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.

Page 49 of 88 · 20 per page

• From Chéri and The Last of Chéri (1920)

  And because of this interruption, he thought that she must be impatient to see the last of him. A few words were exchanged during Chen’s retreat, in the intervals of bumping into some piece of furniture, crossing a strip of sunshine from the courtyard window after the pink light in the drawing-room it seemed by comparison almost blue — kissing a puffy hand bulging with rings when it was raised to his lips. Another of L6a’s laughs, which broke off abruptly half-way down its usual scale, just like a fountain when the jet is turned off and the crest of the plume, suddenly bereft of its stem, falls back to earth in a myriad separate pearls. ... The staircase seemed to glide away under Cheri’s feet like a bridge connecting two dreams, and once more he was in the Rue Raynouard. Even the street was unfamiliar. He noticed that the rosy tints of the sky were wonderfully reflected in the rain-filled gutters and on the blue backs of the lowskimming swallows. And now, because the evening was fresh, and because all the impressions he was bringing away with him were slipping back perfidiously into the recesses of his mind - there to assume their final shape and intensity — he came to believe that he had forgotten all about them, and he felt happy. Only the sound of an old woman's bronchial cough, as she sat over her glass of creme-de-menthe, disturbed the peace of the bar room where the murmur of the Place de 1’Opera died away, as though muffled in an atmosphere too thick to carry any eddies of sound. Cheri ordered a long drink and mopped his brow: this precaution was a carry-over from the days when he had been a little boy and sat listening to the babble of female voices, as, with Biblical gravity, they bandied such golden rules as: ‘If you want your milk of cucumber with real cucumber in it, you must make it yourself or ‘Never rub the perspiration into your face when you’re overheated, or the perspiration will get under your skin and ruin it.’ The silence, and the emptiness of the bar, created an illusion of coolness, and at first Chdri was not conscious of the couple who, with heads bent close together across a narrow table, were lost in inaudible whisperings. After a few moments his attention was drawn to this unknown man and woman by an occasional hissing sibilant which rose above the main stream of their chatter, and by the exaggerated expressions on their faces. They looked like servants, underpaid, overworked, and patient.

• From Chéri and The Last of Chéri (1920)

