Love

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 The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  The whistle sounded again, and then the train appeared around the bend through the trees and rumbled toward the station, its massive twin headlights pale in the bright November afternoon. The train eased to a stop. The electric engines hummed and vibrated, and after a long pause, the doors opened. Passengers spilled out, carrying their folded newspapers and canvas weekend bags and brightly colored coats. Through the crowd, I saw Mom and Lori getting out at the back of the train, and I waved. It had been five years since Dad died. I had seen Mom only sporadically since then, and she’d never met John nor been to the old country farmhouse we’d bought the year before. It had been John’s idea to invite her and Lori and Brian out to the house for Thanksgiving, the first Walls family get-together since Dad’s funeral. Mom broke into a huge smile and started hurrying toward us. Instead of an overcoat, she was wearing what looked to be about four sweaters and a shawl, a pair of corduroy trousers, and some old sneakers. She carried bulky shopping bags in both hands. Lori, behind her, wore a black cape and a black fedora. They made quite a pair. Mom hugged me. Her long hair was mostly gray, but her cheeks were rosy and her eyes as bright as ever. Then Lori hugged me, and I introduced John. “Excuse my attire,” Mom said, “but I plan to change out of my comfy shoes into some dress shoes for dinner.” She reached into one of her shopping bags and pulled out a pair of banged-up penny loafers. • • • The winding road back to the house led under stone bridges, through woods and villages, and past marsh ponds where swans floated on mirrorlike water. Most of the leaves had fallen, and gusts of wind sent them spiraling along the roadside. Through the thickets of bare trees, you could see houses that were invisible during the summer. As he drove, John told Mom and Lori about the area, about the duck farms and the flower farms and the Indian origin of our town’s name. Sitting beside him, I studied his profile and couldn’t help smiling. John wrote books and magazine articles. Like me, he had moved around a lot while growing up, but his mother had been raised in an Appalachian village in Tennessee, about a hundred miles southwest of Welch, so you could say our families hailed from the same neck of the woods. I’d never met a man I would rather spend time with. I loved him for all sorts of reasons: He cooked without recipes; he wrote nonsense poems for his nieces; his large, warm family had accepted me as one of their own. And when I first showed him my scar, he said it was interesting.

• From Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)

  I read the book over and over, read it out loud to my brothers over the phone, then went to the library and said, “Do you have any other really funny books about cancer?” And they looked at me like, Yeah, they’re right over there by the comedies about spina bifida. There didn’t seem to be any. A book about our experience, showing one family’s attempt to stay buoyant in the face of such a potentially flattening process, seemed like it might be a welcome present to other people with sick relatives. This is all I tried to do, to tell our family’s story, because with an enormous amount of support from friends, there were laughter and joy folded into all that fear and loss. It helped my father have the best possible months before his death and the best possible death. I can actually say that it was great. Hard, and fucked six ways from Sunday, but great. Of course, not everyone loved my book. There were some terrible reviews. My personal favorite was from a newspaper in Santa Barbara, which said that our black sense of humor made us look like a New Age Addams family. “Here’s your review from Santa Barbara,” my editor wrote on a note enclosed with it, “where people never die.” Fifteen years later my friend Pammy was diagnosed with breast cancer. I had been keeping a journal about my new son, whom she was helping me raise, so most of the journal entries already included her. And now all of a sudden it turned out that she was not going to be around for much longer. So I started typing up the journal entries and sending them off to my agent. Sam was getting bigger and Pammy was getting sicker, and I was writing as fast as I could, trying to get it done in time for her to read it. And I did. I gave her a finished copy four months before she died. It was another love letter, mostly to her and Sam, and for her daughter, Rebecca. Pammy knew there was something that was going to exist on paper after she was gone, something that was going to be, in a certain way, part of her immortality. Again, there was a part of me that believed that my journal could be a gift for others, for single mothers. I couldn’t find any books about single parenting when Sam was first born that were funny and sick and therefore true. There were some great books on child rearing, but none that made me laugh, and none that went into the dark side, the Seventh-Seal-with- milky-bras part. They were all so nicey-nice and rational and suggested that surely if you did this or that, the colicky little darling would come around, pull himself or herself together, get a grip.