Sadness

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 14 of 212 · 20 per page

• From The Pisces (2018)

  “This time, I’m still doing me,” she said. “I’m still self-dating. But it’s also nice to always have a partner now at salsa dancing. He does warm-ups with me before improv class too. True, I have to pay for everything. And technically he has nowhere else to go. But he’s here for me now. The way I see it, if he didn’t want to be with me he could still be sleeping at the Korean spa. Those floor mats are not so uncomfortable. He does have a choice. He’s not forced to live with me. He’s choosing me.” Sara said she wanted to stay in group and also stay with Stan. Dr. Jude said she didn’t recommend it, but she wasn’t going to kick her out. “You’ll see,” said Sara. “I’m really flourishing. I’m even thinking of getting into spoken word.” I wondered if Sara was totally kidding herself or if she was proof that the seemingly impossible could be done after all: the mending of an old, unhealthy relationship into a new, healthy one that didn’t destroy you. Should I have been more responsive to Jamie when he had first started texting? Why had I ignored him to chase a relationship that was only sustainable when confined to a rock? Clearly I had made some kind of wrong decision or I wouldn’t be back here, head in hands, seated next to Dr. Jude’s framed poster of Jungian archetypes. What was worse, still, was that the others all seemed to have gotten better without me. Even Diana had been totally clean, off the tennis boys for over a week, and was paying more attention to her children. “Regardless of how I feel about my husband, whether I lust after him anymore or not, my children are what I really live for. I’m doing this for them. So that I can be present. It wasn’t fair to be sitting at the kitchen table with them while they ate pizza, running off every five minutes to check my phone in the living room to see if a twenty-three-year-old had texted me. I wasn’t able to be there for them. And they could sense it.” “How do you feel?” asked Dr. Jude. “A little sad,” she said. “But so much better. I’m not as on edge as I was. My worth isn’t dictated by text messages.” Brianne, too, had found some solace in her son.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  He tells me about his day and a meeting he had with a client. I feel a twinge of sadness at the feeling of cozy domesticity this scene elicits, two adults catching up at the end of their day. I feel the ache of not having a partner anymore, the only person in my life who would care whether or not the washing machine was fixed or that I had received a phone call from Daisy that afternoon telling me she had made her first two friends at school. My head is spinning – from the passionate sex I just had with #4 to the romantic dinner date to the stinging rejection when we got back to his house to my sitting here with such ease in #3’s kitchen. I feel mercurial, like I’m fostering different personalities to see which one I will ultimately adopt. With #4, I’m the six-years-older MILF who can’t get enough, with #3, I’m the patient end-of-day sounding board, and underlying both of these personas is the memory of the devoted wife I was to my husband, who theoretically I could still go back to if I could find him. I hear a voice urging me to keep going, leap forward, don’t look back, pedal faster, have more sex, learn more, explore more, discover more – more, more, more – and then another voice yelling a command to stop and retreat, don’t abandon the life you know, decamp for safer pastures. If I could clarify whether I am losing or finding myself, I would find the key to the door I am meant to unlock. “I’m so tired,” I say suddenly. #3, wiping down the counter, pauses to glance at me and invites me to sleep over. I nod my head in assent. Upstairs in the narrow bathroom, he loans me toiletries and together we brush our teeth with his natural toothpaste that makes me wish I had a powerful dose of chemical mouthwash, moving around each other in an intimate dance that feels familiar even though it’s our first time doing it. In his bed, naked beneath a cotton sheet, a window fan gently blowing on us, we kiss. I know that I could tell him I’m bone-tired and he would graciously accept it, that the pressure to have sex with him is self-inflicted.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Stephen as she drove through that devastated country would find herself thinking of Martin Hallam—Martin who had touched the old thorns on the hills with such respectful and pitiful fingers: ‘Have you ever thought about the enormous courage of trees? I have and it seems to me amazing. The Lord dumps them down and they’ve just got to stick it, no matter what happens—that must need some courage.’ Martin had believed in a heaven for trees, a forest heaven for all the faithful; and looking at those pitiful, leafy corpses, Stephen would want to believe in that heaven. Until lately she had not thought of Martin for years, he belonged to a past that was better forgotten, but now she would sometimes wonder about him. Perhaps he was dead, smitten down where he stood, for many had perished where they stood, like the orchards. It was strange to think that he might have been here in France, have been fighting and have died quite near her. But perhaps he had not been killed after all—she had never told Mary about Martin Hallam. All roads of thought seemed to lead back to Mary; and these days, in addition to fears for her safety, came a growing distress at what she must see—far more terrible sights than the patient wounded. For everywhere now lay the wreckage of war, sea-wrack spued up by a poisonous ocean—putrefying, festering in the sun; breeding corruption to man’s seed of folly. Twice lately, while they had been driving together, they had come upon sights that Stephen would have spared her. There had been that shattered German gun-carriage with its stiff, dead horses and its three dead gunners—horrible death, the men’s faces had been black like the faces of negroes, black and swollen from gas, or was it from putrefaction? There had been the deserted and wounded charger with its fore-leg hanging as though by a rag. Near by had been lying a dead young Uhlan, and Stephen had shot the beast with his revolver, but Mary had suddenly started sobbing: ‘Oh, God! Oh, God! It was dumb—it couldn’t speak. It’s so awful somehow to see a thing suffer when it can’t ask you why!’ She had sobbed a long time, and Stephen had not known how to console her.