  He went on biding his time, even after surprising Edmee in front of the looking-glass, after that flagrant exhibition of over-excitement, flushed cheeks, and untidiness. He let the hours slip by, and did not put into words — and so accentuate — his certainty that a still almost chaste understanding existed between his wife and the man who had been singing * Oy MarieJ’ For he felt much lighter in spirit, and for several days stopped uselessly consulting his wrist-watch as soon as daylight began to fade. He developed the habit of sitting out under the trees in a basket-chair, like a newly arrived guest in an hotel garden. There he marvelled to see how the oncoming night blotted out the blue of the monkshood, producing in its stead a hazier blue into which the shapes of the flowers were fused, while the green of their leaves persisted in distinct clumps. The edging of rose-coloured pinks turned to rank mauve, then the colour ebbed rapidly and the July stars shone yellow between the branches of the weeping ash. He tasted at home the pleasures enjoyed by a casual passer-by who sits down to rest in a square, and he never noticed how long he remained there, lying back with his hands dangling. Sometimes he gave a fleeting thought to what he called The looking-glass scene* and the atmosphere in the blue room when it had been secretly troubled by a man’s sudden appearance, theatrical behaviour, and flight. He whispered over and over, with foolish mechanical regularity, “That’s one point established. That’s 'what’s called a point-testablished,” running the two words together into one. At the beginning of July he bought a new open motor, and called it his Riviera Runabout. He drove Filipesco and Desmond out along drought-whitened roads, but returned to Paris every evening, cleaving alternate waves of warm and cool air, which began to lose their good smells the nearer the motor drew to Paris. One day he took out the Baroness de La Berche, a virile companion, who, when they came to the barriers of the Octroi, raised her forefinger to the little felt hat pulled well down on her head. He found her agreeable, sparing of words, interested in wayside inns overgrown with wistaria, and in village wine-shops with their cellar-smell and wine-soaked sand. Rigid and in silence, they covered two hundred miles or more, without ever opening their mouths except to smoke or feed. The following day Cheri again invited Camille de La Berche with a curt ‘Well, how about it. Baroness?’ and whisked her off without further ado. The trusty motor sped far afield through the green countryside, and came back at nightfall to Paris like a toy at the end of a string.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  In this way the (fear-immobility) feedback loop is broken; colloquially, it runs out of gas. As a client learns to experience the physical sensations of the immobility in the absence of fear, trauma’s grip is loosened, and equilibrium is restored. In the next four chapters, I discuss how therapists can help clients learn how to uncouple the fear from the immobility and restore active defensive responses. When clients achieve this, they often describe the physical sensation of immobility (in the absence of fear) with a mixture of curiosity and profound relief or, often, “as though waking from a nightmare.” There is an important caveat to this simple “prescription.” Where trauma has been lengthy and deeply entrenched, other factors come into play: primarily, one’s very faculty for change and reengagement in life becomes impaired. This aspect has been poignantly portrayed in Louise Erdrich’s compelling novel The Master Butchers Singing Club . In the first chapter, the male protagonist, Fidelis, leaves the trenche s Charting Duration of Immobility Amongst Different Scenarios Figure 4.1a This figure illustrates the duration and severity of “freezing” in three situations. The first scenario is similar to an opossum being attacked and playing dead. The opossum freezes, and the predator, losing interest in this inert carrion, walks off in search of livelier prey. Left alone, the opossum “shakes off” this encounter and goes on its way, none the worse. This is called self-paced termination . The second scenario illustrates what happens when an animal emerging from immobility is restrained and frightened. It is thrust back into terror, and the immobility is far deeper, lasting for a much longer time. This paralyzing terror is the effect of fear-potentiated immobility and leads to PTSD. This is why the phrase “time heals all wounds” simply does not apply to trauma. The third scenario shows what happens in a successful therapy session. The therapist gradually guides the client to briefly touch into the immobility sensations, and then guides her to uncouple the immobility from the fear. In this way she can discharge the underlying hyperarousal and return to equilibrium. of World War I and returns to his mother’s cooking and kindness. He sleeps for the first time in his own familiar, comfortable bed, an experience that he has not known for years. Fear/Immobility Cycle Figure 4.1b This is how we become trapped in the fear/immobility cycle. Now that he was home, he understood, he must still be vigilant. Memories would creep up on him, emotions sabotaging his thinking brain. To come alive after dying to himself was dangerous.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  In a strange way, though, I was relieved that he had no feeling; that way I wouldn’t have to feel either. Intellectually, I distanced myself from feeling and from Adam. I was able to do this by falling back on a clinical analysis, wondering what mechanism he had used to wall himself off from his horrific experiences and how he had kept himself from winding up wandering in the streets, like he had done as an orphan, or in the back ward of some mental institution. As a way to try to initiate a little contact, I questioned Adam about his work, his family and friends—any topic where I thought there might be an entry point to even a tiny trace of positive feeling. Nothing came of this. I found myself, strangely, asking him to describe the last few hours of his day. Puzzled, he told me of missing his flight and frantically renting a car to drive the two hundred miles from Curitiba to São Paulo to meet with me. At the rental lot near the airport he recalled seeing children flying kites that they had made from things found at the garbage dump. h I caught the first flicker on his otherwise expressionless face. But then, just as quickly, his face became flat again, and his body slumped forward in resignation. Not wanting him to collapse, I asked him to stand up with his knees slightly bent. Standing requires the activation and coordination of the proprioceptive and kinesthetic systems. This had the effect of keeping Adam’s awareness online by engaging the arousal branch of his nervous system. This intervention is the opposite of allowing a client to collapse, activating the shutdown response and thus perpetuating the mortifying feelings of shame and defeat. While he was standing erect with relaxed knees, I then directed Adam to “look inside” and find some place within his body where he could “find the picture of the children playing with their improvised kite.” i At first, he reported feeling more anxious (due to sympathetic hyperarousal), but with encouragement, Adam was able to locate a small circle of warmth in his belly. I asked him to “just get to know that sensation for a little while.” He abruptly opened his eyes, surprising himself with his own words: “This could be dangerous.” “Yes,” I agreed, “it could be; that’s why it’s important to learn about feeling, just a little bit at a time. Your body has been frozen for a long time; it will take some time to thaw,” I add. It was important that I validate his legitimate fear and offer him an image (thawing from freeze) that would help mitigate his fear, inviting him to explore his internal experience. Adam then sat down and looked around the room. I asked him to describe what he saw. j This provided the opportunity to connect the warmth in his belly with how he perceived the external world in the here and now.

• From Chéri and The Last of Chéri (1920)

  She was watching and listening to her old enemy in satisfied astonishment. The huge inhuman eyes, the chattering lips, the restless, tight little body - all that was facing her across the table had come simply to test her powers of resistance, to humiliate her, as in the old days, always as in the old days. But, as in the old days, L£a knew when to answer, when to be scornful, when to smile, and when to retaliate. Already that sorry burden, which had weighed so heavily the day before and the days before that, was beginning slowly to lift. The light seemed normal once more, and familiar, as it played over the curtains and suffused the little drawing-room. “Here we are again,” Lea thought, in lighter vein. “Two women, both a little older than a year ago, the same habits of backbiting and the same stock phrases; good-natured wariness at meals shared together; the financial papers in the morning, scandalmongering in the afternoon: ail this will have to be taken up again, since it’s Life, my life. The Aldonzas and the de la Berches, the Lilis, and a fewhomeless old gentlemen: the whole lot squeezed round a card table, with the packs jostling the brandy-glasses, and perhaps, thrown in, a pair of little woollen shoes, begun for a baby who’s soon to be bom. ... We’ll start all over again, since it is ordained. Let’s enter on it cheerfully. After all, it’s only too easy to sink back into the grooves of the old life.” And she settled back, eyes bright and mouth relaxed, to listen to Charlotte Peloux, who was greedily expatiating upon her daughterin-law. My L£a, you should know, if anyone, that what I’ve always longed for is peace and quiet. Well now, I’ve got them. Cheri’s escapade, you see, was nothing more than sowing a few wild oats. Far be it from me to reproach you, Lea dear, but as you’ll be the first to admit, from eighteen to twenty-five he really never had the time to lead the life of a bachelor! And now he’s done it with a vengeance P ‘It’s a very good thing that he did/ Lea said, without the flicker of a smile; ‘it acts as a sort of guarantee to his wife for the future/ ‘The very word, the very word I was hunting for!* barked Madame Peloux, beaming. ‘A guarantee! And ever since that day — one long dream! And, you know, when a Peloux does come home again after being properly out on the spree, he never goes off again! * ‘Is that a family tradition?’ Lea asked. But Charlotte took no notice.

