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.

Page 58 of 63 · 20 per page

• From The Girls (2016)

  JULIAN RETURNED FROM HUMBOLDT with a friend who wanted a ride to L.A. The friend’s name was Zav. It seemed vaguely Rastafarian, how he pronounced it, though Zav was fishy white with a bog of orange hair held back by a woman’s elastic. He was much older than Julian, maybe thirty- five, but dressed like an adolescent: the same too-long cargo shorts, the T-shirt worn to a pulp. He walked around Dan’s house with an appraising squint, picking up a figurine of an ox, carved from bone or ivory, then putting it down. He peered at a photo of Julian in his mother’s arms on the beach, then replaced the frame on the shelf, chuckling to himself. “It’s cool if he stays here tonight, right?” Julian asked. As if I were the den mother. “It’s your house.” Zav came over to shake my hand. “Thanks,” he said, pumping away, “that’s real decent of you.” — Sasha and Zav seemed to know each other, and soon all three were talking about a gloomy bar near Humboldt owned by a gray-haired grower. Julian had his arm around Sasha with the adult air of a man returning from the mines. It was hard to imagine him harming a dog, or harming anyone, Sasha so obviously pleased to be near him. She’d been girlish and veiled with me all day, no hint of our conversation the night before. Zav said something that made her laugh, a pretty, subdued laugh. Half covering her mouth, like she didn’t want to expose her teeth. I’d planned to walk to town for dinner, leave them alone, but Julian noticed me heading for the door. “Hey, hey, hey,” he said. They all turned to look at me. “I’m gonna go into town for a bit,” I said. “You should eat with us,” Julian said. Sasha nodded, scooting into his side. Giving me the sloppy half attention of someone in the orbit of her

• From The Girls (2016)

  his behalf by high-ranking officials. Did he think anyone believed the things he said? He lied more than she did, lied for no reason. Alex had promised herself she wouldn’t see Dom again. Then he texted— someone who actually wanted to spend time with her, maybe the only person who wanted to spend time with her. She couldn’t quite conjure the reasons she’d ever been afraid of him. They had fun, didn’t they? He liked her, didn’t he? He was staying in an apartment he said belonged to a friend. They drank room-temperature ginger ale. Dom walked around barefoot, lowering all the shades. There was a line of whipped cream containers covered in stickers along a windowsill, empty seltzer cans in a CVS bag on top of the trash. He kept checking his phone. When the apartment buzzer rang, and kept ringing, he ignored it, giggling, until it finally stopped. He made an omelet at four a.m. that neither of them touched. They watched a reality show: The older women on-screen sat on the sunny outdoor patio of a restaurant, sucking violently at glasses of iced tea. The women’s conversations were heated, faces in a mask of drama. “I never said that,” the dark-haired woman bleated. “You seen this before?” Dom asked without looking away from the TV. He was cradling a stuff ed penguin in his arms, worrying its shiny button eyes. The woman on-screen stood up, knocking her chair over. “You’re toxic,” she screamed. “Toxic,” the woman repeated, her finger fucking the air. She stalked away, breathing hard, a cameraman backing up out of frame when she came barreling past. They watched another episode, and then another. Dom lay with his head on her knee, licking the drugs off his fingers. When he put his hand in her underwear, she didn’t move it away. Still they kept watching. All the women in the show hated each other, hated each other so much, just so they could avoid hating their husbands. Only their little dogs, blinking from their laps, seemed real: they were the women’s souls, Alex decided, tiny souls trotting behind them on a leash. How long had Alex stayed there with Dom? At least two days. And how soon, after she left, had Dom figured it out? Almost immediately. Dom called her four times in quick succession. He never called, only

• From The Girls (2016)

  SASHA AND JULIAN AND ZAV left early, and then I was alone. The house looked as it had always looked. Only the bed in the other room, the sheets scrabbled and smelling of sex, indicated anyone else had ever been here. I would wash the sheets in the machine in the garage. Fold and slot them on the closet shelves, sweep the room back to its previous blankness. — I walked along the cold sand that afternoon, stippled with broken bits of shell, the shifting holes where sand crabs burrowed. I liked the rush of wind in my ears. The wind drove people off—students from the junior college yelping while their boyfriends chased down the ripple of a blanket. Families finally giving up and heading toward their cars, toting folding chairs, the poky splay of a cheap kite, already broken. I was wearing two sweatshirts and the bulk made me feel protected, my movements slower. Every couple of feet, I’d come across the giant, ropy seaweed, tangled and thick as a fireman’s hose. The purging of an alien species, seemingly not of this world. It was kelp, someone had told me, bull kelp. Knowing its name didn’t make it any less strange. Sasha had barely said goodbye. Burrowing into Julian’s side, her face set like a preventative against my pity. She had already absented herself, I knew, gone to that other place in her mind where Julian was sweet and kind and life was fun, or if it wasn’t fun, it was interesting, and wasn’t that valuable, didn’t that mean something? I tried to smile at her, to speed her a message on an invisible thread. But it had never been me she wanted. — The fog had been denser in Carmel, descending over the campus of my boarding school like a blizzard. The spire of the chapel, the nearby sea. I had started school that September, just as I was supposed to. Carmel was an old-fashioned place, and my classmates seemed much younger than

