to grow from boys into men—this was a different matter. The cab driver was singing to himself, in Spanish. “You have a nice voice,” she heard herself say. He turned his head, briefly, smiling, and she watched his young profile, the faint gleam of his teeth, and his sparkling eyes. “Thank you,” he said. “We are all singers where I come from.” His accent was heavy, and he lisped slightly. “In Puerto Rico? there can’t be very much to sing about.” He laughed. “Oh, but we sing, anyway.” He turned to her again. “There is nothing to sing about here, either, you know—nobody sings here.” She smiled. “That’s true. I think singing—for pleasure, anyway—may have become one of the great American crimes.” He did not follow this, except in spirit. “You are all too serious here. Cold and ugly.” “How long have you been here?” “Two years.” He smiled at her again. “I was lucky, I work hard, I get along.” He paused. “Only, sometimes, it’s lonely. So I sing.” They both laughed. “It makes the time go,” he said. “Don’t you have any friends?” she asked. He shrugged. “Friends cost money. And I have no money and no time. I must send money home to my family.” “Oh, are you married?” He shrugged again, turning his profile to her again, not smiling. “No, I am not married.” Then he grinned. “That also costs money.” There was a silence. They turned into her block. “Yes,” she said, idly, “you’re right about that.” She pointed to the house. “Here we are.” The cab stopped. She fumbled in her handbag. He watched her. “ You are married?” he asked at last. “Yes.” She smiled. “With two children.” “Boy or girl?” “Two boys.” “That is very good,” he said. She paid him. “Good-bye. I wish you well.” He smiled. It was a really friendly smile. “I also wish you well. You are very nice. Good night.” “Good night.” She opened the door and the light shone full on their faces for a moment. His face was very young and direct and hopeful, and caused her to blush a little. She slammed the cab door behind her, and walked into her house without looking back. She heard the cab drive away. The light was on in the living room, and Richard, fully dressed except for his shoes, lay on the sofa, asleep. He was usually in bed, or at work, when she came home. She stared at him for a moment. There was a half-glass of vodka on the table next to him, and a dead cigarette in the ashtray.

• From Cult: A Love Story: Ten Years Inside a Canadian Cult and the Subsequent Long Road of Recovery (2013)

  The analogy I use when I talk about shunning is one of a recalcitrant foal being cut out of a wild mustang herd by the matriarch. For that foal, being cut out of the herd is, literally, a matter of life and death. Horses, although large, are animals of prey in the wild and the herd they belong to is what provides a wild horse with safety. A horse on its own, especially a young one, is entirely vulnerable to predators. Equine matriarchs cut foals out of the herd when they have misbehaved. As a system of punishment and creating order in the herd, it is effective because the foals learn how to behave in the social system that they have been born into. If they are not willing to abide by the rules they will be outcast and left on their own to survive. When one was cut out of the spiritual herd that was our group, it felt as though one’s life depended on getting back into the group. On the outside, without the group’s approval and acceptance, one felt increasingly vulnerable to the dark energy that was everywhere, waiting to prey on those who were not completely in their hearts. And, just as happens with herds of horses, shunning taught us that our survival in the group depended on abiding by the rules within the group. In the couple of months between my banishment from Limori’s home and the wedding in Kauai, I was consumed with feelings of spiritual inadequacy and failure and felt very alone as I experienced being cut out from my herd. I continued to go to Wednesday and Thursday evening meditations, but I felt invisible and ignored. Limori was not there very often; she was spending even more time in Hawaii preparing for the wedding and the workshop that would follow it. It was a huge relief to me to not have to deal with her every week, but I still sought counselling from Michael and Gary and others about what to do about my ever-present fear and how to “fix” it and “get over my ego positions” about Limori. In early May, 1993, we flew as a group to Kauai, where Limori and Alice met us at the airport. There were ten or eleven of us from the Vancouver group attending the wedding, plus Brent from Wolf’s Den and Luke and Gayle from the interior of BC. Limori’s welcome to me was warm and inviting, which surprised me. It had been weeks since I’d last seen her and I had expected the cold shoulder at the very least, or even an immediate attack, but she simply offered me a lei (she and Alice had brought leis to the airport to greet each of us with) and an “Aloha.” I wondered if I was noticing the beginnings of being allowed back into the group. Limori always had something or someone that was her current obsession.

