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 Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  And that, if things don’t turn out as you might, quite, wish them, you won’t be too proud to come home to those that love you -’ Here his voice failed utterly, and he shuddered; and I could only nod against his neck and say, ‘I will, I will; I promise you, I will.’ But oh! hard-hearted daughter that I was, when he had left me my tears dried at once, and I felt the return of all my gladness of the night before. I hugged myself in pleasure, and danced a jig around the parlour - but delicately, on tiptoe, so that they wouldn’t hear me in the dining-room below. Then quickly, before I should be missed, I ran to the post office and sent Kitty a card at the Palace - a picture of a Whitstable oyster-smack, upon whose sail I inked ‘To London’, and on the deck of which I drew two girls with bags and trunks and outsize, smiling faces. ‘I can come!!!’ I wrote upon the back, and added that she must do without her dresser for a few nights while I made all ready ... and I finished it ‘Fondly’, and signed it, ‘Your Nan’. I had to be glad only in snatches that day, for the scene that I had passed with Father, after breakfast, had to be undergone again with Mother - who hugged me to her, and cried that they must be fools to let me go; and Davy - who said, quite absurdly, that I was too little to go to London, and would be run down by a tram in Trafalgar Square the minute I set foot in it; and Alice - who said nothing at all when she heard the news, but ran from the kitchen in tears, and could not be persuaded to take up her duties in the Parlour until lunch-time. Only my cousins seemed happy for me - and they were more jealous than happy, calling me a lucky cat, and swearing that I would make my fortune in the city, and forget them all; or else that I would be ruined utterly, and come sneaking back to them in disgrace. That week passed quickly. I spent my evenings in calling on friends and family, and bidding them farewell; and in washing and patching and packing my dresses, and sorting out which little items to take with me, which to leave behind. I visited the Palace only once, and that was in the company of my parents, who came to reassure themselves that Miss Butler was still sensible and good, and to ask for further particulars of the shadowy Walter Bliss. I had Kitty to myself for no more than a minute, while Father chatted with Tony and Tricky, after the show. I had feared all week that I had imagined the words that she had spoken to me on Sunday evening, or misunderstood them entirely.

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

  Neural coupling, then—really understanding someone else—becomes all the more likely when you share the same emotion. Even more so than ordinary communication, a micro-moment of love is a single act, performed by two brains. Shared emotions, brain synchrony, and mutual understanding emerge together. And mutual understanding is just steps away from mutual care. Once two people understand each other—really “get” each other in any given moment—the benevolent concerns and actions of mutual care can flow forth unimpeded. As you move through your day, quite naturally you move in and out of different scenes. Each scene, of course, has its own script. For perhaps most of your day, you’re pretty much caught up in your own thoughts and plans, oblivious to the presence or feelings of anyone nearby. Your brain, in such moments, is doing its own thing. But in those rarer moments when you truly connect with someone else over positivity—by sharing a smile, a laugh, a common passion, or an engaging story—you become attuned, with genuine care and concern for the other. You empathize with what they’re going through, as your two brains sync up and act as one, as a unified team. Neural coupling like this is a biological manifestation of oneness. Laboratory studies have already shown that when positive emotions course through you, your awareness expands from your habitual focus on “me” to a more generous focus on “we.” When you’re feeling bad—afraid, anxious, or angry— even your best friend can seem pretty remote or separate from you. The same goes for when you’re feeling nothing in particular. Not so, when you’re feeling good. Under the influence of positive emotions, your sense of self actually expands to include others to greater degrees. Your best friend, in these lighthearted moments, simply seems like a bigger part of you. 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.

