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 Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation (2016)

  186 LECTURE 28 Self-Giving Love According to John I n the first half of John, the writer tells us of Jesus’s signs, but the meaning of these actions is often unclear. The narrative identifies conflicting points of view and, through the interplay of different perspectives, points to the central idea that Jesus is the giver of life. In this lecture, we’ll look at the second half of the gospel, where the challenge of discerning meaning continues. Here, the central question is this: If Jesus is the giver of life, what should we make of his crucifixion? As we read John’s final chapters, we will explore how the writer relates the crucifixion to self-giving love, the continuation of relationship, the completion of Jesus’s work, and the dynamics of faith. Self-Giving Love ‹The first sentence of John 13 tells us that even before the Passover meal, Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to depart from this world. Thus, “having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” The writer knows that he is about to describe Jesus doing things that can be construed in different ways. To prepare readers to see the meaning of these events differently, John asks them to interpret everything that Jesus does as an expression of love. ‹The main action in the opening scene is remarkably simple: Jesus washing and drying the feet of his disciples. But in terms of ordinary practice, everything about this is disorienting. Jesus interrupts the meal to engage in foot washing, assumes the attire of a slave by putting on a servant’s towel, and does the work of a slave by washing his disciples’ feet. ‹When Peter asks why their teacher is acting as a slave toward his followers, Jesus responds that what he is doing is essential for their relationship. As readers, we see foot washing as an expression of utter devotion. By taking on the role of a slave, Jesus conveys the extent of his love.

• From The Bible: A Biography (2007)

  Bernard (1090–1153), abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Clairvaux in Burgundy (1090–1153), dominated Pope Eugene II and King Louis VII of France and was as charismatic in his own way as Abelard. Scores of young men had followed him into the new Cistercian Order, a reformed branch of Benedictine monasticism. He accused Abelard of ‘attempting to bring the Christian faith to naught because he supposes that human reason can comprehend all that is God’.19 Quoting Paul’s hymn to charity, he claimed that Abelard ‘sees nothing as an enigma, nothing as in a mirror, but looks on everything face to face’.20 In 1141, Bernard summoned Abelard, who by this time was suffering from Parkinson’s disease, to the Council of Sens, and attacked him so ferociously that he collapsed and died the following year. Even though Bernard could not be described as a charitable man, his exegesis and spirituality were based on the love of God. His most famous work was his exposition of the Song of Songs, eighty-six sermons delivered to the monks of Clairvaux between 1135 and 1153, which mark the apogee of lectio divina.21 ‘It is desire that drives me,’ he insisted, ‘not reason.’22 In the incarnation of the Logos, God had descended to our level so that we could ascend to the divine. In the Song, God shows us that we make this ascent in three stages. When the bride cried: ‘The king has brought me into his chambers’, this referred allegorically to the senses of scripture. There were three ‘chambers’: the garden, the storeroom and the bedchamber. ‘Let the garden . . . represent the plain, unadorned sense of scripture,’ Bernard suggested, ‘the storeroom its moral sense, and the bedroom the mystery of divine contemplation.’23 We began by reading the Bible as a simple story of creation and redemption but we must then progress to the storerooms, the moral sense which teaches us to modify our behaviour. In the ‘storerooms’, the soul was refined by the practice of charity. She became ‘pleasant and temperate’ to others; ‘an earnest zeal for the works of love’ leads her ‘to forgetfulness of self and indifference of self-interest’.24 When the bride looked for her groom ‘by night’ in her bedchamber, she showed us the importance of modesty. It was better to avoid ostentatious piety and pray in the privacy of one’s cell because ‘if we pray when others are present, their approbation may rob our prayer of . . . its effect’.25 There would be no sudden illumination; by dint of regular lectio divina and the practice of charity, monks would make steady, unobtrusive and incremental progress.

• From Bastard Out of Carolina (1992)

