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.

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• From In Search of Paul: How Jesus's Apostle Opposed Rome's Empire with God's Kingdom (2005)

  MEMORIALS. Among those many early Christian tombs are two legendary burial sites, that of Paul himself, now under the church called St. Paul Outside the Walls on the Via Ostiensis, the road that left the city and headed south to Ostia between Trastevere and the Via Appia, and that of Peter, today in the crypt of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. Both are mentioned by the fourth-century Christian historian Eusebius quoting one Gaius from around 200 C.E., who wrote that Christians honored memorials to Paul and Peter at those locations (2.25.7). Though archaeologists have indeed found burials at those sites, we are less concerned here with arguing for or against their historicity than with their aid in locating the earliest Christian communities in Rome and the socioeconomic and theological information they provide about those earliest Christians. First and in some detail, Peter’s crypt. Over the years much archaeological energy has been spent under the Vatican, and the excavations tell a fascinating story—even if Peter was not actually buried there. Excavations reveal that by the middle of the second century Christians were venerating a simple grave in the Vatican Hill’s aboveground cemetery, which excavators labeled “P.” It was covered with a stone slab running west-southwest to east-northeast in an area used also by pagans. When two non-Christian mausoleums restructured the space between them by building stairs down the slope and a wall for some privacy or enclosure, that wall, painted red, cut obliquely over what was presumably Peter’s grave. Christians were apparently unable to stop those pagan renovations by purchasing the space around their own revered tomb. Sometime after the red wall’s construction, they did fashion an aedicula onto it with two niches and simple white columns supporting a beam, but that was aligned awkwardly over the stone slab. By all standards it was a relatively meager monument, though certainly more prestigious than many of the graves that crowded around Peter’s tomb, many of which were simply shallow holes in the ground covered by brick tiles. As Lampe says in his book From Paul to Valentinus, “If we compare the sociology of the grave area ‘P’ with the sociology of the city region attached to the Vatican, Trastevere, both parts fit together seamlessly” (115). They both belonged to the humiliores, the common people of Rome. Second and very briefly, Paul’s grave. In 1823 the Church of St. Paul Outside the Walls burned down and a new one was subsequently rebuilt; unfortunately little excavation took place then, and now future excavation is all but impossible. What was discovered, however, was ironic but in a way appropriate. The area under and around that first church was a pagan burial place from first through third centuries C.E. We wonder if that’s not how Paul would have wanted it. Paul, apostle of God to the Gentiles, was buried among the pagans to whom he had dedicated his life.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  When I got back into the house, Steve was in the kitchen eating cereal again. He eyed me skeptically over his reading glasses. In front of him was the newspaper, with a headline that read FIRES IN THE VALLEY. “I made a mistake,” I said. He blinked and kept chewing. “I’m not going to leave yet after all.” “Is that so?” he asked. “Yes,” I said. He was silent. He rose and put his bowl in the sink. “Try not to bleed on anything,” he said, and shuffled up the stairs. It dawned on me that I hadn’t gotten my period in a while, not since Theo and I had bloodied the sofa. That was at least five weeks ago. Maybe I was hitting menopause? Did women hit menopause at thirty-eight? —I didn’t bother opening my suitcase, brushing my teeth, or washing my face. I stripped down to my underpants, braless, and climbed onto the sofa, snuggling up under the blanket. It was strange to be there without Dominic or Theo. Why could they never coexist in the same space, Theo with his fantasy love and Dominic with his pure love? Theo was so afraid of Dominic, how his pure love might hurt him or even eliminate him. I was afraid too, which was why I had chosen to hide him away. I had hoped that fantasy would triumph. Now I was left with neither. But I had my sister. In a way it was kind of nice to be alone. The euphoria was gone and the silence was gone—those were Theo’s. In his place, some of the nothingness had clearly returned. But I felt different about it, like it was laughing with me or maybe I with it. It was my own nothingness to have and to hold. In my mind I called it a fucker and turned off the light. AcknowledgmentsThank you to Meredith Kaffel Simonoff, my agent and mermaid, for being a believer from the beginning. Thank you to my editor, Alexis Washam, for your vision, and to Molly Stern, Liz Wetzel, Rachel Rokicki, Lindsay Sagnette, Roxanne Hiatt, Lisa Erickson, Jillian Buckley, Alex Larned, Rachel Willey, and all of the other amazing people at Hogarth. Thank you to the passionate ladies at Bloomsbury UK: Alexis Kirschbaum, Philippa Cotton, Alexandra Pringle and Rachel Wilkie—you make me feel lucky. Thank you to my Hollywood mafia: Michelle Weiner and Olivia Blaustein at CAA. Thank you to Olive Uniacke and Erik Feig at Lionsgate, and to Anne Carey for keeping it (sur)real. Thank you to Libby Burton, whose initial edits were vital to this book. Thank you to my foreign publishers, especially Aylin Salzmann at Ullstein! Thank you to Amy Jones, Susanna Brisk, and Karah Preiss. Thank you to my parents for my education. Thank you to Pickle for showing me the love of a good (bad!) dog. Love and gratitude to Nicholas Poluhoff, without whom—for so many reasons—this book would never have existed.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  None of them seemed right. Dying was the closest. Now the urinary tract infection had subsided but I felt sick over Garrett. I kept replaying the night before in my mind. Somehow in my memory it was way hotter than it had actually been: my vagina wetter, his dick thicker, his moans heartier and more passionate. I thought about his tongue and jaw, and tears came to my eyes. What the fuck was happening? And why didn’t he want me? That night I slept with my phone next to my head on vibrate, but I didn’t really sleep. I woke up every hour and looked to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. I decided it might be time to return to therapy and check in. 23.When I walked in the door at group, everyone gave me looks that were a cross between disdain and We knew you would be back. They were actually excited to see me. I couldn’t help but think that they just wanted more people to be as fucked up as they were. The more fuck-ups like them, the less alone they were—maybe even the less fucked up they were. If everyone was fucked up in the same way as you then maybe you weren’t so fucked up. Compared to them I’d thought I was normal. I may have been obsessing, but I hadn’t stalked Garrett outside his office or anything. But oddly, everyone in the group seemed to be doing well. Chickenhorse felt proud of herself and was tooting her horn. That morning she had spotted her neighbor’s two dogs locked in their parked car in the heat and swept in to save them. “I called animal services on their asses,” she said. Of course, when animal services arrived, the neighbors, who were merely putting groceries away, were livid. They banged on her door and screamed at her. “You would think I’d be triggered or at least retraumatized!” she said. “But since I’m already being evicted, it felt empowering—as the victim—to stand up for other creatures who were being abused.” Brianne, who looked to have just gotten some fresh Botox in her forehead, had met a man on OkCupid—a new foray for her. They’d even progressed from the messaging stage of the app to actual email. “Of course, he’s on a business trip in Europe,” she said softly, her eyebrows arched like a child’s rendering of geese in flight. “But he said that when he returns he actually wants to get together with me. Face-to-face. In person. At a real restaurant. And I think I am going to go.” I decided to come clean, sort of, about my two dates. I didn’t say that I went home with Adam and watched him jerk off or fucked Garrett on a bathroom floor, but simply that I had gone. “The first guy was gross,” I said. “If they’re gross, I’m fine. I can take it or leave it.”