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  Rowdy asked. He knows that my brain is fragile. If those Andruss brothers had punched a hole in the aquarium of my skull, I might have flooded out the entire powwow. “My brain is fine,” I said. “But my balls are dying.” “I’m going to kill those bastards,” Rowdy said. Of course, Rowdy didn’t kill them, but we hid near the Andruss brothers’ camp until three in the morning. They staggered back and passed out in their tent. Then Rowdy snuck in, shaved off their eyebrows, and cut off their braids. That’s about the worst thing you can do to an Indian guy. It had taken them years to grow their hair. And Rowdy cut that away in five seconds. I loved Rowdy for doing that. I felt guilty for loving him for that. But revenge also feels pretty good. The Andruss brothers never did figure out who cut their eyebrows and hair. Rowdy started a rumor that it was a bunch of Makah Indians from the coast who did it. “You can’t trust them whale hunters,” Rowdy said. “They’ll do anything.” But before you think Rowdy is only good for revenge, and kicking the shit out of minivans, raindrops, and people, let me tell you something sweet about him: he loves comic books. But not the cool superhero ones like Daredevil or X-Men. No, he reads the goofy old ones, like Richie Rich and Archie and Casper the Friendly Ghost. Kid stuff. He keeps them hidden in a hole in the wall of his bedroom closet. Almost every day, I’ll head over to his house and we’ll read those comics together. Rowdy isn’t a fast reader, but he’s persistent. And he’ll just laugh and laugh at the dumb jokes, no matter how many times he’s read the same comic. I like the sound of Rowdy’s laughter. I don’t hear it very often, but it’s always sort of this avalanche of ha-ha and ho-ho and hee-hee. I like to make him laugh. He loves my cartoons. He’s a big, goofy dreamer, too, just like me. He likes to pretend he lives inside the comic books. I guess a fake life inside a cartoon is a lot better than his real life. So I draw cartoons to make him happy, to give him other worlds to live inside. I draw his dreams. And he only talks about his dreams with me. And I only talk about my dreams with him. I tell him about my fears. I think Rowdy might be the most important person in my life. Maybe more important than my family. Can your best friend be more important than your family? I think so. I mean, after all, I spend a lot more time with Rowdy than I do with anyone else. Let’s do the math.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  She was clad in her coat and hat, and had her satchel over her arm; but she was gazing at me as if - well, I had had too many admiring glances come my way, in the years since I had first walked before Kitty Butler in a party-gown and not known why it was she flushed to look at me, not to know why it was that Florence, studying me in my moleskins and my crop, flushed now. But, like Kitty, her desire seemed almost as painful to her as it was pleasant. When she caught my eye, she lowered her head and walked into the house; and all that she would say was: ‘Why, what a shine you have put upon the glass!’ And while it was glorious to know that - at last, and all unwittingly! — I had made her look at me and want me; while I had felt, for the second that her gaze had met mine, the leaping of my own new passion, and an answering passion in her; and while that passion had left me giddy, and aching, and hot, it was as much with nervousness as with lust that I trembled and grew weak. Anyway, when I met her later her eyes were dim and she kept them turned from me; and I thought, again, Why would she ever care for me, while she still grieved for somebody like Lilian? And so we went on, and the year grew colder. When Christmas came I spent it not at Quilter Street, but at Freemantle House, where Florence had organised a dinner for her girls and needed extra hands to baste the goose and wash the dishes. At New Year we drank a toast to 1895, and. another to ‘absent friends’ - she meant Lilian, of course; I’d never told her about all the friends that I had lost. In January there was Ralph’s birthday to celebrate. It fell, in the most uncanny fashion, on the same day as Diana’s; and as I smiled to see him opening his gifts, I remembered the bust of Antinous, and wondered if it was still casting its frigid glances over the warm transactions at Felicity Place, and whether Diana ever looked at it and remembered me. But by now I had grown so at home in Bethnal Green that I could barely believe I had ever lived anywhere else, or imagine a time when Quilter Street routines were not my own. I had become used to the neighbours’ racket, and to the clamour of the street.

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

  Pay attention to any shifting sensations in your body and face. These physical aspects of your experience matter more than the particular phrasings you choose. Now, gently call forth the image of a whole swath of people. This might be all the people in your part of town or your region of the country. To do this, you might visualize the view you’d have flying low over your stretch of earth. Although you can’t see individual people, you’re aware that they are there, underneath nearly every rooftop, carrying out the activities of their day, perhaps eating, resting, working, worshipping, or simply moving from one place to another. Expand your awareness to encompass this whole community. Know that it includes people you know quite well, those you know just a bit, as well as those you don’t know at all. You can be sure that each and every one, like you, has at one time or another yearned for something more in their life, for happiness, for connection, and for an abiding sense of peace. Let your awareness of this fundamental similarity between you and all others infuse the space between your heart and each of theirs. You share the same wishes, the same earth. You breathe the same air. With your various connections to all these people in mind, silently say to yourself the following ancient phrases, or your own versions of them, offering these wishes from your heart: May you all feel safe and protected. May you all feel happy and peaceful. May you all feel healthy and strong. May you all live with ease. Offer each wish in time with the rise and fall of each of the slow and full breaths that you take. Let your goodwill toward all those in your neighborhood, town, or region infuse and soften your heart. When you are ready, gently expand the scope of your focus further still. You might choose to visualize your entire country or continent, offering your goodwill to everyone residing there, recognizing again that this includes people you know personally as well as an immense sea of those you do not know. Silently repeat the phrases with this now larger expanse of people held gently within your awareness. Another way to experiment with loving all is to divide the sum of all people into two mutually exclusive and encompassing categories. No need to bring in heavy analytic thinking here. Simply call up any division that makes sense to you, such as “all children” paired with “all adults” or “all girls and women” paired with “all boys and men” or “all those who suffer” paired with “all those currently free of suffering.”

• From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354)

  For although we find no time before it, for wisdom was created before all things; not that Wisdom which is altogether equal and coeternal unto Thee, our God, His Father, and by Whom all things were created, and in Whom, as the Beginning, Thou createdst heaven and earth; but that wisdom which is created, that is, the intellectual nature, which by contemplating the light, is light. For this, though created, is also called wisdom. But what difference there is betwixt the Light which enlighteneth, and which is enlightened, so much is there betwixt the Wisdom that createth, and that created; as betwixt the Righteousness which justifieth, and the righteousness which is made by justification. For we also are called Thy righteousness; for so saith a certain servant of Thine, That we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Therefore since a certain created wisdom was created before all things, the rational and intellectual mind of that chaste city of Thine, our mother which is above, and is free and eternal in the heavens (in what heavens, if not in those that praise Thee, the Heaven of heavens? Because this is also the Heaven of heavens for the Lord);—though we find no time before it (because that which hath been created before all things, precedeth also the creature of time), yet is the Eternity of the Creator Himself before it, from Whom, being created, it took the beginning, not indeed of time (for time itself was not yet), but of its creation. Hence it is so of Thee, our God, as to be altogether other than Thou, and not the Self-same: because though we find time neither before it, nor even in it (it being meet ever to behold Thy face, nor is ever drawn away from it, wherefore it is not varied by any change), yet is there in it a liability to change, whence it would wax dark, and chill, but that by a strong affection cleaving unto Thee, like perpetual noon, it shineth and gloweth from Thee. O house most lightsome and delightsome! I have loved thy beauty, and the place of the habitation of the glory of my Lord, thy builder and possessor. Let my wayfaring sigh after thee, and I say to Him that made thee, let Him take possession of me also in thee, seeing He hath made me likewise. I have gone astray like a lost sheep: yet upon the shoulders of my Shepherd, thy builder, hope I to be brought back to thee.