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  It doesn’t take long for our shared enthusiasm for what the latest science says about human nature and human potential to take hold of us. Although I’m fairly low-key by nature, this sort of conversation can get me pretty animated. My gestures and smiles convey not only my enthusiasm for the ideas but also my appreciation for your thoughtful questions and examples. I’m attuned to you, sympathetic to your input, and responding to all the subtle cues that reveal how effectively we’re communicating. From my perspective, your smiles, nods, and other gestures of your own positivity and attunement don’t just exist “out there” in you. When we meet each other’s gaze, they also come to exist, in a very real way, inside me. Within milliseconds my brain and body begin to buzz with your enthusiasm and appreciation, and your attunement to me. The more this happens, the more I come to feel the same way as you, both enthused and appreciative, responsive and sympathetic. Soon enough these feelings surface on my face and emanate through my voice and gestures. As our eyes continue to meet, a parallel simulation process flows forth within you, as the dynamics unfolding within your brain and body begin to pattern mine. A back-and-forth reverberation stretches out between us. Increasingly, with each passing micro-moment, you and I come to feel the same way. We’re in sync, attuned. Positivity resonance has established a connection between us, as your and my brain activity and biochemistry increasingly become one and the same. A positivity-infused interweaving of our hearts and minds emerges, a momentary state scientists have called intersubjectivity. You can think of this as a miniature version of what Star Trek’s infamous Dr. Spock called a mind meld. Yet both expressions, in my view, are too focused on the mind, too heartless. For it’s vital, too, that the emotional tone of our momentary meld, our interweaving, is warm, open, trusting, and full of genuine care and concern for each other. Some would call what is happening between us rapport. Yet the more I understand the science behind positivity resonance, the more I think this description misleads. Rapport sounds optional, superfluous. Something you’d be just as healthy with or without. Given the vital role that positivity resonance plays in our survival, such states warrant elevation. That’s why I call them love, our supreme emotion. Micro-moments like these are those essential nutrients of which most of us in modern life aren’t getting enough. So what’s a smile for? Traditional views hold that smiles have evolved to reveal the inner state of the person who smiles.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  Use the phrases to extend your goodwill as far as you can. As you end your meditation, gently remind yourself that you can generate these feelings of kindness and warmth anytime you wish. By taking time with this activity, you’ve begun to condition your emotions to more readily do just that. You’ll now be better prepared to experience true connection with others. Beginning a meditation practice is a very personal project. People differ in the kinds of external support they need to get started and to stay with it. The most important step to take is to allocate time to practice. Keep in mind that our research shows that just sixty minutes a week can make a noticeable difference in your life. You might thus choose to set your alarm for ten minutes earlier each morning to practice with the LKM phrases completely on your own. If you find yourself losing focus, you can follow any number of guided meditations until your focus and follow-through become stronger. I’ve included a few such guided meditations free for you to download at www.PositivityResonance.com . Other great meditation aids are also available, and I point out a few of my favorites under Recommended Reading in the back of this book. I also highly recommend taking a meditation class or workshop. Ask for one at your local hospital, gym, or wellness center. Love 2.0: The View from Here Love is not simply something you stumble or fall into. While love can certainly catch you by surprise, like a sudden rain, unlike the weather, you can also seed and cultivate the conditions for love all on your own. All it takes is that you develop an eye and a feel for love and for the contexts in which you might seed it. Slow down and prepare your own heart and mind to be truly open to others. Reflect on moments of connection, actively seek these moments out, or condition your heart with the time-tested good wishes of loving-kindness meditation. Try these practices and watch what then unfolds between you and others, using your own body as your tuning fork to spot love’s presence. With any of the practices that I offer in this chapter, you take steps toward shifting your attention away from yourself and toward others, a shift that in itself opens countless opportunities for love. Notice how this shift feels inside your body. Notice how energized you get in a bona fide moment of positivity resonance. Conversations become deeper and more meaningful, connections stronger.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  —Mi hermana tiene un cambio de ropa en su auto —responde, todavía sonando impaciente conmigo—. Estoy bien, y estaré en casa más tarde, ¿de acuerdo? Llega al Mustang blanco de Cam en el atestado estacionamiento y va al lado del conductor. —Detente. —Acercándome por detrás, pongo mi mano en la puerta frente a ella—. Solo déjame explicarte. Se gira, con una mirada comprensiva en su rostro. —Oh, estoy segura que tienes una excusa. Una muy buena. No te preocupes. Se da la vuelta y busca el mango, pero necesito que escuche. Sólo por un segundo. —Detente. Por favor. —Respiro con fuerza, mirando la parte posterior de su cabeza—. Jordan, yo... Trago saliva, solo quiero que se gire y me mire con su dulce sonrisa y sus dulces ojos otra vez. Dejo caer mi voz a apenas un susurro. —No puedo perderlo —le digo. Se congela, y lo único que puedo escuchar es su respiración. ¿Se arrepintió cuando se despertó esta mañana? Finalmente se da vuelta y me mira, asintiendo con calma. —Lo sé —dice en voz baja—. Entonces tienes que perderme, lo entiendo. Tampoco quiero lastimarlo. Gira nuevamente para abrir la puerta, pero mi cabeza cae hacia su cuello y mis ojos se cierran. Es como el agua que se desliza entre mis dedos, y me estoy muriendo aquí. —Me estoy enamorando de ti —le susurro. Se da la vuelta lentamente otra vez, y no sé si debí haberle dicho eso, pero alzo mis ojos cansados, observando su expresión tranquila. Sus ojos se ven igualmente derrotados y algo atrapado entre el deseo y la lucha por contenerse. —Sabía que estabas ahí en algún lado —le digo, esbozando una sonrisa triste— . Las novias, mujeres con las que salí, la madre de Cole... Nunca quise casarme con nadie, porque no eran lo que estaba buscando. Comencé a pensar que mis expectativas eran demasiado altas, y tú no existías. —Le aprieto la nuca y deslizo los pulgares por su garganta—. Resulta que la chica de mis sueños pertenece a la única persona que me mataría lastimar. Lágrimas inundan sus ojos, y la atraigo, mis labios encontrándose con su frente. —No quiero asustarte —continúo—. Pero me asustas un poco, porque te deseo como si necesitara aire, y... Asiente. —Y complicaciones. —Termina por mí. Alejándose, mira hacia otro lado y ninguno de nosotros está seguro de qué hacer a continuación. El problema está allí para quedarse. —Necesitaba tiempo para pensar esta noche —le explico—. Lamento haberte plantado. —¿Y qué descubriste? —Baja los ojos, tirando de mi maldito corazón—. ¿Con toda tu reflexión? No vacilo, porque sé que no puedo parar. —Que puedo dejar de sentirme culpable hasta mañana.