  “No, listen to me. I an’t gonna tell you to leave him. He’s your husband, and it’s clear he thinks the sun rises and sets in your smile. I an’t sure whether he’s crazy jealous of Bone like Granny thinks, or if it’s something else. But he an’t never gonna be easy with her, and she an’t never gonna be safe with him.” “He does love her. I know he does.” Mama’s whisper was fierce. “Maybe. Still, I look at Glen and I can see he an’t never been loved like he needed to be. But the boy’s deeper and darker than I can figure out. It’s you I worry about. I know the kind of love you got in you. I know how you feel about Glen. You’d give your life to save him, and maybe that’ll make it come out right, and maybe it won’t. That’s for God to fix. Not me.” “Ruth, think about what you said about him. Anybody can see how Glen got bent, what his daddy’s done to him. I an’t never seen a boy wanted his daddy’s love so much and had so little of it. All Glen really needs is to know himself loved, to get out from under his daddy’s meanness.” My teeth ached with the cold from the ice in Mama’s glass. I knew I should push through the door, let them know I could hear them, but I stood unmoving, listening to Mama. “You never saw him when he used to come down and wait for me to get off work at the diner. That was when I started to love him, when I saw him look at Bone and Reese with his face so open I could see right into his soul. You could see the kind of man he wanted to be so plain. It was like looking at a little boy, a desperate hurt little boy. That’s when I knew I loved him.” “Oh, Anney.” I pushed the door open with my foot and stepped through. Their heads turned to me, Mama leaning forward on her chair close to Ruth’s bent neck, Ruth looking paler and more worn than when I had gone into the kitchen. “Took you long enough.” Aunt Ruth’s glance was too intent. “I sliced the lemon the way Mama likes. You can see right through those slices.” My face felt frozen. I gave Mama her glass and went back to the overturned bucket and the broken mass of roots. I tore one half free and dumped it back in the bucket and then just as roughly started breaking out four equal sections of roots and top growth. As I worked I kept my face down, my eyes on the plant. “I was telling your aunt Ruth that Daddy Glen’s started a new job over at the Sunshine Dairy. He’s real pleased about going to work for his daddy, and it looks like this job is going to work out pretty good.”

• From Bastard Out of Carolina (1992)

  You must look like your daddy.” I nodded carefully. When Glen Waddell came, Mama would get him a beer and sit with him when she could. Sometimes, if she was busy, he would carry us out to her car when Reese got sleepy, holding us in his big strong arms with the same studied gentleness as when he touched Mama. I always wanted to wait till Mama could tuck us into our bed of blankets, but she seemed to like for Glen to carry us out with all the truckers watching. I’d see her look over as he went out with us, see her face soften and shine. Maybe that was love, that look. I couldn’t tell. My mama dated Glen Waddell for two years. People said it took her time to trust men again after Lyle Parsons died. Mama would occasionally take Reese and me with her to pick Glen up from his new job at the RC Cola plant. Sometimes he would still be working, lifting flats of soda bottles to stock his truck for the next morning’s route. All those full cases had to be loaded and the empties pulled off and transferred to the conveyor belt for cleaning and shipment to the bottling plant. He would shift each case of twenty-four bottles above his head and onto the truck with a grunt, swinging from his hips with his whole weight, arms extended and mouth sucked in against his tongue with concentration. His collar was open, his pale blue short-sleeved uniform shirt was limp, and it stuck to his back in a dark stripe down his spine. Mama would still be in her waitress dress, smelling of salt and fried food, and just as sweaty and tired as he was, but Glen would smile at her like he knew she sweat sugar and cream. Mama would lean out the window of the car and call his name softly, and he would blush dark red and start moving a little faster, either to show off his strength or to get out of there sooner, we weren’t sure. Glen was a small man but so muscular and strong that it was hard to see the delicacy in him, though he was strangely graceful in his rough work clothes and heavy boots. There were bottle fragments on the pavement, crushed shards ground into the tarmac, and all the men wore heavy work boots with thick rubber soles. Glen Waddell’s feet were so fine that his boots had to be bought in the boys’ department of the Sears, Roebuck, while his gloves could only be found in the tall men’s specialty stores.

• From An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness (1995)

  We had first met at a London dinner party during one of my earlier visits to England; it was, wonderfully, and without question, love at first sight. Neither of us had any awareness of anyone else at the dinner table that night, and neither of us—we agreed much later—had ever been so completely and irrationally swept away by the power of our feelings. Several months later, when I returned to London for my year’s sabbatical leave, he called and asked me to go out to dinner. I was renting a mews house in South Kensington, so we went to a restaurant nearby. It was, for both of us, a continuation of what we had felt when we first met. I was spellbound by the ease with which he understood me, and physically overwhelmed by his intensity. We both knew, long before the wine was through, that we were beyond any way of turning back. It was raining when we left the restaurant, and he put his arm around me as we ran madcap to my place. Once there, he held me very close to him for a long, long time. I felt and smelled the rain against his coat, felt his arms around me, and remembered, with relief, how extraordinary scents and rain and love and life can be. I had not been with a man in a very long time, and, understanding this, he was kind and gentle and utterly loving. We saw each other as often as we could. Because we both were inclined to intense feelings and moods, we could console one another easily and, likewise, give one another a wide berth whenever necessary. We talked about everything. He was almost frighteningly intuitive, smart, passionate, and, occasionally, deeply melancholic; and he came to know me better than anyone had ever known me. He had no difficulty seeing the complexity in emotional situations or moods—his own made him well able to understand and respect irrationality, wild enthusiasms, paradox, change, and contradiction. We shared a love for poetry, music, tradition, and irreverence, as well as an unflagging awareness of the darker side of almost everything that was light, and the lighter side of almost everything that was bleak or morbid.