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

  May you, [your name], live with ease. Adopting this loving observers’ perspective on yourself can offer an “appreciative jolt” that allows you to see—and truly feel—how it is that you add value to those around you. From this perspective, you can better discern your good qualities. Of course, you still have your own unique set of less-than- good qualities as well. If your mind gets pulled toward those, gently invite yourself to table those shortcomings for now. You can always examine them later. This is a rare moment to spotlight the good in you and you don’t want to miss it. Another way to bypass your obstacles to self-love is to visualize yourself together with any or all of these individuals and to speak the phrases of LKM as “we”: May we feel safe. May we feel happy. May we feel healthy. May we live with ease. You can think here of the good qualities that you and this other person (or persons) share, and visualize the good wishes that emanate from your heart as surrounding and infusing the two (or more) of you. You might find that thinking of yourself together with these cherished others provides a more comfortable stepping stone on the path leading you to direct love toward yourself. Even if you have a hard time populating the circle with people who you know appreciate you, you can populate it with any or all of the people around the globe who have—or have ever—practiced the ancient technique of LKM. After all, each one of these people—whether an aging widow in Thailand, a thirtysomething prisoner in Texas, or His Holiness the Dalai Lama himself—has practiced extending the wishes of loving-kindness to all people, because all people yearn for and deserve to feel safe, happy, and healthy, and to live with ease. Perhaps it can help you to visualize yourself as tucked into the masses of humanity for which others have extended their earnest expressions of love. Loving-Kindness for Yourself When you’re ready—perhaps after you’ve eased your way in by sidestepping your own obstacles using one or more of the strategies just described—try experimenting with directing full-on loving-kindness toward yourself, following the ancient traditions of LKM. Again, it can be tempting to avoid or minimize this portion of the practice, for all the same reasons previously discussed. Stay alert to the possibility that you may disguise your neglect of self- love as humility or as selfless compassion for others. These rationalizations can be common. Move past them. The idea here is simply to experiment with and explore self-love using your personal experiences as your data. As you experiment, notice areas of resistance and become curious about them. Although by definition, areas of resistance beg you to turn away, decide in advance instead to hang in with them.

• From Emotional Inheritance (2022)

  What a mess.” Eve pauses, tears in her eyes. “My night with Josh was even better than I had imagined it would be. It is hard to put into words how I felt because I didn’t know a feeling like that even existed. We were finally in a peaceful place, just the two of us, and we had what seemed like an endless amount of time. It felt like we were a real couple, completely devoted to each other, completely in each other’s bodies and minds. We had sex for hours and I kept whispering in Josh’s ear, ‘I love you. You make me so, so happy. ’ “‘I know, baby, I’m happy too,’ he said. “‘Do you think we can make this place our home?’ I asked him, referring to the small hotel room that seemed so perfect in that moment.” Eve lifts her head and looks at me, “As I tell you this now, I realize that I just projected all my wishes on that stupid hotel room. I feel like such an idiot. When we were lying down and I put my head on his shoulder, I didn’t think about anything. Nothing else existed in the moment. I was truly happy.” Eve pauses briefly. She doesn’t look at me and continues. “There is something unusual about being in Josh’s arms. Something about his touch. It’s like he is both strong and gentle at the same time and I feel that I totally lose myself when I’m with him. It’s a feeling I’ve never had before. But I guess that was the problem. That’s why the night ended so badly.” She sighs. “I woke up at 6 a.m. and when I left the hotel I turned on my phone. I had ten voice mails and many texts from the babysitter saying that my son had had an asthma attack and that they were at the hospital. I started sobbing, trying to reach the doctor on the phone. I just couldn’t believe that I had let that happen. That was the moment when I realized that I had lost control of my life and was in big trouble. That’s when I decided to see a therapist.” She turns to me and asks in a desperate tone, “What am I going to do? Tell me. Is it crazy that I love him? ” Freud wrote that one of his least favorite things to do was to work with patients who were in love. For Freud, love was an irrational feeling and the person in love was in a semi-psychotic phase, out of touch with reality. He believed that this phase did not allow the patient to be in touch with any emotional reality other than their love and erotic feelings, and thus genuine awareness was almost impossible. Irvin Yalom opens his book Love’s Executioner by saying that he, too, doesn’t like to work with patients who are in love.

