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 The Pisces (2018)

  Suddenly I wanted to stay. For maybe the first time in my life, I didn’t want to abandon an uncomfortable feeling. I wanted to give her motherly love in the way she had tried to give me motherly love. Hers had always been from a distance, but it was there. And I wanted to give her motherly love in the way that she couldn’t give me motherly love: by staying, even when it was uncomfortable. Wasn’t it time that I showed up for her? I also wanted to give her love in the sisterly way I had given Claire and Diana love. The group had taught me how to do that, imperfectly, but I knew what it was now. You just sat there with someone and listened. That was all you had to do. I wondered if Diana had finished fucking her way through all the tennis pros—if she had moved on to her son’s friend. Or if she was doing better again. I thought about Claire and wondered if I stayed in Venice how long we would stay friends. How long she would stay alive. Had I chosen her as a friend because she had an end date too? I wanted to leave my suitcase at the foot of her stairs, sit down beside my sister, and tell her that I would stay for as long as she needed me. I wanted to put my arms around her and thank her for needing me, for being unafraid to share the same space. I wanted to thank her for asking, risking that rejection. But that magnet kept pulling me out. It was as though what was to come was already written and I was just fulfilling my part of the story. And so I held on to my suitcase firmly, and all I could say was, “I’ll come back. I promise, soon, I’ll be back.” I walked down a few houses with my suitcase so she and Steve couldn’t see me. Then I turned around toward the beach. Was this my last walk? The wind was blowing and it was cold. Annika hadn’t told me how cold Venice could be before I got there, even in summer. It was something I had to figure out for myself. With the wind blowing, the beach houses looked warm and inviting. From the outside they made it look so easy to be alive on Earth, to hunker down all cozy and warm. I wondered if it felt that way for the people inside them, like a relief to be out of the elements. Or did they quickly forget about the chill outside and take the warmth for granted? I sat on the rocks waiting for Theo. As I looked at my suitcase again, it filled me with sadness. How was I going to get underwater and stay there? What did he mean when he said he would help me?

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  And now she exerted all her subtlety and skill to make this queer guest of hers talk more freely, and Angela’s subtlety was no mean thing, neither was her skill if she chose to exert it. Very gradually the girl became more at her ease; it was up-hill work but Angela triumphed, so that in the end Stephen talked about Morton, and a very little about herself also. And somehow, although Stephen appeared to be talking, she found that she was learning many things about her hostess; for instance, she learnt that Angela was lonely and very badly in need of her friendship. Most of Angela’s troubles seemed to centre round Ralph, who was not always kind and seldom agreeable. Remembering Ralph she could well believe this, and she said: ‘I don’t think your husband liked me.’ Angela sighed: ‘Very probably not. Ralph never likes the people I do; he objects to my friends on principle I think.’ Then Angela talked more openly of Ralph. Just now he was staying away with his mother, but next week he would be returning to The Grange, and then he was certain to be disagreeable: ‘Whenever he’s been with his mother he’s that way—she puts him against me, I never know why—unless, of course, it’s because I’m not English. I’m the stranger within the gates, it may be that.’ And when Stephen protested, ‘Oh, yes indeed, I’m quite often made to feel like a stranger. Take the people round here, do you think they like me?’ Then Stephen, who had not yet learnt to dissemble, stared hard at her shoes, in embarrassed silence. Just outside the door a clock boomed seven. Stephen started; she had been there nearly three hours. ‘I must go,’ she said, getting abruptly to her feet, ‘you look tired, I’ve been making a visitation.’ Her hostess made no effort to retain her: ‘Well,’ she smiled, ‘come again, please come very often—that is if you won’t find it dull, Miss Gordon; we’re terribly quiet here at The Grange.’ 3Stephen drove home slowly, for now that it was over she felt like a machine that had suddenly run down. Her nerves were relaxed, she was thoroughly tired, yet she rather enjoyed this unusual sensation. The hot June evening was heavy with thunder. From somewhere in the distance came the bleating of sheep, and the melancholy sound seemed to blend and mingle with her mood, which was now very gently depressed. A gentle but persistent sense of depression enveloped her whole being like a soft, grey cloak; and she did not wish to shake off this cloak, but rather to fold it more closely around her.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  The baker nodded. ‘You are quite right, my friend—precisely what I myself said this morning.’ But Stephen’s appearance was quickly forgotten in the jollification of so much fine feasting—a feasting for which her money had paid, for which her thoughtfulness had provided. Jokes there were, but no longer directed at her—they were harmless, well meant if slightly broad jokes made at the expense of the bashful bridegroom. Then before even Pauline had realized the time, there was Burton strolling into the kitchen, and Adèle must rush off to change her dress, while Jean must change also, but in the pantry. Burton glanced at the clock. ‘Faut dépêcher vous, ’urry, if you’re going to catch that chemin de fer,’ he announced as one having authority. ‘It’s a goodish way to the Guard de Lions.’ 3 That evening the old house seemed curiously thoughtful and curiously sad after all the merry-making. David’s second white bow had come untied and was hanging in two limp ends from his collar. Pauline had gone to church to light candles; Pierre, together with Pauline’s niece who would take Adèle’s place, was preparing dinner. And the sadness of the house flowed out like a stream to mingle itself with the sadness in Stephen. Adèle and Jean, the simplicity of it . . . they loved, they married, and after a while they would care for each other all over again, renewing their youth and their love in their children. So orderly, placid and safe it seemed, this social scheme evolved from creation; this guarding of two young and ardent lives for the sake of the lives that might follow after. A fruitful and peaceful road it must be. The same road had been taken by those founders of Morton who had raised up children from father to son, from father to son until the advent of Stephen; and their blood was her blood—what they had found good in their day, seemed equally good to their descendant. Surely never was outlaw more law-abiding at heart, than this, the last of the Gordons. So now a great sadness took hold upon her, because she perceived both dignity and beauty in the coming together of Adèle and Jean, very simply and in accordance with custom. And this sadness mingling with that of the house, widened into a flood that compassed Mary and through her David, and they both went and sat very close to Stephen on the study divan.

