Relief

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 Synanon Kid: Book One: A Memoir of Growing Up in the Synanon Cult

  She took my hand, squeezing it, and we began to laugh. Ray, his face thick with stubble, the skin stretched gaunt over sunken cheeks, eyes shadowed with dark circles from the tension of the past two weeks, hugged my mom, who nuzzled against his chest while he affectionately stroked her dark head. “Goodbye, Synanon!” Sara sang out. Yes. Goodbye. A Short History of SynanonIn 1958 an old storefront in Ocean Park, California, on the Promenade was rented as a clubhouse for an unlikely group of members: The Tender Loving Care Club, later known as Synanon, specifically for people suffering from alcohol and drug addiction. Spearheaded by a dynamic and driven man named Charles Dederich, commonly known as Chuck, more than 25,000 people would filter through Synanon’s doors over the commune’s thirty-plus year life span. During the cult’s development, drug rehabilitation became just one of Synanon’s many objectives as it expanded into building its own social and environmental awareness agenda through increasingly monitored and micromanaged lifestyle experimentation. Clean living, environmental consciousness, philosophical studies, interracial community and experimental childrearing were just some of the issues tackled both in theory and action. This “new” paradigm of collectivist and socialist structure attracted more than just dope fiends; college graduates, white-collar professionals, celebrities and wealthy donors also flocked to Synanon. These new members, called lifestylers, looked to Synanon as a kind of utopia. Synanon properties would grow to expand beyond Santa Monica, to Marin County, San Francisco, Oakland, and Visalia, California. There would also be property in Lake Havasu, Arizona, New York, and Berlin, Germany. During the 1960s many social issues had come to a head: the civil rights movement, women’s rights, environmental concerns, the Vietnam War, a rejection of orthodox religions and an embracing of Eastern spirituality, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism. Conservatism was also sweeping the country, increasingly young adults were becoming polarized in their beliefs, some following the status quo, others questioning the norms of the day and demanding change. Communes were often attractive to people because they offered neatly packaged solutions to pressing social concerns. Synanon was among a number of private communities birthed around this time. Chuck Dederick, being a fervent admirer of the philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson and the psychologist Abraham Maslow, embraced Maslow’s theory of psychological health and self-actualization and Emerson’s philosophy on self-reliance. Chuck preached resourcefulness and independence, inspired by these two men and structured Synanon philosophy from the literary works of Maslow and Emerson while many of the unusual and bizarre actions taken by Synanon members were direct and unyielding dictates from Chuck as well. Throughout its lifespan, Synanon would be a dichotomy of self-actualization and mind control. People were encouraged to think for themselves and be innovative, yet never question Chuck, no matter how strange, disturbing or traumatizing to their lives some of his demands were. This schizophrenic mindset would create an emotional and psychological turmoil for many community members. Over time, the organization grew corrupt and violent.

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  At night, on guard, staring into the dark, they were carried away by jumbo jets. They felt the rush of takeoff. Gone! they yelled. And then velocity—wings and engines—a smiling stewardess—but it was more than a plane, it was a real bird, a big sleek silver bird with feathers and talons and high screeching. They were flying. The weights fell off; there was nothing to bear. They laughed and held on tight, feeling the cold slap of wind and altitude, soaring, thinking /t's over, I'm gone!—they were naked, they were light and free—it was all lightness, bright and fast and buoyant, light as light, a helium buzz in the brain, a giddy bubbling in the lungs as they were taken up over the clouds and the war, beyond duty, beyond gravity and mortification and global entanglements—Sin Joi!, they yelled. I'm sorry, motherfuckers, but I'm out of it, I'm goofed, I'm on a space cruise, I'm gone!—and it was a restful, unencumbered sensation, just riding the light waves, sailing that big silver freedom bird over the mountains and oceans, over America, over the farms and great sleeping cities and cemeteries and highways and the golden arches of McDonald's, it was flight, a kind of fleeing, a kind of falling, falling higher and higher, spinning off the edge of the earth and beyond the sun and through the vast, silent vacuum where there were no burdens and where everything weighed exactly nothing—Gone! they screamed. I’m sorry but I'm gone!— and so at night, not quite dreaming, they gave themselves over to lightness, they were carried, they were purely borne. On the morning after Ted Lavender died, First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross crouched at the bottom of his foxhole and burned Martha's letters. Then he burned the two photographs. There was a steady rain falling, which made it difficult, but he used heat tabs and Sterno to build a small fire, screening it with his body, holding the photographs over the tight blue flame with the tips of his fingers. He realized it was only a gesture. Stupid, he thought. Sentimental, too, but mostly just stupid. Lavender was dead. You couldn't burn the blame. Besides, the letters were in his head. And even now, without photographs, Lieutenant Cross could see Martha playing volleyball in her white gym shorts and yellow T-shirt. He could see her moving in the rain. When the fire died out, Lieutenant Cross pulled his poncho over his shoulders and ate breakfast from a can. There was no great mystery, he decided. In those burned letters Martha had never mentioned the war, except to say, Jimmy, take care of yourself. She wasn't involved. She signed the letters Love, but it wasn't love, and all the fine lines and technicalities did not matter. Virginity was no longer an issue. He hated her. Yes, he did. He hated her. Love, too, but it was a hard, hating kind of love.