• From Chéri and The Last of Chéri (1920)

  “Be off, be off...” Quivering, Lea stood watching Madame Peloux as she crossed the courtyard. “Go on your mischievous way! Nothing can stop you. You twist your ankle, yes - but it never brings, you down. Your chauffeur is careful not to skid, so you’ll never crash into a tree. You’ll get back safely to Neuilly, and you’ll choose your moment - to-day, or to-morrow, or one day next week — to come out with words that should never pass your lips. You’ll try and upset those who, perhaps, are happy and at peace. The least harm you'll do is to make them tremble a little, as you made me, for a moment. ...” She was trembling at the knees, like a horse after a steep pull, but she was not in pain. She felt overjoyed at having kept so strict a control over herself and her words. Her looks and her colour were enhanced by her recent encounter, and she went on pulping her handkerchief to release her bottled-up energy. She could not detach her thoughts from Madame Peloux. “We’ve come together again,” she said to herself, “like two dogs over an old slipper which both have got used to chewing. How queer it is! That woman is my enemy, and yet it’s from her I now draw my comfort. How close are the ties that bind us!” Thus, for a long time, she mused over her future, veering between alarm and resignation. Her nerves were relaxed, and she slept for a little. As she sat with one cheek pressed against a cushion, her dreams, projected her into her fast-approaching old age. She saw day follow day with clockwork monotony, and herself beside Charlotte Peloux — their spirited rivalry helping the time to pass. In this way she would be spared, for many years, the degrading listlessness of women past their prime, who abandon first their stays, then their hair-dye, and who finally no longer bother about the quality of their underclothes. She had a foretaste of the sinful pleasures of the old — Hide else than a concealed aggressiveness, day-dreams of murder, and the keen recurrent hope for catastrophes that will spare only one living creature and one corner of the globe. Then she woke up, amazed to find herself in the glow of a pink twilight as roseate as the dawn. “Ah, Cheri!” she sighed. But it was no longer the raucous hungry cry of a year ago. She was not now in tears, nor was her body suffering and rebellious, because threatened by some sickness of the soul. Lea rose from her chair, and rubbed her cheek, embossed by the imprint of the embroidered cushion. “My poor Cheri! It’s a strange thought that the two of us — you by losing your worn old mistress, and I by losing my scandalous young lover — have each been deprived of the most honourable possession we had upon this earth!”

• From I'm Not a Mourning Person (2023)

  Maybe if I’d kept grinding away in fear-based reactions, I would have reached my cancer-free goal. Or maybe I’d just be broke. None of these treatments were covered by my already too-expensive insurance. But since no one could tell me how long it would take to reach the finish line, or how effective these treatments would be, there was no end in sight. Did I mention that my oncologist had no idea what I was doing? Afraid he would try to stop me, I kept quiet about my extracurriculars. I’ll never forget the look on his face when he asked me if there was anything new going on. “Well, there is one thing,” I said, lowering the neck of my shirt to reveal my port. “What the heck is that?!” he said. “I tried to cure myself—again,” I replied, sheepish. He agreed to surgically remove the device if I promised not to wander off the beaten path again without consulting him first. Fair enough. But the experience (and his alarmed expression) really got me thinking. I was spending 90 percent of my time running around trying questionable therapies that my highly qualified doc didn’t sanction. What if I lived a long life with cancer, but missed out on the simple moments and everyday magic by wasting my days in worry? I couldn’t stomach that kind of regret, so I did what I rarely do. I quit. I quit trying to have perfect health. I quit comparing myself to other patients and coming up short. I quit blaming myself for getting sick and for not getting well. Most importantly, I quit seeing myself as anything other than whole. And while I quit trying to cure myself, I never quit betting on myself. This is how I learned that there was a difference between healing and curing. Curing takes place at the physical level. It’s absolutely possible but never guaranteed. Healing, on the other hand, takes place at the spiritual level and is available to all of us—no matter who we are, what we look like, or where we come from. And just like love, healing never ends. In fact, we can be healing and dying at the very same time. The only thing required to enter the healing path is the decision to do so. Nothing and no one can take it away from you—not even your own mortality. While figuring out how to truly accept this paradigm is by no means easy, know that on the other side of this awareness is a greater ease and appreciation for life, as well as a deeper compassion for yourself and others.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  I ask her to put her verbal narrative aside for the moment and to place her attention, instead, on the nascent message her hands are communicating to both of us. I encourage her to pursue this avenue by slowly repeating the movement and keeping her focus on its physical sensation. a Moving slowly and focusing attention on a movement allows it to be felt in a special way. When clients do this, most often they will experience their arms (or other part of the body) moving as if on its own (“like my arm is moving me!”). People will often smile or laugh because the sensation of the arm moving itself seems so unusual. b Perplexed at first, Sharon describes the gesture as though she is “holding something.” A noticeable shift occurs in her body; her face is visibly less strained and her shoulders less rigid. Unexpectedly, a fleeting image of the Hudson River appears in her mind’s eye, the daily view from the living room in her apartment across the river from Manhattan. Jumping back to the narrative story, Sharon becomes agitated as she tells me how she is haunted, revisited, by the smoldering smoke plumes, which she now sees every day from this same window. They evoke the horribly acrid smells from that day; she feels a burning in her nostrils. Rather than letting her go on “reliving” the traumatic intrusion, I firmly contain and coax her to continue focusing on the sensations of her arm movements. A spontaneous image emerges , one of boats moving on the river. They convey to her a comforting sense of timelessness, movement and flow. “You can destroy the buildings, but you can’t drain the Hudson,” she pronounces softly. Then, rather than going on with the horrifying details of the event, she surprises herself by describing (and feeling) how beautiful it had been when she had set out for work on that “perfect autumn morning. ” This process is an example of expanding the “aperture” of an image to its pretraumatic state (as described in Chapter 7 ). Up to the moment before the impact of the jet, it had been a perfect day, infused with vibrant colors and gentle scents. These sense impressions still exist somewhere in the catacombs of consciousness, but they have been overridden by the traumatic fixation. Gradually restoring the full spectrum of the disparate parts of an image is an integral component of resolving trauma. c Sharon’s body and images are beginning to tell a story that contrasts markedly with the one her words are relaying, almost as though narrated by two entirely different persons. As she holds the images of the Hudson River, along with the associated body sensations, she becomes aware of a tentative sense of relief.

• From Blue Nights (2011)

  O 31 n the evening late in August when the play closed Vanessa took the yellow roses provided for her curtain calls and laid them on the stage, beneath the photograph of John and Quintana on the deck in Malibu that was the closing drop of the set Bob Crowley had designed for the production. The theater cleared. I was gratified to see how slowly it cleared, as if the audience shared my wish not to leave John and Quintana alone. We stood in the wings and drank champagne. Before I left that evening someone pointed out the yellow roses Vanessa had laid on the stage floor and asked if I wanted to take them. I did not want to take the yellow roses. I did not want the yellow roses touched. I wanted the yellow roses right there, where Vanessa had left them, with John and Quintana on the stage of the Booth, lying there on the stage all night, lit only by the ghost light, still there on the stage right down to the inevitable instant of the morning’s eight-a.m. load- out. “Performance 144 + 23 Previews + 1 Actors Fund,” the stage manager’s performance notes read for that night. “Magical evening. Lovely final show. Call from the director pre-show. Roses at the call. Champagne toast. Guests included Griffin Dunne and daughter Hannah and Marian Seldes. Café Didion served up its final Piece o’ Chicken and sides.” By that evening when the play closed it seemed clear that I had in fact maintained momentum, but it also seemed clear that maintaining momentum had been at a certain cost. This cost had always been predictable but I only that night began to put it into words. One phrase that came to mind that night was “pushing yourself.” Another was “beyond endurance.” “I 32 fell prey to water intoxication or low sodium, which is characterized by hallucination, memory loss, and corporeal ineptness; a veritable cornucopia of psychoses. I could hear voices, see four different images on the television at one time, read a book in which each word cd separate to fill the page. I’d ask people on the phone who they thought they were talking to cause i certainly didn’t know. & I fell constantly. On top of this phantasmagoric experience, I had a stroke.” So wrote the playwright Ntozake Shange, in In the Fullness of Time: 32 Women on Life After 50, about the maladies that struck her from the blue in her fifties. “The stroke put an end to nanoseconds of images & left a body with diminished vision, no strength, immobile legs, slurred speech, and no recollection of how to read.” She learned to remember how to read. She learned to remember how to write.

• From I'm Not a Mourning Person (2023)

  If you’re on the fence after the first meeting, reflect on why you’re questioning this fit and raise these points with your therapist. How they respond will tell you a lot about whether or not they’re the right person for you. If something in your gut doesn’t feel right, don’t dismiss it outright. At the end of the day, it’s important to work with someone you feel comfortable going to uncomfortable places with. Medication When Dad became terminal, medication helped keep me from sinking under waves of depression. His loss felt too big to handle without completely losing myself. And yet, for years I was resistant to pharmaceutical intervention, even just as a bridge to get me to a steadier place. Medication, especially in the wellness world, is often stigmatized. Not surprisingly. The incidents of doctors overprescribing medications are well documented, and many medications carry unwanted, and often debilitating, side effects. But medication wasn’t new to me. It helped me through difficult periods at other times in my life, including when I started having panic attacks after meeting BD. So, I knew what chronic depression felt like, I’d experienced prolonged bouts of white-knuckling through it, and I could tell when I was sinking into it again. And yet it took me nine months of unbearable struggle before I was brave enough to meet with a psychiatrist and get my own prescription. I was so relieved once I did. There’s no shame in finding reasonable ways, including medication, to help navigate these kinds of highly emotional and upsetting situations. Medication has helped me navigate my own grief and trauma. I never expect it to solve my problems or replace the hard and rewarding work of healing, but it has allowed me to stay buoyant when the ocean swells surround me. Everybody’s journey is different and personal. I hope that by sharing my tools and experiences, you feel less alone. Pillar Four—How You’re Resting (The Health Benefits of Sleep) When I talk with people about their biggest health challenges, sleep is often the number one issue. Most of us know how stressful it is to toss and turn all night, and many of us experience this on a regular basis. In America alone, 70 million people suffer from some sort of sleep disorder. Either folks aren’t getting enough sleep, they’re staying up too late or rising too early, or their sleep is so restless they wake up feeling exhausted. When we’re affected by grief, overwhelm, stress due to increased caregiving, prolonged worry, personal health issues, a global pandemic, toxic politics, social unrest, injustice, economic hardships, and so forth, sleeping well can feel impossible. But many major restorative functions occur while we sleep. For adults, the biggies are muscle growth, protein synthesis, and tissue and cell repair. For infants and children, hormone production and brain development are key (which is why they need so much more sleep than we do).