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  2There is nothing more difficult to attain to than the art of being a perfect guide. Such an art, indeed, requires a real artist, one who has a keen perception for contrasts, and an eye for the large effects rather than for details, above all one possessed of imagination; and Brockett, when he chose, could be such a guide. Having waved the professional guides to one side, he himself took them through a part of the palace, and his mind re-peopled the place for Stephen so that she seemed to see the glory of the dancers led by the youthful Roi Soleil; seemed to hear the rhythm of the throbbing violins, and the throb of the rhythmic dancing feet as they beat down the length of the Galerie des Glaces; seemed to see those other mysterious dancers who followed step by step, in the long line of mirrors. But most skilfully of all did he recreate for her the image of the luckless queen who came after; as though for some reason this unhappy woman must appeal in a personal way to Stephen. And true it was that the small, humble rooms which the queen had chosen out of all that vast palace, moved Stephen profoundly—so desolate they seemed, so full of unhappy thoughts and emotions that were even now only half forgotten. Brockett pointed to the simple garniture on the mantelpiece of the little salon, then he looked at Stephen: ‘Madame de Lamballe gave those to the queen,’ he murmured softly. She nodded, only vaguely apprehending his meaning. Presently they followed him out into the gardens and stood looking across the Tapis Vert that stretches its quarter mile of greenness towards a straight, lovely line of water. Brockett said, very low, so that Puddle should not hear him: ‘Those two would often come here at sunset. Sometimes they were rowed along the canal in the sunset—can’t you imagine it, Stephen? They must often have felt pretty miserable, poor souls; sick to death of the subterfuge and pretences. Don’t you ever get tired of that sort of thing? My God, I do!’ But she did not answer, for now there was no mistaking his meaning. Last of all he took them to the Temple d’Amour, where it rests amid the great silence of the years that have long lain upon the dead hearts of its lovers; and from there to the Hameau, built by the queen for a whim—the tactless and foolish whim of a tactless and foolish but loving woman—by the queen who must play at being a peasant, at a time when her downtrodden peasants were starving. The cottages were badly in need of repair; a melancholy spot it looked, this Hameau, in spite of the birds that sang in its trees and the golden glint of the afternoon sunshine.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  His breath always tasted fresh, a little salty but not fishy. He tasted like ocean air. In the living room he was sitting up in the sunlight that shone through the big glass windows, the blanket wrapped around him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Why?” I asked. “I think I brought some darkness in here with me. The sadness, moving from sea to land, sometimes I can’t shake it. I thought if anything I would feel scared, but coming here I couldn’t help but think, What’s the point? I mean, I guess the point is that we have an experience. I guess that is the point. I just, well, I am going to live a long time. And have lived a long time. I have seen a lot of people come and go.” I wondered how many people. How many women, human women? Mermaids? I wanted to say I would be with him forever. But I didn’t know if that was what he wanted me to say. I couldn’t make that promise. I realized it wasn’t my impending departure for Phoenix that stopped me from offering the words. And it wasn’t my fear of intimacy. It was still my fear of rejection. “But you seem so young,” I said. “No, I’m not. I’ve been alive for a very long time. I’m not eternal. I can die. But we don’t usually get sick, not in the body anyway. Something about the saltwater. It brines us and keeps us young. It keeps illness from entering.” “So how old are you exactly?” “Honestly, I don’t really know. It’s not a thing down there. Maybe forty?” “That’s how old I am,” I said. “Almost. Wow, I’m younger than you.” “I told you you’re young,” he said. “I might be even older than that actually.” “Who are your parents?” “They are like me, but also very much not like me. They look like me, or my mother does anyway, but more content with their existence. They never leave the water. They aren’t scared, they simply have no interest,” he said. “Anyway, hoisting and dragging myself like that, on the sand, it made me feel tired. Sometimes I get so tired, even in the water. It’s like physical things don’t make me physically tired, but they make me mentally tired. Mental things make me feel that way too.” “Everything is just so much,” I said. “All the time.” “It is,” he said. “And I was scared I wasn’t going to be able to, you know.” He laughed. “Get it up?” I said. “Yeah,” he said. “Not because I don’t want you or because I don’t have it in me physically, but because of that mental exhaustion. I can doubt myself. I become more susceptible.” “Theo,” I soothed him.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  I wondered what he ate. Plankton? Fish? His breath always tasted fresh, a little salty but not fishy. He tasted like ocean air. In the living room he was sitting up in the sunlight that shone through the big glass windows, the blanket wrapped around him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Why?” I asked. “I think I brought some darkness in here with me. The sadness, moving from sea to land, sometimes I can’t shake it. I thought if anything I would feel scared, but coming here I couldn’t help but think, What’s the point? I mean, I guess the point is that we have an experience. I guess that is the point. I just, well, I am going to live a long time. And have lived a long time. I have seen a lot of people come and go.” I wondered how many people. How many women, human women? Mermaids? I wanted to say I would be with him forever. But I didn’t know if that was what he wanted me to say. I couldn’t make that promise. I realized it wasn’t my impending departure for Phoenix that stopped me from offering the words. And it wasn’t my fear of intimacy. It was still my fear of rejection. “But you seem so young,” I said. “No, I’m not. I’ve been alive for a very long time. I’m not eternal. I can die. But we don’t usually get sick, not in the body anyway. Something about the saltwater. It brines us and keeps us young. It keeps illness from entering.” “So how old are you exactly?” “Honestly, I don’t really know. It’s not