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  Getting fucked in the ass gives me hope. Despair hasn’t got a chance when his cock is in my ass, making room for God. He opened up my ass and with that first thrust he broke my denial of God, broke my shame, and exposed it to the light. The yearning is no longer hidden; now it has a name. This is the backstory of a love story. A backstory that is the whole story. A second hole story, to be entirely accurate. Love from inside my backside. Colette declared that you couldn’t write about love while in its heady hold, as if only love lost resonates. No hindsight for me in this great love but rather behind-sight—cited from the eye of my behind. This is a book where the front matter is brief and the end matter is all. After all, my end does matter. When you’ve been ass-fucked as much as I have, things get both very philosophical and very silly very quickly. My brain has been rocked along with my guts. Having a cock in her ass really gives a woman focus. Receptivity becomes activity, not passivity. There’s just a whole lot to do. His cock pierces my yang—my desire to know, control, understand, and analyze—and forces my yin—my openness, my vulnerability—to the surface. I cannot do this alone, voluntarily. I must be forced. He fucks me into my femininity. As a liberated woman, it is the only way I can go there and retain my dignity. Turned over, ass in the air, I have little choice but to succumb and lose my head. This is how I can have an experience my intellect would never allow, a betrayal to Olive Schreiner, Margaret Sanger, and Betty Friedan, and an affront, from the rear, to many modern “feminists.” Oh, but once there, there is no going back—not to control, not to being on top, not to men more feminine than me. This is simply how my liberation manifested itself. Emancipation through the back door would never be, for any rational woman, a choice. It can only happen as a gift. A surprise. A big surprise. This story is about my coming to experience—and sometimes understand—terms that allude to spiritual endeavor. I have learned more of their meaning and power through being sodomized than through any other teaching. Anal sex is, for me, a literary event. The words first started flowing while he was actually buried deep in my ass. His pen to my paper. His marker to my blotter. His rocket to my moon. Funny where one derives inspiration. Or how one gets the message. I knew after my initiation that I must write it all down. To keep track, bear witness to myself, to him, to the harmonic energy we generated. Enough to burn holes through the parameters of my existing world. Enough for the word God to take on meaning. Enough for gratitude to flow like water.

• From A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1921)

  III. In the 3SL T. usage of deyaicdw the same elements appear, the word being used of personal friendship where the element of admiration, usually accompanied with desire to benefit, is prominent (Mk. 10" Lk. 71 Jn, n8 13®*); of God's attitude towards Jesus, where approval is evidently the chief element of the thought and the word approximates the meaning of ixXI-yw, " to choose " (Jn. 336 Eph. i«); of the love of God for men of good character, where the meaning is much the same save in degree of emphasis (a Cor, 97); of the love of God and of Christ for even sinful men (Jn. 3" Gal. 2M Heb. X26 i Jn. 4iab), where benevolence, desire to benefit, is the chief cle- ment; of the love which men are bidden to have for God and for Christ, and of Christ's love for God, in which admiration is rawed to adoration, and in- cludes readiness to serve (Mt. 22" Jn. 14"' *»' al Rom. 8" i Cor. H* i Jn. 4*°*) ; of the love which men are bidden to have for one another, c*vcn their enemies, in which the willingness and desire to benefit is prominent* ami in the case of enemies admiration or approval Calls into the background (Mt, 22*8 Jn. i3*«« Rom, 13'' • Eph. $•*• m i Jn, a«»)» and finally of tht low of things, when admiration and desire to possess are prominent, to the rut ire exclusion of desire to benefit (Lk, n*» Jn. u« i Jn. a1*). As concerns dyaidoi) and ftXfo), it is to be observed that white In thr biblical writers* at least, the two terms have a certain common of usage in which they may be used almost intcrchangmbly, yet in 9cXfo emphasises the natural Hjwnlancous affertltm of ow* |H*r?ion d»r another, while itawfcw refers rather to love Into which there fftfrw tin Hi*- ment of choke, and hence of moral character* It i* umni^trnt with thh distinction that Ata^dw is never used with the mi'iming "to km** (whiih ^tXlu ftonietimeft lias) and is rarely used of lovr (hut swir i Sam, t.i1" * Cant, !«• <• 1 3x-*» as against the lew strong statem^ntH<»f (irimm and CVrfiirr, 5, ?, f tXifv; andr/. abocxx. inTh,); that h nrvrr mnl in tin* i iitii mand to men to love GixJ or men} ami very rarely of (Jod'a !ti (but see Jn. i6w); but that either term IK* «if t^v« between roan and man, into which thcrii enter* more or «I ttie rirntrni, of choice and dtcMoa* €J» Jn* 1 1»« M with 1 1* *nni jit. »» with 2iT, IV, *Ay4«i|» imlffce the verb, and rtrtaln «! Hn «** cur from Homer dawn, fir*t in th«t Lxx, an*t in wholly limtteci to biblkai and ChriMtian C*/, M. awl M, F^\ i, ?» In the Lxx It it <rf low flt« tvf i ij» and the in Cant. ; but w lui^r 4w* 'AFAriH 521

• From A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1921)