• From The Girls (2016)

  Sasha’s proximity, even for the day, forced some normalcy. The built-in preventative of another person meant I couldn’t indulge the animal feelings, couldn’t leave orange peels in the kitchen sink. I dressed right after breakfast instead of haunting my robe all day. Swiped on mascara from a mostly dried-up tube. These were the cogent human labors, the daily tasks that staved larger panics, but living alone had gotten me out of the habit—I didn’t feel substantial enough to warrant this kind of effort. I’d last lived with someone years ago, a man who taught ESL classes at one of the sham colleges that advertised on bus-stop benches. The students were mostly wealthy foreigners who wanted to design videogames. It was surprising to think of him, of David, to remember a time when I imagined a life with another person. Not love, but the pleasant inertia that could substitute. The agreeable quiet that passed over us both in car rides. The way I’d once seen him look at me as we crossed a parking lot. But then it started—a woman who knocked on the apartment door at strange hours. An ivory hairbrush that had belonged to my grandmother went missing from the bathroom. I’d never told David certain things, so that whatever closeness we had was automatically corrupted, the grub twisting in the apple. My secret was sunk deep, but it was there. Maybe that was the reason it had happened, the other women. I had left open a space for such secrets. And how much could you ever know another person, anyway? — I’d imagined that Sasha and I would spend the day in courteous silence. That Sasha would be as hidden as a mouse. She was polite enough, but soon her presence was obvious. I found the refrigerator door left open, filling the kitchen with an alien buzz. Her sweatshirt thrown on the table, a book about the Enneagram splayed on a chair. Music came loud from her room through tinny laptop speakers. It surprised me—she was listening to the singer whose plaintive voice had been the perpetual aural backdrop for a certain kind of girl I remembered from college. Girls already swampy with nostalgia, girls who lit candles and stayed up late kneading bread dough in Danskin leotards and bare feet. I was used to encountering remnants—the afterburn of the sixties was

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  Freeman, I simply didn't understand him either. For weeks after, he said nothing to me, except the gruff hellos which were given without ever looking in my direction. This was the first secret I had ever kept from Bailey and sometimes I thought he should be able to read it on my face, but he noticed nothing. I began to feel lonely for Mr. Freeman and the encasement of his big arms. Before, my world had been Bailey, food, Momma, the Store, reading books and Uncle Willie. Now, for the first time, it included physical contact. I began to wait for Mr. Freeman to come in from the yards, but when he did, he never noticed me, although I put a lot of feeling into “Good evening, Mr. Freeman.” One evening, when I couldn't concentrate on anything, I went over to him and sat quickly on his lap. He had been waiting for Mother again. Bailey was listening to The Shadow and didn't miss me. At first Mr. Freeman sat still, not holding me or anything, then I felt a soft lump under my thigh begin to move. It twitched against me and started to harden. Then he pulled me to his chest. He smelled of coal dust and grease and he was so close I buried my face in his

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  I walked into rooms where people were laughing, their voices hitting the walls like stones, and I simply stood still—in the midst of the riot of sound. After a minute or two, silence would rush into the room from its hiding place because I had eaten up all the sounds. In the first weeks my family accepted my behavior as a post-rape, post-hospital affliction. (Neither the term nor the experience was mentioned in Grandmother's house, where Bailey and I were again staying.) They understood that I could talk to Bailey, but to no one else. Then came the last visit from the visiting nurse, and the doctor said I was healed. That meant that I should be back on the sidewalks playing handball or