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

  Others play bit parts. They are not particularly consequential to the overall arch of your plotline, and by consequence they often undergo little character development in the script that your mind follows. You sometimes even treat them as though they were mere props, inanimate objects that populate the setting, yet bear no real importance to you or your day. Why wouldn’t it be this way? The play is all about you. You see where the illustration is going. Each person is, after all, the star of his or her own play and day. If you dropped the script of your own day and picked up the script of another person’s day, this other person would suddenly undergo considerable character development. You’d come to appreciate his or her own wishes, plans, and goals. You’d understand that this person isn’t merely a bit part or prop, but rather fully human, like you. Just like you, this person is full of yearnings and strivings, hopes and insecurities. This is true of every person. It’s equally true of all those with whom you cross paths, as well as all those you’ll never meet, not even once. LKM opens the doors of perception to break you out of your cocoon of self-absorption and restore others to their full humanity. It challenges your natural tendency to treat others like props or thinly developed characters who play only bit parts in your own self-centered play. By widening your awareness, LKM opens your eyes, mind, and heart to seeing others more fully, with warmth, kindness, and tender wishes for their well-being. The practice expands your outlook in ways that help you create the safety and connection between you and another that can seed positivity resonance. Like other meditation practices, LKM involves quiet contemplation in a seated posture, often with eyes closed and an initial focus on the breath and the heart region. You might start by setting an alarm to chime softly after ten or so minutes, so that you can experiment without concern for the time. As the practice becomes more familiar and comfortable, you can experiment with longer meditation times, aiming for twenty to twenty-five minutes of daily practice whenever possible. I’m not suggesting that you become a monk. Keep in mind that randomized controlled trials from my lab and others have revealed a wide array of benefits after just a few months of practicing LKM for an average of sixty minutes a week, which translates into three to four times a week for just fifteen to twenty minutes each. LKM is a bit like guided imagery, although the practice targets loving feelings more than visual images per se. You encourage those warm feelings to rise up by repeating a set of phrases—silently, to yourself—each of which is a wish for another’s well-being.

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

  Then, repeat the classic phrases for each subset of your focus, calling forth your heartfelt goodwill. May all children feel safe. 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.

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

  Any positive emotion can draw you to smile and carry yourself with a more open posture. And so any positive emotion can be taken by those around you as a sign to relax and connect. When someone feels safe enough to accept that invitation and joins you with his or her own heartfelt good feelings, love’s positivity resonance fires up. The nonverbal gestures unique to these shared micro-moments of love eluded scientists for decades. In part, this reflected early methodological choices, like overreliance on posed expressions and still photographs. More recently, scientists have taken a more holistic and dynamic look at the spontaneous nonverbal expressions that flow between two people engaged in ordinary conversations infused with mutual positivity. Widening their approach has enabled scientists to uncover the unique nonverbal fingerprint of love. Love, this new evidence shows, is characterized by four distinct nonverbal cues. The first cue, not surprisingly, is how often you and the other person each smile at each other, in the genuine, eye-crinkling manner. A second cue is the frequency with which you each use open and friendly hand gestures to refer to each other, like your outstretched palm. (Hostile hand gestures, like pointing or finger-wagging, are by definition excluded from this category of gestures.) A third cue is how often you each lean in toward each other, literally bringing your hearts closer together. The fourth cue is how often you each nod your head, a sign that you affirm and accept each other. Taken together, these four nonverbal cues—smiles, gestures, leans, and nods—both emanate from a person’s inner experiences of love and are read by others as love. Love, displayed in this way, also matters. It has force. It forecasts not only the social support people feel in their relationships but also how they deliver direct criticism, which (as I describe in a later section) has been found to predict the long-term stability of loving relationships. These four nonverbal gestures are thus a dependable and consequential sign of love. Other nonverbal gestures can also reveal love—literally if the timing is right. For instance, when people come together and connect, their actions often come into sync, so that their hand movements and facial expressions mirror each other to a certain degree. Spontaneously synchronized gestures like these can make two separate individuals come to look like one well-orchestrated unit. This phenomenon extends beyond pairs: Just as birds migrate in flocks and fish swim in schools, large groups of people at times spontaneously move in synchronized ways. You can begin to appreciate how a football game or a concert can trigger positivity resonance on a grand scale. Through intense synchronized cheers, chants, marches, or dance, these and other ways of keeping in time together forge deep feelings of group solidarity—even throughout an entire arena.