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Yet outside there are happy people who sleep the sleep of the so-called just and righteous. When they wake it will be to persecute those who, through no known fault of their own, have been set apart from the day of their birth, deprived of all sympathy, all understanding. They are thoughtless, these happy people who sleep—and who is there to make them think, Miss Gordon?’ ‘They can read,’ she stammered, ‘there are many books. . . .’ But he shook his head. ‘Do you think they are students? Ah, but no, they will not read medical books; what do such people care for the doctors? And what doctor can know the entire truth? Many times they meet only the neurasthenics, those of us for whom life has proved too bitter. They are good, these doctors—some of them very good; they work hard trying to solve our problem, but half the time they must work in the dark—the whole truth is known only to the normal invert. The doctors cannot make the ignorant think, cannot hope to bring home the sufferings of millions; only one of ourselves can some day do that. . . . It will need great courage but it will be done, because all things must work toward ultimate good; there is no real wastage and no destruction.’ He lit a cigarette and stared thoughtfully at her for a moment or two. Then he touched her hand. ‘Do you comprehend? There is no destruction.’ She said: ‘When one comes to a place like this, one feels horribly sad and humiliated. One feels that the odds are too heavily against any real success, any real achievement. Where so many have failed who can hope to succeed? Perhaps this is the end.’ Adolphe Blanc met her eyes. ‘You are wrong, very wrong—this is only the beginning. Many die, many kill their bodies and souls, but they cannot kill the justice of God, even they cannot kill the eternal spirit. From their very degradation that spirit will rise up to demand of the world compassion and justice.’ Strange—this man was actually speaking her thoughts, yet again she fell silent, unable to answer. Dickie and Pat came back to the table, and Adolphe Blanc slipped quietly away; when Stephen glanced round his place was empty, nor could she perceive him crossing the room through the press and maze of those terrible dancers. 5 Dickie went sound asleep in the car with her head against Pat’s inhospitable shoulder. When they got to her hotel she wriggled and stretched. ‘Is it . . . is it time to get up?’ she murmured.