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

  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. We’re very upset with each other and need time to calm down and move on. We’re trying hard to forgive each other, we just need more time.” “Whose fault is it that you’re mad at each other?” she asks. “Both of ours,” I say. I don’t like having to accept responsibility for our current situation, but I want her to have healthy relationships with both of us and I will bend the truth to help make that happen. “I always tell you that it takes two to tango, right? It’s not one person’s fault, it’s about how two people are together.” “OK,” she murmurs so quietly that it breaks my heart. “I can’t promise that Daddy and I will stay married, but I can promise that someday we’ll do better than we’re doing now. I will always be your mom and Dad will always be your dad and we will always love you and Daisy and Hudson the most in the world.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  Maybe it had brought him to me at the same time as Diana to teach me a lesson. I didn’t know if the universe actively taught lessons. But if it did, the lesson was that I could not handle what I thought I could handle. The lesson was that I didn’t need to act out with Theo to learn the lesson. I didn’t have to suffer again. The suffering of others, Claire and now Diana, could remind me of my own suffering: the suffering of the past and my potential future suffering. Maybe this is why we did things in groups. Maybe this is why people had friends: so we could see ourselves and our own insanity in them. Instead I went over to Abbot Kinney with Dominic. A few people stopped and commented on him, how beautiful he was, how regal. I felt proud of him, not eclipsed by him, as though being with him somehow made me better. He made me feel purebred. What was money anyway? What was polish? Why was I so susceptible to flights of fancy, my perception of other people’s views of me? Look at Diana. I thought she had it together and she was a mess. She actually liked me. Maybe I didn’t need someone else to define me, but oh, I still wanted it. How vacuous was I? How empty was I that I needed a border drawn by someone else to tell me who I was? It didn’t even matter whether the person was real, a lover, a new friend, or even a dog. The person could even be imaginary, like the fancy people I saw on the street, who were not themselves imaginary, but became whatever it was I projected onto them. Seeing myself through the eyes of a projection, however uncomfortable the judgment, made me feel safe in a strange way. It was like a box in which to live: a boundary against the greater nothingness, to think one knew something about what others thought of you. It was there I could begin and end. And perhaps it was a prison, to have to begin and end, but it was also a relief. This is why the Greeks needed myth: for that boundary, to know where they stood amidst the infinite. No one can simply coexist with the ocean, storms, the cypress trees. They had to codify the elements with language and greater meaning, and create gods out of them—gods who looked suspiciously like themselves—so that even if they were powerless over nature, there were better versions of them in control. Or perhaps it was not for the sake of control over the terror of nature at all that they created their gods. Perhaps it was because the world, with all its beauty, was not enough.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  I ran from the room clutching my throat and out onto the sidewalk. I crouched down in a squat with my head between my knees. Just to be alone again, away from all of that humanity that echoed my own, made me feel better. The sadness and nausea began to subside. Then I heard the door of the building open and footsteps behind me. It was Chickenhorse, coming to check on me. I wondered how she got elected. “Hey, just making sure you are okay.” “I’m not,” I said. “Do you want to come back inside?” “No, I need air.” “Do you think I should sit with you?” “I should probably just be left alone.” “We aren’t going to hurt you, Lucy.” I looked at her face. For a moment she didn’t look chickeny or horsey. Her eyes were big and brown and with her mouth closed she had nice, plump, red lips. Was it possible that she was actually pretty? “Listen,” she said. “I don’t know what’s going on with you. What it is exactly that you’re doing. I mean, aside from the Jamie thing. But, whatever it is—you don’t have to do it.” I laughed out loud, a crazy-sounding laugh. I was crouched on a sidewalk in the middle of the day. Whatever I was doing, of course I had to do it. “You don’t really know me,” I said. “Maybe not,” she said. “But I relate.” I didn’t want her to relate. I didn’t want to be like her. But I knew she was being honest. “So what’s the solution? Never date again?” I asked. She looked at me. “Honestly, I don’t know. Things were so bad for me by the end—the end of my last run. It could have killed me, easily. If I ever end up in that emotional space again? In a way, I think I’d be lucky to be dead. It would be worse to roam the planet, a tormented soul, for the rest of my life.” Maybe this was why I was in group, to remind people like her of the hell that awaited them just on the other side. I was here to be a cautionary tale. “How did you get through your withdrawal without dying?” I asked. “I just kept going. One minute at a time. And gradually I saw that the feelings didn’t destroy me.” “But you were forced to give him up, right? You didn’t choose to do it. I mean, he got a restraining order?” “What does a restraining order mean to people like us? In the face of our kind of obsession? But I guess, technically, yes, I was forbidden from being with him. I didn’t make the choice.”

• 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 Well of Loneliness (1928)

  3 Stephen left Cornwall without a regret; everything about it had seemed to her depressing. Its rather grim beauty which at any other time would have deeply appealed to her virile nature, had but added to the gloom of those interminable weeks spent apart from Angela Crossby. For her perturbation had been growing apace, she was constantly oppressed by doubts and vague fears; bewildered, uncertain of her own power to hold; uncertain too, of Angela’s will to be held by this dangerous yet bloodless loving. Her defrauded body had been troubling her sorely, so that she had tramped over beach and headland, cursing the strength of the youth that was in her, trying to trample down her hot youth and only succeeding in augmenting its vigour. But now that the ordeal had come to an end at last, she began to feel less despondent. In a week’s time Angela would get back from Scotland; then at least the hunger of the eyes could be appeased—a terrible thing that hunger of the eyes for the sight of the well-loved being. And then Angela’s birthday was drawing near, which would surely provide an excuse for a present. She had sternly forbidden the giving of presents, even humble keepsakes, on account of Ralph—still, a birthday was different, and in any case Stephen was quite determined to risk it. For the impulse to give that is common to all lovers, was in her attaining enormous proportions, so that she visualized Angela decked in diadems worthy of Cleopatra; so that she sat and stared at her bank book with eyes that grew angry when they lit on her balance. What was the good of plenty of money if it could not be spent on the person one loved? Well, this time it should be so spent, and spent largely; no limit was going to be set to this present! An unworthy and tiresome thing money, at best, but it can at least ease the heart of the lover. When he lightens his purse he lightens his heart, though this can hardly be accounted a virtue, for such giving is perhaps the most insidious form of self-indulgence that is known to mankind. 4 Stephen had said quite casually to Anna: ‘Suppose we stay three or four days in London on our way back to Morton? You could do some shopping.’ Anna had agreed, thinking of her house linen which wanted renewing; but Stephen had been thinking of the jewellers’ shops in Bond Street.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  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. “When I told my son about the OkCupid guy, he said, ‘Mom, that just sounds like a lot of drama. Do you really need that?’ And I thought, You’re right. Drama. It really is that simple. So I set some healthy boundaries. I told the guy that I would still love to see him when he got back to the States but that I wasn’t going to give him any money. I said that I wished him the best of luck and I believe in him: that he would be able to make it work to find his way back here.” “Awesome,” said Sara, biting into a Bosc pear. “But the strangest thing was, the very next day, my son and his girlfriend broke up. He said that he was sad, but he knew it was for the best, because now he could see there was drama in that relationship too. Then he said, and I’ll never forget this, ‘Mom, I’m so glad that we can have a nice relationship. It means so much to me that I can tell you these things.’ ” What a pussy, I thought. But was he a pussy? He probably knew more than all of us. Maybe children weren’t the worst thing after all. They couldn’t be any worse than anything else. I had always judged these women who derived such satisfaction from their offspring. I thought they were weak and nauseating, like they had given up on their own lives. But I liked Diana.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  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. I ran from the room clutching my throat and out onto the sidewalk. I crouched down in a squat with my head between my knees. Just to be alone again, away from all of that humanity that echoed my own, made me feel better. The sadness and nausea began to subside. Then I heard the door of the building open and footsteps behind me. It was Chickenhorse, coming to check on me. I wondered how she got elected. “Hey, just making sure you are okay.” “I’m not,” I said. “Do you want to come back inside?” “No, I need air.” “Do you think I should sit with you?” “I should probably just be left alone.” “We aren’t going to hurt you, Lucy.” I looked at her face. For a moment she didn’t look chickeny or horsey. Her eyes were big and brown and with her mouth closed she had nice, plump, red lips. Was it possible that she was actually pretty? “Listen,” she said. “I don’t know what’s going on with you. What it is exactly that you’re doing. I mean, aside from the Jamie thing. But, whatever it is—you don’t have to do it.” I laughed out loud, a crazy-sounding laugh. I was crouched on a sidewalk in the middle of the day. Whatever I was doing, of course I had to do it. “You don’t really know me,” I said. “Maybe not,” she said. “But I relate.” I didn’t want her to relate. I didn’t want to be like her. But I knew she was being honest. “So what’s the solution? Never date again?” I asked. She looked at me. “Honestly, I don’t know.

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

  I have to leave soon to get Georgia so you need to go.” * The next morning, I bring Georgia down to the lobby to meet Michael for her walk to school. I suggest that we all walk together so that we can drop her and then have a chance to talk. Georgia is delighted, walking between us and chattering away as she swings our hands. That it is now a novelty for her to be with both of her parents at the same time pains me. Daisy and Hudson had their entire childhoods with us together, but I doubt she will even remember a time we all lived in the same home. After we drop her, we walk to the park, which is quiet at this early hour and will give us more privacy than a coffee bar. I tell him about Hudson and the phone calls from school; he is upset but helpless. “If you would let me into the apartment, Hudson would be forced to acknowledge me. It’s demeaning that I’m not allowed in to pick up or drop off Georgia,” he says. “Michael, you and I are on the same side. I too feel it’s critical that he let you back into his life. There’s no part of me that is prepared to continue being a single mother to a teenage boy. You had the whole summer coming and going from the same house and he never once acknowledged you, so proximity is not the issue. If I were you, I would write him a note every single day, let him know you’re thinking about him and miss him. He’s blocked you from his phone, so you’ll have to drop off handwritten notes. It’s a start. And maybe his guidance counselor will be able to reach him,” I say. “OK,” he says. “I’ll try.” We are both quiet then, watching the park come to life as strollers pass by with babies headed for the swings and dogs bound toward the dog park. “Michael,” I finally start. He looks up at me expectantly. “What are we doing?” “Right now?” he asks. “No, in general. We’ve been back in the city for weeks and neither of us has so much as mentioned couples’ therapy. We aren’t moving forward at all. What do you want?” I say. “I don’t really know, I’ve been waiting for a cue from you. You’re so angry all the time, it’s hard for me to understand what you want,” he says. This is the response I feared, confirming that the decision about our future has become a hot potato that we are going to hurl back and forth at each other, neither of us willing to be the one to hold it and let it burn. I wait for more, but he just looks at me.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  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.” 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.

• 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)

  —When group ended I stayed back a minute to talk to Dr. Jude. “Lucy,” she said, blowing the dust off a book called Low Self-Esteem and Addiction: The Siamese Twins. “It’s good to see you back. I’m sorry you are suffering.” “Thanks,” I said, wiping my nose. She offered me a tissue. “Can I ask you a question?” I said. “Sure.” “When you said that you were content without anyone—that a person could be content without anyone—did you mean it?” “Oh, Lucy,” she said. “Because I just feel like that’s a lie. I think everyone is looking for someone. And I think that if they aren’t, they’re just pretending.” “That isn’t necessarily true,” she said. “Me, I’m just happy to be alive. Do you really want to know what I think? Well, let me tell you something that you don’t know about me. I’m a breast cancer survivor.” “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s okay,” she said. “I had stage-three breast cancer when I was only forty-nine. I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it. In fact, I didn’t think I would. But after a number of very grueling years of chemo and radiation, as well as a double mastectomy, I was declared cancer-free. And I’m still in remission.” “That’s great.” “It is,” she said. “But after the cancer, going through that horrible experience, I took a good look at my life. I thought about what I wanted the next years of my life to look like, however many I had left. And one thing I realized was that I no longer wanted to be with my husband. It was a very hard thing to come to terms with. I have no children. My family lives on the East Coast. He was my family and had seen me through the whole ordeal. He still loved me very much. But I was no longer in love with him. And I realized then that I would rather be by myself, even if it meant never finding anyone again, even with my body looking the way it did postsurgery, than spend the rest of my life with someone I didn’t love.” “How did you know you weren’t in love with him anymore?” I asked. “I just knew,” she said. “Over time I realized.” “I get so confused,” I said. “There were moments when I felt like I was no longer in love with Jamie at all. But after we broke up I wanted him back more than anything. So maybe it was the lust that had faded.” “Lust is lust,” she said. “Any woman can have sex. It’s not hard to find a man to sleep with you.” This was true. I’d never thought of it like that before. With Garrett and Adam, and even Theo, I’d felt like it was a sign that I was special when they’d wanted to have sex with me.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

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