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  “We are going”, he added, “to the Fifth Avenue Hotel away up town in Madison Square: we’ll be comfortable there”, and he smiled self-complacently. I smiled too, and thanked him; but I had no intention of going in his company. I went back to the ship and thanked Dr. Keogh with all my heart for his great goodness to me; he gave me his address in New York and incidentally I learned from him that if I kept the key of my trunk, no one could open it or take it away; it would be left in charge of the Customs till I called for it. In a minute I was back in the long shed on the dock and had wandered nearly to the end when I perceived the stairs: “Is that the way into the town?” I asked and a man replied, “Sure.” One quick glance around to see that I was not noticed and in a moment I was down the stairs and out in the street: I raced straight ahead of me for two or three blocks and then asked and was told that Fifth Avenue was right in front. As I turned up Fifth Avenue, I began to breathe freely; “no more fathers for me.” The old Greybeard who had bothered me was consigned to oblivion without regret. Of course, I know now that he deserved better treatment. Perhaps indeed I should have done better had I accepted his kindly, generous help, but I’m trying to set down the plain, unvarnished truth, and here at once I must say that children’s affections are much slighter than most parents imagine. I never wasted a thought on my father; even my brother Vernon who had always been kind to me and fed my inordinate vanity, was not regretted: the new life called me: I was in a flutter of expectancy and hope. Some way up Fifth Avenue I came into the great Square and saw the Fifth Avenue Hotel, but I only grinned and kept right on till at length I reached Central Park. Near it, I can’t remember exactly where, but I believe it was near where the Plaza Hotel stands today, there was a small wooden house with an outhouse at the other end of the lot. While I stared a woman came out with a bucket and went across to the outhouse. In a few moments she came back again and noticed me looking over the fence. “Would you please give me a drink?” I asked. “Sure I will”, she replied with a strong Irish brogue. “Come right in” and I followed her into her kitchen.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  “We are going”, he added, “to the Fifth Avenue Hotel away up town in Madison Square: we’ll be comfortable there”, and he smiled self-complacently. I smiled too, and thanked him; but I had no intention of going in his company. I went back to the ship and thanked Dr. Keogh with all my heart for his great goodness to me; he gave me his address in New York and incidentally I learned from him that if I kept the key of my trunk, no one could open it or take it away; it would be left in charge of the Customs till I called for it. In a minute I was back in the long shed on the dock and had wandered nearly to the end when I perceived the stairs: “Is that the way into the town?” I asked and a man replied, “Sure.” One quick glance around to see that I was not noticed and in a moment I was down the stairs and out in the street: I raced straight ahead of me for two or three blocks and then asked and was told that Fifth Avenue was right in front. As I turned up Fifth Avenue, I began to breathe freely; “no more fathers for me.” The old Greybeard who had bothered me was consigned to oblivion without regret. Of course, I know now that he deserved better treatment. Perhaps indeed I should have done better had I accepted his kindly, generous help, but I’m trying to set down the plain, unvarnished truth, and here at once I must say that children’s affections are much slighter than most parents imagine. I never wasted a thought on my father; even my brother Vernon who had always been kind to me and fed my inordinate vanity, was not regretted: the new life called me: I was in a flutter of expectancy and hope. Some way up Fifth Avenue I came into the great Square and saw the Fifth Avenue Hotel, but I only grinned and kept right on till at length I reached Central Park. Near it, I can’t remember exactly where, but I believe it was near where the Plaza Hotel stands today, there was a small wooden house with an outhouse at the other end of the lot. While I stared a woman came out with a bucket and went across to the outhouse. In a few moments she came back again and noticed me looking over the fence. “Would you please give me a drink?” I asked. “Sure I will”, she replied with a strong Irish brogue. “Come right in” and I followed her into her kitchen.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  When I returned that night I was presented to Mike: I found him a big, good-looking Irishman who thought his wife a wonder and all she did perfect. “Mary”, he said, winking at me, “is one of the best cooks in the wurrld and if it weren’t that she’s down on a man when he has a drop in him, she’d be the best gurrl on God’s earth. As it is, I married her and I’ve never been sorry: have I Mary?” “Ye’ve had no cause, Mike Mulligan.” Mike had nothing particular to do next morning and so he promised he would go and get my little trunk from the Custom House. I gave him the key. He insisted as warmly as his wife that I should stay with them till I got work: I told them how eager I was to begin and Mike promised to speak to his chief and some friends and see what could be done. Next morning I got up about five-thirty as soon as I heard Mike stirring, and went down Seventh Avenue with him till he got on the horse-car for down-town and left me. About seven-thirty to eight o’clock a stream of people began walking down-town to their offices. On several corners were bootblack shanties. One of them happened to have three customers in it and only one bootblack. “Won’t you let me help you shine a pair or two?”, I asked. The bootblack looked at me: “I don’t mind”, he said and I seized the brushes and went to work. I had done the two just as he finished the first: he whispered to me “halves” as the next man came in and he showed me how to use the polishing rag or cloth. I took off my coat and waistcoat and went to work with a will; for the next hour and a half we both had our hands full. Then the rush began to slack off but not before I had taken just over a dollar and a half. Afterwards we had a talk and Allison, the bootblack, told me he’d be glad to give me work any morning on the same terms. I assured him I’d be there and do my best till I got other work. I had earned three shillings and had found out I could get good board for three dollars a week, so in a couple of hours I had earned my living. The last anxiety left me. Mike had a day off, so he came home for dinner at noon and he had great news. They wanted men to work under water in the iron caissons of Brooklyn Bridge and they were giving from five to ten dollars a day. “Five dollars”, cried Mrs. Mulligan, “it must be dangerous or unhealthy or somethin’—sure, you’d never put the child to work like that.”