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  —Jordan —susurro contra su piel. No sé por qué digo su nombre, pero creo que tengo miedo de que no esté realmente aquí y todo esto sea un sueño. Sus dedos se enredan en mi cabello, y me deslizo sobre ella. Alejando el sudor de su frente, la miro fijamente, observando sus mejillas sonrojadas y sus ojos brillantes, su pequeña camisa se ha levantado, exponiendo sus hermosos pechos y pezones. Bajo, tomando uno en mi boca, chupando y arrastrándolo como a su clítoris. Gime y sus manos regresan para envolverse alrededor de mi nuca. Cambio al otro, arrastrando una mano por su cuerpo e intentando asimilarla tanto como pueda. Sé que todo lo que hacemos está mal, y no sé cómo voy a explicar esto a alguien, pero aquí mismo —en este momento— no quiero estar en ningún otro lado. Ojalá pudiera morir tan feliz como lo estoy ahora. Aquí, en la oscuridad de la noche, en esta habitación oscura, detrás de una puerta cerrada, no necesitamos explicarle nada a nadie. Porque solo este momento, es nuestro. Me levanto de la cama y me pongo de pie, desabrochando mi cinturón y abriendo mis jeans. Busco en la mesita de noche y saco un condón de la caja, volviendo a levantarme y mirándola. Tiene las piernas cerradas, una rodilla ligeramente arqueada y las manos a los costados, frotando el edredón mientras me mira. —¿Estás segura de esto? —le pregunto. Asiente. Me quito las botas y el resto de la ropa, poniéndome de pie otra vez. Al abrir el paquete, la miro, pero sus ojos se han reducido a otra cosa, su respiración se hace cada vez más superficial. Siento una sonrisa curvar las comisuras de mis labios, preguntándome cuántas otras palabras adultas sabe. Pero no tengo la oportunidad de preguntar. Se sienta, balanceando sus piernas sobre el borde de la cama, y va por mi polla, llevándosela a la boca. Gimo y jadeo al mismo tiempo, su lengua está húmeda y caliente cuando se retira y chupa la punta. —Jordan, por favor. —Agarro la parte posterior de su cabello, tratando de alejarla suavemente—. Eso me pondrá al borde, y quiero que te corras de nuevo. Empujándola hacia atrás en la cama, me poso sobre ella, derritiéndome en su boca y besándola profundamente. Me acurruco entre sus piernas, y dobla sus rodillas mientras desliza sus uñas por mi espalda. Deslizando mi mano debajo de su cuerpo, agarro su culo y presiono nuestros cuerpos, el mundo gira detrás de mis ojos cerrados. Tenerla debajo de mí, piel sobre piel... mi polla está tan dura que no puedo soportarlo. Esto es mío. Recostándome sobre mis talones, me coloco el condón, sin apartar la vista de ella. —Estoy un poco asustada —dice, la preocupación arrugando su frente. Me detengo, tratando de no apretar el puño alrededor de mi polla con demasiada fuerza. ¿Asustada? —¿Qué pasa si hago demasiado ruido? —susurra.

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  she was with him, time stood still. Every cliche she’d ever heard about love made complete sense. “I don’t mean to pry, Vix,” Abby said, “but how serious is it with you and Bru?” How serious? Did she mean were they making plans? They never talked about the future. Wasn’t it enough to be in love? Totally, completely, hopelessly in love? “I just want you to give yourself every opportunity,” Abby told her. “Don’t mistake physical attraction for love. I did, when I was your age, and it cost me ... and ultimately, Daniel, too. I was engaged to Daniel’s father when I was just nineteen. Nineteen, Vix. What did I know at nineteen? And nobody tried to stop me. My mother was pleased because he was a law student, someone who’d be able to provide for me. She never thought I should learn to provide for myself.” “Don’t worry ...” Vix said. “I’m going to provide for myself. I have goals.” Isn’t that the motto she’d chosen for her senior page in the Mountain Day yearbook? A life without goals isn’t worth living. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Caitlin had asked when she’d seen Vix’s yearbook. “Goals. Haven’t you ever heard of goals?” “What goals are we talking about? I’d say a life without adventure isn’t worth living, a life without learning, a life without sex, even ...” “It’s just a quote,” Vix said. “It doesn’t have any hidden meaning.” She couldn’t admit that her goals included escaping from her family, finding out what else was out there, trying out life on her own, though she knew Caitlin would have applauded her. Instead she asked Caitlin, “What does your quote mean?” “Mean?” “Yes ... since you’re making such a thing out of mine. What exactly does ‘Tiger, tiger, burning bright’ mean to you?” “It’s who I am,” Caitlin said. “It’s how I define myself.” “Really,” Vix said. “Yes, really,” Caitlin answered. Then she looked hard at Vix. “Why are we having this conversation? Why are we acting as if we’re angry. Are

