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 174 of 212 · 20 per page

• From Going Clear (2013)

  Tom De Vocht, who worked on the construction for years, said that the building remained unfinished for so long because no one knew what super power was. Under Miscavige’s leadership, the church has aggressively launched a program called Ideal Orgs, which aims to replicate the grandeur of Hubbard’s Saint Hill Manor. A number of the Ideal Orgs have been shuttered—including Boston and New Haven—because the local Scientology communities were unable to support them. Other notable churches and missions are now boarded up or unloaded—including one in Santa Monica that Paul and Deborah Haggis raised money to establish. THE INTENSITY OF the pressure on Sea Org members to raise money for the church—while working for next to nothing—can be understood in part through the account of Daniel Montalvo. His parents joined the Sea Org when he was five, and the very next year he signed his own billion-year contract. He says that he began working full-time in the organization when he was eleven and recalls that, along with other Sea Org members, including children, his days stretched from eight in the morning until eleven thirty at night. Part of his work was shoveling up asbestos that had been removed during the renovation of the Fort Harrison Hotel. He says no protective gear was provided, not even a mask. He rarely saw his parents. While he was at Flag Base in 2005, when he was fourteen, he guarded the door while Tom Cruise was in session. The sight of children working at a Sea Org facility would not have been unusual. They were separated from their parents and out of school. According to Florida child labor laws, minors who are fourteen and fifteen years old are prohibited from working during school hours, and may work only up to fifteen hours a week. Daniel said that he was allowed schooling only one day a week, on Saturday. When Daniel was fifteen, he was assigned to work on the renovation of Scientology’s publications building in Los Angeles, operating scissors lifts and other heavy equipment. According to California child labor laws, fifteen-year-old children are allowed to work only three hours per day outside of school, except on weekends—no more than eighteen hours per week total. Sixteen is the minimum age for children to work in any manufacturing establishment using power-driven hoisting apparatus, such as the scissors lift. Daniel graduated to work at the church’s auditing complex nearby, called the American Saint Hill Organization; then from six in the evening until three in the morning he volunteered at Bridge Publications. He was paid thirty-six dollars a week. Daniel’s work at Bridge Publications was sufficiently impressive that he was posted full-time in the manufacturing division there the following year. The church had issued a new edition of Hubbard’s books and lectures called The Basics , which was being aggressively marketed to Scientologists.

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

  Maybe she could have made movies or something, too. That would have been cool.” “Well, she wasn’t shy about the idea of writing books. She was shy about the kind of books she wanted to write.” “What kind of books did she want to write?” I asked. “You’re going to laugh.” “No, I’m not.” “Yes, you are.” “No, I’m not.” “Yes, you are.” Jeez, we had both turned into seven-year-olds. “Just tell me,” I said. It was weird that a teacher was telling me things I didn’t know about my sister. It made me wonder what else I didn’t know about her. “She wanted to write romance novels.” Of course, I giggled at that idea. “Hey,” Mr. P said. “You weren’t supposed to laugh.” “I didn’t laugh.” “Yes, you laughed.” “No, I didn’t.” “Yes, you did.” “Maybe I laughed a little.” “A little laugh is still a laugh.” And then I laughed for real. A big laugh. “Romance novels,” I said. “Those things are just sort of silly, aren’t they?” “Lots of people—mostly women—love them,” Mr. P said. “They buy millions of them. There are lots of writers who make millions by writing romance novels.” “What kind of romances?” I asked. “She never really said, but she did like to read the Indian ones. You know the ones I’m talking about?” Yes, I did know. Those romances always featured a love affair between a virginal white schoolteacher or preacher’s wife and a half-breed Indian warrior. The covers were hilarious: “You know,” I said, “I don’t think I ever saw my sister reading one of those things.” “She kept them hidden,” Mr. P said. Well, that is a big difference between my sister and me. I hide the magazines filled with photos of naked women; my sister hides her tender romance novels that tell stories about naked women (and men). I want the pictures; my sister wants the words. “I don’t remember her ever writing anything,” I said. “Oh, she loved to write short stories. Little romantic stories. She wouldn’t let anybody read them. But she’d always be scribbling in her notebook.” “Wow,” I said. That was all I could say. I mean, my sister had become a humanoid underground dweller. There wasn’t much romance in that. Or maybe there was. Maybe my sister read romances all day. Maybe she was trapped in those romances. “I really thought she was going to be a writer,” Mr. P said. “She kept writing in her book. And she kept working up the courage to show it to somebody. And then she just stopped.” “Why?” I asked. “I don’t know.” “You don’t have any idea?” “No, not really.” Had she been hanging on to her dream of being a writer, but only barely hanging on, and something made her let go? That had to be it, right? Something bad had happened to her, right? I mean, she lived in the fricking basement. People just don’t live and hide in basements if they’re happy.