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  I hear the pages rustle from behind closed doors. Moving Out or The End of Cooperative Living I am so glad to be moving away from this prison for black and white faces assaulting each other with our joint oppression competing for who pays the highest price for this privilege I am so glad I am moving technicoloured complaints aimed at my head mash themselves on my door like mosquitoes sweep like empty ladles through the lobby of my eyes each time my lips move sideways the smile shatters on the in thing that races dictator through our hallways on concrete faces on soul compactors on the rhetoric of incinerators and plastic drapes for the boiler room on legends of broken elevators blowing my morning cool avoiding me in the corridors dropping their load on my face down 24 stories of lives in a spectrumed madhouse pavillion of gnats and nightmare remembering once we all saved like beggars to buy our way into this castle of fantasy and forever now I am so glad to be moving. Last month a tenant was asked to leave because someone saw him wandering one morning up and down the tenth floor with no clothes on having locked himself out the night before with the garbage he could not fit into the incinerator but it made no difference the floor captain cut the leads to his cable TV and he left covered in tangled wires of shame his apartment was reconsecrated by a fumigator I am so glad I am moving Although workmen will descend at $100 an hour to scrape my breath from the walls to refinish the air and the floors with their eyes and charge me with the exact amount of whatever I have coming back to me called equity I am so glad to be moving from the noise of psychic footsteps beating a tune that is not my own louder than any other sound in the neighborhood except the blasting that goes on all day and all night from the city’s new toilet being built outside the main entrance from the spirits who live in the locks of the other seven doors bellowing secrets of living hells revealed but not shared for everybody’s midnights know what the walls hide our toilets are made of glass wired for sound [image file=image_rsrc6HF.jpg] 24 stories full of tears flushing at midnight our only community room children set their clocks to listen at the tissue walls gazing upward from their stools from one flight to another catching the neighbors in private struggles next morning it will all be discussed at length in the elevators with no secrets left I am so glad to be moving no more coming home at night to dream of caged puppies grinding their teeth into cartoonlike faces that half plead and half snicker then fold under and vanish back into snarling strangers I am so glad I am moving. But when this grim house goes

• From I'm Not a Mourning Person (2023)

  You got this, Kris. You got this. Hold fast. Damn, this was rough. “What about porn?” My sorrow instantly shut down. Dad looked stunned, so the doctor continued, “While you can still get around with your walker, you might want to get rid of it if you have any. This way no one else will have to deal with it after you’re gone.” Dad burst into laughter. “That won’t be a problem, Doctor.” From then on, “Dr. Porn,” as we took to calling him, was Dad’s favorite, straight-shooting visitor. At first, hospice scared me because I was a newbie and had no clue what to expect. For instance, I didn’t know that hospice was a service, not a place (though there are hospice facilities). Multiple times per week, a team of compassionate nurses and other professionals skilled at end-of-life care came to check on Dad. They monitored his vitals and adjusted his medications. They groomed and bathed him, allowing my mom more time to just be his wife. They ordered medical supplies and equipment like a hospital bed, wheelchair, and walker. They even offered grief counseling for us all and continued to provide it for over a year past his death. During the final hours, they were with us 24-7, teaching us what was happening and how to respond to it. When we freaked out because Dad’s stomach was filling up with fluid, they gently explained that this was normal. His liver was starting to shut down, which was why his legs were also so swollen. Luckily, they were able to drain his abdomen every other day, providing him relief. The nurses taught us how to use the “comfort kit” they’d made for us—a white paper bag filled with morphine and other prescriptions to help with any breakthrough pain. Comfort kits are designed to keep patients out of the hospital—the last place Dad wanted to be. According to the Hospice Foundation of America, many individuals and families could benefit from hospice care sooner than they get it, but people don’t often know how to access the services. Some are afraid to discuss it or don’t want to concede “defeat.” Some wait for a physician to suggest it, unaware that they can initiate care on their own, as long as eligibility criteria are met. A person doesn’t have to be bedridden or in their final days of life to receive care, either. When there’s a significant decline in health, and comfort is the only thing left to give, hospice is there. Here in the U.S., hospice is covered by Medicare, and in almost every state by Medicaid. It’s also covered by most private health insurance to varying degrees.