a thing down there. Maybe forty?” “That’s how old I am,” I said. “Almost. Wow, I’m younger than you.” “I told you you’re young,” he said. “I might be even older than that actually.” “Who are your parents?” “They are like me, but also very much not like me. They look like me, or my mother does anyway, but more content with their existence. They never leave the water. They aren’t scared, they simply have no interest,” he said. “Anyway, hoisting and dragging myself like that, on the sand, it made me feel tired. Sometimes I get so tired, even in the water. It’s like physical things don’t make me physically tired, but they make me mentally tired. Mental things make me feel that way too.” “Everything is just so much,” I said. “All the time.” “It is,” he said. “And I was scared I wasn’t going to be able to, you know.” He laughed. “Get it up?” I said. “Yeah,” he said. “Not because I don’t want you or because I don’t have it in me physically, but because of that mental exhaustion. I can doubt myself. I become more susceptible.” “Theo,” I soothed him.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  There were times, however, when Collins seemed sulky when Stephen could dress up as Nelson in vain. ‘Now, don’t bother me, Miss, I’ve got my work to see to!’ or: ‘You go and show Nurse—yes, I know you’re a boy, but I’ve got my work to get on with. Run away.’ And Stephen must slink upstairs thoroughly deflated, strangely unhappy and exceedingly humble, and must tear off the clothes she so dearly loved donning, to replace them by the garments she hated. How she hated soft dresses and sashes, and ribbons, and small coral beads, and openwork stockings! Her legs felt so free and comfortable in breeches; she adored pockets too, and these were forbidden—at least really adequate pockets. She would gloom about the nursery because Collins had snubbed her, because she was conscious of feeling all wrong, because she so longed to be some one quite real, instead of just Stephen pretending to be Nelson. In a quick fit of anger she would go to the cupboard, and getting out her dolls would begin to torment them. She had always despised the idiotic creatures which, however, arrived with each Christmas and birthday. ‘I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!’ she would mutter thumping their innocuous faces. But one day, when Collins had been crosser than usual, she seemed to be filled with a sudden contrition. ‘It’s me housemaid’s knee,’ she confided to Stephen, ‘It’s not you, it’s me housemaid’s knee, dearie.’ ‘Is that dangerous?’ demanded the child, looking frightened. Then Collins, true to her class, said: ‘It may be—it may mean an ’orrible operation, and I don’t want no operation.’ ‘What’s that?’ inquired Stephen. ‘Why, they’d cut me,’ moaned Collins; ‘they’d ’ave to cut me to let out the water.’ ‘Oh, Collins! What water?’ ‘The water in me kneecap—you can see if you press it, Miss Stephen.’ They were standing alone in the spacious night-nursery, where Collins was limply making the bed. It was one of those rare and delicious occasions when Stephen could converse with her goddess undisturbed, for the nurse had gone out to post a letter. Collins rolled down a coarse woollen stocking and displayed the afflicted member; it was blotchy and swollen and far from attractive, but Stephen’s eyes filled with quick, anxious tears as she touched the knee with her finger. ‘There now!’ exclaimed Collins, ‘See that dent? That’s the water!’ And she added: ‘It’s so painful it fair makes me sick. It all comes from polishing them floors, Miss Stephen; I didn’t ought to polish them floors.’ Stephen said gravely: ‘I do wish I’d got it—I wish I’d got your housemaid’s knee, Collins, ’cause that way I could bear it instead of you.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  When I ask how he’s doing, he shakes his head, saying this has been a terrible year, that he’d been in a near-fatal motorcycle accident and recovered to find out that he had lung cancer, so surgery and treatments and a difficult recovery ensued. “Yikes, what a year, I’m sorry. You look healthy but thinner, which is why I guess I didn’t recognize you right away. You’re so tough, I have no doubt you’ll be back to your robust self soon.” “Well, Laura, I’m getting better and stronger every day. God is good, and I’m grateful. How are you? How’s Michael?” “I had a rough year too, trying to get back on my feet. Michael and I split up,” I say quietly, glancing at Georgia, who is peering into the salad bar a few feet away. My throat instantly constricts. I know that his sympathetic look will reduce me to tears so I reach out to hug him again and say I have to get going. “Oh, wow, I’m shocked. I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say. If you ever want to talk or need a friend, I’m a good listener.” I thank him and give him my cell number, suggesting that he reach out at some point. Then Georgia is tugging me over to the freezer aisle and Johnny is gone. Fifteen minutes later, Georgia and I are en route to her gymnastics class when I get a text from Johnny: “I’m sorry about you and Michael. You guys seemed so solid to me. You’re the last couple I would have expected this from. I know you’ll get through it, but it’s got to be hard right now.” I respond that it is indeed very difficult and within a few texts we have made a plan to have a drink the coming Sunday after I drop Georgia at sleepaway camp. * As we drive home from my parents’ house on Saturday afternoon after Georgia has said her goodbyes and instructed them on exactly what they should include in their upcoming care packages to her, she requests a send-off dinner with me and Michael that evening. I want to fulfill this simple request and I’m furious at myself that I can’t bring myself to do it, and at Michael for putting us in this position. “I’m so sorry, sweet girl. Daddy and I aren’t able to do that yet.