  118), partly to his preference for a term which suggests that love, joy, peace, etc., are the natural product of a vital relation between the Christian and the Spirit. Observe the word (@ev in v.% and cf. 2°. The use of the singular serves to present all the experiences and elements of character in the ensuing list as a unity, together constituting the result of living by the Spirit. Yet too much stress can not be laid on the singular, since Paul always used it when employing the word in its figurative sense. On the importance of the distinction in the apostle’s mind between 60 Kapmos Tod mvevpatos, and Ta yapicpata (Tov TVEVLATOS) or 7) Pavepwols TOV TvEevpmaTos, see detached note on IIvedua and Zapé, p. 489, and Gunkel, Die Wirkungen des heiligen Geistes, pp. 62-97, esp. 77 ff. The two lists, the present one and that of 1 Cor. 128", contain but one common term, miortis, and this is undoubtedly used in a different sense in the two passages. Under the terms Yaplopata mvevpatiKa and davépwois Tov mvevpatos the apostle includes those ex- traordinary experiences and powers which were not necessarily evidential of moral character in those in whom they appeared, but because of their extraordinary character and of their asso- ciation with the acceptance of the gospel message, the word of God (1 Thes. 21%), were regarded as effects and evidences of the presence and activity of the Spirit of God. These are all ex- ternal and easily recognisable; note the term ¢avépwous in 1 Cor. 127. Under the term 0 xaprés Tod mvevparTos, on the other hand, are included those ethical qualities and spiritual experiences which were not popularly thought of as evidences of the Spirit’s presence, but which, to the mind of Paul, were of far greater value than the so-called yapiopata. See 1 Cor., 314 GALATIANS chaps. 12-14, esp. 12°!, chap. 13, and 141. Thus while retaining the evidently current view, which found in the gift of tongues and prophecy and power to heal disease evidence of the Spirit’s presence (see also Gal. 35), he transferred the emphasis of his thought, and sought to transfer that of his disciples, from these things to the internal and ethical qualities which issue in and control conduct. Whether the terms listed in vv.%? % fell in the apostle’s mind into definite classes is not altogether clear. d&yé&ny, evidently meaning love towards other men (cf. vv.': 4), stands in a sense in a class by itself, and is probably thought of as the source from which all the rest flow. Cf. v.4 and 1 Cor., chap.

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

  I first invite you to experiment with extending warmth and goodwill to everyone you know and then to stretch that positive vibe even further to encompass everyone you don’t know. Once you set your sights, mind, and heart on these larger aims, you’ll find countless ways to forge tender, loving connections with everyone, without a single exception. These are not just idle wishes, empty intentions, or a futile form of magical thinking. In wishing people on the other side of the planet to be happy and peaceful, you need not believe that your wishes somehow metaphysically travel the world to change the course of their day. The point is to change your day, by conditioning your heart to be soft, open, and caring toward each new person you encounter, regardless of how remote the prior connection between you may have been. This chapter features both formal and informal practices to help you extend the reach of your love, even in the face of uncertainty or ambiguity. Redefining love as those micro-moments of positivity resonance you can share with nearly anyone breaks open extraordinary opportunities. To be sure, extraordinary opportunities pose extraordinary challenges, not only to see the chances for loving connection but also to be ready for them. Micro-moments, by definition, are fleeting. If you blink—or slip into self-absorption—you miss out. Even so, merely seeing opportunities to connect, without being prepared to act, can make you lonelier. To build community and escape painful isolation, you need to teach your heart to be ready. Hone your skills for capitalizing on those life-giving micro-moments so that, as the river of fresh opportunities for love flows toward you, you’ll be poised to jump in. Try This Meditation Practice: Loving All Retreat to a place in which you can sit undisturbed. Ground yourself by placing your feet flat on the floor, and adjust your posture until your body feels both alert and open. Lengthen your spine and lift up your rib cage. Since emotional states are deeply embodied, seek out the posture that feels attuned to expanding love. Start, once again, by drawing a few slow and deep breaths, resting your awareness on each one as it moves through your lungs and through your body. Next, bring your awareness to your intention for this session. Articulate this intention silently to yourself. Perhaps it’s to awaken yourself to the vast sea of possibilities for love, or to find joy in connecting with all the people you’ll encounter today. As you practice, remember to lightly bring your awareness to your heart region. Pay attention to any shifting sensations in your body and face. These physical aspects of your experience matter more than the particular phrasings you choose.