• From Synanon Kid: Book One: A Memoir of Growing Up in the Synanon Cult

  Eager to see how our residents had fared during their first night in our zoo, we ventured out and were relieved to find them sleeping, the chickens nestled against one another and apparently contented, warm and dry. With the next field trip to the supermarket some weeks away, we focused on the animals we already had secured, feeding them once or twice daily and occasionally releasing them from their cages to run about under our supervision. As the chickens and duck grew in size, they remained relatively tame. All of the chicks turned out to be hens. One all-white chicken that we named Vanilla would actually come when called and even climb into the lap of whoever had beckoned her, laying her head affectionately against that person’s chest. Every chance I had, I went off to our little zoo on my own or with another club member. We began taking the chickens and duck on walks through the thicket, a lush quiet world of overarching branches that provided natural tunnels. Red and yellow leaves in various stages of decomposition carpeted the ground. The air was heavy with the scent of damp earth. At times I imagined myself in an otherworldly realm like the characters in C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe . During these strolls our chickens usually ran off to scratch and peck at newly discovered, previously unharvested plots in their quests for bugs and worms. We didn’t want them to wander out of sight, so we repeatedly rounded them up. They weren’t the most obliging when it came to doing what they were told, but the duck apparently understood what we were trying to do and took on the job of keeping the chickens in order by loudly squawking and running after stray hens, nipping at tail feathers and herding wayward strays back to the group. He took his responsibilities so seriously that we started calling him Sergeant Deedle. A month into our project, the demonstrators announced that there would be a field trip to the library with a stopover at the supermarket. Over the weeks we had been saving our money and giving it to Bear. An emergency meeting was called for the four of us to work out a plan. “Sometimes the doors to the bus are left open,” Spike said. “We could put the cat food under a seat and then get off the bus before anyone else gets on.” “What if I sit at the back of the bus and open a window and one of you hands the food up to me?” Lacy suggested. Bear sat chewing on her eraser. “We should put the food in other containers like cracker boxes. Dump out the plastic packages of crackers and pour the cat food in.” We agreed that that was the best idea and it was exactly what we did, buying an amount of cat food we roughly calculated as sufficient to last until the next supermarket outing.

• From Lit: A Memoir (2009)

  34 The Sweet Hereafter In the loony bin, I surrendered—not full bore, the way saints do, once and for all, blowing away my ego in perfect service to God—not even close. But watching the world through chicken wire convinced me that my unguided thought process would no doubt swerve me into concrete. Before, I’d feared surrender would sand me down to nothing. Now I’ve started believing it can bloom me more solidly into myself. So once home, I take suggestions I’d carped about before with a new zeal, albeit with the occasional snotty look on my face. I sit squirmy in prayer while conflicting thoughts zip through my skull like so many simultaneously slammed tennis balls. Before, prayer had involved bouncing on and off my knees so fast it resembled a break dance move. Make a daily gratitude list, Joan said, using every letter of the alphabet to delineate what you’re grateful for. Like J for Joan the Bone. Bingo, she says. You’re not serious. That’s so puerile. Childish things for stubborn children, she says. I’m teaching again with some ease, and the writing started in the hospital plows forward. Warren and I exist like kindly intentioned siblings, though he’s putting forth more effort. On my birthday, he stuns me by gathering friends at a restaurant to holler surprise, but when he reaches for me the next morning, I roll away. The prospect scares me. Never, I think, could I kiss that handsome mouth. Whatever his reaction stays shut inside him. I follow the old advice of St. Jack of the Tinfoil, who’d counseled me to fulfill my contract unless otherwise guided. Right before I hit a year sober, Joan suggests starting a women’s group for gab of some spiritual variety—think quilting bee where we stitch on each other’s souls, autopsy where the corpses take turns carving. In my office at Radcliffe on Sunday nights, we meet—about four or five sober women trying to stay that way. Nobody operates from a formal religious construct, no church ladies or temple mavens. Joan rustles up a list of discussion topics she used in a similar group, and we start off talking about prayer. When Deb claims her regular prayer is for a joyous day filled with serenity, I say, You can ask for that? Nights I put Dev to bed, the St. Francis prayer becomes part of our ritual, in the form of call and response. I say, Where there is hatred, let me sow, and he shouts out, Love. I say, Where there is conflict, and he hollers, Pardon. Afterward, if I have trouble sleeping, I lie in a hot bath with a washcloth over my face, saying prayers I hardly believe but take blind comfort from. I’m still given to cussing any traditional notion of God. What god would deny you children? I say to Deb, for she’s enduring torturous in vitro hormones trying to conceive.

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  ἀνάπαυσις, poet. dym-, ews, 4, repose, rest, Mimnerm. 12. 2, Pind. N. 7. 76, Hipp. Vet. Med. 12, Xen.: esp. relaxation, recreation, Plat. Tim. 59 C, Xen. Cyr. 7. 5, 47. 2. c. gen. rei, rest from a thing, κακῶν Thuc. 4. 20; πολέμου Xen. Hier. 2, 11. ἀναπαυστέον, verb. Adj. one must pause, Greg. Naz. ἀναπαυστήριος or -παυτήριος, Ion, ἀμττ--, ov, of or for resting, θῶκοι dum. seats to rest on, Hdt. 1. 181. II. as Subst. ἀναπαυστήριον, τό, a time of rest, οἱ θεοὶ τὴν νύκτα διδόασιν, κάλλιστον ἀν. Xen. Mem. 4. 3, 3: on the form, v. Lob. Soph. Aj. 704, p. 321. 2. a place of rest, Luc. Amor. 18. 3. the sound of trumpet for bed-time, opp. to τὸ ἀναπλητιπκόν, Poll. 4. 86. ἀναπαύω, poét. and Ion. ἀμπ--: (v. παύω). To make to cease, to stop or hinder from a thing, χειμῶνος... ὅς ῥά τε ἔργων ἀνθρώπους ἀνέπαυσεν 1]. 17. 550; av. τινὰ τοῦ πλάνου to give him rest from wandering, Soph. O. C. 1113; τοὺς λειτουργοῦντας ἀν. (sc. τῶν ἀναλω- μάτων) to relieve them from .. , Dem. 1046, 21, cf. 1049. 2. 2. c. acc. only, to stop, put an end to, Bony Soph. Tr. 1262: ¢o hill, Plut. 2. 110 E:—more commonly, ¢o rest, make to halt, av. στράτευμα Xen. Cyr. 7./1, 43 κατὰ μέρος τοὺς ναύτας ay. Id. Hell. 6. 2, 29; κάματον ἵππων ἀν. Aesch. Fr. 192; σῶμα Eur. Hipp. 1353; εἴδωλον ἀν. ἐπὶ ἅμαξαν to lay it in a reposing posture, Acl. V. H. 12. 64, cf. N. A. 7. 29. 3. rarely intr. in sense of Med. ¢o take rest, ἀναπαύοντες ἐν τῷ μέρει Thuc. 4. 11; ἡσυχίαν εἶχε καὶ ἀνέπαυεν Xen. Hell. 5.1, ai. IT. in Med. and Pass. to leave off or desist from a thing, ἀπὸ ναυμαχίας ἀναπεπαυμένοι Thuc. 7. 73; ἀναπεπ. τῶν εἰσφορῶν to be relieved from .. , Isocr. 163 B; ἀναπαύου κακῶν take rest from.., Cratin. Incert. 111. 2. absol. to take one’s rest, sleep, Lat. pernoctare, Hdt. 1. 12., 2. 95, al., Eur. Hipp. 212, Ar. Pl. 695, Lysias 130. 40, etc.; ἐκ μακρᾶς ἀν. ὁδοῦ after a long journey, Plat. Criti. 106 A. b. of land, to lie fallow, Pind. N. 6. 20. 6. of the dead, to rest from one’s labours, kexpanas ἀμπαύεται Theocr. 1. 17; ἀμπ. σὺν φιλίῃ ξυνῶς ἀλόχῳ C. 1. 1973. 5; cf. Call. Ep. 14. d. of soldiers, is stop, halt, rest, Xen. Cyr. 2. 4, 3, etc. e. to regain strength, Ib. Bik, ante ἀναπαφλάζω, to boil or bubble up, Hesych.