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  When I first saw him, I cried. I couldn’t believe how different he looked since I last saw him. He’s changed a lot, he’s grown and his face has morphed into a more adult face. It was amazing to see him but heartbreaking to know that I’ve missed so much,” he says. “Yup,” I say, because what else is there to say? Missing almost a year of your son’s life is indeed heartbreaking. He asks if he can stop by tomorrow before my family arrives to say a quick hello to the kids and drop off some treats for them. “Yes, sure. I’m sorry that I can’t invite you for dinner. I hope we can get to that point someday, but the older kids aren’t there yet and then there’s my family, most of whom you haven’t seen since before all of this,” I taper off. I had pleaded with him in the immediate aftermath of our separation to reach out to my parents, but his avoidance of them for five months until his visit to them in the summer, caused damage that I doubt will ever be undone. The next night, after my family says their tenth goodbye and finally exits into the dark, cold night, and every roasting pan and serving platter has been dried and put away, I crawl exhausted into my bed and call #6 to say hi. We chat quietly in the dark, comparing menus and the chaos of the day, and then my bedroom door bursts open with Daisy rushing in, “Mom!” she says urgently, “I found this new curly hair product and brought some home for you to try. You’re going to love it.” “Hang on,” I whisper to #6, and then to Daisy, “Thank you so much, darling. Will you leave it next to my sink?” “Yes, but you have to smell it,” she says excitedly, walking around the bed to my side. When she gets closer and sees that I am holding the phone, she pauses, asking who I’m talking to. “A friend,” I answer, flustered. She frowns, so I continue, “A friend you don’t know.” She looks at me with alarm so I hang up without even saying goodbye to #6. “I was talking to a friend – well, a friend I’ve gone on some dates with, we used to live in the same building, that’s how I know him,” I say, rambling. “I don’t care how you know him, Mom, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you were dating.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  It is painful enough that her father no longer lives with us, but the mystery of why her brother and sister have cut off contact with him is beyond her capacity to understand. Usually I can propel her forward through the routines and events in her life, but right now, I don’t have it in me. Anxious about Hudson’s meeting with Michael and knowing that tomorrow, Thanksgiving, will be loudly populated by my family and notably absent Michael – the first time in 26 years we won’t be together on this favorite holiday of his – has left me feeling weary and craving a retreat too. I await Hudson’s arrival back home as I fold around Georgia on the sofa, watching Frozen for the umpteenth time. The more time that passes, the higher my hopes rise that Hudson and Michael are having a productive conversation that connects them to each other again. The last time they talked was nine months earlier, at a diner the week after we learned of Michael’s affair. Hudson had told Michael that he didn’t want further contact with him and that if we divorced, he would live with me. His stubborn streak combined with his intense loyalty has made him stick to his word beyond the point of reason. I had retained little hope of their reuniting anytime soon, so the sudden willingness to talk was a wholly unexpected and welcome surprise. When Hudson walks in hours later, I play it cool. I know that he feels he is betraying me by extending an olive branch to Michael, even though I have told him over and over again that I want him to have his father in his life, that he could never betray me by having a relationship with him. I call to him from the family room to say hello. He sticks his head in the room, looks at Georgia with concern and asks, “You OK, little G?” “My stomach hurts,” she says pitifully, and he nods his head sympathetically. “How’d it go?” I ask, attempting casualness, and he mutters that it was fine, averting his eyes. I turn my attention back to Georgia to let him know he is dismissed from further inquiry. A few minutes later, Michael calls, breathless with excitement, telling me that Hudson had talked for hours about school and theatre and friends, like he had been saving it all up and it came pouring out. “I’m so glad. I hope this is a new start. Did he indicate that he would see you again?” I ask. “I walked him home and he was still talking, so he kept walking with me. It was so good to see him and hear his voice.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Having fully restored the Count’s domain to order, the lady communicated this fact to her husband by way of two knights, beseeching him to inform her whether it was on her account that he was deserting his lands, in which case she would go away in order to please him. He answered them very brusquely, saying: ‘She may do whatever she likes. For my own part, I shall go back to live with her when she wears this ring upon her finger, and when she is carrying a child of mine in her arms.’ The ring was very dear to him, and he never let it stray from his finger on account of certain magical powers which he had been told that it possessed. The knights realized that it was virtually impossible for the lady to comply with either of these harsh conditions, but no amount of reasoning on their part could shift him from his resolve, and they therefore returned to their mistress to acquaint her with his answer. Their tidings filled her with dismay, but after giving some thought to the matter she decided to try and find out how and where these two things might be accomplished, thus enabling her to win back her husband. Having carefully considered what she must do, she called together a group of the leading notables of those parts, gave them a highly succinct and moving description of all she had done out of her love for the Count, and pointed out the results of her endeavours. Then she told them that she had no intention of protracting her stay if this entailed the Count’s continued exile; on the contrary, she meant to spend the rest of her days in making pilgrimages and performing works of charity for the good of her soul. Finally, she asked them to take over the defence and administration of the territory, and to inform the Count that she had left him its exclusive and unencumbered title; then she vanished from the scene, having resolved never to set foot in Roussillon again. As she spoke, her worthy hearers shed countless tears and pleaded with her over and over again to change her mind and stay with them, but all to no avail. Having bidden them farewell, she set out with one of her maidservants and a man who was her cousin, both of whom were dressed, like herself, in pilgrim’s garb, and taking with her a goodly quantity of money and precious jewels. She had told no one where she was going, but in fact she made straight for Florence without pausing to rest. On her arrival, she chanced upon a little inn that was kept by a kindly widow, and there she quietly took up her abode in the guise of a poor pilgrim, eager for news of her husband.