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

  Studies show that these moments of back-and-forth positivity resonance are not only satisfying in and of themselves, providing boosts to each partner’s own mood, but they also further fortify the relationship, making it more intimate, committed, and passionate next season than it is today. Another person’s expression of positivity, from this perspective, can be seen as a bid for connection and love. If you answer that bid, the ensuing positivity resonance will nourish you both. Two ways to fortify your intimate relationships, then, are to bring your own good news home to share, and to celebrate your partner’s good news. Regardless of who initiates, the key is to connect to create a shared experience, one that allows positivity to resonate between you for a spell, momentarily synchronizing your gestures and your biorhythms and creating the warm glow of mutual care. Sharing or celebrating the joy of some personal good fortune is certainly not the only way to foster the micro-moments of love that strengthen relationships. Any positive emotion, if shared, can do the same. In collaboration with my colleague Sara Algoe, for instance, I’ve explored how kindness and appreciation flow back and forth in couples, creating tender moments of positivity resonance that also serve to nourish intimacy and relationship growth. In particular, we’ve examined how people habitually express appreciation to their partners. We learned from this work that some people tend to say “thanks” better than others. Genuine feelings of appreciation or gratitude, after all, well up when you recognize that someone else went out of his or her way to do something nice for you. Another way to say this is that the script for gratitude involves both a benefit, or kind deed, and a benefactor, the kind person behind the kind deed. Whereas many people express their appreciation to others by shining a spotlight on the benefit they received—the gift, favor, or the kind deed itself—we discovered that, by contrast, the best “thank-yous” simply use the benefit as a springboard toward shining a spotlight on the good qualities of the other person, their benefactor. Done well, then, expressing appreciation for your partner’s kindness to you can become a kind gesture in return, one that conveys that you see and appreciate in your partner’s actions his or her good and inspiring qualities. How did we know that this is the best way to convey appreciation? Because compared to expressions that merely focus on benefits, those that also focus on benefactors make the partner who hears that “thanks” feel understood, cared for, and validated. And this good feeling—the feeling that their partner really “gets” them and cherishes them—allows people to walk around each day feeling better about themselves and better about their relationship. And in six months’ time, it forecasts becoming even more solid and satisfied with their relationship. Saying “thanks” well then isn’t just a matter of being polite, it’s a matter of being loving, and becoming a stronger version of what together you call “us.” Becoming Resilient.

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  So I draw cartoons to make him happy, to give him other worlds to live inside. I draw his dreams. And he only talks about his dreams with me. And I only talk about my dreams with him. I tell him about my fears. I think Rowdy might be the most important person in my life. Maybe more important than my family. Can your best friend be more important than your family? I think so. I mean, after all, I spend a lot more time with Rowdy than I do with anyone else. Let’s do the math. I figure Rowdy and I have spent an average of eight hours a day together for the last fourteen years. That’s eight hours times 365 days times fourteen years. So that means Rowdy and I have spent 40,880 hours in each other’s company. Nobody else comes anywhere close to that. Trust me. Rowdy and I are inseparable. Because Geometry Is Not a Country Somewhere Near France [image file=image_rsrc4RJ.jpg] I was fourteen and it was my first day of high school. I was happy about that. And I was most especially excited about my first geometry class. Yep, I have to admit that isosceles triangles make me feel hormonal. Most guys, no matter what age, get excited about curves and circles, but not me. Don’t get me wrong. I like girls and their curves. And I really like women and their curvier curves. I spend hours in the bathroom with a magazine that has one thousand pictures of naked movie stars: Naked woman + right hand = happy happy joy joy Yep, that’s right, I admit that I masturbate. I’m proud of it. I’m good at it. I’m ambidextrous. If there were a Professional Masturbators League, I’d get drafted number one and make millions of dollars. And maybe you’re thinking, “Well, you really shouldn’t be talking about masturbation in public.” Well, tough, I’m going to talk about it because EVERYBODY does it. And EVERYBODY likes it. And if God hadn’t wanted us to masturbate, then God wouldn’t have given us thumbs. So I thank God for my thumbs. But, the thing is, no matter how much time my thumbs and I spend with the curves of imaginary women, I am much more in love with the right angles of buildings. When I was a baby, I’d crawl under my bed and snuggle into a corner to sleep. I just felt warm and safe leaning into two walls at the same time. When I was eight, nine, and ten, I slept in my bedroom closet with the door closed. I only stopped doing that because my big sister, Mary, told me that I was just trying to find my way back into my mother’s womb. That ruined the whole closet thing.

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  Why A-Man has this authority I do not know. Psychology might find childhood reasons, but I believe, ultimately, that it’s something God-given, a deep knowledge of personal responsibility. This kind of self-possession and lack of desperation can get a man a long way with a woman . . . or at least partway up her ass. In the end, it’s who you are that will get you somewhere. Or nowhere. He told me once that he likes being where he shouldn’t be, crossing the velvet rope, hand in the candy jar, late to work, cock in my ass, an ass too small for his cock. A-Man made it so deeply into my ass because he dared. No one else really tried. Anyone who dares to be that intimate, that crazy, well, he might just get somewhere he never got before. I am in the throes of coming at the moment of first touch, my body, pussy, ass so open they peel outwardly to suck him in. I was never that open before. If I were that open to someone else, would I feel the same joy of openness? No. They would annoy me long before I was that open. It’s all that yakking that ruins it; it reveals too much. A-Man is the least annoying man I’ve ever known. And the only one who never yields to my will. At the same time, contrary to easy supposition, I do not believe that it is the arrogant, macho man who is the great ass-fucker: he is the asshole. That guy probably doesn’t even like women, he’s too busy competing with other men. In my limited experience, the great ass-fucker is the patient, gentle man, the one who knows how to listen to a woman, how to be with a woman, and has the equipment that can slow her down. He is the one who can imaginatively experience her submission—her release of control—with her, and thus know precisely how to get her to that place: he absorbs all that she gives up. He is a kind man, A-Man. OBITUARY After such a stunning start, I prepared, as any bright woman would, for the end. Great love always brings thoughts of death and separation. This was a war—between decency and desire, between convention and pleasure, between me, myself, and I—and that great aphrodisiac fueled my craving. With the assumption, or expectation, of longevity gone, the moat of self-protection and the apathy of safety disappear and passion floods the world. Well, it flooded mine, anyway. Now is all there was, all I had—and I knew it. The aphoristic obituary was especially comforting. My testimony would serve if he died, if I died, or—worst of all—if he flaked on me. He had the biggest, hardest, and most gentle cock I ever knew. He was the one who fucked me in the ass, missionary-style, before he fucked my pussy.