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

  Denis of the third century; 2) his authorship of the books upon "The Names of God," upon "The Orders in Heaven and in the Church," upon "The Mystic Theology," and "divers others," which cannot have been written before the end of the fifth century; 3) his witness of the supernatural eclipse at the time of the crucifixion, and his exclamation just referred to, which he himself ascribes to Apollophanes. The Breviary also relates that Dionysius was sent by Pope Clement of Rome to Gaul with Rusticus, a priest, and Eleutherius, a deacon; that he was tortured with fire upon a grating, and beheaded with an axe on the 9th day of October in Domitian’s reign, being over a hundred years old, but that "after his head was cut off, he took it in his hands and walked two hundred paces, carrying it all the while!"795 § 138. Prevailing Ignorance in the Western Church. The ancient Roman civilization began to decline soon after the reign of the Antonines, and was overthrown at last by the Northern barbarians. The treasures of literature and art were buried, and a dark night settled over Europe. The few scholars felt isolated and sad. Gregory, of Tours (540–594) complains, in the Preface to his Church History of the Franks, that the study of letters had nearly perished from Gaul, and that no man could be found who was able to commit to writing the events of the times.796 "Middle Ages" and "Dark Ages" have become synonymous terms. The tenth century is emphatically called the iron age, or the saeculum obscurum.797 The seventh and eighth were no better.798 Corruption of morals went hand in hand with ignorance. It is re-ported that when the papacy had sunk to the lowest depth of degradation, there was scarcely a person in Rome who knew the first elements of letters. We hear complaints of priests who did not know even the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed. If we judge by the number of works, the seventh, eighth and tenth centuries were the least productive; the ninth was the most productive; there was a slight increase of productiveness in the eleventh over the tenth, a much greater one in the twelfth, but again a decline in the thirteenth century.799 But we must not be misled by isolated facts into sweeping generalities. For England and Germany the tenth century was in advance of the ninth. In France the eighth and ninth centuries produced the seeds of a new culture which were indeed covered by winter frosts, but not destroyed, and which bore abundant