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

  Love is also deeply personal. It unfurls within and throughout your mind and body like a wave, cresting with each new micro-moment of connection—that smile, that laugh, or that knowing and appreciative glance that you share with another. Yet even as these micro-moments are deeply personal and fleeting, they’ve also been targets of increasing scientific scrutiny. So now, for the first time, you can know and appreciate love not only through a personal, subjective lens but also through a scientific, objective lens. Through this scientific lens, you can better see and appreciate how your body and brain were made for love, and made to benefit from loving. Learn to seek love out more frequently and it can elevate you, your community, and our world far beyond what you and I can today envision. Opportunities for love abound. It’s up to you to nourish yourself with them. Acknowledgments The ideas about love that you’ll encounter here have been gestating in my mind and heart for years. Fittingly, they first arose through my connections with others. Some of these connections have been fleeting, others long-standing. Some have been mutual connections, with ideas forged through rich conversations and collaborations, others have been more one-sided, as I’ve privately mulled over and expanded on the words of other scholars. For the foundational idea that love is best seen as any positive emotion shared within a safe, interpersonal connection, I thank Carroll Izard. His 1977 book described love as moments of shared joy and shared interest, and convinced me that any accounting of the positive emotions should not omit love. What little I wrote about love in my first presentation of the broaden-and-build theory owed a great deal to Izard’s influence on my thinking. A deeper shaping of my views on love comes from the pioneering work on high-quality connections by my friend and University of Michigan colleague, Jane Dutton. I’ve long been inspired by her ways of seeing and describing the connective tissue that binds and energizes people in long-standing relationships and one-time encounters alike. Apart from her inspiring theoretical work, Jane is also an inspiring person, and I am thankful that our friendship has withstood the strain of my move from Ann Arbor. Other scholars whose work has deeply influenced my thinking about love and related ideas include Lisa Feldman Barrett, Kent Berridge, John Cacioppo, Laura Carstensen, Sy-Miin Chow, Steve Cole, Michael D. Cohen, Mike Csikszentmihalyi, Richie Davidson, Paul Ekman, Ruth Feldman, Shelly Gable, Eric Garland, Karen Grewen, Melissa Gross, Uri Hasson, Julianne Holt-Lunstad, David Johnson, Danny Kahneman, Dacher Keltner, Corey Keyes, Ann Kring, Bob Levenson, Kathleen Light, Marcial Losada, Batja Mesquita, Paula Niedenthal, Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, Keith Payne, David Penn, Chris Peterson, Bob Quinn, Cliff Saron, Oliver Schultheiss, Leslie Sekerka, Marty Seligman, Erika Rosenberg, Robert Vallerand, George Vaillant, and David Sloan Wilson. Although these people span the spectrum from my dearest friends to those I’ve yet to meet, the theoretical and empirical contributions of each have inspired me to build upon them.

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

  Through eye contact and close attention to all manner of smiles—and the embodied simulations such visual intake triggers—your gut instincts about whom to trust and whom not to trust become more reliable. Rather than avoid all new people out of fear and suspicion, oxytocin helps you pick up on cues that signal another person’s goodwill and guides you to approach them with your own. Because all people need social connections, not just to reproduce, but to survive and thrive in this world, oxytocin has been dubbed “the great facilitator of life.” It, too, can jump the gap between people such that someone else’s oxytocin flow can trigger your own. A biochemical synchrony can then emerge that supports mutual engagement, care, and responsiveness. The clearest evidence that oxytocin rises and falls in synchrony between people comes from studies of infants and their parents. When an infant and a parent—either mom or dad—interact, sometimes they are truly captivated by each other, and other times not. When an infant and parent do click, their coordinated motions and emotions show lots of mutual positive engagement. Picture moms or dads showering their baby with kisses, tickling their baby’s tiny fingers and toes, smiling at their baby, and speaking to him or her in that high-pitched, singsong tone that scientists call motherese . These parents are superattentive. As they tickle and coo they’re also closely tracking their baby’s face for signs that their delight is mutual. In step with their parent’s affectionate antics, these attentive babies babble, coo, smile, and giggle. Positivity resonates back and forth between them. Micro-moments of love blossom. Of course, not every infant-parent interaction is so rosy. Some pairs show little mutual engagement. Some moms and dads rarely make eye contact with their infants and emit precious little positivity, either verbally or nonverbally. These pairs are simply less attuned to each other, less connected. And in those rare moments when they are engaged, the vibe that joins them is distinctly more negative. They connect over mutual distress or indifference, rather than over mutual affection. It turns out that positive behavioral synchrony—the degree to which an infant and a parent (through eye contact and affectionate touch) laugh, smile, and coo together—goes hand in hand with oxytocin synchrony. Researchers have measured oxytocin levels in the saliva of dads, moms, and infants both before and after a videotaped, face-to-face parent-infant interaction. For infant-parent pairs who show mutual positive engagement, oxytocin levels also come into sync. Without such engagement, however, no oxytocin synchrony emerges.