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  sympathy with the pentecostal apostles; in this situation he was an outsider and an ill- informed one. The evangelical speeches he produces are to some extent reconstructions, inspired by appropriate passages in the Septuagint, a diaspora document not in use among Jerusalem Jews. Even granted all this, however, Luke’s account of the religion preached immediately after Pentecost does not bear much resemblance to Jesus’s teaching. Its starting-point is the resurrection, but otherwise it is Christianity without Christ. Indeed, the word Christ had not yet come into use – that was a product of the later diaspora and gentile mission. What the apostles were preaching was a form of Jewish revivalism. It had strong apocalyptic overtones – very much part of the Jewish tradition – and it used the resurrection event to prove and heighten the urgency of the message. But what was the message? In all essentials it was: repent and be baptized – the revivalist doctrine preached by John the Baptist before Jesus’s mission even began! Only disjointed fragments of Jesus’s mechanism of salvation, his redefinition of the deity, and his own central role in the process survived. The Jerusalem apostles were in danger of slipping into the theological posture of Jewish baptists. Their Judaic instincts were still powerful and conservative. They were orientated wholly to Temple-worship. Luke’s gospel tells us that after the apostles parted with Jesus at Bethany, ‘they returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and spent all their time in the Temple praising God.’ Again, after the first Pentecost campaign, we learn from Acts that ‘With one mind, they kept up their daily attendance at the Temple.’ The inference is that the leaders of the movement in Jerusalem were much closer to Judaism than Jesus, and indeed had been all along. Alas, we know very little about them. The gospel of John says that the earliest disciples came from the circle of the Baptist, and this at a time when Jesus’s early, simple teaching was strongly reflective of the Baptist’s, at least according to Mark’s account of it. Our authorities give a very confusing picture of Jesus’s following, both during his ministry and afterwards, when the personnel seem to have changed radically. The synoptics agree that twelve men were constituted, in Mark’s words, ‘to be with him, and to send them to preach and to have authority to cast out demons’. Both John and Paul refer to the figure twelve. But were the twelve the same as the apostles? The synoptics and Acts provide lists, but only agree on the first eight. John gives only half. Most of them are just names, if we leave aside later traditions. ‘The Twelve’ seem to relate to the ‘true people’ of the twelve tribes; but apostle in Greek implies an expedition across the sea and must refer

• From The Decameron (1353)

  And it was when they were begging outside a church one morning, that a great lady, the wife of one of the King of England’s marshals, happened to catch sight of the Count and his two children as she was coming away from her devotions. On asking where he came from and whether the two children were his, he replied that he was from Picardy and that he was indeed their father. But he had been compelled to leave home with the children and lead a vagabond existence because of a crime that an elder son of his had committed. The lady, who was of a kindly nature, ran her eyes over the girl and took a great liking to her, for she was a pretty little thing and had an air of gentility about her. ‘Good sir,’ said the lady. ‘If you would like to leave this little girl with me, I will gladly look after her, for she is a pretty-looking child. And if she turns out as well as she promises, when the time comes I shall arrange a good marriage for her.’ This request greatly pleased the Count, who promptly gave his consent, and with tears in his eyes he handed over his daughter, warmly commending her to the lady’s care. He was well aware of the lady’s identity, and now that he had found a good home for the child, he decided not to remain there any longer. And so, begging as he went, he made his way with Perrot to the other side of the island, finding the journey very tiring as he was unused to travelling on foot. Eventually he arrived in Wales, where there was another of the King’s marshals, a man who lived in great style and kept a large number of servants, and to this man’s castle the Count, either by himself or with his son, would frequently go in order to obtain something to eat. There were several children at the castle, of whom some belonged to the Marshal himself and others were the sons of the local gentry, and whilst they were competing with each other in children’s sports, like running and jumping, Perrot began to mix with them, performing equally as well or better than any of the others in every game they played. His prowess attracted the attention of the Marshal, who, taking a great liking to the child’s manner and general behaviour, demanded to know who he was. On being told that he was the son of a pauper who sometimes came into the castle begging for alms, the Marshal sent someone to ask whether he could keep him; and although it distressed him to part with the child, the Count, who was praying that such a thing might happen, willingly handed him over.