• From Mystical Tradition: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (2008)

  3. Why were such works written? To teach, comfort, exhort? Do they report actual experiences or imagine them? It is even possible that they were written as a means to induce mystical experience. B. The sectarian community of Essenes at Qumran reveals a Jewish commitment to God that anticipates many later features of Monasticism: a community separate from the world, living a common life that was dedicated to study and prayer, following a strict rule, and practicing rituals of purity. 1. An intense personal piety is shown by the hymns (Hodayoth), possibly composed by the Teacher of Righteousness, the community’s founder. 2. In Hodayoth 5, the Teacher of Righteousness is well aware of his loneliness before God, yet he retains the hope of standing among the holy ones. 3. The Songs of Sabbath Sacrifice portrays community worship as participating in that of the angels. 4. The vision of the Qumran community of itself as a replacement temple is a mystical construal of reality. IV. In the Diaspora, Philo of Alexandria, who read the Greek version of Scripture in the Septuagint in the style of Greek philosophers, had a thoroughly Platonic understanding of the world—he made Plato’s distinction between the phenomenal and the noumenal. A. How representative was Philo’s form of mysticism, what we might call biblical Platonism? 1. An exaggerated position argues that Hellenistic Judaism was a mystical version of Judaism in contrast to that found in Palestine. 2. Some say that Philo’s view is completely anomalous, that there weren’t any Jews who read Scripture as he did. 3. But some evidence, such as the writings of Pseudo-Orpheus, suggests that Philo was not alone. B. Three points in particular point to Philo’s mystical tendencies. 1. He describes Moses in terms of a mystical ascent that can be followed by others (Life of Moses 1.158–159). 2. He speaks of his own life in terms that strongly suggest a mystical path (On the Creation 71; On the Special Laws 3.6). 3. Philo also speaks in glowing terms of Jewish monks, both in Palestine (probably the Essenes) and some local Jews in 20 ©2008 The Teaching Company. Egypt, whom he calls the Therapeutae (Every Good Man is Free; Hypothetica; On the Contemplative Life). 4. What we see in Philo, the seeking in the text of Torah deeper meanings that can reveal realities about God, will be much more in evidence in the future of Jewish Mysticism. Recommended Reading: Goodenough, E. R. By Light, Light: The Mystic Gospel of Hellenistic Judaism. Questions to Consider: 1. Discuss the ways that mystical literature appropriates and reconfigures symbols learned from earlier compositions. 2. Consider the possible relationships between the “experience” of mysticism and its “literary” expression. ©2008 The Teaching Company. 21

• From Another Country (1962)