• 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 Birthday Girl (2018)

  Mi pecho se sacude con una risa, porque es tan mentirosa. Este asunto de dormir durante las tormentas nunca ha sido un problema en nuestra cama. Duerme como una muerta a mi lado, y me enorgullezco mucho por ese hecho. De repente quiero ver su rostro, así que alcanzo las cerillas con mi mano libre, prendiendo una y encendiendo la vela sobre la mesita de noche. Apagando la cerilla, la habitación brilla con una luz suave, y bajo la mirada a su rostro, todavía en sombras pero un poco más visible ahora. Sus largas pestañas y hermosa piel. Sus labios rosas que he besado miles de veces durante miles de horas. Su cuerpo que he amado durante diez años y en un millón diferente de maneras. Pensarías que estaría acostumbrado a ella ahora, pero mi polla empieza a endurecerse ante el solo pensamiento de ella sobre mí de nuevo. Su cabeza se alza y mira alrededor, sobresaltada. —Oh, la ropa —suelta. —Ya me ocupé —le digo, palmeando su pierna para calmarla—. No te preocupes. Se relaja, asintiendo y bostezando al mismo tiempo. —¿Los niños están bien? —pregunta, poniendo su cabeza de nuevo en mi pecho. —Síp. Durmiendo como troncos. Froto su espalda, intentando calmarla para dormir y siento su pierna cubrir la mía. Aprieto mis dientes, la calidez entre sus muslos filtrándose a los míos ahora. Mi ingle pulsa. —¿Estás nerviosa? —susurro. —Un poco. Hará una presentación en la apertura de los jardines botánicos que diseñó para el nuevo museo en Rockford, mañana. Después de la universidad, trabajó para una firma durante varios años, pero decidió empezar su propio negocio el año pasado. El museo fue su primer y gran proyecto en solitario, y los clientes no solo están extremadamente complacidos con su trabajo, sino que esto ha traído varios proyectos ya. Es una artista. Pero una que odia hablar en público, así que estoy pensando que será doloroso pero breve mañana. —Solo recuerda. —Beso su cabello—. Subimos al auto y nos ponemos en camino después. Sus brazos se aprietan a mi alrededor. —No puedo esperar. Después de la presentación, vamos a Minnesota donde alquilamos una casa del lago durante dos semanas. Su hermana Cam y el último de una lista de novios ricos, también alquilaron una casa cerca, así que van a llevar a su hijo, y tendremos compañía cuando nos apetezca. Y alguien para llevarse a los niños por una noche cuando no lo hagamos. Sus dedos trazan mi pecho y arrastra sus uñas ligeramente por mi estómago. Mi cuerpo empieza a volver a la vida bajo mi piel, y no creo que pueda dormir hasta que lo saque de mi sistema. —Entonces, ¿estás despierta ahora? —me burlo. Asiente. —¿Tú? —Es difícil dormir cuando haces eso. Se ríe y se alza, deslizando una pierna sobre mi cuerpo y montándome a horcajadas. —Oh, qué bien. Se quita su camiseta y de inmediato toco su estómago, sintiendo el duro y pequeño bulto donde mi hijo o hija está.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  —Sí. —Beso su frente, poniendo las sábanas sobre nosotros—. Vuelve a dormir. Gran día mañana. —Sabes que no puedo dormir durante las tormentas. Mi pecho se sacude con una risa, porque es tan mentirosa. Este asunto de dormir durante las tormentas nunca ha sido un problema en nuestra cama. Duerme como una muerta a mi lado, y me enorgullezco mucho por ese hecho. De repente quiero ver su rostro, así que alcanzo las cerillas con mi mano libre, prendiendo una y encendiendo la vela sobre la mesita de noche. Apagando la cerilla, la habitación brilla con una luz suave, y bajo la mirada a su rostro, todavía en sombras pero un poco más visible ahora. Sus largas pestañas y hermosa piel. Sus labios rosas que he besado miles de veces durante miles de horas. Su cuerpo que he amado durante diez años y en un millón diferente de maneras. Pensarías que estaría acostumbrado a ella ahora, pero mi polla empieza a endurecerse ante el solo pensamiento de ella sobre mí de nuevo. Su cabeza se alza y mira alrededor, sobresaltada. —Oh, la ropa —suelta. —Ya me ocupé —le digo, palmeando su pierna para calmarla—. No te preocupes. Se relaja, asintiendo y bostezando al mismo tiempo. —¿Los niños están bien? —pregunta, poniendo su cabeza de nuevo en mi pecho. —Síp. Durmiendo como troncos. Froto su espalda, intentando calmarla para dormir y siento su pierna cubrir la mía. Aprieto mis dientes, la calidez entre sus muslos filtrándose a los míos ahora. Mi ingle pulsa. —¿Estás nerviosa? —susurro. —Un poco. Hará una presentación en la apertura de los jardines botánicos que diseñó para el nuevo museo en Rockford, mañana. Después de la universidad, trabajó para una firma durante varios años, pero decidió empezar su propio negocio el año pasado. El museo fue su primer y gran proyecto en solitario, y los clientes no solo están extremadamente complacidos con su trabajo, sino que esto ha traído varios proyectos ya. Es una artista. Pero una que odia hablar en público, así que estoy pensando que será doloroso pero breve mañana.