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  We’re very upset with each other and need time to calm down and move on. We’re trying hard to forgive each other, we just need more time.” “Whose fault is it that you’re mad at each other?” she asks. “Both of ours,” I say. I don’t like having to accept responsibility for our current situation, but I want her to have healthy relationships with both of us and I will bend the truth to help make that happen. “I always tell you that it takes two to tango, right? It’s not one person’s fault, it’s about how two people are together.” “OK,” she murmurs so quietly that it breaks my heart. “I can’t promise that Daddy and I will stay married, but I can promise that someday we’ll do better than we’re doing now. I will always be your mom and Dad will always be your dad and we will always love you and Daisy and Hudson the most in the world. That won’t ever change, whether we’re together or apart.” She remains quiet and I’m grateful this conversation is happening while I’m driving and she’s in the backseat, so she doesn’t have to see my tears and I don’t have to see hers. “Are you OK?” I ask and even as I do so, I know I’m looking to her to reassure me that she will make it through our split intact. “I mean ...” she starts and pauses. “This isn’t the best thing that’s ever happened to me but yeah, I’m OK.” I burst out laughing. I am so in awe of this brave, resilient and funny little girl and I know that I will do whatever I can to keep her this way. She’s not quite done with me yet though, wanting to know if I will someday marry another man and if so, if that means she will have an entirely new father. I am grateful that we have moved past some of the heaviness and grief of our conversation to imagine what the future could look like and I laugh again, teasing her that she’s getting ahead of herself and moving way too fast for me. “Oh yeah, I forgot,” she says, giggling. “Daddy stays my daddy no matter what.” “Exactly,” I say. “And our feelings for each other might change but our feelings for you never will.” This much, at least, I know is true, and it feels good to be able to declare the words authoritatively. * Sunday, drop-off day, arrives. Michael and I both want to bring Georgia for her first time at overnight camp, but even if I can manage to sit in the car for the ride there with him and Georgia, there’s no way I’m getting back in that car with him alone afterwards. After a flurry of text negotiations, we agree to take two cars. The drop-off itself is as uncomfortable as it is quick.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  I launched into a long, rambling answer about how it would depend on the context, how long she had already been waiting and how excited she was for what was coming. She gave me a confused look, making it clear that my abstract answer was not in line with the topic at hand, and tried again. “Daddy’s been gone for six weeks. Is that long enough for you to make up with him?” “Oh, Georgia,” I said, deflating. “I thought it would be, but it’s not. I don’t know how much longer it’s going to take.” “But you said three weeks, so how much longer?” she asked, her voice rising in panic. “How much time will be enough time?” “I’m so sorry. I wish I could make this go away, but I can’t. I don’t have an amount of time to give you, but Daddy and I both love you so much and will do anything we can to make this easier for you,” I said. “Easier would be if Daddy could come back home,” she said, sobbing, as I held her. Silently, to myself, I agreed. That certainly would be easier, and for the thousandth time since our separation had begun, I wished I could blink and make this all disappear. * In May, at the three-month mark of our separation, I saw no end in sight to my ambivalence about my marriage. I was still seeing my own therapist once a week, and she helped me accept that a clear path was not going to be in my sightline anytime soon. It was with this in mind that I texted Michael and asked him to find a one-year lease on an apartment, explaining that the pressure of a deadline for him to move back home had become unbearable. Our therapist had told us when we first started seeing her that the longer couples stayed separated the lower the chance they would ever reunite, but I could take or leave our marriage at this point. Friends asked for updates, wanting to know what I thought would happen, and I would give them 50:50 odds, some days feeling sure we were done and others unable to wrap my head around a future without him. I still could not bring myself to look at him, but letting go of our future together was intolerable. For most of our adult lives we had been one unit; I could not fathom our being divided without it killing me. Already I was having to allow our past to take new shapes and colors, but to obliterate our future? In couples’ therapy one day, I silently raged as Michael explained why he could not completely cut this other woman out of his life. “She’s not a bad person, Laura,” he said as my eyes almost fell out of my head in disbelief. “Michael, I’m going to caution you from defending her,” the therapist said.