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

  [image "The cover of ‘Savage Summer’ depicts a muscular man and a woman in a close, intimate embrace, conveying passion and romance. Prominently displayed are the alternative titles: ‘Apache Heat,’ ‘Lummi Lust,’ and “Yakama Yearning.’" file=image_rsrc4RZ.jpg] “You know,” I said, “I don’t think I ever saw my sister reading one of those things.” “She kept them hidden,” Mr. P said. Well, that is a big difference between my sister and me. I hide the magazines filled with photos of naked women; my sister hides her tender romance novels that tell stories about naked women (and men). I want the pictures; my sister wants the words. “I don’t remember her ever writing anything,” I said. “Oh, she loved to write short stories. Little romantic stories. She wouldn’t let anybody read them. But she’d always be scribbling in her notebook.” “Wow,” I said. That was all I could say. I mean, my sister had become a humanoid underground dweller. There wasn’t much romance in that. Or maybe there was. Maybe my sister read romances all day. Maybe she was trapped in those romances. “I really thought she was going to be a writer,” Mr. P said. “She kept writing in her book. And she kept working up the courage to show it to somebody. And then she just stopped.” “Why?” I asked. “I don’t know.” “You don’t have any idea?” “No, not really.” Had she been hanging on to her dream of being a writer, but only barely hanging on, and something made her let go? That had to be it, right? Something bad had happened to her, right? I mean, she lived in the fricking basement. People just don’t live and hide in basements if they’re happy. Of course, my sister isn’t much different from my dad in that regard. Whenever my father isn’t off on a drinking binge, he spends most of his time in his bedroom, alone, watching TV. He mostly watches basketball. He never minds if I go in there and watch games with him. But we never talk much. We just sit there quietly and watch the games. My dad doesn’t even cheer for his favorite teams or players. He doesn’t react much to the games at all. I suppose he is depressed. I suppose my sister is depressed. I suppose the whole family is depressed. But I still want to know exactly why my sister gave up on her dream of writing romance novels. I mean, yeah, it is kind of a silly dream. What kind of Indian writes romance novels? But it is still pretty cool. I love the thought of reading my sister’s books. I love the thought of walking into a bookstore and seeing her name on the cover of a big and beautiful novel. Spokane River Heat by Mary Runs Away. That would be very cool. “She could still write a book,” I said. “There’s always time to change your life.”

• From Going Clear (2013)