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  the flower farms and the Indian origin of our town’s name. Sitting beside him, I studied his profile and couldn’t help smiling. John wrote books and magazine articles. Like me, he had moved around a lot while growing up, but his mother had been raised in an Appalachian village in Tennessee, about a hundred miles southwest of Welch, so you could say our families hailed from the same neck of the woods. I’d never met a man I would rather spend time with. I loved him for all sorts of reasons: He cooked without recipes; he wrote nonsense poems for his nieces; his large, warm family had accepted me as one of their own. And when I first showed him my scar, he said it was interesting. He used the word “textured.” He said “smooth” was boring but “textured” was interesting, and the scar meant that I was stronger than whatever it was that had tried to hurt me. • • • We pulled into the drive. Jessica, John’s fifteen-year-old daughter from his first marriage, came out of the house, along with Brian and his eight-year-old daughter, Veronica, and their bull mastiff, Charlie. Brian hadn’t seen much of Mom since Dad’s funeral, either. He hugged her and immediately started ribbing her about the plucked-from-the-Dumpster presents she’d brought for everyone in the shopping bags: rusting silverware, old books and magazines, a few pieces of fine bone china from the twenties with only minor chips. Brian had become a decorated sergeant detective, supervising a special unit that investigated organized crime. He and his wife had split up around the time Eric and I did, but he had consoled himself by buying and renovating a wreck of a town house in Brooklyn. He put in new wiring and plumbing, a new firebox, reinforced floor joists, and a new porch all on his own. It was the second time he’d taken on a true dump and restored it to perfection. Also, at least two women were after him to marry them. He was doing pretty darn well. We showed Mom and Lori the gardens, which were ready for winter. John and I had done all the work ourselves: raked the leaves and shredded them in the chipper, cut back the dead perennials and mulched the beds, shoveled compost onto the vegetable garden and tilled it, and dug up the dahlia bulbs and stored them in a bucket of sand in the basement. John had also split and stacked the wood from a dead maple we’d cut down, and climbed up on the roof to replace some rotted cedar shingles.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Se siente tan cohibida, y es adorable. La abrazo, sintiéndome tan lleno, porque todo lo que necesito es ella en mis brazos ahora. Sus curvas encajan perfectamente conmigo, y estoy lleno. Mi pecho se llena de algo que es prácticamente demasiado para poder contener. Ella respira calmadamente, y deslizo mi mano sobre su estómago desnudo, mi cuerpo vuelve a la vida por ella. Tan fácilmente, como siempre lo hace. De pronto, su pequeña voz interrumpe una vez más el silencioso cuarto. —Me embarazaste —susurra. No me muevo. ¿Qué dijo? No, eso no puede ser verdad. Hemos tenido cuidado. Cuando no digo nada, gira para mirarme. —No tuve mi período la semana pasada —dice tímidamente—. Me hice unas pruebas en la mañana. Mi mejor suposición es que tengo un mes. Cierro los ojos. Dios mío. ¿Un bebé? Mi bebé. —Espero que tenga mis ojos —dice. Abro los míos. —¿Tus ojos? —Bueno, ella será una mezcla de ambos después de todo —explica—, y quiero que tenga tu sonrisa. Eso lo pone parejo, ¿verdad? Toco su rostro. —¿Estás segura? ¿Un bebé? Asiente. —Estoy segura. —Me mira con cautela y pregunta—. ¿Está bien? Abro mi boca, pero ninguna palabra sale. ¿Un bebé? Me imagino despertando con un infante a mitad de la noche, asientos para auto, y caricaturas, y me siento abrumado, pero extrañamente, me siento… tan jodidamente enamorado de ella y de la idea de su cuerpo creciendo con mi niño. Pero quería que tuviera opciones. ¿Realmente quiere esto? Lo único que sé, es que la quiero a ella. Quiero todo con ella, y deseo, por su bien, que todavía no lo estuviera, pero lo querría eventualmente. —Te amo —susurro—. Te amo tanto. Exhala y sonríe como si hubiera estado conteniendo el aliento todo ese tiempo, y se coloca sobre mí, a horcajadas. —Te amo, también. —Me besa, su cuerpo desnudo acoplándose al mío—. Estaba tan nerviosa. No estaba segura si querías más niños, o… —Shh, nena —le digo, besándola y sosteniendo su rostro—. Te amo. Es solo… —me detengo y luego continúo, mirándola a los ojos—, estás atrapada conmigo, ¿no es así? Me regala una pequeña sonrisa, y tomo su trasero en mis manos. —He visto muchas veces el amor fracasado, Pike —dice—. Ambos lo hemos visto, ¿no es así? —Y luego se mueve contra mí, despertando mi cuerpo de inmediato—. Este es de la buena clase. Cuando lo encuentras, lo conservas. Nada es más importante. Me pongo duro, mientras ella se mueve contra mí, y tomo su rostro, mirándola a los ojos. —¿Me amas? —pregunta. —Nunca dejaré de amarte. Se agacha y me besa, cerniendo sus labios sobre los míos. —Entonces, soy muy afortunada —susurra—. Somos tan afortunados. Clavo mis manos en ella y la acerco, pero de pronto no hay nada aquí, y abro los ojos, viendo que mis brazos están vacíos. Era un sueño, y no puedo calmar mi respiración. Apartando las sabanas, me siento, columpiando mis piernas, y cubriéndome la cabeza con las manos.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  May all children feel happy. May all children feel healthy. May all children live with ease. As you extend these wishes, gently coax yourself to truly feel the sentiment that underlies that simple word all. Give this one word just a bit more emphasis than the other words, to nudge your heart just a bit wider with each wish you offer. May all adults feel safe. May all adults feel happy. May all adults feel healthy. May all adults live with ease. As you end this practice session and move on into your day, know that each person you encounter has already been the focus of your loving intention today. Use that awareness to forge new micro-moments of connection. Unlock Your Opportunities for Focusing on Others Outside the formal practice of LKM for all people, it can be heart-stretching simply to notice how much of your attention each day is devoted to your own concerns. There’s nothing inherently wrong with self-concerns. You are responsible, after all, for navigating yourself through your day, and at times doing so can require planning or strategic self-presentation. Problems arise only when you get swept up in swirls that appear to run on indefinitely. It can seem, sometimes, as if you’ve entered a hall of mirrors, completely alone. All you see reflected back at you is yet another view of the same self-concern, and you can no longer find the way out. Redirecting your focus toward others is the way out. Your intent, of course, matters. Focusing on others comes in many forms, not all of which