• From I'm Not a Mourning Person (2023)

  I quit comparing myself to other patients and coming up short. I quit blaming myself for getting sick and for not getting well. Most importantly, I quit seeing myself as anything other than whole. And while I quit trying to cure myself, I never quit betting on myself. This is how I learned that there was a difference between healing and curing. Curing takes place at the physical level. It’s absolutely possible but never guaranteed. Healing, on the other hand, takes place at the spiritual level and is available to all of us—no matter who we are, what we look like, or where we come from. And just like love, healing never ends. In fact, we can be healing and dying at the very same time. The only thing required to enter the healing path is the decision to do so. Nothing and no one can take it away from you—not even your own mortality. While figuring out how to truly accept this paradigm is by no means easy, know that on the other side of this awareness is a greater ease and appreciation for life, as well as a deeper compassion for yourself and others. Accepting my disease freed me up to love my life, again. It allowed me to embrace living as a cancer “thriver”—someone who lives fully with cancer—who coexists with something that isn’t easy or desired but doesn’t define me, either. Identifying as a thriver helped me stop taking care of myself for cancer (or because “I have to”) and start doing it for me . Because I deserve to feel good—and so do you. Now, instead of eating my vegetables or moving my body for cancer, I do healthy things so that I can have more energy and joy for my life. This may seem like a small mental shift, but for me it was epic. Now, I’m not going to lie, some days are more triumphant than others. Healing is never linear. We zig and zag, take two steps forward and one step back. And that’s OK. It’s yet another thing I’m working on accepting. Before Dad got sick, I thought I had a Ph.D. in acceptance, but after his terminal prognosis, the prospect of losing him demanded that I do some postgrad work. No matter how irrational and misplaced my feelings were, the little girl inside me was still terrified of being left. For a while, denial or gin or researching more medical procedures (that didn’t exist) provided an excellent distraction from those feelings. When I finally had to wake up and accept that the only thing left to do was to make Dad feel as comfortable and loved as possible, I didn’t think I could do it.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  Healing Trauma: A Pioneering Program for Restoring the Wisdom of Your Body . Boulder, CO: Sounds True. CHAPTER 12 The Embodied Self The Body is the Shore on the Ocean of Being. —Sufi saying L et’s now return for a moment to my personal story of being struck by the teenager’s car. The outcome of my accident could easily have been horrific, utterly devastating. Instead it turned out to be transformative. Despite having been acutely terrified, disoriented and dissociated, I was spared the dreadful repercussions of PTSD. What saved me from succumbing to prolonged trauma symptoms? Along with the method I have described throughout this book were the conjoined twin sisters of embodiment and awareness . This asset, even beyond its crucial role in regulating stress and healing trauma, is a master tool for personal enrichment and self-discovery. My job here is to entice you to take your body seriously enough to learn a bit more about its promptings. Yet I also want to encourage you to hold it lightly enough to engage it as a powerful ally in transforming intense “negative” or uncomfortable emotions—and so to experience what it’s like to truly embody goodness and joy. Since these twin sisters of mercy are so essential to the prevention and healing of trauma, let’s consider what embodied awareness looks like and feels like. Though we don’t usually bring conscious awareness to the multitude of internal bodily sensations happening moment by moment, these experiences are frequently referred to in common parlance. We “bite into and chew on” tough issues. There are things that we cannot “swallow or stomach,” while others make us “want to puke.” And of course most of us have experienced “butterflies in our stomachs.” Surely the sensation of being bloated, constricted or “tight-assed” catches our awareness and has its emotional meaning. We may be “tight-lipped” on one occasion and “loose-lipped” on another. Or we may just feel open in our bellies and chest or even “breathless with excitement.” Such are the poignant messages from our muscles and viscera. All human experience is incarnate, that is to say, “of the body.” Our thoughts are guided by our sensations and emotions. But how you know when you are angry? Or, do you know how you know when you are happy? Typically, people tend to ascribe a mental causation to an emotion; for example, I am feeling (angry, sad, etc.) because he/she did this (said this, forgot to do this, etc.). However, when people learn to focus on what is going on in their bodies in the here and now, they typically report, “My stomach is tight,” or “My chest feels bigger—my heart is more relaxed and open.” These physical cues let us know not only what we are feeling but also what to do to remedy difficult sensations and emotions. They also inform us that we are alive and real.

• From I'm Not a Mourning Person (2023)