• From Synanon Kid: Book One: A Memoir of Growing Up in the Synanon Cult

  I’d have gone to a real school, and when the school the day had ended, I’d have gone home, where Theresa would be waiting. She’d ask me how my day went and we’d eat dinner that she’d cooked. I thought about how irritated I’d been with Theresa lately and felt sorry that I’d wasted time feeling angry with her, not knowing that I’d probably never see her again. Other times I thought about myself as an adult with the right to leave if I wanted. Would I be able to survive on my own? For a long while I’d had the nagging suspicion that I wasn’t learning anything of real value that would help me to survive as an adult without Synanon. Almost two weeks passed before the next announcement broadcasted on the Wire: “Take them! Take your kids and get out!” Several hours later, a demonstrator told me to pack my things. “You and Sara leave tomorrow morning.” I tried to keep my feelings in check as I reassembled the boxes and placed my things inside them. I hoped, really hoped, that this time it was true. When Ray and Theresa were finally allowed contact with Sara and me, they told us that all the tough talk about keeping us in the commune was just hot air. With no parents staying behind, Synanon could not legally claim us. Ray’s ex-wife, Mary Ann, contacted her family in Santa Clara and asked if we might stay with them, explaining our situation. We could not stay with Ray’s parents because they lived far away in Arizona, and his mother did not accept Ray’s relationship with Theresa. She thought of my mother as nothing but a “quadroon,” a disparaging term for a person who is one-quarter black by ancestry, and of me as “that dark girl.” Nor could we stay with my mother’s parents because of old issues she had with both of them. We had no money to speak of and nowhere to go. Sara, who had always been a good saver, offered her father a hundred dollars that she had tucked away, and Ray, unbeknownst to the other community members, possessed a handful of silver dollars. Mary Ann’s family kindly agreed to take us in, and a little later my grandfather begrudgingly gave Theresa a thousand dollars. We left early one morning in late October 1981, two weeks after my eleventh birthday. The Synacruiser sat waiting for us, and we loaded our few belongings onto the bus before boarding ourselves. There was no one around to offer any goodbye. Sara and I sat next to each other, staring quietly through the window at a pale, watery sky as the bus started up, yawning and creaking to life. Our vehicle moved forward slowly, crunching gravel as we edged down the road that wound its way through the property. The entrance gates stood open, flanked by armed men. Sara turned away from the window, a smile settling in her brown eyes.

• From Synanon Kid: Book One: A Memoir of Growing Up in the Synanon Cult

  Chapter ThirtyT he Ranch In 1980, a change in living arrangements required that the Synanon school be moved from Walker Creek to the nearby Ranch property, which until then had been living quarters solely for adults. The adults were ordered to take up residence in Walker Creek. We made the switch in staggered shifts, and I happened to be in the first wave of children. We found ourselves inhabiting half-empty buildings, having the run of the property, sparsely populated by the demonstrators and us. For the first time I was given a room that came as close to being my own space as I would ever have in Synanon. The room held two twin beds and a loft, which also had two twin beds. I was assigned to the loft and told that if I wanted to share it with another girl, I could. At ten years old, I had spent the last several years crammed into rooms with other girls, where every square inch was utilized. The long rectangular loft, with its sloping ceiling, Berber-carpeted floor and small slanted window, was a novelty. I had no desire to share it. Because there were so few of us and we were cut off from the main body of the community, a few routines, such as mandatory inspections, began to fall away. Games were played less frequently, and at times we didn’t have physical education. There were fewer seminars and school life became a loose assortment of academic activities. Often we filled out worksheets in the playroom and then lay about watching cultural and historical documentaries. These programs were all hosted by the same dreary man, who, in a voice little more stimulating than a speech synthesizer, stood in a suit and tie and spoke of long-ago dynasties and ancient artifacts. Lulled to sleep, I found myself startled awake by dramatic music as the camera zoomed in on what the producer obviously considered riveting imagery and then pulled back to the gray-faced man, who never so much as cracked a smile. We watched many of these programs, which frequently substituted for classroom learning. Later, math lessons, taught by a new teacher, were added to the curriculum. Short and stocky, Alan sported an afternoon shadow of heavy stubble every day. He had a thick accent and for most of the class period we studied a map tacked to the wall. Our sole focus was two countries: Iran and Iraq. Colored bits of paper were thumbtacked to locales within those countries. The papers represented national flags and signified where the bulk of the fighting was taking place. Each day Alan explained with careful detail the present situation of the Iran-Iraq war. Whenever one country gained an advantage, he moved a few flags from the other country’s map to the map of the temporary victor. “This is very important, very important,” he always added. As usual, I was confused.