are generous. It can be yet another selfish act. I spent several years early in my career cataloging the psychological damage done to girls and women who face the message that they can be reduced to how they look. The question an objectifying stance asks is, “What can you do for me?” By contrast, a genuine wish to understand and appreciate who this other person is asks, “Who are you?” and trusts that taking steps to find out will reveal inherent goodness. From this openhearted perspective, caring sentiments surface quite effortlessly. One way to become more mindful of the degrees of your focus on self versus others is to revisit a typical day—your yesterday—and comb through it episode by episode. In doing so, you uncover the sheer number of untapped opportunities for creating micro-moments of positivity resonance. This added awareness can then inspire you to begin turning toward these recurrent opportunities, rather than let them slip away unnoticed. Try This Micro-Moment Practice: Reconstruct Your Yesterday to Uncover Opportunities for Love Here I walk you through how you can adapt an assessment technique developed by a former collaborator and mentor of mine, Nobel Prize–winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman, author of the best-selling book Thinking, Fast and Slow. It’s called the “Day Reconstruction Method,” or DRM for short. You can use it to review and evaluate your daily habits of mind as well as your emotions, both actual and possible.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  Hasson’s work suggests that when you share your positive emotions with others, when you experience positivity resonance together with this sense of expansion, it’s also deeply physical, evident in your brain. The emotional understanding of true empathy recruits coinciding brain activity in both you and the person of your focus. Another telling brain imaging study, this one conducted by scientists in Taipei, Taiwan, illustrates self-other overlap at the neuronal level. Imagine for a moment being a participant in this study. While you are in the fMRI brain scanner, the researchers show you a number of short, animated scenes and ask you to picture yourself in these scenes. Some of these scenes depict painful events, like dropping something heavy on your toe or getting your fingers pinched in a closing door. What the brain images show is that, compared to imagining neutral, nonpainful situations, imagining yourself in these painful situations lights up the well-known network of brain areas associated with pain processing, including the insula, that area linked with conscious feeling states. When you are later asked to imagine these same painful events happening to a loved one—your spouse, your best friend, or your child, for instance—these same brain areas light up. By and large, then, your loved one’s pain is your pain. By contrast, when you imagine these painful events happening to complete strangers, a different pattern of activation emerges altogether, one that shows little activation in the insula and more activation in areas linked with distinguishing and distancing yourself from others, and actively inhibiting or regulating emotions, as if to prevent their pain from becoming your pain. At the level of brain activity during imagined pain, you and your beloved are virtually indistinguishable. Whereas the Taipei research team defined love to be a lasting loving relationship (what, for clarity’s sake, I call a bond), the work from Hasson’s team at Princeton tells me that neural synchrony and overlap can also unfold between you and a complete stranger—if you let it. Positivity resonance between brains, as it turns out, requires only connection, not the intimacy or shared history that comes with a special bond. Even so, the distinctions revealed in the Taipei study, between imagining your loved one’s pain and imagining a stranger’s pain, underscore that stifled emotions and guarded personal boundaries, while at times necessary and fully appropriate, can also function as obstacles to positivity resonance. As we’ll see in the next section, your attunement to various opportunities for positive connection with others is supported not just by neural synchrony, but by the hormone oxytocin as well. Biochemistries in Love

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  Currently, my PEP Lab is pushing to learn even more about the biological pathways that account for the various health benefits of loving connections by investigating how love changes you at the cellular level. We now periodically draw blood from all our study volunteers and, in collaboration with UCLA genomics expert Steve Cole, we’re tracking how random assignment to the “love” condition changes the ways people’s DNA gets expressed within their cells. Past work discovered that chronic loneliness—a persistent yearning for more positivity resonance—compromises the ways a person’s genes are expressed, particularly in aspects of the white blood cells of the immune system that govern inflammation. We’re testing the hypothesis that learning to increase the frequency of loving connections alters gene expression in ways that fortify disease resistance and in turn keep people in good health. Insight into how everyday moments of love register and resonate within the human body helps make sense of the groundswell of evidence that links experiences of positive social connections to health and longevity. Mountains of research have documented that people who have diverse and rewarding relationships with others are healthier and live longer. A more recent wave of longitudinal studies specifically ties positive emotions to healthy longevity. These studies suggest that a lack of positivity resonance is in fact more damaging to your health than smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol excessively, or being obese. Specifically, these studies tell us that people who experience more warm and caring connections with others have fewer colds, lower blood pressure, and less often succumb to heart disease and stroke, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, and some cancers. Many of the key conditions that threaten to set you back or shorten your life