  Parts that had also craved healing. But after a while, it was easy to go back to sleep. To slip into old, hardwired, comfortable patterns of being and relating, because they were familiar. I used to beat myself up about not staying in a perpetual state of awakeness, as if not living my life “like every day was my last” meant that I was lazy, ungrateful, or worse—willfully blowing off the hard-won wisdom I’d learned in the cancer trenches. Maybe you can relate in your own way. Of course, none of that is true. It’s why I often come back to Jung’s notion of orbiting. The idea that we circle around the same themes our entire lives. And with each passing orbit, we reach the next circle of meaning (understanding, integration, assimilation). Translation: it’s normal to step in the same shit again and again, each time with a new willingness to go deeper. What a relief! If you find yourself orbiting, please don’t beat yourself up, mistakenly believing you’re in a downward spiral of stuckness. Believe me, I know the temptation, but orbiting truly is the instrument of our healing. We cycle through change, and all the feelings that come with it. And with each trip around the sun, our souls get wiser, our hearts expand, and we orbit to a new layer of ourselves in and among the both/and. TAKE IT ONE STEP AT A TIME (NOT ONE DAY AT A TIME) One day at a time can be a lot. One step at a time helps you digest and steady yourself. It’s gentler on the nervous system. Some moments will be tough (I’ve certainly shared a few of my doozies). Others will feel softer. If you’re prone to sky-high expectations of yourself, lower the bar. In fact, put it so damn low you could trip over it. Imagine you’ve just come out of a major surgery. Would you expect yourself to have the mental and physical ability to just get back to life as usual? Hopefully not. Hopefully, you’d be willing to allow your body time to recuperate. Remember that loss, traumatic events, and unexpected shit pickles (even those that are for the best) are draining in ways you may not even be aware of. As you learn how to navigate this stage of your orbit, be patient with yourself, dear one. You are not a machine. Taking things one step at a time allows you to set limits on how much you can handle in any given moment. For me, after Dad died, my bandwidth for “normal” life was next to nothing. I literally thought there was something wrong with me as I struggled to get out of bed. I don’t recognize myself anymore, I’d think. The things that lit me up previously felt dry and unappealing—like stale saltines. Why can’t I remember anything? Basic word recall went out the window.

• From I'm Not a Mourning Person (2023)

  Rain check for a time when I’m not so depleted?” I’m not suggesting that you let your toddler or elderly parent fend for themselves. I’m merely pointing out that there are probably some tasks that people can do on their own. Making a sandwich doesn’t require a Mensa membership. And not for nothing, but there are also a few folks in your life who probably take more than they give. Now is a good time to start adjusting that balance. GIVE YOURSELF A PASS You’re not going to be able to have your shit together all the time. Not when you’re maneuvering through the kind of turbulence that requires barf bags. This is where the saying “progress, not perfection” comes in. Perfection sucks the life force right out of you. It kicks your batteries in the balls. Ouch! Don’t do that. Instead, let your new self-care mantra be this: “It’s good enough.” Good enough creates momentum. Good enough allows you to implement better habits. Good enough keeps you from quitting on yourself. Good enough is likely all you’ve got right now, and, well, it’s good enough. You’re going to disappoint people. (It’s good enough.) You won’t be able to pick up the phone as much. (It’s good enough.) You’ll forget to RSVP, and you’ll cancel plans at the last minute. (It’s good enough.) Your e-mail inbox will get so bad that you may decide to declare e-mail bankruptcy, delete everything, and start again. (It’s good enough.) You won’t be the best friend or the greatest parent or partner right now. (It’s good enough.) You won’t “look so good.” (It’s good enough—and so are you.) You’ll need to cut yourself some slack. (It’s good enough.) Now, go get a glass of water, my friend. Cheers. CHAPTER 12 LISTENING TO YOUR LIFE Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace. — FREDERICK BUECHNER Here we are in the final chapter, and yet, there’s no finality to grief, trauma, and loss. There’s reaching new stages of healing, but as we all know, those old feelings can still erupt like geysers when we least expect it. While there may be no getting over grief, there is moving forward. There is moving through. And no matter what your situation, there will be a moment when you breathe and think, OK, I’m here now. What’s next? TAKING INVENTORY When things fall apart, there’s often a domino effect—a chain reaction sparked by the initial rupture.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  Bob got off his horse in a clump of cottonwood trees which he said was a good place to camp without being seen. I asked him where the cattle were and he told me “across the river.” Within two or three miles, it appeared, there was a famous hacienda with great herds. As soon as it got dark he proposed to go across and find out all about it and bring us the news. We were to be careful not to be seen and he hoped that we would not even make a fire but lie close till he returned. We were more than willing, and when we got tired of talking Bent produced an old deck of cards and we would play draw poker or euchre or casino for two or three hours. The first night passed quickly enough. We had been in the saddle for ten hours a day for four or five days and slept a dreamless sleep. Bob did not return that day or the next and on the third day Bent began to curse him, but I felt sure he had good reason for the delay and so waited with what patience I could muster. On the third night he was suddenly with us just as if he had come out of the earth. “Welcome back”, I cried. “Everything right?” “Everything”, he said: “It was no good coming sooner; they have brought some cattle within four miles of the river; the orders are to keep ’em away seven or eight miles, so that they could not be driven across without rousing the whole country; but Don José is very rich and carefree and there is a herd of fifteen hundred that will suit us not three miles from the river in a fold of the prairie guarded only by two men whom I’ll make so very drunk that they’ll hear nothing till next morning. A couple of bottles of aguardiente will do the bizness, and I’ll come back for you tomorrow night by eight or nine o’clock.” It all turned out as Bob had arranged. The next night he came to us as soon as it was dark. We rode some two miles down the river to a ford, splashed through the rivulets of water and came out on the Mexican side. In single file and complete silence we followed Bob at a lope for perhaps twenty minutes when he put up his hand and we drew down to a walk. There below us between two waves of prairie were the cattle. In a few words Bob told Bent and Charlie what they were to do. Bent was to stay behind and shoot in case we were followed—unlikely but always possible. Charlie and I were to move the cattle towards the ford, quietly all the way if we could, but if we were pursued, then as hard as we could drive them.