• From Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (1988)

  Then the Father, wanting to spare others from suffering as Wisdom had, sent a sixteenth pair of masculine and feminine energies, Christ and the Holy Spirit, to reveal to the other aeons that although none but the primal Mind could possibly comprehend God, all other beings, too, come from him, “in whom we live and move and have our being,” and are to rejoice and celebrate together in this paradoxical knowledge. When Wisdom was restored to her place within the divine being, she left her sufferings behind her. Followers of Ptolemy said that these sufferings—the fear, confusion, grief, and ignorance she suffered in her search for God—had to be excluded from the divine being. Yet Wisdom joined herself with Christ to recover the residual spiritual energy left in these experiences. Together, she and Christ set out to transform those sufferings: they turned her fear into water, her grief into air, her confusion into earth, and her ignorance into fire. Then they used these elements of suffering to create the present universe.77 The orthodox insisted that Adam and Eve inherited a perfect world and brought upon it, through their misuse of free will, all the harms known to humankind. But the Valentinians believed that human beings, though they undoubtedly received a measure of freedom to make moral choices, are not free—nor ever were—to avoid suffering, from which the very universe itself was made. The orthodox church offered “good news” of human power and freedom; but the Valentinians, more like Buddhists, saw acceptance of suffering as the first prerequisite for spiritual understanding. We may infer from the sophistication of many of their writings that Valentinian Christians tended to be people of education and privilege. If so, they may have been able to take their personal freedom for granted, as many people in the Roman Empire could not. And we may also infer that they knew from experience the limits of human freedom. For their myths suggest that even those who are gifted with freedom—moral and intellectual, of course, as well as social or political—must remain acutely aware of the limits of freedom and of the ways in which even the freest of human beings remain dependent upon what is beyond human power. The gnostics’ vision was a dark one, pervaded by suffering; yet it was, nevertheless, a religious vision, in which ultimately everything depended upon what they called the will of the Father, that mysterious Source, the “abyss,”78 who, according to the Gospel of Truth, “discovered [‘his own’] in himself, and they discovered him in themselves, the incomprehensible, inconceivable one, the Father, the perfect one, the one who made the all.”79

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Some sign of that eternal grace That shines for ever in His face. But I went all unprized Because of men’s unknowing And mortal imperfection Spurned and despised! ‘One man once loved me dearly. In his embrace He held me, and in all his thoughts I held high place. My eyes with love inflamed him And all my time I spent, Which flew by all so lightly, In tender blandishment. But now I am forsaken; From me, alas, he’s taken. ‘And now there came before me A youth all proud and vain Though noble reputation Gave him a valiant name. He took me, and false fancies, Alas for me! Made him a jealous gaoler: Gone liberty! And I, who came to earth To bring mankind delight Learned to despair, almost, Gone all my mirth! ‘I curse my wretched fate When I agreed To change to wedding clothes From widow’s weeds. Though they were dark, perhaps, My life was fair; but now I live a weary life, With far less honour, too. Oh cursed wedding-tie! Before I took those vows That brought me to this pass Would God had let me die! ‘Oh, sweetest love, with whom I once was so content! From where you stand, with Him To whom our souls are sent, Ah, spare some pity for me For I cannot remove Your memory which burns me With all the pain of love! Ah, pray that I may soon return To those sweet climes for which I yearn!’ Here Lauretta ended her song, to which all had listened raptly and construed in different ways. There were those who took it, in the Milanese fashion,4 to imply that a good fat pig was better than a comely wench. But others gave it a loftier, more subtle and truer meaning, which this is not the moment to expound. The king then called for lighted torches to be set at regular intervals amongst the lawns and flowerbeds, and at his behest, Lauretta’s song was followed by many others until every star that had risen was beginning its descent, when, thinking it time for them all to retire, he bade them goodnight and sent them away to their various rooms. Here ends the Third Day of the Decameron [image file=image_rsrc82M.jpg] FOURTH DAYHere begins the Fourth Day, wherein, under the rule of Filo-strato, the discussion turns upon those whose love ended unhappily.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  his will. What saddens him most of all, he continues, is ‘the coarse and horrible sight of a miserly old man, cold and churlish’ – perhaps a reference to his widowed father, but more probably a metaphor for the prospect of senility in a general sense. If a reference to his father was what he really intended, he was being unkind. Boccaccio senior could hardly have been as wizened and lifeless as he was painted if, some two years later, he was to pass to a second marriage with Bice de’ Bostichi, who was to present him with a son, Iacopo. Apart from the Comedía delie ninfe florentine and the Fiammetta (1343–4), already briefly referred to above, the years immediately following the author’s return to Florence also saw the completion of the Amorosa visione (1342), a complicated allegorical poem consisting of fifty cantos of terza rima in which the influence of the Commedia looms even larger than in any of his earlier compositions. There is also a lengthy pastoral poem, the Ninfale fiesolano, of which the dating (and indeed the authorship) have been subject to some dispute. Assuming that he was indeed the author, the maturity of its style and the directness of its narrative-line would lend support to Branca’s tentative placing of its composition in the years 1344–6. Although the poem is relatively free of the overt ‘autobiographical’ material of most of his earlier writings, the delicate presentation in one of its episodes of the affection of grandparents for their illegitimate grandson may well owe a part of its immediacy to his direct personal experience, during those years, of the sentiments it so charmingly depicts. Mario and Giulio, the first two of five children he fathered, all illegitimate, were