• From Lit: A Memoir (2009)

  Not long after, James Laughlin sends me an acceptance letter for the book of poems, along with a check for a whopping seven hundred and fifty bucks—about a third of my credit card debt and maybe the most I’ve earned aggregate on poetry in the previous fifteen years. And that’s how hard that was. 38Lord of the FliesAll men would be tyrants if they could. —Daniel Defoe One winter afternoon, waiting for Dev to come home through the snow, I hear a thrash of banging against the storm door. Running out from the kitchen, I see him fumbling with the outside handle as snowballs splatter around him. I yank open the door, and the kids scatter like mice. Dev’s cheeks are sopping and crimson, which only makes his black-lashed blue eyes brighter. They’re fixed in outrage, staring past me. When I ask how many kids there are and he tells me five, I have to stop myself from busting out the door to chase the little bastards down. Over cups of cocoa, we sit in the tiny kitchen, and he says, Why is this happening to me? in a voice so wholly exhausted, he might have been sixty. With his spoon, he’s fishing the sodden marshmallow off his cocoa. Because, I say, children are childish. You’re new to school, relatively. They’ve all grown up together. You’re the obvious choice. He stuffs the marshmallow in his mouth and ponders this before asking, Why would God let this happen? The question—the same I’d dwelled on in the past—maybe shows the effects of our nightly prayers. Because, I say, when you grow up, you’re gonna be so smart and good-looking that if something bad didn’t happen to you now, you’d be a jerk then—one of those snotty kids who thinks he’s all that. Like Dan. I’m thinking specifically of Dan, I say (I barely know who Dan is). Dev picks at the foam atop his cocoa, saying, Dan knows karate. He only invited the cool kids to his birthday. He studies the cocoa as if it were tea leaves foretelling the soggiest future. I get up and place a skillet on the stove for another supper of scrambled eggs. After a while he says, There are so many of them. I mean, the snowballs just kept coming. Isn’t there a teacher or grown-up you can appeal to at school? They act like they’re my friends in school. Then they start chasing me. I offer to start picking him up again, and he pins me with a tired look. I’m not a baby, he says. All the other kids walk home. I know, I know. Okay. We sit there listening to the wind make the windowpanes shudder. You know, I say, some people think when somebody slaps you, you should turn the other cheek. He says, face still chapped scarlet, I only have two cheeks.

• From Lit: A Memoir (2009)

  snowflakes in her lashes. I quote her to the ladies: Why is it that everybody else is traffic? Deb and Liz saw her the week she died. She’d lost an eye and tried to get one of them to take the baby she didn’t realize was dead. She couldn’t comprehend she wasn’t pregnant anymore. Could’ve been us, Liz says. The incredible fortune that it wasn’t floods up as Deb lifts her lemonade, saying, To Chris. Nobody even says how corny it is. Our empty glasses gleam in the salt air.

• From Synanon Kid: Book One: A Memoir of Growing Up in the Synanon Cult

  the University of the Trees community members in the bathroom had given him chills of inspiration. He always ended his story with, “I knew I needed to see more of what University had to offer.” Every time someone asked us why we left Synanon, he told that story, along with all the reasons Synanon came up short in his eyes. Two days after our Kerista visit, the commune became a non-option, much to my relief. Theresa and Ray got a call back and were told that although they liked Theresa, they didn’t feel Ray would be a good fit. Kerista could not accept them as a couple, though Theresa was welcome to join the community on her own. The second commune our family visited was the University of the Trees. We left Santa Clara in the evening and an hour later we were cautiously making our way along a curvy two lane highway, which ran through the middle of a redwood forest. I stared out the window at the trees, appearing in the night as dark, towering, indiscriminate shapes crowding out the shoulders of the road. Unfamiliar with the terrain and intimidated by the curves, Ray drove at 30 mph, pulling over when he could, to let strings of cars whiz past, leaving us momentarily to ourselves on the wooded road. We rolled into the small town of Boulder Creek at around 8 pm that evening. The historic buildings of Boulder Creek, which lined the main drag, looked as if they had been carted off the set of the TV western Bonanza. The stores appeared to have shuttered hours ago. Ray peered out the windshield in the frantic way he did when he drove on freeways or looked for an unfamiliar street, as if he had just escaped a high-speed chase from someone in the mafia. We made a left turn and drove up a hilly neighborhood. After a moment or so, we located the house we were searching for. To my relief it looked like all the other ordinary houses on the street. The people who greeted us were also normal looking. They had no standard of dress particular to their communal membership, other than the style of the late seventies/early eighties—flared blue jeans, drawstring tops, linen V-neck shirts, wrap-around skirts, knee high

• From Synanon Kid: Book One: A Memoir of Growing Up in the Synanon Cult

  I’d be by myself on the street in the area the driver had called the Tenderloin. “It’s okay,” the driver coaxed. “We won’t hurt you. I’ll take you right to your doorstep.” Being left alone seemed even worse than getting into the car, and so after a minute of indecision, I climbed into the vehicle, squeezing in with everyone else. As we pulled away from the curb, I gripped the arm of the door. It was not a long ride. Within ten minutes the driver had pulled up alongside a massive, but very familiar building. “That’s you, right?” he said, pointing at our San Francisco headquarters. The other men laughed at our apparent relief. After thanking them, we got out of the car and I waved goodbye. The driver yelled from his window, “I told you I’d get you home safe, Synanon kid.” I watched the car speed off down the street, the red taillights winking in the night. R CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT ay MY EYES BLINKED open in surprised response to a hard poke in my chest. A demonstrator hunched over me, hissing for me to get up. I could hardly think straight as I stumbled out of bed, still half asleep. My roommate and I were ushered roughly to the closet to grab our shoes and told not to bother changing out of our pajamas. Just barely getting my shoes on, I was prodded to the hallway and left to stand, cold and baffled, with some of the other children, who looked as sleepy and disoriented as I felt. The demonstrator went to the next bedroom. “What’s going on?” I whispered. “We’re going to the Shed,” one of the girls said, keeping her voice low. “Hurry up! Everyone out into the hallway!” I heard other demonstrators calling from the various rooms. More girls came out, some with their eyes half closed, others complaining. “Why do we have to get up? It’s two in the fucking morning.” “What’s wrong? What the hell happened this time?” “Someone probably stole some money. We’re probably all in trouble.” “I bet they’re going to make us play the game all night.”