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  The epiphany of the cock. I love his cock. Every millimeter, every centimeter, every movement at every moment. His was the first that spoke to me, that took me personally, that never failed me. A-Man remains calm in the face of his own erection—the ultimate test of male dignity. In my experience, most men, when hard, don’t act as if their penis is their own, but as if they have suddenly become subject to some kind of erectile radar device that forces them to relinquish all responsibility for its erratic behavior. A-Man, however, presents a complete paradox. Filled with the same juices, the same desires, the same hardness, he never loses his head. He uses his desire to create an event, to push boundaries, to do something not done before. He is the only man I’ve seen who can walk around a room with a killer erection and still look like a man with a mission—focused, alert, self- contained, and mischievous. He has the most noble erection I’ve ever met. Sometimes we discuss just where exactly is his cock going in my body. Somewhere into the center, behind my belly button. We have even measured with the tape measure. Hard to tell the exact angle. What is sure is that he stirs my guts from right to left, forward, upward, sideways, and back. It really gets your attention, having a large cock in your ass, concentrates the mind. Each time, rebirth. Nearly a hundred and fifty so far. That is a lot of starting your whole life over. You might think, after all that ass-fucking, why am I still counting? I’m anal! There you have it. Back to the terrible twos. The best way to feel, to know, a man’s cock is through one’s ass, where the walls cling to every inch all the way to the head. A pussy has less feeling, fewer nerves, less strength, less muscular power—and, often, less interest. A pussy, genetically, wants impregnation, the juice; an asshole wants the ride of its life. Both holes, I would postulate, reconcile the problem of mortality as caverns for creation: vaginas for babies, asses for art. Speaking of Michelangelo, there is the question of trimming the bush, the male bush. A-Man trims. In the beginning he didn’t, and then one day I suggested that a trimmed rim around the base of his cock would look superb, like a samurai warrior. “Depilation is the act of a fastidious lover,” states the Kamasutra. He thought about it for a minute and then promptly went into the bathroom and sat on the edge of the bathtub. As I held the flashlight, he trimmed. And trimmed, and trimmed. He went far beyond the original idea and just cut down the whole bush—sides, top, balls, underballs, everything. Now there’s no going back to the bush.

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  My orgasm arc with him is an act of giving, opening, giving. With others it is withholding, a battleground of control. In the past, I have achieved orgasm through the paradoxical experience of maintaining control of my pleasure all the while that my orgasm, with a life force of its own, desires its own fruition. The battle—and it is a battle—always ends with an orgasm more potent for its release than for any emotional pleasure. There are quite a few men out there who want nothing more than to please. For them I come in angry triumph: the greater my contempt for their wishing-to-please, the greater my resistance; the greater my resistance, the greater my orgasm. This is the pleasure, literally—and clitorally—of the war between the sexes. Afterwards, so sensitized, I shun all touch and, like Garbo, want to be alone. To take notes, eat dinner, and read The New Yorker. Is this any way to come? Well, it is one way. With him I have learned another. The way of no resistance. Of infinite contractions and many arrivals. And it was not a struggle to give up the struggle. It just happened with him, as if my body knew—I sure didn’t—that he was the one, the one man I could trust, the one man I could give to without his misinterpreting the gift, taking advantage of it, making it mean what it didn’t mean. Perhaps it was his beauty. DNA to DNA. He does have, objectively speaking, the most beautiful physique of them all. Maybe my clit knew he was my sexual mate long before I did. Just as it knew that resistance was necessary to all those men whose DNA was not a match for mine. With them I come from hostility, with him from love. #181 Last night—181. I tell him, after, “A hundred and eighty-one.” And I point out that that is just ass-fucks, that does not count pussy warm-ups. “What does that tell you?” I say. “That tells me three-hundred and sixty-two,” he said, “that’s what that tells me. Three sixty-two tells me it’s a good year.” SOUVENIRS As we approached two hundred, I found that my desire for continual repetition, for impossible guarantees, was intensifying. Managing my relentless need to be in that place with him became a full-time job. There was the disastrous day when the cleaning lady grabbed his well-worn shirt off my bed with the sheets and I came home and saw, to my horror, that she had washed, dried, and neatly folded my aromatic lifeline. I had slept every night with the shirt that smelled like him. Now it smelled like Bounce.