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

  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. You’ll begin to see each new interaction as an opportunity, not as an obligation or obstacle. Your more open stance will be amply reinforced by the positive feelings that you share in the brightened moments spent with others. Aware now of the ingredients and potency of positivity resonance, you have new lenses through which to view each and every encounter you have with others. True, you are unlikely to elevate all of your interpersonal encounters into moments of positivity resonance. After all, you can only reshape your side of each interpersonal interchange. So don’t judge yourself against unrealistically high standards. Do notice, however, whether you’ve been able to upgrade one, two, or even three ordinary interchanges each day into acts of love. These are the small changes that can add up to big improvements in your health and happiness. CHAPTER 6 Loving Self I EXIST AS I AM, THAT IS ENOUGH. IF NO OTHER IN THE WORLD BE AWARE I SIT CONTENT. AND IF EACH AND ALL BE AWARE I SIT CONTENT. —Walt Whitman The old saying tells us that we can’t love others unless we first love ourselves. It’s true. Even though love is defined throughout this book as moments of positivity shared between and among people, the positivity shared between knower and known—between I and me—provides a vital foundation for all other forms of love. We first need to accept ourselves fully, as worthy partners in positivity, before we can freely enjoy the many other fruits of positivity resonance that we can share with others.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  She gave again a nervous laugh, and tilted her face against her pillow. ‘Oh Nan,’ she said, ‘I think I shall die if you don’t!’ Tentatively, then, I raised my hand, and dipped my fingers into her hair. I touched her face - her brow, that curved; her cheek, that was freckled; her lip, her chin, her throat, her collar-bone, her shoulder ... Here, shy again, I let my hand linger - until, with her face still tilted from my own and her eyes hard shut, she took my wrist and gently led my fingers to her breasts. When I touched her here she sighed, and turned; and after a minute or two she seized my wrist again, and moved it lower. Here she was wet, and smooth as velvet. I had never, of course, touched anyone like this before - except, sometimes, myself; but it was as if I touched myself now, for the slippery hand which stroked her seemed to stroke me: I felt my drawers grow damp and warm, my own hips jerk as hers did. Soon I ceased my gentle strokings and began to rub her, rather hard. ‘Oh!’ she said very softly; then, as I rubbed faster, she said ‘Oh!’ again. Then, ‘Oh, oh, oh!’: a volley of ‘Oh!’s, low and fast and breathy. She bucked, and the bed gave an answering creak; her own hands began to chafe distractedly at the flesh of my shoulders. There seemed no motion, no rhythm, in all the world, but that which I had set up, between her legs, with one wet fingertip. At last she gasped, and stiffened, then plucked my hand away and fell back, heavy and slack. I pressed her to me, and for a moment we lay together quite still. I felt her heart beating wildly in her breast; and when it had calmed a little she stirred, and sighed, and put a hand to her cheek. ‘You’ve made me weep,’ she murmured. I sat up. ‘Not really, Kitty?’ ‘Yes, really.’ She gave a twitch that was half laughter, half a sob, then rubbed at her eyes again, and when I took her fingers from her face I could feel the tears upon them. I pressed her hand, suddenly uncertain: ‘Did I hurt you? What did I do that was bad? Did I hurt you, Kitty?’ She shook her head, and sniffed, and laughed more freely. ‘Hurt me? Oh no. It was only - so very sweet.’ She smiled. ‘And you are - so very good. And I -’ She sniffed again, then placed her face against my breast and hid her eyes from me. ‘And I - oh, Nan, I do so love you, so very, very much!’