• From Synanon Kid: Book One: A Memoir of Growing Up in the Synanon Cult

  I groaned inwardly, hoping he wouldn’t for the umpteenth time tell the story about running into one of the members of the University of the Trees in the public restroom, and striking up a conversation about vitamins, health, and a green powder called spirulina. Ray had told all of us multiple times about the spirulina superfood, a blue-green algae that had been around for millions of years. According to Ray and everyone else at The University of the Trees, in the near future, spirulina would knock out cancer. The algae was already known for weight loss, detox, improving mental function, and basically curing most anything that could go wrong with a person’s health. Ray’s conversation with one of the University of the Trees community members in the bathroom had given him chills of inspiration. He always ended his story with, “I knew I needed to see more of what University had to offer.” Every time someone asked us why we left Synanon, he told that story, along with all the reasons Synanon came up short in his eyes. Two days after our Kerista visit, the commune became a non-option, much to my relief. Theresa and Ray got a call back and were told that although they liked Theresa, they didn’t feel Ray would be a good fit. Kerista could not accept them as a couple, though Theresa was welcome to join the community on her own. The second commune our family visited was the University of the Trees. We left Santa Clara in the evening and an hour later we were cautiously making our way along a curvy two lane highway, which ran through the middle of a redwood forest. I stared out the window at the trees, appearing in the night as dark, towering, indiscriminate shapes crowding out the shoulders of the road. Unfamiliar with the terrain and intimidated by the curves, Ray drove at 30 mph, pulling over when he could, to let strings of cars whiz past, leaving us momentarily to ourselves on the wooded road. We rolled into the small town of Boulder Creek at around 8 pm that evening. The historic buildings of Boulder Creek, which lined the main drag, looked as if they had been carted off the set of the TV western Bonanza. The stores appeared to have shuttered hours ago. Ray peered out the windshield in the frantic way he did when he drove on freeways or looked for an unfamiliar street, as if he had just escaped a high-speed chase from someone in the mafia. We made a left turn and drove up a hilly neighborhood. After a moment or so, we located the house we were searching for. To my relief it looked like all the other ordinary houses on the street. The people who greeted us were also normal looking.

• From Synanon Kid: Book One: A Memoir of Growing Up in the Synanon Cult

  I’d have gone to a real school, and when the school the day had ended, I’d have gone home, where Theresa would be waiting. She’d ask me how my day went and we’d eat dinner that she’d cooked. I thought about how irritated I’d been with Theresa lately and felt sorry that I’d wasted time feeling angry with her, not knowing that I’d probably never see her again. Other times I thought about myself as an adult with the right to leave if I wanted. Would I be able to survive on my own? For a long while I’d had the nagging suspicion that I wasn’t learning anything of real value that would help me to survive as an adult without Synanon. Almost two weeks passed before the next announcement broadcasted on the Wire: “Take them! Take your kids and get out!” Several hours later, a demonstrator told me to pack my things. “You and Sara leave tomorrow morning.” I tried to keep my feelings in check as I reassembled the boxes and placed my things inside them. I hoped, really hoped, that this time it was true. When Ray and Theresa were finally allowed contact with Sara and me, they told us that all the tough talk about keeping us in the commune was just hot air. With no parents staying behind, Synanon could not legally claim us. Ray’s ex-wife, Mary Ann, contacted her family in Santa Clara and asked if we might stay with them, explaining our situation. We could not stay with Ray’s parents because they lived far away in Arizona, and his mother did not accept Ray’s relationship with Theresa. She thought of my mother as nothing but a “quadroon,” a disparaging term for a person who is one-quarter black by ancestry, and of me as “that dark girl.” Nor could we stay with my mother’s parents because of old issues she had with both of them. We had no money to speak of and nowhere to go. Sara, who had always been a good saver, offered her father a hundred dollars that she had tucked away, and Ray, unbeknownst to the other community members, possessed a handful of silver dollars. Mary Ann’s family kindly agreed to take us in, and a little later my grandfather begrudgingly gave Theresa a thousand dollars. We left early one morning in late October 1981, two weeks after my eleventh birthday. The Synacruiser sat waiting for us, and we loaded our few belongings onto the bus before boarding ourselves. There was no one around to offer any goodbye. Sara and I sat next to each other, staring quietly through the window at a pale, watery sky as the bus started up, yawning and creaking to life. Our vehicle moved forward slowly, crunching gravel as we edged down the road that wound its way through the property. The entrance gates stood open, flanked by armed men. Sara turned away from the window, a smile settling in her brown eyes.