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  But after a little he and Anna must get talking, amusing themselves irrespective of Stephen, inventing absurd little games, like two children, which games did not always include the real child. Stephen would sit there silently watching, but her heart would be a prey to the strangest emotions—emotions that seven-years-old could not cope with, and for which it could find no adequate names. All she would know was that seeing her parents together in this mood, would fill her with longings for something that she wanted yet could not define—a something that would make her as happy as they were. And this something would always be mixed up with Morton, with grave, stately rooms like her father’s study, with wide views from windows that let in much sunshine, and the scents of a spacious garden. Her mind would go groping about for a reason, and would find no reason—unless it were Collins—but Collins would refuse to fit into these pictures; even love must admit that she did not belong there any more than the brushes and buckets and slop-cloths belonged in that dignified study. Presently Stephen must go off to her tea, leaving the two grown-up children together; secretly divining that neither of them would miss her—not even her father. Arrived in the nursery she would probably be cross, because her heart felt very empty and tearful; or because, having looked at herself in the glass, she had decided that she loathed her abundant long hair. Snatching at a slice of thick bread and butter, she would upset the milk jug, or break a new tea-cup, or smear the front of her dress with her fingers, to the fury of Mrs. Bingham. If she spoke at such times it was usually to threaten: ‘I shall cut all my hair off, you see if I don’t!’ or, ‘I hate this white dress and I’m going to burn it—it makes me feel idiotic!’ But once launched she would dig up the grievances of months, going back to the time of the would-be young Nelson, loudly complaining that being a girl spoilt everything—even Nelson. The rest of the evening would be spent in grumbling, because one does grumble when one is unhappy—at least one does grumble when one is seven—later on it may seem rather useless. At last the hour of the bath would arrive, and still grumbling, Stephen must submit to Mrs. Bingham, fidgeting under the nurse’s rough fingers like a dog in the hands of a trimmer. There she would stand pretending to shiver, a strong little figure, narrow-hipped and wide-shouldered; her flanks as wiry and thin as a greyhound’s and even more ceaselessly restless. ‘God doesn’t use soap!’ she might suddenly remark. At which Mrs. Bingham must smile, none too kindly: ‘Maybe not, Miss Stephen—He don’t ’ave to wash you; if He did He’d need plenty of soap, I’ll be bound!’

• From The Girls (2016)

  with silence, that the curtains were always drawn. I opened them and struggled to lift a window. It was hot outside—I imagined my father, snapping that I was letting the warm air in—but I left the window open anyway. My mother would be gone all day, the liquor aiding the shorthand of my loneliness. It was strange that I could feel differently so easily, that there was a sure way to soften the crud of my own sadness. I could drink until my problems seemed compact and pretty, something I could admire. I forced myself to like the taste, to breathe slowly when I felt nauseous. I burbled acrid vomit onto my blankets, then cleaned so there was just a tart, curdled spice in the air that I almost liked. I knocked over a lamp and put on dark eye makeup with inexpert but avid attention. Sat in front of my mother’s lighted mirror with its different settings: Office. Daylight. Dusk. Washes of colored light, my features spooking and bleaching as I clicked through the artificial day. I tried reading parts of books I’d liked when I was young. A spoiled girl gets banished underground, to a city ruled by goblins. The girl’s bared knees in her childish dress, the woodcuts of the dark forests. The illustrations of the bound girl stirred me so I had to parcel how long I could look at them. I wished I could draw something like that, like the terrifying inside of someone’s own mind. Or draw the face of the black- haired girl I’d seen in town—studying her long enough so I could see how the features worked together. The hours I lost to masturbation, face pressed into my pillow, passing some point of caring. I’d get a headache after a while, muscles jumpy, my legs quivering and tender. My underpants wet, the tops of my thighs. Another book: a silversmith accidentally spills molten silver on his hand. His arm and hand probably looked skinned after the burn had scabbed over and peeled. The skin tight and pink and fresh, without hair or freckles. I thought of Willie and his stump, the warm hose water he sloshed over his car. How the puddles would slowly evaporate from the asphalt. I practiced peeling an orange as if my arm were burned to the elbow and I had no fingernails. Death seemed to me like a lobby in a hotel. Some civilized, well-lit room you could easily enter or leave. A boy in town had shot himself in his finished basement after getting caught selling counterfeit raffle