  Yet he had no home here—the hovel on Bank Street was not a home. He had always supposed that he would, one day, make a home here for himself. Now he began to wonder if anyone could ever put down roots in this rock; or, rather, he began to be aware of the shapes acquired by those who had. He began to wonder about his own shape. He had often thought of his loneliness, for example, as a condition which testified to his superiority. But people who were not superior were, nevertheless, extremely lonely—and unable to break out of their solitude precisely because they had no equipment with which to enter it. His own loneliness, magnified so many million times, made the night air colder. He remembered to what excesses, into what traps and nightmares, his loneliness had driven him; and he wondered where such a violent emptiness might drive an entire city. At the same time, as he came closer to Rufus’ building, he was trying very hard not to think about Rufus . He was in a section of warehouses. Very few people lived down here. By day, trucks choked the streets, laborers stood on these ghostly platforms, moving great weights, and cursing. As he had once; for a long time, he had been one of them. He had been proud of his skill and his muscles and happy to be accepted as a man among men. Only—it was they who saw something in him which they could not accept, which made them uneasy. Every once in a while, a man, lighting his cigarette, would look at him quizzically, with a little smile. The smile masked an unwilling, defensive hostility. They said he was a “bright kid,” that he would “go places”; and they made it clear that they expected him to go, to which places did not matter—he did not belong to them. But at the bottom of his mind the question of Rufus nagged and stung. There had been a few colored boys in his high school but they had mainly stayed together, as far as he remembered. He had known boys who got a bang out of going out and beating up niggers. It scarcely seemed possible—it scarcely, even, seemed fair—that colored boys who were beaten up in high school could grow up into colored men who wanted to beat up everyone in sight, including, or perhaps especially, people who had never, one way or another, given them a thought. He watched the light in Rufus’ window, the only light on down here. Then he remembered something that had happened to him a long time ago, two years or three.

• From Cult: A Love Story: Ten Years Inside a Canadian Cult and the Subsequent Long Road of Recovery (2013)

  All I know is that I was in agony that night and that Karen witnessed it and that it must have been you hitting me because the tickets were originally ours.” I stared at him, still paralyzed and goggle-eyed; his circular logic was spinning me and I did not have the mental wherewithal to joust with him. I flapped my hands slightly, exasperated, and then walked away, giving up. Even as a trained cult member, I found what he was saying completely illogical. It was a classic double bind; he didn’t know “how these things worked” but at the same time he was certain that whatever he was experiencing was my fault. I had had a very small taste of what being shunned felt like in 1994 when I was asked to move out of Limori’s house. That experience was small potatoes compared to what I went through in early 2000. Bereft of my romantic relationship, I naturally turned to my friends in the group for solace and comfort, but much to my dismay, found myself rebuffed. Karen was the most effective at ensuring that I felt like a black sheep. She was sympathetic with me, although cautious in her sympathy, when I first spoke to her after returning from Wolf’s Den. On January fifth, she had coffee with Michael and after that my relationship with her was over, although I wasn’t able to acknowledge this for quite some time. Whatever Michael told her, whatever spiritual reasons he gave for needing to break up with me, they scared Karen enough that she could barely look at me from then on. Amber and Debbie were slightly less obvious with their shunning behaviour. They continued to be able to spend time with me, although I was relegated to hanging around the edges like an invisible person in the room. I had become someone not to be too attached to or to let down their guard with, because who knew what negative energy I would then attach to them. I could feel all this happening at the time but I refused to face it; it was too much to cope with all at once. I acted as though I couldn’t tell that my friends were afraid of my energy and I pretended that I was unaware that they would rather not be around me. The bittersweet agony of seeing Michael at Wednesday and Thursday nights didn’t last long. In mid-February, a message was relayed from Michael to the group via Karen that he was in seclusion and would not be coming to the meetings for the foreseeable future. Until this occasion, seclusion was something that only Limori herself had participated in. Every once in a while, when she was still living in the city and leading both Wednesday and Thursday nights, she would stop coming for a few weeks and we would be told she was in seclusion.

• From Little Women (1868)