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  He stands by the bed naked, hard, and beautiful and says, “Show me your pussy.” He watches as I take off my thong, lie back on the bed, and bend my knees up and apart. Looking at my pussy, he says, “Spread it apart.” With a hand on each side I open my little pink pussy lips to him. He kneels before me and sucks on my clit, sings on my clit like a troubadour breaking all the rules. I flowed into his tongue and he murmured, “You like it when I eat your pussy, don’t you?” “I would die for it,” I admitted. I cannot imagine feeling greater love in all my life, nor do I expect to ever feel greater love, except for him. Nor would I ever ask or want greater love than I feel for him. With any others, after him, I will need to rest. THE UNWRITTEN RULES We are not domestic. We stay in the desire, in the bedroom—and out of the kitchen, the laundry, the office, and any other room that would threaten to bring in reality. We have, on a few occasions, when famished after sex, cooked dinner—well, actually he cooked it, but then we ate it in the bathtub with candles, floating a large metal bowl filled with tender rare meat between us. Both of us in the deep end, of course. We’ve never been to a movie and don’t plan on going to one, ever. Why would we? We are the movie: the porn that can never be—visually astounding, spontaneously inventive, genitally graphic, and viscerally soul-searing. It isn’t predictable with A-Man. The sex, the ass-fucking, that is the only constant. We never don’t fuck. We are not monogamous. Never have been and never will be. Neither of us has ever asked for it and neither of us has ever offered it. Offering it is the only way it could happen—neither of us would intrude on the other’s free choice. Free choice is at the core of what is hot between us. The subject has been discussed only to establish what is mutually understood. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” is the basic policy. He says, “I don’t need to know.” He pays attention to what is, not what isn’t. Having never done this before, I thought about it plenty. If one has sex with someone other than the Beloved, what happens? Does one risk diminishing one’s affection for the Beloved? Does it contaminate the love? Or does it merely confirm the love in every way, the contrast illuminating the beauty of the Beloved yet again, in yet another way, from yet another angle. And this gift to each other—the freedom to allow for other experiences—only enhances the love. Love without chains is love.

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

  Appreciating the deeply shared understanding and care that supports the micro-moments of love you feel with intimates can make you wonder whether newborns have the wherewithal to truly engage in love. While (most) parents love (most of) their newborns, are their newborns truly capable of loving them back? With their limited capacities, how can newborns muster up the selfless focus on others seemingly required by love? The trick is, they don’t need to muster at all. Under the right prenatal conditions, newborns arrive thirsty for connection with caring adults, trusting and open. From close range, they seek out your eye contact, body contact, and even synchronize their movements, to the extent they can, with yours. Ever the empiricist, I tested this claim out within minutes after my first son was born. As I held him skin to skin on my chest, we simply gazed at each other. Then I stuck my tongue out at him. It didn’t take but a moment for him to mirror me by sticking out his own tongue. I replicated my experiment some three years later when my second son was born and got the same result, a silly mother-son synchrony immortalized both times by my husband on film. Recasting love as positivity resonance makes it easy to identify micro-moment after micro-moment of love blossoming between infants and their responsive caretakers. Developmental science has shown that the attentive, infant-caregiver dance is absolutely vital to normal human development. As we’ll see in chapter 3, infant-caregiver synchrony runs deeper than visible behaviors; it coordinates biological synchrony as well. Babies live off this stuff. We all do. Like babies, we were all designed to thrive on love. Positivity resonance is a vital nutrient. This makes the fate of babies who, for whatever reasons, are deprived of positivity resonance all the more heart-wrenching. Sadly, not all children have the loving nourishment they need. Some, even as their other physical needs are met—for shelter, food, clothing, and such—have far too little experience sharing positive emotions with others. Love’s absence, research shows, can compromise nearly all aspects of children’s development—their cognitive and social abilities, their health. At one extreme, the stark and pervasive deprivation experienced by Romanian orphans reveals the painfully long shadow cast by early emotional neglect. Even among those orphans adopted and raised by loving Western families, developmental problems can persist for decades. More commonplace and poignant, however, is the unintentional emotional neglect that emerges within ordinary, even financially prosperous families.

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  Is his love as deep as mine? I don’t care if it is as superficial as mine is deep as long as he, and his rock-hard desire, show up at my back door several times a week. Sodomy ignites a gratitude of great scope. I suspect that until he shattered the control panel of my being—my mental acuity and my physical power—I had never really loved before. How do you know it’s love, real love? When you meet the one with whom you are not afraid to die. The one who takes away that constant gnawing fear of death and gives one air to breathe. Not afraid to die, this is the feeling he generates when he fucks my ass. Pussy penetration does not delve this far into my psyche; does not break the barrier; does not stop the fear. Did the love or the sodomy come first? Love grows from lust. This I know. Besides, I don’t trust love. I’ve heard it declared too often. But I trust lust completely. #121 After, I say, “Maybe it’s not even sex. Something else. Beyond sex.” Did I have a regular battle-to-the-end clitoral orgasm? No. Had I even thought about it? No. Only a fool would hold on to what she knows while being shown some land of release beyond orgasm. The land of harmony, of deep harmony with another human being. Family. He is my family. K-Y “What’s your afternoon like?” It begins. He has an appointment at six, will be over at three. It is now two. One hour. The courtesan takes over. I turn on the bath, all hot, and let it fill. I check the condom stash and refill it, always having plenty, at least five, more is better, a feeling of bounty, of possibility, like popcorn. I check the K-Y tubes, pushing the insides to the opening end and then rinsing them off under the tap, sticky from last time. The heat rises as I wash those tubes. I use my pink nail brush to wash just under the ridge on the cap where his thumb pushes it open. Dirt always collects there; it’s how I know that tube was used. I adore washing those tubes smooth.