can thus be staved off by upgrading how and how frequently you connect with others. Love 2.0: The View from Here Love, as we’ve seen here, ripples out through space and time. In a moment of positivity resonance, studies show, your awareness automatically expands, allowing you to appreciate more than you typically do. Also quite automatically, your body leans in toward and affirms the other person, and begins a subtle synchronized dance that further reinforces your connection. Over time, these powerful moments change who you are. They help expand your network of relationships and grow your resilience, wisdom, and physical health. These ripples don’t just affect you. They also affect the people with whom you share your moments of positivity resonance. So as you upgrade your view of love and learn to cultivate more micro-moments of it, you not only get benefits, you give benefits. This repeated back-and-forth sharing, however small or subtle, helps establish and strengthen healthy communities and cultures.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  The Second Nun’s Tale Heere bigynneth the Second Nonnes Tale of the lyf of Seinte Cecile This holy maid, Cecilia, came from Rome. She was of noble family, and from her cradle she was brought up in the religion of Christ. She studied the gospels faithfully, and all the time prayed that Almighty God might preserve her virginity. Yet it was deemed necessary for her to wed. Her bridegroom, Valerian, was a young man of noble descent. When the day came for their marriage, she retained all of her humility and piety. Beneath her golden wedding gown she wore a hair shirt next to her tender flesh. While the organ played, and the music filled the church, Cecilia sang a secret song in her heart to God. ‘Oh Lord,’ she prayed, ‘preserve me undefiled in body and in soul.’ For the love she bore to Christ she vowed to fast on every second and third day, spending those hours in prayer. Night fell, and the time came for bed. She must lie with her husband, according to custom, but before this took place she whispered to him, ‘My sweet and beloved husband, I have something to say to you in confidence. If I tell you this secret, will you promise never to betray it?’ He made the promise, of course, and swore an oath that he would never reveal what she said to him. So she told him. ‘I have an angel that so loves me that he protects me night and day. He stands guard over my body. ‘Believe what I say. If he should see you touching me, for the purposes of love or of lust, he will kill you at once. You are still a youth, but you will be slain. But if you love and respect me in a clean and virginal way, then he in turn will love and honour you. He will demonstrate his joy to you.’ Valerian, guided by the grace of God, spoke softly to her. ‘If I am fully to believe you, dearest wife, let me see this angel for myself in all his brightness. If he is truly an angel, then I will accede to your wish. But if this is a trick - if you love another man - you can be sure that I will kill you both with this sword.’ Cecilia answered him at once. ‘The angel will appear to you, as you wish. But first you must embrace the faith of Christ and be baptized. Go to the Appian Way, just three miles beyond the city. Speak to the poor people who dwell there, and repeat what I am about to tell you. ‘Tell them that I have sent you to them so that they might take you to the secret abode of old and saintly Urban, where you are to have private conference with him for the good of your own soul.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  Positivity resonance, then, can be viewed as the doorway through which the exquisitely attuned biochemical tendencies of one generation influence those of the next generation to form lasting, often lifelong bonds. Knowing, too, that oxytocin can ebb and flow in unison among non-kin—even among brand-new acquaintances just learning to trust each other—micro-moments of love, of positivity resonance, can also be viewed as the doorways through which caring and compassionate communities are forged. Love, we know, builds lasting resources. Oxytocin, studies show, swings the hammer. This core tenet of my broaden-and-build theory—that love builds lasting resources—finds support in a fascinating program of research on . . . rodents. It turns out that rat moms and their newborn pups show a form of positive engagement and synchrony analogous to that of human parents with their infants. Sensitive parenting in a rat mom, however, is conveyed by her attentively licking and grooming her newborn pups. When a rat mom licks and grooms her pup, it increases the pup’s sensitivity to oxytocin, as indicated, for instance, by the number of oxytocin receptors deep within the pup’s amygdala, as well as within other subcortical brain regions. Sure enough, these well-groomed—or I dare say well- loved —rat pups grow up to have calmer demeanors; they’re less skittish, more curious. The researchers can be certain that it’s the experiences of loving connection that determine the brain and behavioral profiles of the next generation (that is, their oxytocin receptors and calm demeanors)—and not simply shared genes—because cross-fostering studies show the same patterns of results. That is, even when a rat mom raises a newborn pup that is not her own, her maternal attention still forecasts that pup’s brain sensitivity to oxytocin and whether it grows up to be anxious or calm. Touring Vagus Who you are today is also shaped by the third biological character that I want you to meet: your tenth cranial nerve. This key conduit connects your brain to your body and is also called your vagus nerve (sounds like Vegas, as in Las Vegas). It emerges from your brain stem deep within your skull and, although it makes multiple stops at your various internal organs, perhaps most significantly it connects your brain to your heart. You already know that your heart rate shoots up when you feel insulted or threatened—registering the ancestral fight-or-flight response—but you may not know that it’s your vagus nerve that eventually soothes your racing heart, by orchestrating (together with oxytocin) the equally ancestral calm-and-connect response. Keeping in mind that love is connection, you should know that your vagus nerve is a biological asset that supports and coordinates your experiences of love.