• From Lit: A Memoir (2009)

  Nine months, I say, digging into my purse side pocket for the little medallion I’d gotten. I suddenly notice that the hand holding the medallion has a plastic wrist bracelet. I tell her I’m not exactly a poster child for the sober. You’re laughing at yourself, she says. That’s good. Were you depressed before you quit drinking? A thousand times worse then. That’s the nutty part. I’m actually better now, but look where I am. She’d twisted her black hair up the back of her head, but it’s that frazzly kind of hair that could tear loose any instant. She asks, Do you have a higher power yet?—pronouncing it hi-yah powah in a way that loosens the knots in my shoulders. Telling her about the few sentences of prayer I march through morning and night, I notice around her neck a small gold cross. She says, So nothing changed with the praying? It sounds so fake to say it, but only after I started praying was I able to put sober days together. The nurse is looking at me with a steady gaze. You know what’s amazing? she says. Even planning a suicide, you didn’t pick up drugs or alcohol. I knew they didn’t work anymore, or I would have. Which is both miraculous and true. I tell her how many people helped me, how drinking or doping would feel like letting them down. When I ask what I should call her, she tells me her name is the same as mine. On the narrow bed, I lie in the sweaty certainty that I’ve saved my own life but lost my son. Surely Warren will divorce me now and take him from me—that’s part of the fear that has kept me in the marriage, his family redolent with lawyers. Every fifteen minutes, a flashlight shines on my face to be sure I haven’t hanged myself, and—so I’m not unnerved by the light—the person whispers check, which process I intend to speak to them about tomorrow. If you’re not suicidal when you get here, these intervals could drive you to it. Check. My roommate looked at me with glassy eyes when I came in. She didn’t budge then, but now, every time they shine the light and say Check, she shifts around under her sheet. I think back to the morning when I’d worked on the suicide note feeling already dead. It’s a thousand years ago, the writing of that note. Six A.M. I’d been in the old house alone with Dev, getting ready to leave for a few solo days in the sublet. I stared into the small screen of the big honking computer, typing onto its moss green surface, which was free of any welcoming iconography, a blinking letter C is the cursor. The C had a greater-than sign after it: C>.

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  relief from anything unpleasant, relief from pain, Hipp. Epid. 3. 1107 ; p. τῆς πόσεως recovery from the effects of drinking, Plat. Symp. 176 B; ἐς τῶν πόνων Id. Legg. 779 C; ἀσφάλεια καὶ ῥᾳστώνη τισὶ ἀπὸ Λακεδαι- μονίων Polyb. 17. 14,15. 2. absol. rest, leisure, ease, ῥᾳστώνην τινὰ ζητεῖν to seck some recreation, Lys. 169. 8, Plat., etc.; ὀλίγοις πόνοις πολλὰς ῥᾳστώνας κτώμενος Isocr.198 A; ῥᾳστώνην τινὰ ἔχει TO λέγειν it brings a certain relief, Dem. 1485. 22; ἀναπνοὴν καὶ p. ἐν τῷ καύ- ματι παρέχειν Plat. Tim. 7oC; διὰ ῥᾳστώνην for the sake of resting, Xen. An. 5.8, 16; πρὸς p. καὶ διαγωγήν Arist. Metaph. 1. 2, 11. b. luxurious ease, indolence, τῆς p. τὸ τερπνόν Thuc. 1.120; p. καὶ ῥᾳθυμία nonchalance, carelessness, Dem. 133. 12, cf. 241. 2 (but opp. to ῥᾳθυμία in Isoer. J.c.). 6. resting-time, a season of calm and tranquillity, ἐν ἀπεριστάταις ῥ. σφάλλεσθαι Polyb. 6. 44, 8. ῥατάνη, 7, Dor. pardva, Acol. βρατάνα, a stirrer, ladle, Hesych. ῥάτερος, a, ov, irreg. Comp. of ῥάδιος, q. v. patpa, Dor. for ῥήτρα. ῥἄφᾶν-έλαιον, τό, oil of radishes, Diosc. 1. 46, in lemmate. ῥἄφάνη [Pa], ἡ, -- ῥάφανος, Batr. 53, Hippiatr. ῥἄφἄνηδόν, Adv. radish-like, of fractures, Galen., Soran.; cf. καυληδόν. ῥᾶφανίδϊον [75], τό, Dim. of ῥαφανίς, Plat. Com. Ὕπερβ. 6. ῥάφαντδόω, to thrust a radish up the fundament, a punishment of adul- terers in Athens, Ar. Nub. 1083, cf. Luc. Peregr. 9, Boiss. Anecd. 3. 133, 137 ---ἀποραφανίδωσις, ews, 7, Schol. Ar. Pl. 168. ῥαἄφαντιδώδης, ες, (εἶδος) like a radish, Theophr. H. P. 7. 6, 2. piddvivos, 7, ov, of radish, ἔλαιον Diosc. 1. 45. Padpiuvis, ios, ἡ, the radish, Lat. raphanus, Ar. Nub. 981, Pl. 544, Fr. 249, Comici ap. Ath. 56 E sq.; cf. papavos. (V. panus.) [-is, Sos in all known passages, though Ath. l.c. and Draco say that ¢ is common. | Padavitts, δος, 7, a kind of lily, so called from the look of its root, y. Plin, N. H. 21.109. ῥάφᾶἄνος [a], ἡ, Att. for κράμβη, cabbage, Ar. Fr. 163; οἶδ᾽ ὅτι καλοῦ- μεν ῥάφανον, ὑμεῖς δ᾽ of ἐένοι κράμβην Apollod. Car. ap. Ath. 34 Ὁ ; it was boiled for use, Nicoch. Incert. 1, Alex. Incert. 22; τῆς p., ἣν καλοῦσί τινες κράμβην Arist. H. A. 5. 19, 5, cf. Schneid. Ind. Theophr., Lob. Phryn. 141. II. also=fadavis, Arist. Probl. 20. 13, 2, Poll. 1. 247. (Ὁ. ῥάπυς.) p&dav-oupos, ὁ, a cabbage-watcher, gardener, like κηπουρός, Hesych. ῥαφᾶνο-φἄγία, 7, an eating of radishes, Hippol. Haer. 8. 19. padetov, τό, the workshop of a ῥαφεύς, sutrina, Gloss. ῥἄφεύς, ews, 6, (ῥάπτω) a stitcher, patcher, cobbler, Poll. 7. 42. 2. metaph., 6. φόνου a planner of murder, Aesch. Ag. 1604.