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  Jarndyce between the monks of St Augustine, Canterbury, and their archbishop, was hotly contested for fifteen years, successive popes being obliged to write seventy letters. Innocent III, exasperated, wrote: ‘I blush to hear of this mouldy business.’ But when had the law not generated mould? St Bernard’s cobwebs continued to spread. For, when he asked what fruit there was in legalism, the answer, of course, was money and power. A successful court – and the papal court was the outstanding legal success of the Middle Ages – generated income, and the need of great and small to solicit its verdicts. The Pope’s legal relations with a king, a duke or an archbishop, might involve a dozen or more cases going on at one time, some momentous, many trivial, all of which had to be weighed by both sides in considering total policy. Much of the Pope’s practical ability to get his way sprang from the power of his court to deliver. So it was impossible for the Pope to avoid the details. And to think chiefly in legal, was to think chiefly in secular, terms. The popes became progressively more entangled in legal-diplomatic considerations, and in the effort to hold together their estates in central Italy as a secure base for their ramifying international activities. In short, they became like any other rulers. The Gregorian reform, which sought to improve moral standards in the Church by disengaging the clergy from their role as supporters of the State, ended, by a kind of helpless logic, in thrusting the Church far more deeply and completely into the secular world. Indeed, the Church became a secular world of its own. As such – as a separate, rival institution – it was bound to come into conflict with the State at every level. Of course clerics and seculars were both Christians and shared not only major assumptions but most minor ones. But they were locked in a conflict of laws, and this could be brutally aggravated by a conflict of personalities. The outstanding case was Henry II’s tragic dispute with Thomas à Becket. Henry was only twenty-nine when he appointed Becket, his chancellor, to be chief ecclesiastical officer of his kingdom in 1162. He hoped that this combination of duties would help to smooth out difficulties which inevitably arose from the conflict of the two legal systems. After all, ‘when business was over the King and he would sport together like boys of the same age; in hall or in church they sat together; together they went riding . . .’ In fact this contemporary description fails to note that Becket was sixteen years older than the king, and already set in his ways. He was probably a bad influence over the young monarch: an obstinate insistence on the unequivocal acknowledgment of rights, and a fondness for extravagant gestures, marked Henry’s policies when Becket was his chief adviser.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  I looked around the room and felt sad for all of us. We were built differently from other people—constructed in some fundamental way that was unlike those who could cope with love. Maybe we felt the same emotions as everyone else, but we felt them more intensely. Sappho felt more too, this I knew. Sappho was one of us. If she wasn’t overwhelmed by emotions, why then would she have needed to sing? Chickenhorse said she had canceled her date with the guy from the dog park. She said that she had gotten a weird feeling from him. “Weird in what way?” asked Dr. Jude. “I don’t know. He was wearing one of those newsboy caps. And when I thought about the cap, I felt triggered. I just don’t trust any man in one of those caps. It’s like a flashing red no.” “What is it specifically about that hat? Have you had a negative experience with a man in one of those hats in the past?” asked Dr. Jude. “No,” said Chickenhorse. “The truth is…maybe it’s me. I know you want me to start dating again. I know you think I’m ready. But I don’t think I’m ready. I don’t know if I’m ever going to be ready.” I wondered if this was what recovery looked like, the only option for women like us. Was it better to be somewhat sane without a man than to be crazy with one? Dr. Jude seemed to think it was possible that we could date consciously, eventually come to be in healthy relationships. She believed in us, and our ability to get better. But I didn’t believe in us. Chickenhorse didn’t believe in us either. Brianne had stuck with her decision to give no money to the faux businessman. Now he’d stopped speaking to her. He had sent a final email a few days prior, stating that it was all her fault they couldn’t be together, because she couldn’t front him the money to return home. He called her selfish and said that he would be back when he was back. But he said he didn’t want to be with a person who lacked trust and generosity in that way. “My life is very full,” she said, her lower lip—newly pumped with collagen—trembling a little. “It really is a very full life and I feel grateful for everything I have in it. But I was hopeful about this one. I thought that after I’ve done so much work on myself in here that maybe I was being rewarded for all of my efforts. I let myself get excited. Maybe that was my mistake.”

• From The Pisces (2018)

  Everyone murmured that it was better she knew now that he was an asshole. But they didn’t say asshole. They said “unable to commit” and “love avoidant” and “terrified of intimacy.” It was sweet the way they wanted her to be okay. They seemed like they were really rooting for her. Strangely, in that moment, they all looked like children to me. I saw them each as they might have been as children: not in body, but an innocence inside. I remembered that each of them had mothers who once loved them. Their mothers loved them and just wanted them to be happy. How strange that every person had a mother. It made me sad that people had mothers who stuck around a very long time. I imagined the mothers who didn’t die would play with their daughters’ hair every day, brush the stray pieces off the forehead, tickle their necks, stroke the crowns of their heads. After my mother died and Annika went back to school, my father offered to play with my hair before bed. It was a kind gesture, but we both knew it was just too weird. He wasn’t the touchy-feely sort. More of a head patter. “Play with my hair,” I would say to my teenage friends, but when they played with my hair it was never enough. I needed more than the friends were able to give. I envied my friends who could have their hair played with for a few minutes and then simply be done with it. They could take it or leave it. They knew that their mothers could come in later to finish the job, without them even having to ask. So they took it all lightly. They did this with their lovers too. I looked at Brianne’s cheeks, straining desperately to be young, and wondered what her face had looked like as a little girl. She found it unfair, terrifying, that time was actually passing. Time wasn’t supposed to pass. Or it was supposed to pass for everyone else but her. I understood this. I was scared too. I wanted to stroke her cheek and tell her that she didn’t have to put anything else in it. That she was still young in some essential way. A wave of pain rose inside me that I had never known could be so palpable. I felt that it was going to kill me, and tried to shove it down. The pushing back against it left me with a choking feeling. Who even knew what was killing me more: the pain itself or the fight against the pain? I was seeing, hearing, and feeling too much. I felt that if I did not leave the room in that moment that I would suffocate on something—the feeling or the resistance to the feeling—and I would die.

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

  1352, opens with a parable, describing innumerable fishes swimming down from the lakes among the hills through the streams in the valleys into the deep sea. The author then sees them attempting to find their way back to the hills. These processes illustrate the career of human souls departing from God into the world and seeking to return to Him. The author also sees a "fearfully high mountain," on which are nine rocks. The souls that succeed in getting back to the mountain are so few that it seemed as if only one out of every thousand reached it. He then proceeds to set forth the condition of the eminent of the earth, popes and kings, cardinals and princes; and also priests, monks and nuns, Beguines and Beghards, and people of all sorts and classes. He finds the conditions very bad, and is specially severe on women who, by their show of dress and by their manners, are responsible for men going morally astray and falling into sin. Many of these women commit a hundred mortal sins a day. Rulman then returns to the nine rocks, which represent the nine stages of progress towards the source of our being, God. Those who are on the rocks have escaped the devil’s net, and by climbing on up to the last rock, they reach perfection. Those on the fifth rock have gained the point where they have completely given up their own self-will. The sixth rock represents full submission to God. On the ninth the number is so small that there seemed to be only three persons on it. These have no desire whatever except to honor God, fear not hell nor purgatory, nor enemy nor death nor life. The Friends of God, who are bent on something more than their own salvation, are depicted in the valley below, striving to rescue souls from the net in which they have been ensnared. The Brethren of the Free Spirit resist this merciful procedure. The presentation is crude, and Scripture is not directly quoted. The biblical imagery, however, abounds, and, as in the case of the ancient allegory of Hermas, the principles of the Gospel are set forth in a way adapted, no doubt, to reach a certain class of minds, even as in these modern days the methods of the Salvation Army appeal to many for whom the discourses of Bernard or Gerson might have little meaning. 492 Rulman Merswin is regarded by Denifle, Strauch and other critics as the author of the works ascribed to the Friend of God from the Oberland, and the inventor of this fictitious personage.493 The reason for this view is that no one else knows of the Oberlander and that, after Rulman’s death, attempts on the part of the Strassburg brotherhood to find him, or to find out something about him, resulted in failure.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  The rain must have mingled with Mademoiselle’s tears, for the weather had broken and now it was raining. It was surely a desolate day for departure, with the mist closing over the Severn Valley and beginning to creep up the hillsides. . . . Stephen made her way to the empty schoolroom, empty of all save a general confusion; the confusion that stalks in some people’s trail—it had always stalked Mademoiselle Duphot. On the chairs, which stood crooked, lay odds and ends meaning nothing—crumpled paper, a broken shoehorn, a well-worn brown glove that had lost its fellow and likewise two of its buttons. On the table lay a much abused pink blotting pad, from which Stephen had torn off the corners, unchidden—it was crossed and re-crossed with elegant French script until its scarred face had turned purple. And there stood the bottle of purple ink, half-empty, and green round its neck with dribbles; and a pen with a nib as sharp as a pin point, a thin, peevish nib that jabbed at the paper. Chock-a-block with the bottle of purple ink lay a little piety card of St. Joseph that had evidently slipped out of Mademoiselle’s missal—St. Joseph looked very respectable and kind, like the fishmonger in Great Malvern. Stephen picked up the card and stared at St. Joseph; something was written across his corner; looking closer she read the minute handwriting: ‘Priez pour ma petite Stévenne.’ 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.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  Each time I hit my head I said sorry. “That’s okay. Rub your clit,” he said. “Don’t tell me what to do.” “Sorry,” he said. “And don’t come inside me.” But he came inside me, and in less than a minute, making a face that looked like a dying warrior, a hissing sound escaping his open mouth. “Damn,” he sighed after he had finished expelling his load of little Uta Hagens into my vagina. “That was great. Did you come?” “Um, definitely not.” I laughed. Was he kidding? I would have to be a better actress for that. I guess he thought I was hypersexual and came instantly, tossing orgasm after orgasm into the wind. Who else would fuck a stranger in his car? Most people wanted to avoid being fondled by their driver. I imagined his sperm in there, trying to talk to my egg, and my egg ignoring them. What were his sperm saying? It’s a tough town, but I’m hoping to get an agent this year, said his sperm. Just shut the fuck up, said my egg. “Well,” he said, patting me on the ass. “I hope you give me a good rating.” “Oh, for sure,” I said. “Five stars.” 56. The following evening I packed my suitcase. I thought about my little sweaters and dresses floating in the water as I packed up each one. It made me feel sad. I kept thinking the words belonging and my belongings . Dominic was no longer in the pantry. I wasn’t sure who had come and taken him away. It smelled heavily of ammonia, but I swore I could still smell death. Annika had gone back inside the pantry. She was just sitting there on the floor with Dominic’s bowl and a squeaky toy in the shape of a duck. She looked up at me. “This was his favorite toy,” she said, giving it a squeeze. “Did you know that? Did I tell you that?” “Yes. We played with it together a lot,” I lied. “Good.” She smiled. “I wanted him to have the most beautiful life.” “Annika, I am so sorry. I want you to know I’m grateful to you.” “I knew I should have come home. I should have listened to my intuition. But you told me you could handle it. You said that nothing bad was going to happen to him, that he would be fine.” “I know. If there is some way I can make this up to you—” “No, it isn’t your fault,” she said. “It’s my fault.” “You couldn’t have known. Even the vet didn’t know how sick he was exactly.” “I will never forgive myself,” she said. “Never.” “Annika,” I said. There was nothing else left to say. I held out my hand to help her up.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  Those women knew how to embrace whichever assembly-line man they were given. They knew how to breathe new life into him day after day and see what they had as special. They were like living psalms. There were no holes in their lives. Those women had never met a void a day in their life. They simply didn’t see any. “Can I just say something?” said Sara. “Diana, I’m sorry, but if I had a husband who took good care of me—and I looked like you—and had young children who loved me, I would be so happy. I would just—be happy.” “Dr. Jude, I’m feeling judged,” said Diana. But Sara didn’t stop. “Stan left again. We got in a fight about a historical documentary. The Roosevelts. He said that I was the most annoying woman he had ever encountered and then he just left. I don’t know where he is staying. Maybe the spa? Maybe another woman’s house? I don’t know who would want him. We were supposed to go to a workshop this weekend. An ‘Opening the Heart’ course—a refresher for me, and basics for him. I was so excited. I was finally going to have a workshop boyfriend. I paid for both of us and everything. And you know what? I don’t even want to go now. I don’t want to open my heart! Now I’m going to have to go by myself. I’m going to be the woman alone again.” I looked around the room and felt sad for all of us. We were built differently from other people—constructed in some fundamental way that was unlike those who could cope with love. Maybe we felt the same emotions as everyone else, but we felt them more intensely. Sappho felt more too, this I knew. Sappho was one of us. If she wasn’t overwhelmed by emotions, why then would she have needed to sing? Chickenhorse said she had canceled her date with the guy from the dog park. She said that she had gotten a weird feeling from him. “Weird in what way?” asked Dr. Jude. “I don’t know. He was wearing one of those newsboy caps. And when I thought about the cap, I felt triggered. I just don’t trust any man in one of those caps. It’s like a flashing red no.” “What is it specifically about that hat? Have you had a negative experience with a man in one of those hats in the past?” asked Dr. Jude. “No,” said Chickenhorse. “The truth is…maybe it’s me. I know you want me to start dating again. I know you think I’m ready. But I don’t think I’m ready. I don’t know if I’m ever going to be ready.” I wondered if this was what recovery looked like, the only option for women like us. Was it better to be somewhat sane without a man than to be crazy with one? Dr.

• 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 The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  I’m fifty-three, Stephen, I’ll be going in the wind if I don’t knock off smoking quite soon, and that’s certain!’ Then Stephen would know that her father felt young, very young, and was wanting her to flatter him a little. But this mood would not last; it had often quite changed by the time that the two of them reached the stables. She would notice with a sudden pain in her heart that he stooped when he walked, not much yet, but a little. And she loved his broad back, she had always loved it—a kind, reassuring protective back. Then the thought would come that perhaps its great kindness had caused it to stoop as though bearing a burden; and the thought would come:’ He is bearing a burden, not his own, it’s some one else’s—but whose?’ CHAPTER 13 1 T here was gossip in plenty over Martin’s disappearance, and to this Mrs. Antrim contributed her share, even more than her share, looking wise and mysterious whenever Stephen’s name was mentioned. Every one felt very deeply aggrieved. They had been so eager to welcome the girl as one of themselves, and now this strange happening—it made them feel foolish which in turn made them angry. The spring meets were heavy with tacit disapproval—nice men like young Hallam did not run away for nothing; and then what a scandal if those two were not engaged; they had wandered all over the country together. This tacit disapproval was extended to Sir Philip, and via him to Anna for allowing too much freedom; a mother ought to look after her daughter, but then Stephen had always been allowed too much freedom. This, no doubt, was what came of her riding astride and fencing and all the rest of the nonsense; when she did meet a man she took the bit between her teeth and behaved in a most amazing manner. Of course, had there been a proper engagement—but obviously that had never existed. They marvelled, remembering their own toleration, they had really been extremely broad-minded. An extraordinary girl, she had always been odd, and now for some reason she seemed odder than ever.

• 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