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  These activities provide a steady stream of shared micro-moments of positivity resonance. Intimacy and shared history are hardly preconditions for taking a hike. Love 2.0: The View from Here Love is different from what you might have thought. It’s certainly different from what I thought. Love springs up anytime any two or more people connect over a shared positive emotion. What does it mean, then, to say that I love my husband, Jeff? It used to mean that eighteen plus years ago, I fell in love with him. So much so that I abandoned my crusty attitude toward marriage and chose to dive right in. I used to uphold love as that constant, steady force that defines my relationship with Jeff. Of course that constant, steady force still exists between us. Yet upgrading my vision of love, I now see that steady force, not as love per se, but as the bond he and I share, and the commitments we two have made to each other, to be loyal and trusting to the end. That bond and these commitments forge a deep and abiding sense of safety within our relationship, a safety that tills the soil for frequent moments of love. Knowing now that, from our bodies’ perspective, love is positivity resonance—nutrient-rich bursts that accrue to make Jeff, me, and the bond we share healthier—shakes us out of any complacency that tempts us to take our love for granted, as a mere attribute of our relationship. Love, this new view tells us with some urgency, is something we should recultivate every morning, every afternoon, and every evening. Seeing love as positivity resonance motivates us to reach out for a hug more often or share an inspiring or silly idea or image over breakfast. In these small ways, we plant additional seeds of love that help our bodies, our well-being, and our marriage to grow stronger. And here’s something that’s hard to admit: If I take my body’s perspective on love seriously, it means that right now—at this very moment in which I’m crafting this sentence—I do not love my husband. Our positivity resonance, after all, only lasts as long as we two are engaged with each other. Bonds last. Love doesn’t. The same goes for you and your loved ones. Unless you’re cuddled up with someone reading these words aloud to him or her, right now, as far as your body knows, you don’t love anyone. Of course, you have affection for many, and bonds with a subset of these. And you may even be experiencing strong feelings of positivity now that will prime the pump for later, bona fide and bodily felt love.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Durante diecinueve años, siempre fue él. Sacrificándome para construir mi negocio para poder darle un buen hogar y educación, y tener miedo de las relaciones después de lo que pasé con Lindsay o perder las relaciones, porque otras mujeres no querían tener que lidiar con la madre de mi niño por el resto de nuestras vidas. Mi vida giraba en torno a él, pero sin importar lo que hiciera todo se fue a la mierda. Ella lo retorció y lo usó en mi contra, y él no sabe en quién confiar. Ser feliz con una mujer no está mal, pero que esa mujer sea Jordan es lo que podría romper la fe que le queda en sus padres. ¿Por qué no puedo detenerme? ¿Por qué me duele tanto el corazón cada vez que sonríe? ¿O se muerde la uña del pulgar o se pone de puntillas para alcanzar algo en la cocina o parpadear, por el amor de Dios? Entro en la cocina y sirvo café en mi taza de viaje. Aprieto la tapa y saco mi almuerzo del refrigerador, arrojando algunas papas extra, ya que no tengo tiempo para el desayuno. De repente suena el timbre, y me vuelvo, frunciendo el ceño. ¿Quién aparece a esta hora de la mañana? Dejando todo en el mostrador, camino hacia la puerta principal y me inclino, mirando por la ventana delantera. Y hablando del diablo... Mi ex está parada en pantalones de nylon y una camiseta sin mangas a juego. Su cabello está recogido en un moño marrón desordenado, pero tiene el rostro lleno de maquillaje. Es la única persona que conozco que se maquilla para ir al gimnasio. Por supuesto, probablemente solo va a conocer chicos. Abro la puerta, tratando de estar en silencio, para que Jordan no se despierte. —¿Qué es lo que quieres? —le digo, abriendo la puerta. —Bueno, qué amable —se burla, manteniendo los brazos cruzados sobre su pecho—. Siempre eres tan imbécil, ¿eh? Y sin esperar una invitación, entra, empujando más allá de mi brazo. —Si te presentas en mi puerta a las cinco de la mañana, no puede ser amable —le digo, cerrando la puerta—. ¿Estás borracha? Entra a la cocina, arrojando sus llaves en mi mostrador y da media vuelta, mirándome. —¿Por qué mi hijo está viviendo en la casa de alguna chica y no contigo? Lucho contra el impulso de poner los ojos en blanco ante su falsa preocupación, que es solo una excusa para ser invasiva. —Es bienvenido a volver a casa en cualquier momento —le explico, dirigiéndome al taburete y agarrando mi camiseta—. Él es quien se fue. —Porque estás permitiendo que Jordan se quede. ¿Por qué? Me paso la prenda por la cabeza. —Si quieres saber qué está pasando con Cole, pregúntale a él. En cuanto a quién le alquilo una habitación, no es asunto tuyo.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  In Rabbinic Judaism, the religion of Israel came of age, developing the same kind of compassionate ethos as the Eastern traditions. The rabbis regarded hatred of any human being made in God’s image as tantamount to atheism, so murder was not just a crime against humanity but a sacrilege: “Scripture instructs us that whatsoever sheds human blood is regarded as if he had diminished the divine image.”7 God had created only one man at the beginning of time to teach us that the destruction of a single life was equivalent to annihilating the entire world; conversely, to save a life redeemed the whole of humanity.8 To humiliate anybody, even a slave or a goy, was a sacrilegious defacing of God’s image9 and a malicious libel denied God’s existence.10 Any interpretation of scripture that bred hatred or disdain for others was illegitimate, while a good piece of exegesis sowed affection and dispelled discord. Anybody who studied scripture properly was full of love, explained Rabbi Meir; he “loves the Divine Presence (Shekhinah) and all creatures, makes the Divine Presence glad and makes glad all creatures.”11