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  Another night Lamb took them to the movies to see Annie Hall , and after, when Caitlin begged for just one ride on the Flying Horses, Lamb said, “Okay, but just one.” He and Sharkey headed up Circuit Avenue to get a slice at Papa John’s. But Von wasn’t on the carousel that night. Instead, Caitlin swore she saw him with some girl in the dark alley next to the Flying Horses, with his hands inside her shirt and her hand on his—Vix couldn’t say it. She couldn’t say dick or pecker or even penis —not when it came to Von. So Caitlin gave it a new name. The Package . She said this girl’s hand was wrapped around Von’s Package . That night they came up with a new game. Vixen and Cassandra Meet Von. When they played they took turns pretending to be Von, lying on top of one another, rubbing The Power against the other’s Power until the electrical current buzzed through their bodies. They vowed never to tell anyone about Vixen and Cassandra. Caitlin said they weren’t necessarily lesbos because they always pretended to be doing it with a boy. On the other hand, they might be. LambHE SWEARS , on the night she was born, when they put her in his arms, she looked directly into his eyes and smiled. He touched the tiny rosebud mouth and fell head over heels in love. His daughter. His little girl. He never imagined he’d lose her. And he hasn’t, he keeps telling himself. She’s never missed a summer, never asks to spend the holidays with anyone but him. He and Phoebe were fools, thinking it would be easy. Sure, they’d divorced without rancor. He can’t even remember if it was Phoebe’s idea or his. All that open marriage business. Someone was bound to get hurt. But separating the kids just to be fair? A girl for you, a boy for me … How was he supposed to know Phoebe would take Caitlin to live halfway across the country? Regrets? Sure, he has regrets. He watches her on the Flying Horses. He can’t believe she won’t always be this young, this innocent. 4IT’S HARD TO REMAIN in awe of someone you’re as tight with as Vix was with Caitlin that summer, someone with dirty feet, feet that smelled like the muck on the bottom of the pond, someone who spread her legs and rubbed her Power against yours. “God, I love that feeling!” Caitlin said. “You’re turning out to be a lot different than I thought.” “What’d you think?” Caitlin picked up two small, red flannel squares and began to toss them from hand to hand. Maybe she was going to ignore Vix’s question. She did that when someone asked her something she didn’t want to answer. She’d just act as if she hadn’t heard a word.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  She ran her hand once, very lightly, over my buttons, until I began to shake with the wanting of her. Then she drew the suit from me entirely and we lay together, naked as shadows beneath the counterpane; and then she touched me again. We lay until the front door slammed, and we heard Mrs Dendy’s cough, and Tootsie laughing on the stair. Then Kitty said we should rise, and dress, or the others might wonder; and for the second time that day I lay and watched her wash, and pull on stockings and a skirt, through lazy eyes. As I did so, I put a hand to my breast. There was a dull movement there, a kind of pulling or folding, or melting, exactly as if my chest were the hot, soft wall of a candle, falling in upon a burning wick. I gave a sigh. Kitty heard, and saw my stricken face, and came to me; then she moved my hand away and placed her lips, very softly, over my heart. I was eighteen, and knew nothing. I thought, at that moment, that I would die of love for her. We did not see Walter, and there was no more talk about his plan to put me on the stage at Kitty’s side, until two evenings later, when he arrived at Mrs Dendy’s with a parcel, marked Nan Astley. It was the last night of the year: he had come to supper, and to stay to hear the chimes of midnight with us. When at last they came - struck out upon the bells of Brixton church - he raised his glass. ‘To Kitty and Nan!’ he cried. He gazed at me, and then - more lingeringly - at Kitty. ‘To their new partnership, that will bring fame and fortune to us all in 1889, and ever after!’ We were at the parlour-table with Ma Dendy and the Professor, and now we joined our voices with his, and took up his toast; but Kitty and I exchanged one swift, secret glance, and I thought - with a little thrill of pleasure and triumph that I couldn’t quite suppress — poor man! how could he know what we were really celebrating? Only now did Walter present me with his package, and smile to see me open it. But I knew already what it would hold: a suit, a stage suit of serge and velvet, cut to my size to the pattern of one of Kitty’s - but blue to match my eyes, where hers was brown. I held it up against me, and Walter nodded. ‘Now that,’ he said, ‘will make all the difference. Just you trot upstairs and slip that on, and then we’ll see what Mrs Dendy has to say about it.’ I did as he asked; then paused for a moment to study myself in the glass.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Pero no estoy completamente segura de que no haría lo mismo si estuviera en sus zapatos. Cole, Lindsay, Shel, mi hermana, Dutch, todo el vecindario... ellos hablarán. Algunos lo juzgarán por esto. Su temor es justificado. Pero ellos no saben. No saben lo afortunados que somos y lo bueno que es esto. Lo amo. Me aparto y limpio mis lágrimas en su camiseta. —Y no coloqué los marcos en el lugar incorrecto —le digo—. Ahí es donde siempre pertenecían. Se ríe, secando las lágrimas de mi rostro, y acercándome para besarme. Todo regresa a mi memoria —su boca, suave pero fuerte, y su sabor—, y le devuelvo el beso, levantándome de puntillas para profundizarlo. —¿Necesitan una habitación? —interrumpe alguien—. Vinieron al lugar correcto. Me vuelvo a apartar, y Pike se aclara la garganta mientras Danni entra y se sienta en su banco. —Pike, esta es Danni —digo—. Danni, Pike. —Encantada de conocerte —contesta. —Sí, igualmente. —Levanta su mano y la sacuden. —Entonces, ¿quieren una habitación? —pregunta nuevamente—. ¿La casa invita? Saca la última llave del cubículo y la levanta. Pike se mueve hacia adelante, tomándola. —Gracias. De verdad. Eso sería genial. Ella desvía su mirada a mí, y puedo ver que está buscando confirmación de que todo está bien. Asiento, tranquilizándola. —Bueno, tengan una buena noche —nos dice—. Los veré en la mañana. Pike toma mi mano, y caminamos afuera. El húmedo aire de agosto comienza a humedecer mis brazos. Él me toma como si fuera a perderme mientras caminamos a su camioneta y toma su bolsa y un pequeño paquete. Me río, viendo todavía lodo en la puerta y llantas. Caminado a la habitación, paso las cinco que asigné para “Tyler” y sus chicas, y puedo escuchar música, charla, y risas en el interior de varias. Pasamos otra habitación con las cortinas cerradas, pero la luz de la televisión atraviesa la tela.