  The old gentleman took Jo, with a whispered, "You must be my girl now," and a glance at the empty corner by the fire, that made Jo whisper back, "I'll try to fill her place, sir." The twins pranced behind, feeling that the millennium was at hand, for everyone was so busy with the newcomers that they were left to revel at their own sweet will, and you may be sure they made the most of the opportunity. Didn't they steal sips of tea, stuff gingerbread ad libitum, get a hot biscuit apiece, and as a crowning trespass, didn't they each whisk a captivating little tart into their tiny pockets, there to stick and crumble treacherously, teaching them that both human nature and a pastry are frail? Burdened with the guilty consciousness of the sequestered tarts, and fearing that Dodo's sharp eyes would pierce the thin disguise of cambric and merino which hid their booty, the little sinners attached themselves to 'Dranpa', who hadn't his spectacles on. Amy, who was handed about like refreshments, returned to the parlor on Father Laurence's arm. The others paired off as before, and this arrangement left Jo companionless. She did not mind it at the minute, for she lingered to answer Hannah's eager inquiry. "Will Miss Amy ride in her coop (coupe), and use all them lovely silver dishes that's stored away over yander?" "Shouldn't wonder if she drove six white horses, ate off gold plate, and wore diamonds and point lace every day. Teddy thinks nothing too good for her," returned Jo with infinite satisfaction. "No more there is! Will you have hash or fishballs for breakfast?" asked Hannah, who wisely mingled poetry and prose. "I don't care," and Jo shut the door, feeling that food was an uncongenial topic just then. She stood a minute looking at the party vanishing above, and as Demi's short plaid legs toiled up the last stair, a sudden sense of loneliness came over her so strongly that she looked about her with dim eyes, as if to find something to lean upon, for even Teddy had deserted her. If she had known what birthday gift was coming every minute nearer and nearer, she would not have said to herself, "I'll weep a little weep when I go to bed. It won't do to be dismal now." Then she drew her hand over her eyes, for one of her boyish habits was never to know where her handkerchief was, and had just managed to call up a smile when there came a knock at the porch door. She opened with hospitable haste, and started as if another ghost had come to surprise her, for there stood a tall bearded gentleman, beaming on her from the darkness like a midnight sun. "Oh, Mr. Bhaer, I am so glad to see you!" cried Jo, with a clutch, as if she feared the night would swallow him up before she could get him in.

• From Little Women (1868)

  You needn't go right back, need you?" "Not if you want me, dear." "I do, so much. Aunt and Flo are very kind, but you seem like one of the family, and it would be so comfortable to have you for a little while." Amy spoke and looked so like a homesick child whose heart was full that Laurie forgot his bashfulness all at once, and gave her just what she wanted—the petting she was used to and the cheerful conversation she needed. "Poor little soul, you look as if you'd grieved yourself half sick! I'm going to take care of you, so don't cry any more, but come and walk about with me, the wind is too chilly for you to sit still," he said, in the half-caressing, half-commanding way that Amy liked, as he tied on her hat, drew her arm through his, and began to pace up and down the sunny walk under the new-leaved chestnuts. He felt more at ease upon his legs, and Amy found it pleasant to have a strong arm to lean upon, a familiar face to smile at her, and a kind voice to talk delightfully for her alone. The quaint old garden had sheltered many pairs of lovers, and seemed expressly made for them, so sunny and secluded was it, with nothing but the tower to overlook them, and the wide lake to carry away the echo of their words, as it rippled by below. For an hour this new pair walked and talked, or rested on the wall, enjoying the sweet influences which gave such a charm to time and place, and when an unromantic dinner bell warned them away, Amy felt as if she left her burden of loneliness and sorrow behind her in the chateau garden. The moment Mrs. Carrol saw the girl's altered face, she was illuminated with a new idea, and exclaimed to herself, "Now I understand it all—the child has been pining for young Laurence. Bless my heart, I never thought of such a thing!" With praiseworthy discretion, the good lady said nothing, and betrayed no sign of enlightenment, but cordially urged Laurie to stay and begged Amy to enjoy his society, for it would do her more good than so much solitude. Amy was a model of docility, and as her aunt was a good deal occupied with Flo, she was left to entertain her friend, and did it with more than her usual success. At Nice, Laurie had lounged and Amy had scolded. At Vevay, Laurie was never idle, but always walking, riding, boating, or studying in the most energetic manner, while Amy admired everything he did and followed his example as far and as fast as she could. He said the change was owing to the climate, and she did not contradict him, being glad of a like excuse for her own recovered health and spirits.