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  Bru WHAT TO SAY? Damn! He never can find the right words when he needs them. But she’s waiting for him to say something. He feels it. Something about her brother’s death. Something about how sorry he is. How he understands. And he does. Really. He’s been through it himself. Not the same thing, exactly. But close enough. His mother ... Tell her about his mother? No way ... forget it. He never talks about his mother, about those two years she was sick. There are no words for what happened. Oh yeah ... there’s the C word. The Big Unmentionable. There’s that. But that doesn’t say shit. Doesn’t say how she screamed and cried from the pain. Doesn’t say how the fucking chemo made her so sick she begged them to put a plastic bag over her head. Or how, when it was over, he’d tried to end it, too. Swallowed a bottle of aspirin. Had to pump out his stomach. What the fuck? He was just a kid. Fifteen. How can he tell her that? Instead, he kisses her, hoping his kiss says it all ... how he’s thought about her all winter, wants to be with her, wants to make love to her. It doesn’t have to be tonight. He can wait until she’s ready. He hopes it’s soon though. Real soon. FROM THAT NIGHT ON nothing else mattered. She counted the minutes until she could be with him, said his name a hundred times a day, smiled to herself just thinking about him. Every love song spoke directly to her. After feeling listless for so many months she had energy to burn. She could work all day and still stay up half the night making love. When

• From The Case for God (2009)

  Clearly this “sham spirituality”103 was becoming a problem. When novices are told to stop all “exterior” mental activity, the author explains, they don’t know what “interior” work means, so “they do it wrong. For they turn their actual physical minds inwards to their bodies, which is an unnatural thing, and they strain as if to see spiritually with their physical eyes.”104 Their antics are painful to behold. They stare into space, looking quite deranged, squat “as if they were silly sheep,” and “hang their heads to one side as if they had a worm in their ear.”105 But “interiority” is achieved only by the discipline of “forgetting.” That is why the author is not going to tell his disciple to seek God within, and, he adds, “I don’t want you to be outside or above, behind, or beside yourself either!”106 When his disciple retorts in exasperation: “Where am I to be? Nowhere according to you!” our author replies that he is absolutely right: “Nowhere is where I want you! Why, when you are ‘nowhere’ physically, you are ‘everywhere’ spiritually.”107 There were no words to describe this kind of love. A person who has not put himself through the process of “forgetting” will see a dichotomy between “inner” and “outer,” “nowhere” and “everywhere.” But “nowhere” is not a “place” within the psyche; it is off the map of our secular experience. So let go this “everywhere” and “everything” for this “nowhere” and this “nothing.” Never mind if you cannot fathom this nothing, for I love it so much the better. It is so worthwhile in itself that no thinking about it will do it justice.108 This “nothing” might seem like darkness, but it is actually “overwhelming spiritual light that blinds the soul that is experiencing it.”109 So the apprentice must be prepared to “wait in the darkness as long as is necessary,” aware only of “a simple, steadfast intention reaching out towards God.”110

• From Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)

  Or, as Marianne Moore put it, “The world’s an orphan’s home.” And this feels more true than almost anything else I know. But so many of us can be soothed by writing: think of how many times you have opened a book, read one line, and said, “Yes!” And I want to give people that feeling, too, of connection, communion. The other is to think of the writers who have given a book to me, and then to write a book back to them. This gift they have given us, which we pass on to those around us, was fashioned out of their lives. You wouldn’t be a writer if reading hadn’t enriched your soul more than other pursuits. So write a book back to V. S. Naipaul or Margaret Atwood or Wendell Berry or whoever it is who most made you want to write, whose work you most love to read. Make it as good as you can. It is one of the greatest feelings known to humans, the feeling of being the host, of hosting people, of being the person to whom they come for food and drink and company. This is what the writer has to offer. [image file=Image00006.jpg] Here is the best true story on giving I know, and it was told by Jack Kornfield of the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre. An eight-year-old boy had a younger sister who was dying of leukemia, and he was told that without a blood transfusion she would die. His parents explained to him that his blood was probably compatible with hers, and if so, he could be the blood donor. They asked him if they could test his blood. He said sure. So they did and it was a good match. Then they asked if he would give his sister a pint of blood, that it could be her only chance of living. He said he would have to think about it overnight. The next day he went to his parents and said he was willing to donate the blood. So they took him to the hospital where he was put on a gurney beside his six-year-old sister. Both of them were hooked up to IVs. A nurse withdrew a pint of blood from the boy, which was then put in the girl’s IV. The boy lay on his gurney in silence while the blood dripped into his sister, until the doctor came over to see how he was doing. Then the boy opened his eyes and asked, “How soon until I start to die?” Sometimes you have to be that innocent to be a writer. Writing takes a combination of sophistication and innocence; it takes conscience, our belief that something is beautiful because it’s right.