already approaching adolescence, whilst the third, Violante, for whom he displays deep fatherly affection in one of his later Latin eclogues, was born either in Florence or Ravenna in the mid 1340s. More significantly, perhaps, the house where he lived with his elderly father and second stepmother was gladdened by the birth of their child, lacopo, in or around 1344. Positivist critics used to make a connection between the love-child of Mensola, the heroine of the Ninfale, with the circumstances of Boccaccio’s own illegitimate birth in 1313. It has even been suggested that the story is a literary re-working of a scandalous love-affair, imperfectly documented, between the author and a Benedictine nun from the convent of San Martino a Mensola, where a farm belonging to his father was located. Speculative tales of the sort doubtless arose in part from the dearth of reliable documentary evidence about Boccaccio in the years immediately preceding the advent of the Black Death in Florence in 1348. They were years of extreme political and economic uncertainty throughout the peninsula, especially in Florence and Naples, a city to which he had still not abandoned hope of returning under the patronage of his erstwhile friend Niccola Acciaiuoli.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  She put the card away in her desk; the ink and the blotter she hid in the cupboard together with the peevish steel nib that jabbed paper, and that richly deserved cremation. Then she straightened the chairs and threw away the litter, after which she went in search of a duster; one by one she dusted the few remaining volumes in the bookcase, including the Bibliothèque Rose. She arranged her dictation notebooks in a pile with others that were far less accurately written—books of sums, mostly careless and marked with a cross; books of English history, in one of which Stephen had begun to write the history of the horse! Books of geography with Mademoiselle’s comments in strong purple ink: ‘Grand manque d’attention.’ And lastly she collected the torn lesson books that had lain on their backs, on their sides, on their bellies—anyhow, anywhere in drawers or in cupboards, but not very often in the bookcase. For the bookcase was harbouring quite other things, a motley and most unstudious collection; dumb-bells, wooden and iron, of varying sizes—some Indian clubs, one split off at the handle—cotton laces, for gym shoes, the belt of a tunic. And then stable keepsakes, including a headband that Raftery had worn on some special occasion; a miniature horseshoe kicked sky-high by Collins; a half-eaten carrot, now withered and mouldy, and two hunting crops that had both lost their lashes and were waiting to visit the saddler. Stephen considered, rubbing her chin—a habit which by now had become automatic—she finally decided on the ample box-sofa as a seemly receptacle. Remained only the carrot, and she stood for a long time with it clasped in her hand, disturbed and unhappy—this clearing of decks for stern mental action was certainly very depressing. But at last she threw the thing into the fire, where it shifted distressfully, sizzling and humming. Then she sat down and stared rather grimly at the flames that were burning up Raftery’s first carrot. CHAPTER 71S oon after the departure of Mademoiselle Duphot, there occurred two distinct innovations at Morton. Miss Puddleton arrived to take possession of the schoolroom, and Sir Philip bought himself a motor-car. The motor was a Panhard, and it caused much excitement in the neighbourhood of Upton-on-Severn. Conservative, suspicious of all innovations, people had abstained from motors in the Midlands, and, incredible as it now seems to look back on, Sir Philip was regarded as a kind of pioneer. The Panhard was a high-shouldered, snub-nosed abortion with a loud, vulgar voice and an uncertain temper. It suffered from frequent fits of dyspepsia, brought about by an unhealthy spark-plug. Its seats were the very acme of discomfort, its primitive gears unhandy and noisy, but nevertheless it could manage to attain to a speed of about fifteen miles per hour—given always that, by God’s good grace and the chauffeur’s, it was not in the throes of indigestion.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  We had frequently discussed that this time in our lives with our kids at home was precious and fleeting and that we would have countless years alone together in the future – why so much rancor about it all of a sudden? As far as I could see, happiness as an overarching goal was momentarily irrelevant. We needed to get through his business plight, my mother’s health crisis, support Daisy through her senior year of high school, and in general live our lives with a little less angst. Happy? How about we strive not to totally fall apart? Over the next few weeks, I tried a new approach with Michael to force a reintroduction of happiness into our home. During the day, I commuted uptown to accompany my mother to doctor appointments and cook meals for her, squeezing in my responsibilities as PTA president at Daisy’s school and racing back downtown in time to pick Georgia up from school. When Michael came home from work, I greeted him cheerfully and asked if I could heat up dinner for him. I offered glasses of wine and inquired about his day, and when the kids needed homework help or it was time to put Georgia to bed, I did it all without glancing his way to see if he might help. Every few days I asked him if he could find time to talk to me, but he said he was consumed with work and I didn’t press it – I wanted to show him that I could be supportive and loving and not the nag he had accused me of being. On Valentine’s Day, I arrived home from the gym to find Daisy eating a late breakfast at the counter next to a vase of flowers nestled in a delivery box from the florist. I frowned at them, asking her where they had come from. She shrugged, saying they had just been delivered and she assumed they were from Michael. The flowers looked sculptural, overly precious and arranged too deliberately. I riffled through the tissue paper in the box, looking for a card, but there wasn’t one. I texted Michael, asking if he had sent me flowers, and he replied that he had, that they were from a new flower shop near his office that was owned by the woman who used to arrange flowers for Barack Obama when he was in the White House. “What a strange choice,” I muttered out loud. “These are so fancy.” “Mom!” Daisy reprimanded me. “That’s so rude! Dad sends you flowers for Valentine’s Day and you complain that you don’t like them?” “Sorry, I know how I sound ungrateful. It’s just ... Dad knows I like cheap bodega flowers, these are too fussy.