• From The Tides of Lust (1973)

  We’ll have lunch when you come.” Proctor nodded, still regarding the portrait. “I don’t think it really suffered that much damage when it fell.” The woman said, “Perhaps when you come we can talk about financing this new mural you are so enthusiastic about?” “I hope so.” She laughed. “You have seen Nazi in the alley by the Hall mash his toes in dog shit, then stick his foot through the bars of the cellar window, to draw it out a minute later, clean?” Proctor looked back at her, surprised. He nodded. “I think as you put your brush in your pigments, then let the canvas lick them from the bristles, you indulge the same process.” Now Proctor laughed. “Go away,” he said. “I will see you up at your home late Monday afternoon.” And her laughter, terribly musical and winning, threaded his. “What about . . . ?” She glanced at Robby. Proctor nodded her to silence. “He’ll be all right.” “Then I’ll go.” Her hand came from beneath her cloak. “I must thank you for the spectacular entertainment you staged this evening.” He took her hand. “I must congratulate you on your spectacular performance.” The candlelight behind her set fire to the edges of her black hair. She whispered, “I think even she was pleased . . .” turned away, her cloak opening a moment to block the light. “Are you going back up to the Hill?” “No,” laughing, “I’m going to wander back down to the boats.” Pauses. “She went with them to the wharf. Goodnight, Jon.” “Goodnight.” She paused; “Take care.” Light again; and Robby found himself looking at her portrait against the wall, and wondering if she had really been. Proctor came over to him, kneeled by him “Try to sit up?” Robby pushed himself from the floor. He looked around the study. He frowned at the paintings. “Where am . . . ?” “My studio.” Proctor looked over his shoulder. “Benny, make some coffee for us.” And the sullen boy who had been sitting in the corner with his hands too deep in his pockets stood up and went to the stove. “Are you some kind of an artist?” Proctor nodded. “You paint this stuff?” “I also write poems, stories, music.” He sat back on his heels. “But the renaissance ideal comes to so little in a specialized world. Do you feel better? You looked fairly sick when I got here.” “Yeah, I guess . . .” The Puerto Rican boy brought coffee. They talk a while. Robby talks about where he’s come from, where he wants to go, the things he wants to do. It makes him feel better.

• From The Tides of Lust (1973)

  Her voice throbbed too much in the resonant chambers of undelved experience. Robby was dying of suffocation; and could not die. All the terminal points of existence glowed and ran and fused and— “What the hell do you think you’re . . .” —and stopped. “. . . doing here?” He shot over the cliff of reality. And fell miles. Someone shook his shoulder. “Now . . . what are you doing in here, boy?” He breathed in. And when it came out it was sobbing. He brought his hands to his face and cried into them. A woman said, “Proctor, maybe you better . . .” “It’ll be all right.” Robby spread his fingers, opened his eyes. Behind the white-haired man’s shoulder a candle guttered in the coils of a cast, black dragon. The dark-haired woman beside him said, “He seems to be awake now.” Proctor stood. “Are you all right, boy?” Before Robby could answer, Proctor turned to the woman: “Perhaps you should go now, Kim.” “I will.” She looked around the room. “Can you tell me when you will be able to have the painting restored?” Against the wall was another panel. On a dark ground, the woman, in leather, was lit by a single unfrosted bulb overhead. The highlights were harsh. The surfaces had been built of the thinnest glazes. Proctor put his thumb on the paint. “I suppose I shall always be doomed to restoring old work with the energy I want to put toward new.” He turned his finger around. “It won’t take very long. I can have it for you Monday.” “Fine.” She leaned against the table’s edge to look at the painting herself. “You’ll bring it up to the Hill, then? We’ll have lunch when you come.” Proctor nodded, still regarding the portrait. “I don’t think it really suffered that much damage when it fell.” The woman said, “Perhaps when you come we can talk about financing this new mural you are so enthusiastic about?” “I hope so.” She laughed. “You have seen Nazi in the alley by the Hall mash his toes in dog shit, then stick his foot through the bars of the cellar window, to draw it out a minute later, clean?” Proctor looked back at her, surprised. He nodded. “I think as you put your brush in your pigments, then let the canvas lick them from the bristles, you indulge the same process.” Now Proctor laughed. “Go away,” he said. “I will see you up at your home late Monday afternoon.” And her laughter, terribly musical and winning, threaded his. “What about . . . ?” She glanced at Robby. Proctor nodded her to silence. “He’ll be all right.” “Then I’ll go.” Her hand came from beneath her cloak. “I must thank you for the spectacular entertainment you staged this evening.” He took her hand. “I must congratulate you on your spectacular performance.”