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  Lamb HE SWEARS, on the night she was born, when they put her in his arms, she looked directly into his eyes and smiled. He touched the tiny rosebud mouth and fell head over heels in love. His daughter. His little girl. He never imagined he’d lose her. And he hasn’t, he keeps telling himself. She’s never missed a summer, never asks to spend the holidays with anyone but him. He and Phoebe were fools, thinking it would be easy. Sure, they’d divorced without rancor. He can’t even remember if it was Phoebe’s idea or his. All that open marriage business. Someone was bound to get hurt. But separating the kids just to be fair? A girl for you, a boy for me ... How was he supposed to know Phoebe would take Caitlin to live halfway across the country? Regrets? Sure, he has regrets. He watches her on the Flying Horses. He can’t believe she won’t always be this young, this innocent. 4 IT’S HARD TO REMAIN in awe of someone you’re as tight with as Vix was with Caitlin that summer, someone with dirty feet, feet that smelled like the muck on the bottom of the pond, someone who spread her legs and rubbed her Power against yours. “God, I love that feeling!” Caitlin said. “You’re turning out to be a lot different than I thought.” “What’d you think?” Caitlin picked up two small, red flannel squares and began to toss them from hand to hand. Maybe she was going to ignore Vix’s question. She did that when someone asked her something she didn’t want to answer. She’d just act as if she hadn’t heard a word. But after a while, Caitlin said, “I knew you were smart but quiet.” She caught the squares and checked out the next exercise in Juggling for the Complete Klutz. “I knew you wouldn’t ask a million questions and get in the way.” She began again, this time with three squares. “And I liked the way you smiled ... and that purple T-shirt you always wore.” She didn’t take her eyes off those red squares, not for a second. Those were her reasons? But what had Vix expected? After all, she hadn’t known Caitlin any better than Caitlin had known her. Caitlin tossed all three squares into the air at once, then dove onto Vix’s bed, knocking her flat. “I just wasn’t sure you’d know how to have fun!” Vix took that as a compliment. She knew Caitlin liked her. The kind of like that had nothing to do with their secret games. Sometimes, when they were in town, Vix would notice people staring and she’d remember Caitlin was beautiful, but for the most part it didn’t matter anymore. It didn’t get in the way.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  Then, without waiting for a reply: 'but who is sane and who is mad? Who is virtuous and who is vicious in this world of ours? Do you know? I don't.' "The thought of my father came to my mind, and I asked myself, shuddering, whether my senses, too, were leaving me. "There was a pause. Neither of us spoke for some time. He had entwined his fingers within mine, and we walked on for a while in silence. "All the blood vessels of my member were still strongly extended and the nerves stiff, the spermatic ducts full to overflowing; therefore, the erection continuing, I felt a dull pain spread over and near all the organs of generation, whilst the remainder of my body was in a state of prostration, and still— notwithstanding the pain and languor—it was a most pleasurable feeling to walk on quietly with our hands clasped, his head almost leaning on my shoulder. "'When did you first feel my eyes on yours?' asked he in a low hushed tone, after some time. "'When you came out for the second time.' "'Exactly; then our glances met, and then there was a current between us, like a spark of electricity running along a wire, was it not?' "'Yes, an uninterrupted current.' "'But you really felt me just before I went out, is it not true?' "For all answer I pressed his fingers tightly. "'I never knew a man whose feelings coincided so well with mine. Tell me, do you think any woman could feel so intensely?' "My head sank down, I could not give him any answer. "'We shall be friends?' said he, taking hold of both my hands. "'Yes,' said I shyly. "'Yes, but great friends, bosom friends, as the English say.' "'Yes.' "Thereupon he clasped me again to his breast and muttered in my ear some words of an unknown tongue, so low and musical, that they almost seemed like a spell. "'Do you know what that means?' quoth he. "'No.' "'Oh, friend! my heart doth yearn for thee." CHAPTER II "THAT whole night I was excited and feverish, I tossed about on my bed unable to find any rest; and when at last I fell asleep it was only to be haunted by the most lascivious and erotic dreams. "Once, for instance, it seemed to me that Teleny was not a man, but a woman; moreover, he was my own sister. "'But you never had a sister, had you?' "'No, of course not. Some day I shall tell you the reason why I am an only son. In this hallucination, I—like Amon the son of David,—loved my sister, and I was so vexed that I fell sick, for I thought it not only hard—but a most heinous act—to do something to her.