  Read an excerpt from MR. TEXAS By Lawrence Wright Available from Alfred A. Knopf October 2023 [image "1" file=Image00030.jpg] A long cloud of dust trailed the black sedan racing down a caliche road toward the Walter Dunne spread. The horizon was dark and the mesquite trees bent in the north wind, waving at Mexico. A few idle pump jacks were rusting amid the creosote bushes. A slight rise lay just ahead, revealing a low-slung adobe wall encompassing the graveyard. The land was hard, dry, used up. The people who lived in these parts were also hard. Their ancestors settled on giant claims back when there was grass enough for cattle, but generation after generation had seen it wither away. Those who remained on the land were marooned by history. There were no cities within hundreds of miles. The remaining towns were little more than hamlets with half the buildings evacuated like old movie sets. An occasional gas station marked the intersection of county roads, but it was likely abandoned so long ago that the company it represented was extinct as well. You could go for days without seeing another human being, or even hearing your own voice until you had reason to speak. Airliners streaked across the high sky, and from that distant vantage passengers enjoying their cocktails might look down and think, Jeez, what a huge, empty, totally worthless country. And they’d go back to their crossword. You could almost hear the shades snapping shut as they jetted by. The service was already under way when L. D. Sparks parked his Lincoln at the end of a line of pickups and slipped into the crowd of mourners—a respectable turnout, befitting the prominence of the decedent. Some men were in suits but most wore dress jeans and shirts with pearl snap buttons, the women in somber dresses, purchased from catalogs, that reached to their Sunday boots. Their faces were lean and leathery and strongly formed, marked by the sun, faces you rarely saw in the soft suburbs, more like old family photographs, ancestral in nature, plain and unprettified and not to be trifled with. It was the hands that you finally noticed, chapped and red and laced with veins like braided rope, palms as hard as oak, some men could barely make a fist, and when you shook it was like grasping a brick. They were scarred from accidents and animal bites, knuckles broken by obstreperous equipment, some were missing digits. You couldn’t live in these parts without getting hurt. Compared to a lot of folks, Walter Dunne passed into the next world with enviable ease, his heart having failed to keep the beat. The tent over the grave bucked and billowed in the wind. Anywhere else you’d think it was about to rain, but there was no water in the approaching storm, a blue norther, bringing nothing but cold and trouble.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  YVONNE GILLHAM HAD fallen ill. She complained of headaches and was losing weight. She wanted desperately to go to Flag, where she could get the upper-level auditing she thought could cure her, but she was told there wasn’t money for that. Instead, she was sent on a mission to Mexico with her husband, Heber Jentzsch, an actor and musician who later became president of the church, a largely ceremonial post. They had married five years earlier. On her fiftieth birthday, October 20, 1977, while still in Mexico, Yvonne suffered a stroke. Jentzsch sent her back to Los Angeles, while he completed the tour. After that, her daughter Janis, one of Hubbard’s original Messengers, received a beautiful suitcase from her. Inside there was a letter, but it made no sense. Janis tried to find out what was wrong, but no one would say. Her sister, Terri, went to the Sea Org berthing and found Yvonne lying in her room unattended. Finally, she was sent to a hospital, where doctors found a tumor in her brain, which had caused the stroke in the first place. It would have been operable if she had come to them sooner, the doctors said. Desperate to get Gillham the auditing she still thought she needed, Taylor went to the financial banking officer and begged her for the funds to send her friend to Flag. “If she wants to go to Flag, she can take the fucking Greyhound,” the officer responded. “You’re Yvonne’s assassin!” Taylor shouted. When Hubbard found out Yvonne Gillham was dying, he sent her a telex asking if she wanted to keep her body or move on to the next cycle. She decided it would be quicker just to let go, but she still wanted the auditing. Hubbard agreed to let her travel to Clearwater, to do an “end of cycle on her hats”—meaning that she would brief her successor at the Celebrity Centre before she died. Hana Eltringham was stationed at Flag, and she was shocked at the sight of her dear friend. Yvonne was dizzy and frequently lost her balance, and her thoughts trailed away. She refused to take pain medication because it would interfere with her auditing. She tearfully blamed herself for the terrible “overt” of dying and deserting Hubbard. She was desperate to see her children, to say good-bye, but they were kept away. Hubbard designated Catherine Harrington, one of Yvonne’s closest friends, to talk to her about the celebrities in her care—who was a reliable speaker, who was good at recruiting other celebrities. Yvonne talked about various people—some television actors, a Mexican pop singer, the producer Don Simpson, Karen Black, Chick Corea, and Paul Haggis, among others—but she was particularly worried about Travolta. “Please help him. He’s especially sensitive,” she said. She advised Harrington to deal with the celebrities the same way she treated Hubbard—very delicately, and with an open mind. Gillham died in January 1978.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  The second principle is “Too Steep a Gradient,” which Hubbard describes as the difficulty a student encounters when he makes a leap he’s not prepared for. “It is a sort of a confusion or a reelingness that goes with this one,” Hubbard writes. His solution is to go back to the point where the student fully understands the subject, then break the material into bite-size pieces. The “Undefined Word”—the third and most important principle— occurs when the student tries to absorb material while bypassing the definition of the words employed. “THE ONLY REASON A PERSON GIVES UP A STUDY OR BECOMES CONFUSED OR UNABLE TO LEARN IS BECAUSE HE HAS GONE PAST A WORD THAT WAS NOT UNDERSTOOD,” Hubbard emphasizes in one of his chiding technical bulletins. “WORDS SOMETIMES HAVE DIFFERENT OR MORE THAN ONE MEANING.” A misunderstood word “gives one a distinctly blank feeling or a washed out feeling,” Hubbard writes. “A not-there feeling and a sort of an hysteria will follow in the back of that.” The solution is to have a large dictionary at hand, preferably one with lots of pictures in it. All Scientology texts contain glossaries for specialized Scientology terms. The need to understand the meaning of words, Hubbard writes, “is a sweepingly fantastic discovery in the field of education and don’t neglect it.” These last two principles are fundamental to the induction of Scientology itself. Because the church asserts that everything Hubbard wrote or spoke is inarguably true, whatever you don’t understand or accept is your fault. The solution is to go back and study the words and approach the material in a more deliberate fashion. Eventually, you’ll get it. Then you can move on. Lauren loved her teacher at Delphi, but the Hubbard method placed the responsibility of learning almost entirely on the student. For Lauren, her parents’ tumultuous divorce was a crushing distraction. It seemed to her that no one was paying attention to her, either at home or at school. She was illiterate until she was eleven. She couldn’t read or write her own name. Second-generation Scientologists are typically far more at home with the language and culture of the church than their parents are. And yet they may find themselves a little lost when trying to deal with an uncomprehending society. The first time Alissa noticed that she was doing something different from most people was when she performed a Contact Assist.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The Greek church poetry begins properly with the anonymous but universally accepted and truly immortal Gloria in Excelsis of the third century.446 The poems of Gregory of Nazianzus (d. 390), and Synesius of Cyrene (d. about 414), who used the ordinary classical measures, are not adapted and were not intended for public worship.447 The first hymnist of the Byzantine period, is Anatolius patriarch of Constantinople (d. about 458). He struck out the new path of harmonious prose, and may be compared to Venantius Fortunatus in the West.448 We now proceed to the classical period of Greek church poetry. In the front rank of Greek hymnists stands St. John Of Damascus, surnamed Mansur (d. in extreme old age about 780). He is the greatest systematic theologian of the Eastern church and chief champion of image-worship against iconoclasm under the reigns of Leo the Isaurian (717–741), and Constantinus Copronymus (741–775). He spent a part of his life in the convent of Mar Sâba (or St. Sabas) in the desolate valley of the Kedron, between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea.449 He was thought to have been especially inspired by the Virgin Mary, the patron of that Convent, to consecrate his muse to the praise of Christ. He wrote a great part of the Octoechus, which contains the Sunday services of the Eastern church. His canon for Easter Day is called "the golden Canon" or "the queen of Canons," and is sung at midnight before Easter, beginning with the shout of joy, "Christ is risen," and the response, "Christ is risen indeed." His memory is celebrated December 4.450 Next to him, and as melodist even above him in the estimation of the Byzantine writers, is St. Cosmas Of Jerusalem, called the Melodist. He is, as Neale says, "the most learned of the Greek poets, and the Oriental Adam of St. Victor." Cosmas and John of Damascus were foster-brothers, friends and fellow-monks at Mar Sâba, and corrected each other’s compositions. Cosmas was against his will consecrated bishop of Maiuma near Gaza in Southern Palestine, by John, patriarch of Jerusalem. He died about 760 and is commemorated on the 14th of October. The stichos prefixed to his life says: "Where perfect sweetness dwells, is Cosmas gone; But his sweet lays to cheer the church live on."451 The third rank is occupied by St. Theophanes, surnamed the Branded,452 one of the most fruitful poets. He attended the second Council of Nicaea (787). During the reign of Leo the Arminian (813) he suffered imprisonment, banishment and mutilation for his devotion to the Icons, and died about 820. His "Chronography" is one of the chief sources for the history of the image-controversy.453 The following specimen from Adam’s lament of his fall is interesting: "Adam sat right against the Eastern gate, By many a storm of sad remembrance tost: O me! so ruined by the serpent’s hate! O me! so glorious once, and now so lost! So mad that bitter lot to choose! Beguil’d of all I had to lose!

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Page 904 line 7. Add to Lit. on Gregory of Nyssa: Böhringer: Kirchengesch. in Biogr., new ed., vol. viii. 1876. G Herrmann: Greg. Nyss. Sententiae de salute adipiscenda. Halle, 1875. . T. Bergades: De universo et de anima hominis doctrina Gregor. Nyss. Leipz., 1876. W. Möller, in Herzog,2 v. 396–404. E. Venables, in Smith and Wace, ii. 761–768. A. Paumier, in Lichtenberger, 723–725. On his doctrine of the Trinity and the Person of Christ, see especially Baur and Dorner. On his doctrine of the apokatastasis and relation to Origen, see Möller, G. Herrmann, and Bergades. l.c. Farrar: "Lives of the Fathers," (1889), ii. 56–83. Page 909, line 4. Add to Lit. on Gregory of Nazianzus: A. Grenier: La vie et les poésies de saint Grégoire de Nazianze. Paris, 1858. Böhringer: K. G. in Biogr., new ed., vol. viii. 1876. Abbé A. Benoît: Vie de saint Grégoire de Nazianze. Paris, 1877. J. R. Newman: Church of the Fathers, pp. 116–145, 551. Dabas: La femme au quatrième siècle dans les poésies de Grég. de Naz. Bordeaux, 1868. H. W. Watkins, in Smith and Wace, ii. 741–761. W. Gass, in Herzog,2 v. 392–396. A. Paumier, in Lichtenberger, v., 716–722. On his christology, see Neander, Baur and especially Dorner. His views on future punishment have been discussed by Farrar, and Pusey (see vol. ii. 612). Farrar:: "Lives of the Fathers," i. 491–582. Page 920, line 22. Add: In one of his plaintive songs from his religious retreat, after lamenting the factions of the church, the loss of youth, health, strength, parents, and friends, and his gloomy and homeless condition, Gregory thus gives touching expression to his faith in Christ as the last and only comforter: "Thy will be done, O Lord! That day shall spring, When at thy word, this clay shall reappear. No death I dread, but that which sin will bring; No fire or flood without thy wrath I fear; For Thou, O Christ, my King, art fatherland to me. My wealth, and might, and rest; my all I find in Thee." 1 1 Pro;" eJauton, in Daniel’s Thesaurus Hymnol., iii., 11: Criste; a[nax, su; dev moi pavtrh, sqevno", o[lbo", a{panta, Soi; d j a[r j ajnayuvxaimi bivon kai; khvde j ajmeivya". Page 924. After line 2, add to Lit. on Cyril of Jerusalem: J. H. Newman: Preface to the Oxford transl. of Cyril in the "Library of the Fathers"(1839). E. Venables, in Smith and Wace, i. 760–763. C. Burk, in Herzog,2 iii. 416–418. Page 933, line 4 from below. Add to Lit. on Chrysostom:

• From Going Clear (2013)

  She worked as an accountant for the law firm of Greta Van Susteren, the television commentator, and her husband, John Coale, both Scientologists, who maintain a mansion on Clearwater Beach. Loretta was a heavy smoker who suffered from emphysema and obesity—scarcely the image of an Operating Thetan—but her self-deprecating, sometimes goofy sense of humor made her popular among the staff and upper-level Scientologists —“the court jester of the Scientology country club,” as Rathbun called her. Loretta’s regal position as the leader’s mother allowed her to give rein to gossipy stories about Dave’s childhood, which she told in a thick Philly accent. Miscavige complained that his mother was trying to destroy him. He ordered Rathbun to run a security check on her, using the E-Meter. When Loretta realized what he was up to, she burst out laughing. Miscavige sent his personal trainer to help his mother get in shape, and he had church members monitoring her diet, but her chronic health problems overtook her. “She was sick for a long time,” her granddaughter, Jenna Miscavige Hill, recalled. “She was not happy with the turn the church took.” Sometimes Loretta would burst into tears. “I would try to help her the only way I knew how,” Hill said. “She was an amazing grandma.” (Loretta Miscavige died in 2005.) THE LEVEL OF ABUSE at the Gold Base was increasing year by year as— unpoliced by outside forces—other senior executives began emulating their leader. Rinder, De Vocht, and Rathbun all admit to striking other staff members. Even some of the women became physically aggressive, slapping underlings when they didn’t perform up to standard. Debbie Cook, the former leader of Flag Base, says that although Miscavige never struck her, he ordered his Communicator to do so. Another time, she said, he told his Communicator to break Cook’s finger. She bent Cook’s finger but failed to actually break it. Miscavige can be charming and kind, especially to Sea Org members who need emotional or medical assistance. He has a glittering smile and a commanding voice. And yet former Scientologists who were close to him recall that his constant profanity and bursts of unprovoked violence kept everyone off balance. Jefferson Hawkins, a former Sea Org executive who had worked with Paul Haggis on the rejected Dianetics campaign, says he was beaten by Miscavige on five occasions, the first time in 2002. He had just written an infomercial for the church. Miscavige summoned him to a meeting, where about forty members were seated on one side of a long conference table; Miscavige routinely sits by himself on the other side.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  The ones on his arms and the ones that came out of his mouth. A red bicycle in a stark white room. A door opened next to the reception window. A nurse said my name. “Senna Richards.” I stood. I went. I had breast cancer. I could talk about the moment Dr. Monroe confirmed it, the emotions I felt. The words he said to me afterwards, meant to comfort, reassure; but the bottom line was, I had breast cancer. I thought about his red bike as I walked to the car. No tears. No shock. Just a red bike that could fly. I didn’t know why I wasn’t feeling anything. Maybe a person could only deal with one dose of mental atrophy at a time. I slid into the passenger seat. He’d changed the radio station, but he switched it back to the classical one before he put the car in reverse. He didn’t look at me. Not until we arrived at my house and he opened the front door with my keys. Then he looked at me, and I wanted to disappear into the cracks between my brick driveway. I didn’t know what color his eyes were; I didn’t want to know. I pushed past him into the foyer and stopped dead. I didn’t know where to go—the kitchen? The bedroom? My office? Everywhere seemed stupid. Pointless. I wanted to be alone. I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted to die. I didn’t want to die. I went to my barstool, the one positioned to get the perfect view of the lake, and I sat. Isaac moved into the kitchen. He started to make coffee and then stopped, turning to look at me. “Do you mind if I put on some music? With words?” I shook my head. His eyes were grey. He set his phone on top of the breadbox while he spooned grinds into the filter. This time he played something more upbeat. A man’s voice. The beats were so strange I stopped my incessant ability to not feel and listened. “Alt-J,” he said, when he saw that I was listening. “The song is called Breezeblocks .” He glanced at my face. “It’s different, right? I used to be in a band. So I get a kick out of their beats.” “But, you’re a doctor.” I realized how stupid that sounded when it was already out. I pulled an inch-wide chunk of grey hair free, and wound it around my finger twice, right by the roots. I left it there, with my elbow resting on the counter. My security blanket. “I wasn’t always a doctor,” he said, grabbing two mugs out of my cabinet. “But when I became one, my love of music remained … and the tattoos remained.” I glanced at his forearms where they peeked out of his shirtsleeves. I was still looking when he brought me my coffee. I caught the tips of the words that faced me.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  We quench our worry with futile trying; trying to break the windows, trying to open the front door, trying to not lose our minds. We are so exhausted from trying that we stare at things … for hours at a time: a drawing of two sparrows that hangs in the living room, the bright red toaster, the keypad at the front door which is the portal to our freedom. Isaac stares at the snow more than anything else. He stands at the sink and looks out the window where it falls slowly. On day four I am so tired of staring at things that I ask Isaac about his wife. I notice that his wedding ring is missing, and I wonder if he took it off, or if they did. Almost instinctively his fingers reach for the ghost of the ring. ‘They’ took it off, I think. We are sitting at the kitchen table, our breakfast of oatmeal recently consumed. My nails—bitten down to the quick—are stinging. He’s just commented on how large and awkward the table is: a big, round block of wood supported by a circular base thicker than two tree trunks. Initially he looks alarmed that I’ve asked. Then something breaks open in his eyes. He doesn’t have time to hide it. I see every last speck of emotion, and it hurts me. “She’s an oncologist,” he says. I nod, my mouth dry. That’s a good fit for him. “What’s her name?” I already know her name. “Daphne” he says. Daphne Akela. “We’ve been married for two years. You met her once.” Yes, I remember. He scratches his head, right above his ear, then smooths what he’s disturbed with the heel of his hand. “What would Daphne be doing right now … with you missing?” I ask, folding my legs underneath me. He clears his throat. “She’s a mess, Senna.” It’s a matter-of-fact statement with an obvious answer. I don’t know why I asked, except to be cruel. No one is looking for me, except maybe the media. Bestselling Author Vanishes. Isaac has people. People who love him. “What about you?” he says, turning it on me. “Are you married?” I tug on my grey, wind it around my finger, slide it behind my ear. “Do you really need to ask me that?” He laughs coldly. “No, I suppose not. Were you seeing anyone?” “Nope.” He folds in his lips, nods. He knows me, too … sort of. “What happened to—” I cut him off. “I haven’t spoken to him in a long time.” “Even after you wrote the book?” I put my crusty oatmeal spoon in my mouth and suck off the hardened oats. “Even after the book,” I say, not meeting his eyes. I want to ask if he read it, but I’m too chicken.

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

  Night was closing: it was almost beyond my power to move; I was scarcely able to stand erect; I cast my eyes upon the thicket where four years earlier I had slept a night when I had been in circumstances almost as unhappy! I dragged myself along as best I could, and having reached the very same spot, tormented by my still bleeding wounds, overwhelmed by my mind's anxieties and the sorrows of my heart, I passed the cruelest night imaginable. By dawn, thanks to my youth and my vigorous temperament, some of my strength was restored; greatly terrified by the proximity of that baneful chateau, I started away from it without delay; I left the forest, and resolved at any price to gain the first habitation which might catch my eye, I entered the town of Saint-Marcel, about five leagues distant from Paris; I demanded the address of a surgeon, one was given me; I presented myself and besought him to dress my wounds; I told him that, in connection with some affair at whose source lay love, I had fled my mother's house, quit Paris, and during the night had been overtaken in the forest by bandits who in revenge for my resistance to their desires, had set their dogs upon me. Rodin, as this artist was called, examined me with the greatest attention, found nothing dangerous about my injuries; had I come to him directly, he said, he would have been able to guarantee that in the space of a fortnight he would have me as fresh and whole as I had been before my adventure; however, the night passed in the open and my worry had infected my wounds, and I could not expect to be well in less than a month. Rodin found space in his own house to lodge me, took all possible care of me, and on the thirtieth day there no longer existed upon my body a single vestige of Monsieur de Bressac's cruelties. As soon as I was fit to take a little air, my first concern was to find in the town some girl sufficiently adroit and intelligent to go to the Marquise's chateau and find out what had taken place there since my departure. This apparently very dangerous inquisitiveness would without the slightest doubt have been exceedingly misplaced; but here it was not a question of mere Curiosity. What I had earned while with the Marquise remained in my room; I had scarcely six louis about me, and I possessed above forty at the chateau.

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

  The morning being pretty well advanced, we got to breakfast; and the ice now broke, my heart, no longer engrossed by love, began to take ease, and to please itself with such trifles Mr. H....’s liberal liking led him to make his court to the usual vanity of our sex. Silks, laces: ear rings, pearl necklace, gold watch, in sort, all the trinkets and articles of dress were lavishly heaped upon me; the sence of which, if it did not create returns of love, forced a kind of grateful fondness, something like love: a distinction which it would be spoiling the pleasure of nine tenths of the keepers in the town to make, and is, I suppose, the very good reason why so few of them ever do make it. I was now established the kept mistress in form, well lodged, with a very sufficient allowance, and lighted up with all the lustre of dress. Mr. H.... continued kind and tender to me; yet, with all this, I was far from happy: for, besides my regrets for my dear youth, which, though often suspended or diverted, still returned upon me in certain melancholic moments with redoubled violence, I wanted more society, more dissipation. As to Mr. H.... he was so much my superior in every sense, that I felt it too much to the disadvantage of the gratitude I owed him. Thus he gained my esteem, though he could not raise my taste; I was qualified for no sort of conversation with him, except one sort, and that is a satisfaction which leaves tiresome intervals, if not filled up by love, or other amusements. Mr. H...., so experienced, so learned in the ways of women, numbers of whom had passed through his hands, doubtless, soon perceived this uneasiness, and, without approving, or liking me the better for it, had the complaisance to indulge me. He made suppers at my lodging, where he brought several companions of his pleasures, with their mistresses; and by this means I got into a circle of acquaintance, that soon stripped me of all the remains of bashfulness and modesty which might be yet left of my country education, and were, to a just taste, perhaps, the greatest of my charms.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I was not a smell person. It was my least favorite sense. I didn’t light candles, or wander into a bakery, drawn in by the scent of the bread. Smell was just another sense that I wrestled into my white room. I didn’t use it, I didn’t care about it. I lived in a white room. I lived in a white room. I lived in a white room. But … I was going to miss Isaac’s smell. Isaac was smell. That was his sense. He smelled like spices and the hospital. I could smell his skin, too. He just had to be a few feet away from me and I could catch the smell of his skin. “Isaac.” My voice was full of conviction, but when he turned to face me, hands in pockets, I didn’t know what to say. We stared at each other. It was awful. It was painful. “Senna, what do you want?” I wanted my white room. I wanted to never have smelled him or heard the words to his music. “I don’t know.” He took a step backwards, toward the door. I wanted to step toward him. I wanted to. “Senna…” He took another step back, like he wanted me to stop him. He’s giving me a chance, I thought. Three more and he would be out the door. I felt the pull. It was in the hollows behind my kneecaps, something tugging me to him. I wanted to reach down and still it. Another step. Another. His eyes were pleading with me. It was no use. I was too far gone. “Goodbye, Isaac.” I took it as a loss. I thought so anyway. It had been a long time since I had mourned a person—twenty years, to be exact. But I mourned Isaac Asterholder in my own way. I didn’t cry; I was too dry to cry. Every day I touched the spot where Nick’s book used to sit on my nightstand. Dust was starting to fill the space. Nick was something to me. We shared a life. Isaac and I had shared nothing. Or maybe that wasn’t true. We shared my tragedies. People leave—that’s what I was used to—but Isaac showed up. I sat in my white room for days trying to clear myself of all the color I was suddenly feeling: red bikes, lyrics with thorns, the smell of herbs. I sat on the floor with my dress pulled over my knees and my head curled into my lap. The white room couldn’t cure me. Color stained everything. Seven days after he walked backwards out of my house I went to the mailbox and on my way back, found a CD on my windshield. I clutched it to my chest for an hour before I slipped it into my stereo. It was an intense crescendo of lyrics and drums and harp and everything he was feeling—and I was, too. The most remarkable thing was that I was feeling.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  Detective Garrison chooses that exact moment to come back. I want more time with her. I want more answers, but I know my time is up. He leads me to the door by my elbow. I look back at Saphira. She’s staring into space, serene. “He would have died without you, too,” she says before the door closes. I want to ask her what she means, but the door swings closed. And that is the last time I ever see Saphira Elgin alive. Detective Garrison is kind. I think this case is above his pay grade. He’s not sure what to do with me—so he tries to feed me doughnuts and sandwiches. I eat none of it, but I appreciate the sentiment. There are six people in the room with me; two of them leaning against the wall, the others sitting. I give them my statement. I tell a tape recorder what the last fourteen months looked like; each day, each hunger pain, each time I thought one of us would die. When I am finished the room is quiet. Detective Garrison is the first to clear his throat. That’s when I dare ask about Isaac. I’ve been too afraid up until now. Thinking his name alone hurts me. Hearing someone speak about him feels … wrong. He’s been with me for all this time. Now he’s not. “Dr. Elgin got him over the Canadian border and took him to a hospital in Victoria. Took him is an ambitious word,” he says. “She dropped him outside the Emergency room and drove off. He was unconscious for twenty-four hours before he finally started to come out of it. He grabbed a nurse by the arm and managed to say your name. The nurse recognized your name right away due to the media buzz you caused when you disappeared. She notified the police. By the time they got there Isaac was able to talk. He told them you were in a cabin somewhere near a cliff, but couldn’t give them much more than that.” I am quiet. “So he’s okay?” “Yes, he is. He’s with his family in Seattle.” That hurts and brings me relief. I wonder what it was like meeting his baby for the first time. “How did she do it? Get both of us to that house? Cross borders? She must have had help.” He shakes his head. “We are still questioning her. She took Isaac to the hospital in an RV. She was in the same RV when she tried to cross the border back into Alaska. When they searched her vehicle they found a false floorboard with a space large enough to hold two bodies. We think she drugged you and put you both in there. We don’t know anything about help, we’re still questioning her.” “Back into Alaska?” I ask. “She was coming back for me?” He shakes his head. “We don’t know.” I slam my fist on the table, frustrated. “What do you know?”

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

  Madame de Lorsange, having heard these words, said in lowered voice to Monsieur de Corville, that she fain would have from the girl's own lips the story of her troubles, and Monsieur de Corville, who was possessed of the same desire, expressed it to the pair of guards and identified himself. The officers saw no reason not to oblige, everyone decided to stay the night at Montargis; comfortable accomodations were called for; Monsieur de Corville declared he would be responsible for the prisoner, she was unbound, and when she had been given something to eat, Madame de Lorsange, unable to control her very great curiosity, and doubtless saying to herself, "This creature, perhaps innocent, is, however, treated like a criminal, whilst about me all is prosperity... I who am soiled with crimes and horrors"; Madame de Lorsange I say, as soon as she observed the poor girl to be somewhat restored, to some measure reassured by the caresses they hastened to bestow upon her, besought her to tell how it had fallen out that she, with so very sweet a face, found herself in such a dreadful plight. "To recount you the story of my life, Madame," this lovely one in distress said to the Countess, "is to offer you the most striking example of innocence oppressed, is to accuse the hand of Heaven, is to bear complaint against the Supreme Being's will, is, in a sense, to rebel against His sacred designs... I dare not..." Tears gathered in this interesting girl's eyes and, after having given vent to them for a moment, she began her recitation in these terms. Permit me to conceal my name and birth, Madame; without being illustrious, they are distinguished, and my origins did not destine me to the humiliation to which you see me reduced. When very young I lost my parents; provided with the slender inheritance they had left me, I thought I could expect a suitable position and, refusing to accept all those which were not, I gradually spent, at Paris where I was born, the little I possessed; the poorer I became, the more I was despised; the greater became my need of support, the less I was able to hope for it; but from amongst all the severities to which I was exposed at the beginning of my woeful career, from amongst all the terrible proposals that were made me, I will cite to you what befell me at the home of Monsieur Dubourg, one of the capital's richest tradesmen.

• From Between Us

  It is what anthropologists do: the very experts on intercultural encounters set aside their own assumptions—as much as they can—and try to ask and observe. Christine Dureau describes her attempts to resonate with the maternal love of Simbo women living on one of the poorest of the Western Solomon Islands. Dureau was accompanied by her toddler daughter during her fieldwork, and this provided a starting point for her exchanges with some of the Simbo women on motherly love. Where Dureau started her fieldwork thinking that she could fully relate to the Simbo women’s maternal love (taru)—after all, she herself was another woman with a small child—she soon realized that taru was different from the maternal love she had projected. Taru for the Simbo women meant “sadness” as much as it meant “love.” Women who felt taru were compassionate with their children, and knowing their children’s fate, this often involved sadness. As one woman rhetorically asked Dureau: “How can you have taru (love) without sore (sadness)? You love them; you think of all the awful things in their lives, all the hard times [they will experience].” Simbo women did not always succeed in empathizing with Dureau, either. One time, Dureau’s daughter Astrid, then three years old, was “persistently ill.” Liza, a woman Dureau did not know very well, came and sat beside her on the doorstep, saying that she understood Dureau’s anxiety because her own son had died of measles four years previously. Upset by this story, Dureau expressed her sympathy, which prompted Liza to add, “Usually I don’t think of him. If one of my [other] children is ill, I remember and quickly take them to the clinic.” Liza had wanted to empathize, and comfort Dureau, perhaps simply seek connection, but she achieved the opposite effect. Dureau felt different: “ . . . while I felt horrified sympathy, I only distantly understood Liza’s sentiments, which spoke to profoundly different possibilities. Against her assertion about childhood mortality and her statement that her loss enabled her to feel empathy, I was aware that my worry was not her resigned foreknowledge.” Dureau knows she would have had the monetary and cultural capital to get Astrid better medical care than had been available to Liza’s son. Dureau would not have been resigned, or merely prayed to God, because her position in life afforded her to exercise more control. And she could not even begin to imagine resigning in the death of her child, let alone never thinking about her anymore. Liza and Christine Dureau had different emotions, because they lived in different realities. The current wisdom in anthropology is that it is possible to approximate, or sometimes even share, the emotional experiences of individuals from other cultures, but also that you should not be too sure too soon that you do. As one anthropologist points out: “the problem with empathy is not that it involves feelings but that it assumes that first impressions are true.”

• From Between Us

  115 ​created an interdependent relationship: Hazel R. Markus and Shinobu Kitayama, “Culture and the Self: Implications for Cognition, Emotion, and Motivation,” Psychological Review 98, no. 2 (1991): 224–53. Amae may be rejected, in which case the relationship is in jeopardy. The response of the rejected requester would be loneliness or sadness, but these emotions themselves reach for the valued type of relationship: interdependence. 115 ​fago: Lutz, Unnatural Emotions. The quote about fago for the visitor appears on pp. 137–38. 116 ​The bad always comes with the good: Li-Jun Ji, Richard E. Nisbett, and Yanjie Su, “Culture, Change, and Prediction,” Psychological Science 12, no. 6 (2001): 450–56; J. Leu et al., “Situational Differences in Dialectical Emotions: Boundary Conditions in a Cultural Comparison of North Americans and East Asians,” Cognition and Emotion 24, no. 3 (2010): 419–35. 117 ​more intimacy in relationships: Shelley E. Taylor et al., “Culture and Social Support: Who Seeks It and Why?,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 87, no. 3 (2004): 354–62; Heejung S. Kim et al., “Pursuit of Comfort and Pursuit of Harmony: Culture, Relationships, and Social Support Seeking,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 32, no. 12 (2006): 1595–1607; Heejung S. Kim, David K. Sherman, and Shelley E. Taylor, “Culture and Social Support,” American Psychologist 63, no. 6 (2008): 518–26. 117 ​caution about friends: All examples come from G. Adams, “The Cultural Grounding of Personal Relationship: Enemyship in North American and West African Worlds,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 88, no. 6 (2005): 948–68; Glenn Adams and Victoria C. Plaut, “The Cultural Grounding of Personal Relationships: Friendship in North American and West African Worlds,” Personal Relationships 10, no. 1 (2003): 333–47. 117 ​A Ghanaian poem sounded: Kyei and Schreckenbach, No Time to Die, 59, as cited in Adams and Plaut, “The Cultural Grounding of Personal Relationships.” 118 ​“loved and cared for”: Kim et al., “Pursuit of Comfort and Pursuit of Harmony: Culture, Relationships, and Social Support Seeking,” 1596. 119 ​seeking less . . . social support: Shelley E. Taylor et al., “Culture and Social Support: Who Seeks It and Why?,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 87, no. 3 (2004): Study 1. 119 ​easy rather than a hard puzzle: Kim et al., “Pursuit of Comfort and Pursuit of Harmony: Culture, Relationships, and Social Support Seeking.” By default, Asian Americans were concerned with their partners’ needs, but if they were asked to focus on their own needs, they sought social support more like white Americans did. In one study (Kim et al., Study 2), Asian American students who were asked to list five self-goals first (and thus focused on their own needs), were found to seek more social support than Asian Americans who were not asked to do this task first. The point is, under normal circumstances, relationship goals rather than narrow self-goals are prioritized in Korean settings.

• From Between Us

  This is the pattern that Wang finds time and again for U.S. American mothers that she studies: These mothers help their children figure out how their emotions relate to what they want or think. They help them to focus on, and articulate, their insides. Not so for Chinese mothers in Qi Wang’s studies: rather than helping their children understand the reason they feel in a certain way, these mothers focus on the social consequences of their behavior much more so than the American mothers. Take little Jiang’s mom, who reminds her child of a time he got mad also. It was the night before, when Jiang started crying because his mom and grandma had not let him watch TV. Rather than dwelling on his feelings, Jiang’s mom asks: “Do you know why we didn’t let you watch TV?” Jiang promptly gives her the reason: “You are worried that my eyes would get hurt. I wanted to watch ‘Chao-Tian-Men.’ I was mad. I insisted on watching it.” Jiang’s mom responds not by relating to Jiang’s feelings or preferences, but by reminding him of the social consequence of his protest: “So you got spanked, right?” she asks. Jiang nods in acknowledgment. Many of the Chinese mothers in Qi Wang’s research use the emotional exchange to point out to their children what the right and wrong behavior is in a way the American mothers in that same research did not. Jiang’s mom points out that Jiang was wrong to protest her decision that he could not watch TV, and she reminds him of the negative social consequences. There are also mothers who use the exchange to point out the positive social consequences. Xuexue’s mom, for instance, uses the conversation to underline the virtue of her three-year-old’s emotional response—sadness in this case. “Xuexue is a good child. You understand that you made a mistake,” she says, after Xuexue acknowledged she was “very sad” upon fighting with her sisters because they would not let her pull the grass (something that was forbidden). Where American mothers helped their child to notice and understand their own feelings, Chinese mothers encourage their children to understand their emotions as acts with social consequences. American caregiving practices facilitate looking inward to the MINE emotions, and Chinese lead the attention outwards towards OURS emotions. The almost exclusive focus on emotional acts and their social consequences is certainly not limited to Chinese mothers. The anthropologist Andrew Beatty describes how on Java, Indonesia, adults use emotion words to describe how children should be acting, given the precise circumstances, rather than using these same words to refer to any feeling or mental state. For instance, they will use isin, “shame,” to indicate to a small child that they are expected to show inhibited and polite behavior in the presence of strangers or elders. Isin is not used to describe feelings, not even emotional behaviors (or “expressions”), but rather a norm for behavior given a certain set of circumstances.

• From Between Us

  Children would learn to pose, as well as answer, the kinds of questions presented in the Toolkit ( figure 8.1 ), above. By learning to unpack emotional episodes, students would be up to the task of bridging the gap between their school and home cultures. Unpacking emotions, and recognizing their diversity, would fit the growing call for “equity” in emotional literacy programs, not just by generally respecting others, but also by specifically allowing for cultural diversity in emotional and social competence itself. What is more, it will provide an opportunity to value the students (and increasingly, teachers) who have become facile in unpacking different ways of doing emotions, because they belong to more than one culture; we can recognize cultural fluency with a second culture as a desirable relationship skill itself. After all ways of doing emotions are made to count, we can be sure that schools and classrooms will find common ground. Are Emotions the Same Deep Down? Here I return to the question I asked at the beginning of this book: Is it true that we are all the same when it comes to feelings? Was the young Ta-Nehisi Coates simply angry , but in a situation that would not have prompted anger to those of us who are more privileged? What would be lost if we described Ahmet as simply ashamed in response to a situation that might have elicited indignation in his Belgian classmates—the teacher’s reprimand? Did Ramla really feel the same as her therapist Kaat Van Acker would have, had she been crying, but did her culture emphasize moral failure rather than a loss of abilities? Did the Simbo women feel love like Dureau, but simultaneously feel sadness ? These are good, legitimate questions to ask, as their answers allow us to resonate with the feelings of people growing up in different sociocultural contexts. These questions are where the unpacking of emotions should start, because this is where we can resonate. Yet, there is no reason to assume primacy of the ways emotions are done in Western middle-class contexts, and no reason to think that those ways are any more authentic or natural than other ways of doing emotions. There is no reason to assume that the English emotion lexicon cuts nature at its joints any more than other emotion lexicons do. We need to find out what is at stake in emotional episodes, what people perceive to be the emotion(s) during these episodes and what these emotions mean, and how emotional episodes connect people in a directional dance.