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  Uneme saw him, and said: 'Dear friend, I have been very busy every evening amusing my Lord with Nô plays, and this evening I have only come out for a few moments to breathe a little air. I have read my master the ancient classical poem "Seuin Kokin," and was alone and without a friend except for the silent cherry blooms. I am very lonely.' And he looked tenderly at Samanosuke. `Here is another silent flower, Uneme,' said Samanosuke, and held out the letter to him. Uneme smiled at him and said: 'This letter cannot be for me, dear friend.' He went behind some thick trees to read it. He was touched by the letter, and kindly replied to Samanosuke: 'I cannot remain unmoved if he suffers so much for me.' When Ukyo received Uneme's answer, he was filled with joy, and quickly recovered his health. And the three young men loved each other with a loyal and harmonious love. Now it happened that their master took into his service a new courtier named Shyuzen Hosono. This man was rough, evil, and of a hasty temper; he had no finesse or elegance; he was continually boasting of his exploits, and no one liked him. When he saw Ukyo he fell in love with him; but he had not the delicacy to make his love known to him in some charming letter: he had not sufficiently good taste for that. He pursued Ukyo with smiles and tears whenever he saw him alone in the palace or the garden. But Ukyo despised him. The Lord had a servant with his head shaven, whose duty it was to take care of the utensils belonging to the tea ritual. He was named Shyusai Tushikï, and had become the intimate friend of Shyuzen; so he undertook to convey a message from him to Ukyo. Accordingly he said one day to Ukyo: 'I pray you to give Shyuzen a kind answer. He loves you passionately,' and gave him Shyuzen's letter. But Ukyo threw the letter away and said: 'It is not your business to carry love-letters. Attend to your duty of keeping the master's house clean for tea matters,' and went away. Shyuzen and Shyusaï were consumed with rage. They determined to kill Ukyo that same night, and then to run away. They could not endure the insult and humiliation which Ukyo had inflicted upon them, and made ready for their vicious deed. But Ukyo was warned of their plot and decided to kill them both before they Comrade-Love of the Samurai could attack him. He thought of speaking to Uneme about it, but, on reflection, told himself that it was unworthy of a samurai to speak about his business to his lover with the sole object of obtaining his help. Besides, he did not want to make Uneme his accomplice. So he decided to execute his plan by himself. It was the month of May and very wet. It rained heavily on that night.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  One evening, when I couldn't concentrate on anything, I went over to him and sat quickly on his lap. He had been waiting for Mother again. Bailey was listening to The Shadow and didn't miss me. At first Mr. Freeman sat still, not holding me or anything, then I felt a soft lump under my thigh begin to move. It twitched against me and started to harden. Then he pulled me to his chest. He smelled of coal dust and grease and he was so close I buried my face in his shirt and listened to his heart, it was beating just for me. Only I could hear the thud, only I could feel the jumping on my face. He said, “Sit still, stop squirming.” But all the time, he pushed me around on his lap, then suddenly he stood up and I slipped down to the floor. He ran to the bathroom. For months he stopped speaking to me again. I was hurt and for a time felt lonelier than ever. But then I forgot about him, and even the memory of his holding me precious melted into the general darkness just beyond the great blinkers of childhood. • • • I read more than ever, and wished my soul that I had been born a boy. Horatio Alger was the greatest writer in the world. His heroes were always good, always won and were always boys. I could have developed the first two virtues, but becoming a boy was sure to be difficult, if not impossible. The Sunday funnies influenced me, and although I admired the strong heroes who always conquered in the end, I identified with Tiny Tim. In the toilet, where I used to take the papers, it was tortuous to look for and exclude the unnecessary pages so that I could learn how he would finally outwit his latest adversary. I wept with relief every Sunday as he eluded the evil men and bounded back from each seeming defeat as sweet and gentle as ever. The Katzenjammer kids were fun because they made the adults look stupid. But they were a little too smart-alecky for my taste. When spring came to St. Louis, I took out my first library card, and since Bailey and I seemed to be growing apart, I spent most of my Saturdays at the library (no interruptions) breathing in the world of penniless shoeshine boys who, with goodness and perseverance, became rich, rich men, and gave baskets of goodies to the poor on holidays. The little princesses who were mistaken for maids, and the long-lost children mistaken for waifs, became more real to me than our house, our mother, our school or Mr. Freeman.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  Uneme saw him, and said: 'Dear friend, I have been very busy every evening amusing my Lord with Nô plays, and this evening I have only come out for a few moments to breathe a little air. I have read my master the ancient classical poem "Seuin Kokin," and was alone and without a friend except for the silent cherry blooms. I am very lonely.' And he looked tenderly at Samanosuke. `Here is another silent flower, Uneme,' said Samanosuke, and held out the letter to him. Uneme smiled at him and said: 'This letter cannot be for me, dear friend.' He went behind some thick trees to read it. He was touched by the letter, and kindly replied to Samanosuke: 'I cannot remain unmoved if he suffers so much for me.' When Ukyo received Uneme's answer, he was filled with joy, and quickly recovered his health. And the three young men loved each other with a loyal and harmonious love. Now it happened that their master took into his service a new courtier named Shyuzen Hosono. This man was rough, evil, and of a hasty temper; he had no finesse or elegance; he was continually boasting of his exploits, and no one liked him. When he saw Ukyo he fell in love with him; but he had not the delicacy to make his love known to him in some charming letter: he had not sufficiently good taste for that. He pursued Ukyo with smiles and tears whenever he saw him alone in the palace or the garden. But Ukyo despised him. The Lord had a servant with his head shaven, whose duty it was to take care of the utensils belonging to the tea ritual. He was named Shyusai Tushikï, and had become the intimate friend of Shyuzen; so he undertook to convey a message from him to Ukyo. Accordingly he said one day to Ukyo: 'I pray you to give Shyuzen a kind answer. He loves you passionately,' and gave him Shyuzen's letter. But Ukyo threw the letter away and said: 'It is not your business to carry love-letters. Attend to your duty of keeping the master's house clean for tea matters,' and went away. Shyuzen and Shyusaï were consumed with rage. They determined to kill Ukyo that same night, and then to run away. They could not endure the insult and humiliation which Ukyo had inflicted upon them, and made ready for their vicious deed. But Ukyo was warned of their plot and decided to kill them both before they Comrade-Love of the Samurai could attack him. He thought of speaking to Uneme about it, but, on reflection, told himself that it was unworthy of a samurai to speak about his business to his lover with the sole object of obtaining his help. Besides, he did not want to make Uneme his accomplice. So he decided to execute his plan by himself. It was the month of May and very wet. It rained heavily on that night.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  (c) In 11:13, he uses the word parepidēmos. A parepidēmos was a person who was staying there temporarily and who had a permanent home somewhere else. Sometimes, the stay was strictly limited. A parepidēmos was someone in lodgings, someone without a home in a particular place at a particular time. All their lives, the patriarchs were men who had no settled place that they could call home. It is to be noted that, in the ancient world, to dwell in a foreign land was considered humiliating; a certain stigma was attached to the foreigner in any country. In the Letter of Aristeas, the writer says: ‘It is a fine thing to live and to die in one’s native land; a foreign land brings contempt to poor men and shame to rich men, for there is the lurking suspicion that they have been exiled for the evil they have done.’ In Ecclesiasticus (29:22–8), there is a wistful passage: Better is the life of the poor under their own crude roof than sumptuous food in the house of others. Be content with little or much, and you will hear no reproach for being a guest. It is a miserable life to go from house to house; as a guest you should not open your mouth; you will play the host and provide drink without being thanked and besides this you will hear rude words like these: ‘Come here, stranger, prepare the table; let me eat what you have there.’ ‘Be off, stranger, for an honoured guest is here; my brother has come for a visit, and I need the guestroom. ’ It is hard for a sensible person to bear scolding about lodging and the insults of the moneylender. At any time, it is an unhappy thing to be a stranger in a foreign land; but, in the ancient world, to this natural unhappiness there was added the bitterness of humiliation. All their days, the patriarchs were strangers in a strange land. That image became a picture of the Christian life and is found in the works of the early Church fathers. Tertullian said of the Christian: ‘He knows that on earth he has a pilgrimage but that his dignity is in heaven.’ Clement of Alexandria said: ‘We have no fatherland on earth.’ Augustine said: ‘We are sojourners exiled from our fatherland.’ It was not that the Christians were foolishly other-worldly, detaching themselves from the life and work of this world; but they always remembered that they were people on the way. There is an unwritten saying of Jesus: ‘The world is a bridge. The wise will pass over it but will not build a house upon it.’ Christians regard themselves as the pilgrims of eternity.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  She stayed awake to drive me out to the car barn at four thirty in the mornings, or to pick me up when I was relieved just before dawn. Her awareness of life's perils convinced her that while I would be safe on the public conveyances, she “wasn't about to trust a taxi driver with her baby.” When the spring classes began, I resumed my commitment with formal education. I was so much wiser and older, so much more independent, with a bank account and clothes that I had bought for myself, that I was sure that I had learned and earned the magic formula which would make me a part of the gay life my contemporaries led. Not a bit of it. Within weeks, I realized that my schoolmates and I were on paths moving diametrically away from each other. They were concerned and excited over the approaching football games, but I had in my immediate past raced a car down a dark and foreign Mexican mountain. They concentrated great interest on who was worthy of being student body president, and when the metal bands would be removed from their teeth, while I remembered sleeping for a month in a wrecked automobile and conducting a streetcar in the uneven hours of the morning. Without willing it, I had gone from being ignorant of being ignorant to being aware of being aware. And the worst part of my awareness was that I didn't know what I was aware of. I knew I knew very little, but I was certain that the things I had yet to learn wouldn't be taught to me at George Washington High School. I began to cut classes, to walk in Golden Gate Park or wander along the shiny counter of the Emporium Department store. When Mother discovered that I was playing truant, she told me that if I didn't want to go to school one day, if there were no tests being held, and if my school work was up to standard, all I had to do was tell her and I could stay home. She said that she didn't want some white woman calling her up to tell her something about her child that she didn't know. And she didn't want to be put in the position of lying to a white woman because I wasn't woman enough to speak up. That put an end to my truancy, but nothing appeared to lighten the long gloomy day that going to school became. To be left alone on the tightrope of youthful unknowing is to experience the excruciating beauty of full freedom and the threat of eternal indecision. Few, if any, survive their teens. Most surrender to the vague but murderous pressure of adult conformity. It becomes easier to die and avoid conflicts than to maintain a constant battle with the superior forces of maturity.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  After hunting down unbroken bottles and selling them with a white girl from Missouri, a Mexican girl from Los Angeles and a Black girl from Oklahoma, I was never again to sense myself so solidly outside the pale of the human race. The lack of criticism evidenced by our ad hoc community influenced me, and set a tone of tolerance for my life. I telephoned Mother (her voice reminded me of another world) and asked her to send for me. When she said she was going to send my air ticket to Daddy, I explained that it would be easier if she simply sent my fare to the airline, then I'd pick it up. With the easy grace characteristic of Mother when she was given a chance to be magnanimous she agreed. The unrestrained life we had led made me believe that my new friends would be undemonstrative about my leaving. I was right. After I picked up my ticket I announced rather casually that I would be leaving the following day. My revelation was accepted with at least the equal amount of detachment (only it was not a pose) and everyone wished me well. I didn't want to say goodbye to the junkyard or to my car, so I spent my last night at an all-night movie. One girl, whose name and face have melted into the years, gave me “an all-enduring friendship ring,” and Juan gave me a black lace handkerchief just in case I wanted to go to church sometime. I arrived in San Francisco, leaner than usual, fairly unkempt, and with no luggage. Mother took one look and said, “Is the rationing that bad at your father's? You'd better have some food to stick to all those bones.” She, as she called it, turned to, and soon I sat at a clothed table with bowls of food, expressly cooked for me. I was at a home, again. And my mother was a fine lady. Dolores was a fool and, more important, a liar.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  Freeman, I simply didn't understand him either . For weeks after, he said nothing to me, except the gruff hellos which were given without ever looking in my direction. This was the first secret I had ever kept from Bailey and sometimes I thought he should be able to read it on my face, but he noticed nothing. I began to feel lonely for Mr. Freeman and the encasement of his big arms. Before, my world had been Bailey, food, Momma, the Store, reading books and Uncle Willie. Now, for the first time, it included physical contact. I began to wait for Mr. Freeman to come in from the yards, but when he did, he never noticed me, although I put a lot of feeling into “Good evening, Mr. Freeman.” One evening, when I couldn't concentrate on anything, I went over to him and sat quickly on his lap. He had been waiting for Mother again. Bailey was listening to The Shadow and didn't miss me. At first Mr. Freeman sat still, not holding me or anything, then I felt a soft lump under my thigh begin to move. It twitched against me and started to harden. Then he pulled me to his chest. He smelled of coal dust and grease and he was so close I buried my face in his shirt and listened to his heart, it was beating just for me. Only I could hear the thud, only I could feel the jumping on my face. He said, “Sit still, stop squirming.” But all the time, he pushed me around on his lap, then suddenly he stood up and I slipped down to the floor. He ran to the bathroom. For months he stopped speaking to me again. I was hurt and for a time felt lonelier than ever. But then I forgot about him, and even the memory of his holding me precious melted into the general darkness just beyond the great blinkers of childhood. • • • I read more than ever, and wished my soul that I had been born a boy. Horatio Alger was the greatest writer in the world. His heroes were always good, always won and were always boys. I could have developed the first two virtues, but becoming a boy was sure to be difficult, if not impossible. The Sunday funnies influenced me, and although I admired the strong heroes who always conquered in the end, I identified with Tiny Tim. In the toilet, where I used to take the papers, it was tortuous to look for and exclude the unnecessary pages so that I could learn how he would finally outwit his latest adversary. I wept with relief every Sunday as he eluded the evil men and bounded back from each seeming defeat as sweet and gentle as ever. The Katzenjammer kids were fun because they made the adults look stupid. But they were a little too smart-alecky for my taste. When spring came to St.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  11 I had decided that St. Louis was a foreign country. I would never get used to the scurrying sounds of flushing toilets, or the packaged foods, or doorbells or the noise of cars and trains and buses that crashed through the walls or slipped under the doors. In my mind I only stayed in St. Louis for a few weeks. As quickly as I understood that I had not reached my home, I sneaked away to Robin Hood's forest and the caves of Alley Oop where all reality was unreal and even that changed every day. I carried the same shield that I had used in Stamps: “I didn't come to stay.” Mother was competent in providing for us. Even if that meant getting someone else to furnish the provisions. Although she was a nurse, she never worked at her profession while we were with her. Mr. Freeman brought in the necessities and she earned extra money cutting poker games in gambling parlors. The straight eight-to-five world simply didn't have enough glamor for her, and it was twenty years later that I first saw her in a nurse's uniform. Mr. Freeman was a foreman in the Southern Pacific yards and came home late sometimes, after Mother had gone out. He took his dinner off the stove where she had carefully covered it and which she had admonished us not to bother. He ate quietly in the kitchen while Bailey and I read separately and greedily our own Street and Smith pulp magazine. Now that we had spending money, we bought the illustrated paperbacks with their gaudy pictures. When Mother was away, we were put on an honor system. We had to finish our homework, eat dinner and wash the dishes before we could read or listen to The Lone Ranger, Crime Busters or The Shadow. Mr. Freeman moved gracefully, like a big brown bear, and seldom spoke to us. He simply waited for Mother and put his whole self into the waiting. He never read the paper or patted his foot to radio. He waited. That was all. If she came home before we went to bed, we saw the man come alive. He would start out of the big chair, like a man coming out of sleep, smiling. I would remember then that a few seconds before, I had heard a car door slam; then Mother's footsteps would signal from the concrete walk. When her key rattled the door, Mr. Freeman would have already asked his habitual question, “Hey, Bibbi, have a good time?” His query would hang in the air while she sprang over to peck him on the lips. Then she turned to Bailey and me with the lipstick kisses. “Haven't you finished your homework?” If we had and were just reading—“O.K., say your prayers and go to bed.” If we hadn't—“Then go to your room and finish ... then say your prayers and go to bed.” Mr.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  Poor Brother Taylor had been taking meals all over town, ever since he buried his wife in the summer. Maybe due to the fact that I was in my romanticist period, or because children have a built-in survival apparatus, I feared he was interested in marrying Momma and moving in with us. Uncle Willie cradled the Almanac in his divided lap. “You welcome here anytime, Brother Taylor, anytime, but this is a bad night. It say right here”—with his crippled hand he rapped the Almanac —“that November twelfth, a storm going to be moving over Stamps out of the east. A rough night.” Mr. Taylor remained exactly in the same position he had taken when he arrived, like a person too cold to readjust his body even to get closer to the fire. His neck was bent and the red light played over the polished skin of his hairless head. But his eyes bound me with a unique attraction. They sat deep in his little face and completely dominated the other features with a roundness which seemed to be outlined in dark pencil, giving him an owlish appearance. And when he sensed my regarding him so steadily his head hardly moved but his eyes swirled and landed on me. If his look had contained contempt or patronage, or any of the vulgar emotions revealed by adults in confrontation with children, I would have easily gone back to my book, but his eyes gave off a watery nothing—a nothingness which was completely unbearable. I saw a glassiness, observed before only in new marbles or a bottle top embedded in a block of ice. His glance moved so swiftly from me it was nearly possible to imagine that I had in fact imagined the interchange. “But, as I say, you welcome. We can always make a place under this roof.” Uncle Willie didn't seem to notice that Mr. Taylor was oblivious to everything he said. Momma brought the soup into the room, took the kettle off the heater and placed the steaming pot on the fire. Uncle Willie continued, “Momma, I told Brother Taylor he is welcome here anytime.” Momma said, “That's right, Brother Taylor. You not supposed to sit around that lonely house feeling sorry for yourself. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.” I'm not sure whether it was Momma's presence or the bubbling soup on the stove which influenced him, but Mr. Taylor appeared to have livened up considerably. He shook his shoulders as if shaking off a tiresome touch, and attempted a smile that failed. “Sister Henderson, I sure appreciate … I mean, I don't know what I'd do if it wasn't for everybody … I mean, you don't know what it's worth to me to be able to … Well, I mean I'm thankful.” At each pause, he pecked his head over his chest like a turtle coming out of its shell, but his eyes didn't move.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  Unfortunately, one of the most common ways people with exceptional gender and sexual traits try to counter such discrimination is by neutralizing the significance of their particular exceptional traits while simultaneously emphasizing the ways in which they otherwise uphold oppositional sexist ideals. For example, many people who are attracted to members of their own sex have tried to convince the predominantly straight mainstream public that “we’re just like you except for our sexual orientation.” This, of course, plays down the reality that many people who identify as bisexual, gay, or lesbian also have exceptional gender expressions, sex characteristics, and/or subconscious sexes. At the same time, many people in the transgender community have tried to neutralize their exceptional gender traits by stressing their heterosexuality: Some transsexuals insist that their goal is to become “normal” women or men (i.e., straight, with appropriate gender expression); and male crossdressers often emphasize the fact that they identify as men and are attracted to women (i.e., “normal” subconscious sex and sexual orientation). The obvious problem with all of these approaches is that they marginalize those who have multiple exceptional gender and sexual traits. And their limited success is ultimately due to the fact that they attempt to cure the symptom (homophobia, transphobia, etc.) rather than the source of the problem (oppositional sexism). After all, the reason the mainstream public regularly confuses homosexuals, bisexuals, transgender people, and intersex people is that, in their eyes, we all represent the same thing. We are all often lumped together as “queer”—exceptions that challenge the mainstream oppositional assumptions about gender. Therefore, while it is important to educate people about the distinctions between different gender inclinations and sex characteristics, and the unique identities, issues, and challenges each minority group faces because of those specific differences, it is also important to stand together to challenge the myth that women and men are “opposites.” In my experience as a trans activist, I have found that the biggest obstacle facing those who fall under the “queer” or “LGBTIQ” umbrella, with regards to coming together to challenge oppositional sexism, is primarily a conceptual one. Over the years, different queer subgroups have each developed their own theories and language to describe and communicate their particular struggles. Many of these concepts, while effective in single-inclination activism, are counterproductive in the fight against oppositional sexism because they marginalize and make invisible the experiences of other queers.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  38.I walked Dominic and then kept him shut up in the pantry the rest of the night. In him I saw a symbol of everything standing in the way of Theo and me being together freely. It wasn’t a problem with the sea but a problem with the land. I went to Abbot Kinney to try to distract myself. If I could be light about this, like the way I felt shopping for those other dates, maybe I could fool myself into thinking there would be life on the other side. But as I stood in the sun, each of the boutiques looked like fake storefronts—empty, like a film set. At one of the cheaper boutiques, I decided I was going to steal something: an adjustable ring with a blue stone in it. I brought it into the dressing room with me and stuck it in my bra, then walked out. It made me feel high for a minute, an adrenaline rush, but then the doom set in again. I felt sick and sad. Under a pair of palm trees on the street corner I threw up on a grate. I couldn’t believe how physical or immediate my loneliness was. I needed help, some kind of comfort, to get through until I could see him again, a place to vent. I needed someone warm who might not judge me. I called Claire and left her a long message on her voicemail. “Hi, it’s me. I’m over my head with the swimmer and fucked up. I think I might be dying. Have you ever felt like you are dying from your experiences with these guys? I mean, I know you have. But what about, really dying? Like, in a totally physical way? I think I’m actually sick, Claire. I puked in front of a bunch of Euro tourists on Abbot Kinney. I hate people and their normal lives. Anyway, can you call me back? Please? I’m sorry if I have been horrible.” I threw up again in front of a boutique called Safe Sox that sold expensive patterned socks: argyle, stripes, superheroes, marijuana leaves. I didn’t give a fuck if anyone saw, what anyone thought. Fuck them and their stupid socks. Why were people personalizing their feet with something no one else would ever see? Didn’t they know their socks were futile?! Could you get any more Sisyphean than a pair of socks emblazoned with sushi rolls? I wandered in and out of stores, like a ghost. I looked at all the people and they seemed inconsequential: deluded and interchangeable. Anything I used to worry about meant nothing now.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  1.I was no longer lonely but I was. I had Dominic, my sister’s diabetic foxhound, who followed me from room to room, lumbering onto my lap, unaware of his bulk. I liked the smell of his meaty breath, which he didn’t know was rancid. I liked the warmth of his fat belly, the primal way he crouched when he took a shit. It felt so intimate scooping his gigantic shits, the big hot bags of them. I thought, This is the proper use of my love, this is the man for me, this is the way. The beach house was a contemporary glass fortress, sparse enough to remind me nothing of my life back home. I could disappear in a good way: as if never having existed, unlike the way I felt I was disappearing all fall, winter, and spring in my hot, cluttered apartment in Phoenix, surrounded by reminders of myself and Jamie, suffocating in what was mine. There are good and bad ways of vanishing. I wanted no more belongings. On the second-story deck of the beach house I escaped the hell of my own smelly bathrobe, wearing one of the silk kimonos my sister had left behind. I fell asleep out there every night, tipsy on white wine, under the Venice stars, with my feet tucked under Dominic’s gut, belonging to nothing familiar. I felt no pressure to fall asleep, and so, after nine months of insomnia, I was finally able to drift off easily every night. Then at three a.m. I would wake gently and traipse to the bed with the Egyptian cotton sheets, kicking my legs all over them in celebration, rolling around and touching my own skin as though I were a stranger touching someone foreign, or cradling the big back of the dog to my front to die to the world for another eight hours. I might have even been happy. —And yet, walking on Abbot Kinney Boulevard one night at the end of my first week there, passing the windows of the yuppie shops—each their own white cube gallery—I saw two people, a man and a woman, early twenties maybe, definitely on a first or second date, and I knew I still wasn’t okay. They were discussing intently where they should go to eat and drink, as though it really mattered. He had an accent, German, I think, and was handsome and fuckable: hair close-cropped and boyish, strong arms, an Adam’s apple that protruded and made me think of sucking on it. The woman was, as the undergrads at the Arizona university where I worked as a librarian might say, a butterface.