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  that the conj. σωτήριος is needless), Aesch. Cho. 236; so, prob., σω- τήριον is to be taken in act. sense, bringing safely to our state, Soph. O. C. 487, cf. 460. b. c, dat. bringing safety or deliverance to.. , ἄριστα καὶ πόλει σ. Aesch. Theb. 183, cf. Cho. 505, Eur. Heracl. 402, Phoen, 918, etc.; also c. gen., THs βασιλικῆς ἀρχῆς σ. Ep. Plat. 3848, cf, Polit. 311 A :—Comp. and Sup., τὸ πείθεσθαι σωτηριώτερον αὐτοῖς Xen. Μεπὶ,3.3,10; ἵππος σωτηριώτατος τῷ ἀναβάτῃ Id. Eq. 3,12. 2. of persons, much like σωτήρ, Eur. Or. 6517, Bacch. 965, etc.; θεοί, Ζεὺς σ. Soph. El. 281, Fr. 3753; c. dat., Thuc. 7. 64; Ἑλένη ναυτίλοις o. Eur. Or. 1637; also c. gen. pers., γενοίμεθ᾽ ἂν αὐτοῦ σωτήριοι Soph. Aj. 779. II. as Subst., σωτήρια, τά, like σωτηρία, 7, deliverance, safety, τἀκείνου σωτήρια Id. El. 9253 (so, o. πράγματα Aesch. Ag. 646); ἡ €Ams τῶν σ. Arist. Rhet. 2. 5, 16 :—so also in sing., ἔρυμα τῆς χώρας καὶ πόλεως o. Aesch. Eum. 701; ἐπινοεῖν τι σ. τοῖς παροῦσι Luc. Jup. Trag. 18, cf. D. Meretr. 9. 3 2. σωτήρια (sc. ἱερά), τά, a thankoffering for deliverance, σ. θύειν θεοῖς Xen. An. 3. 2, 9., 5. I, 1, cf. Chron. Par. in Ο. I. 2374.7; o. ἄγειν Luc. Hermot. 86; σ. Tov βασιλέως for his recovery, Hdn. 1. 10:—the Σωτήρια was a special sacrifice at Delphi, C. I. 1693. 15, v. Bockh 2. p. 659. 3. a physician’s fee, Poll. 6. 186. 4. the public privy, at Smyrna, Anth. P. 9. 662 (in lemmate), Suid. III. pass.=as, saved, safe, as sometimes interpr. in Aesch. Cho. 236, Soph. O. C. 487; but v. supr. I. I. IV. Adv. -iws, Antip. ap. Stob. 418. 27, Sext. Emp., etc.; o. ἔχειν to be convalescent, Plut. 2. 918 Ὁ. σωτηριώδηκ, ες, wholesome, Dio C. 53. 19, Galen. Ady. --δῶς, Eccl. σῶτρον, τό, the wooden circuit of the wheel, the felloe, the iron hoop or tire being ἐπίσωτρον, Poll. 1. 144., 10. 53.—Hesych. also cites the form σωτεύματα.

• From From Judgment to Hope: A Study on the Prophets (2019)

  which was brought upon me. (Lam. 1:12) And here in our narrative long before, those who groan and cry ask generically about their unbearable burden, “Is it nothing to you?” And here we get an answer. Their cry is not “nothing.” This is the God who looks and sees and takes in the sorrow. God knew: Our translation says, “God took notice” (2:25). But God “knew.” God recognized who was speaking. A textual variant, moreover, permits more: “God knew them.” God recognized the Hebrew slaves who, only as they cried out, could be seen and known as Israelites. God recognized that these were folk God had already known. These are not strangers to God, but they were not and could not be recognized by God until their self-announcement via groan and cry. God remembered: Because God heard, saw, and knew (them), God remembered that this moment of engagement was not de novo. It was rooted in the memory of the God of Genesis. Imagine that! The sound of slaves groaning reminded YHWH of the old ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, each of whom in failed circumstance had relied on God’s inexplicable gift of a future by means of an inexplicable heir. And now this company without voice in pharaonic circumstance relies on that same gift. This moment of engagement carries the identification of slaves who cry and groan back to the old carriers of God’s promise. Jon Levenson early on has protested against the appropriation of this narrative for liberation movements beyond Jews.4 And surely Jews have first claim on the narrative of emancipation. It requires no illicit imagination, however, to see that the narrative process of identifying those who cry and groan with the promise carriers readily moves into other contexts with other peoples. This God has a wide horizon, and so a much wider population of those who cry and groan have found the text to be compelling for themselves as well. In such an oft-replicated circumstance, the text endlessly reiterates the assurance of YHWH: “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me. I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them.” (Exod. 3:7–9)

• From From Judgment to Hope: A Study on the Prophets (2019)

  In this moment of cry and groan the silence is broken, and the silencer is denied. The silence system has failed. Human bodily sounds are made. And with them begins the historical process that ends in “exit” (exodus) and emancipation. All of that is evoked by the wretched breaking of silence. The brutalizing power from above, the royal enforcer of silence, is defeated! GOD HEARD Only now, only belatedly, YHWH enters the narrative. The key mode of YHWH in the narrative up to this point is one of absence. For two chapters YHWH has been noticeably nonparticipatory. God did indeed “deal well” with the midwives in Exodus 1:20. But that was all surreptitious. Only now does YHWH heed the small door of the cry of the slaves to enter the narrative. Only now, after the cry becomes vigorous, does YHWH become aware of the unbearable situation generated by Pharaoh. That, however, is how the predatory system chooses to work: “Without God everything is possible.” Because the slave master is “without God,” Pharaoh finds everything possible. Pharaoh finds abuse and exploitation possible. Pharaoh finds accumulation, monopoly, and violence possible because there is no check on Pharaoh’s surging autonomy. That is how it is among us. The predatory system has practiced permanent indebtedness without check or restraint and can proceed in pharaonic, uncaring, unnoticing relentlessness. But then, the silence is broken. The groan is sounded. The cry is uttered. The predatory system is dislocated. The absolutism and perpetuity of Pharaoh are abruptly subverted. YHWH turned out to be a magnet that drew and continues to draw the cries and groans of the helpless, vulnerable, and indebted who move to YHWH’s festival-generating mercy. At long last God heard! The Hebrew-Israelites who find voice had not addressed YHWH. As Hebrews they had been numbed to amnesia; they did not know the name of any messiah who might enter because they did not know of any possible small door. Unbeknownst to them, their groan and cry created that door. Their cry, not directed by them, “rose up to God” (Exod. 2:23). Their cry, without any direction from those who cried, knew where to go. The cry understood that its proper destination was the ear of YHWH, for YHWH turned out to be the listener. More than that, YHWH turned out to be a magnet that drew and continues to draw the cries and groans of the helpless, vulnerable, and indebted who move to YHWH’s festival-generating mercy. As a result of the arrival of the cry at the attentiveness of YHWH, YHWH in the text is given a full share of responsive verbs: God heard: The cry does not float off into empty space, but initiates a dialogue that evokes holy power and holy resolve. God saw: In the later utterance of Israel’s lament over destroyed Jerusalem the poet will ask, Is it nothing to you, all of you who pass by? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow,