Shame

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 Henry and June (1986)

  Since Allendy has fully won my confidence I came ready to talk very frankly about frigidity. I confess this: that when I found pleasure in sexual intercourse with Henry I was afraid of having a baby and thought that I should not have an orgasm too frequently. But a few months ago a Russian doctor told me it could not happen easily; in fact, if I wanted a child I would have to subject myself to an operation. The fear of having a baby, then, was eliminated. Allendy said the very fact that I did not try to reassure myself on this score for seven years of my married life proved I did not really give it any importance, that I used it merely as an excuse for not letting go in coition. When this fear vanished, I was able to examine more closely the true nature of my feelings. I expressed a restlessness at what I termed the enforced passivity of women. Still, perhaps two times out of three, I kept myself passive, waiting for all the activity in the man, as if I did not want to be responsible for what I was enjoying. “That is to abate your sense of guilt,” Allendy said. “You refuse to be active and feel less guilty if it is the other who is active.” After the previous talk with Allendy I had felt a slight change. I was more active with Henry. He noticed it and said, “I love the way you fuck me now.” And I felt a keen pleasure. What astonishes me most about June are Henry’s stories of her aggressivity, her taking him, seeking him at her own will. When I occasionally try aggressivity, it gives me a feeling of distress, shame. I sense now an occasional psychic paralysis in me somewhat similar to Eduardo’s, except that it is more serious for a man. Allendy pressed me to admit that since the last analysis I had complete confidence in him and that I had become very fond of him. All is well, then, as this is necessary for the success of the analysis. At the end of the session he could use the word “frigidity” without offending me. I was even laughing. One of the things he observed was that I was dressing more simply. I have felt much less the need of original costuming. I could almost wear ordinary tailored clothes now. Costume, for me, has been an external expression of my secret lack of confidence. Uncertain of my beauty, Allendy said, I designed striking clothes which would distinguish me from other women.

• From Blue Nights (2011)

  The photographs were taken by one of her West Hartford cousins, Tony Dunne, who had arrived on leave from Williams to spend a few months in Malibu. He had been in Malibu only a day or two when she began to lose her first baby tooth. She had noticed the tooth loosening, she had wiggled the tooth, the tooth loosened further. I tried to remember how this situation had been handled in my own childhood. My most coherent memory involved my mother tying a piece of thread around the loose tooth, attaching the thread to a doorknob, and slamming the door. I tried this. The tooth stayed fixed in place. She cried. I grabbed the car keys and screamed for Tony: tying the thread to the doorknob had so exhausted my aptitude for improvisational caretaking that my sole remaining thought was to get her to the emergency room at UCLA Medical Center, thirty-some miles into town. Tony, who grew up with three siblings and many cousins, tried without success to convince me that UCLA Medical Center might be overkill. “Just let me try just this one thing first,” he said finally, and pulled the tooth. The next time a tooth got loose she pulled it herself. I had lost my authority. Was I the problem? Was I always the problem? In the note Tony included when he sent the photographs a few months ago he said that each image represented something he had seen in her. In some she is melancholy, large eyes staring directly into the lens. In others she is bold, daring the camera. She covers her mouth with her hand. She obscures her eyes with a polka-dotted cotton sun hat. She marches through the wash at the edge of the sea. She bites her lip as she swings from an oleander branch. A few of these photographs are familiar to me. A copy of one of them, one in which she is wearing the cashmere turtleneck sweater I bought her in London, is framed on my desk in New York. There is also on my desk in New York a framed photograph she herself took one Christmas on Barbados: the rocks outside the rented house, the shallow sea, the wash of surf. I remember the Christmas she took that picture. We had arrived on Barbados at night. She had gone immediately to bed and I had sat outside listening to a radio and trying to locate a line I believed to be from Claude Lévi-Strauss’s Tristes Tropiques but was never able to find: “The tropics are not exotic, they are merely out of date.” At some point after she went to sleep news had come on the radio: since our arrival on Barbados the United States had invaded Panama.

• From Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)

  The Old Testament law of tithing is very generally recommended as the ideal to be followed by all, on the supposition that ten per cent of an income of $500 is the same proportion as ten per cent of an income of $5000. This commercial method of calculation leaves some fundamental facts of human nature out of account and has inflicted a grave wrong on the poorer portion of our churches. Dr. Ernst Engel, long the eminent chief of the Prussian Bureau of Statistics, compiled from a large number of family budgets the proportion expended for various purposes. The following table contains the main results:— Item of Expenditures Percentage of the Expenditure of a Family with an Income of: Incomes: A. $225–$300 a year B. $450–$600 a year C. $750–$1100 a year Categories: 1 Subsistence 2 Clothing 3 Lodging 4 Firing and lighting 5 Education, worship, etc 6 Legal protection 7 Care of health 8 Comfort, mental and bodily recreation The minor items of this table will vary somewhat in different countries, according to local prices and customs; but the main deduction, which is known in Political Economy as “Engel’s Law of Consumption,” is as universal as human nature. It will be noticed that the first four items include those expenditures which satisfy the animal necessities of the body: food, shelter, and warmth. The other four satisfy the higher needs. As the income rises, the proportion spent on the first group sinks, and the proportion spent on the second group rises. Within the first group the proportion spent for lodging, heat, and light is the same in all classes, and the proportion for clothing nearly so. But the proportion spent for food is far larger with the poorest families. The human body has certain imperious demands for its maintenance, and these demands cannot be compressed below a certain minimum. If the income is small, the largest part must go simply for stoking the human machine, and the higher needs of the social, intellectual, and religious nature must be starved. If food prices rise, that proportion will be still greater. The nearer the people descend toward the poverty line, the less will be available for the higher wants. If, then, any average wage-earner in the churches has actually given a tenth of his income, he deserves profound respect. It is heroic giving for him. And if we have allowed the impression to prevail that the giving of one-tenth by all was equal giving for all, we have unwittingly inflicted a grievous injustice on the poorer church members. In every church working among the poorer classes there are a number who contribute nothing or are dependents of the church instead of supporters. Every season of economic distress depresses additional families below this line. But some self-respecting people may choose a different line of action. If their church membership involves too heavy a tax, they drop away.

• From Chéri and The Last of Chéri (1920)

  He resumed his air of comic self-importance, and she drew a breath of relief, knowing that he would say no more. He began switching off all the lights with his usual care, and then turned to Edmee with a vanity that was either very simple or very deceitful: ‘Well, why shouldn’t I have a heart like everybody else? ’ * *X If That are you doing there? ’ He had called out to her almost in a whisper, yet the V V sound of Cheri’s voice struck Edmee so forcibly that she swayed forward as if he had pushed her. She was standing beside a big open writing-desk and she spread her hands over the papers scattered in front of her. ‘I’m tidying up. she said in a dazed voice. She lifted a hand and it remained poised in mid-air as though benumbed. Then she appeared to wake up, and stopped lying. ‘It’s like this, Fred. You told me that when we came to move house you’d hate to be bothered over what you’d want to take with you, all the things in this room ... the furniture. I honestly wanted to tidy, to sort things. Then the poison, temptation came ... evil thoughts ... one evil thought. ... I implore your forgiveness. I’ve touched things that don’t belong to me. ...’ She trembled bravely and waited. He stood with his forehead jutting forward, his hands clenched in a threatening attitude; but he did not seen} to see his wife. His eyes were strangely veiled, and ever after she was to retain the impression of having spoken with a man whose eyes were deathly pale. ‘Ah, yes,’ he said at length. ‘You were looking ... you were looking for love-letters.’ She did not deny it. ‘You were hunting for my love-letters.’ He laughed his awkward, constrained laugh. Edmee felt hurt, and blushed. * Of course you must think me a fool. As if you were the kind of man not to lock them away in a safe place or bum them! And then, anyhow, they’re none of my business. I’ve only got what I deserved. You won’t hold it too much against me, Fred?’ Her pleading had cost her a certain effort, and she tried deliberately to make herself look appealing, pouting her lips a little and keeping the upper half of her face shadowed by her fluffy hair. But Cheri did not relax his attitude, and she noticed for the first time that the unblemished skin of his cheeks had taken on the transparence of a white rose in winter, and that their oval contour had shrunk. ‘Love-letters,’ he repeated. ‘That’s howlingly funny/ He took a step forward, seized a fistful of papers and scattered them: post-cards, restaurant bills, tradespeople’s announcements, telegrams from chorus girls met one night and never seen again, pneumatiqu.es of four or five lines from sponging friends; and several close-written pages slashed with the sabre-like script of Madame Peloux.

• From Chéri and The Last of Chéri (1920)

  As if telling the beads of a rosary, she ran her fingers over the necklace which Chdri had tossed on the bed. She put it away at night now because, with his passion for fine peails and his fondness for playing with them in the morning, he would have noticed too often tkat her throat had thickened and was not nearly so white, with the muscles under its skin growing slack. She fastened the pearls round her neck without getting up, and took a hand-mirror from the bedside-table. “I look like a gardener’s wife,” was her unflattering comment, “a market-gardener’s wife. A market-gardener’s wife in Normandy, off to the potato-fields wearing a pearl necklace. I might as well stick an ostrich feather in my nose — and that’s being polite! ” She shrugged her shoulders, severely critical of everything she no longer loved in herself: the vivid complexion, healthy, a little too ruddy — an open-air complexion, well suited to emphasize the pure intensity of her eyes, with their varying shades of blue. Her proud nose still won her approval. ‘Marie-Antoinette's nose!' Chari's mother was in the habit of saying, without ever forgetting to add: * and in another two years our Lea will have a chin like Louis Seize.' Her mouth, with its even row of teeth, seldom opened in a peal of laughter; but she smiled often, a smile that set off to perfection the lazy flutter of her large eyes - a smile a hundred times lauded, sung, and photographed - a deep, confiding smile one never tired of watching. As for her body — * Everyone knows,’ Lea would say, ‘ that a wellmade body lasts a long time/ She could still afford to show her body, pink and white, endowed with the long legs and straight back of a naiad on an Italian fountain; the dimpled hips, the high-slung breasts, ‘would last,' Lea used to say, ‘till well after Cheri's wedding.’ She got out of bed, and, slipping into a wrap, went to draw back the long curtains. The noonday sun poured into the gay, rosy, overdecorated room. Its luxury dated: double lace curtains, rose-bud watered silk on the walls, gilded woodwork, and antique furniture upholstered in modem tfilks. Lea refused to give up either this cosy room or its bed, a massive and indestructible masterpiece of wrought iron and brass, grim to the eye and cruel to the shins. ‘Come, come!’ Chari's mother protested, ‘it's not as bad as all that. Personally, I like this room. It belongs to a period. It has a style of its own. It suggests La Paiva.' The remembrance of this dig made Lea smile as she pinned up her hair. She hurriedly powdered her face on hearing two doors slam, and the thud of a male foot colliding with some delicate piece of furniture. Cheri came back into the room in shirt and trousers, his ears white with talcum powder. He was in an aggressive mood.

• From Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)

  When the Nineteenth Century died, its Spirit descended to the vaulted chamber of the Past, where the Spirits of the dead Centuries sit on granite thrones together. When the newcomer entered, all turned toward him and the Spirit of the Eighteenth Century spoke: “Tell thy tale, brother. Give us word of the human kind we left to thee.” “I am the Spirit of the Wonderful Century. I gave man the mastery over nature. Discoveries and inventions, which lighted the black space of the past like lonely stars, have clustered in a Milky Way of radiance under my rule. One man does by the touch of his hand what the toil of a thousand slaves never did. Knowledge has unlocked the mines of wealth, and the hoarded wealth of to-day creates the vaster wealth of to-morrow. Man has escaped the slavery of Necessity and is free. “I freed the thoughts of men. They face the facts and know. Their knowledge is common to all. The deeds of the East at eve are known in the West at morn. They send their whispers under the seas and across the clouds. “I broke the chains of bigotry and despotism. I made men free and equal. Every man feels the worth of his manhood. “I have touched the summit of history. I did for mankind what none of you did before. They are rich. They are wise. They are free.” The Spirits of the dead Centuries sat silent, with troubled eyes. At last the Spirit of the First Century spoke for all. “We all spoke proudly when we came here in the flush of our deeds, and thou more proudly than we all. But as we sit and think of what was before us, and what has come after us, shame and guilt bear down our pride. Your words sound as if the redemption of man had come at last. Has it come? “You have made men rich. Tell us, is none in pain with hunger to-day and none in fear of hunger for to-morrow? Do all children grow up fair of limb and trained for thought and action? Do none die before their time? Has the mastery of nature made men free to enjoy their lives and loves, and to live the higher life of the mind? “You have made men wise. Are they wise or cunning? Have they learned to restrain their bodily passions? Have they learned to deal with their fellows in justice and love? “You have set them free. Are there none, then, who toil for others against their will? Are all men free to do the work they love best? “You have made men one. Are there no barriers of class to keep man and maid apart? Does none rejoice in the cause that makes the many moan?

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

  It wouldn’t surprise me if on some very old branches of my paternal family tree there were ancestors who had also experienced abandonment and neglect. Living in these conditions creates a whole bunch of behavioral issues: codependency; fear of being left; insecurity and low selfworth; difficulty saying no and trouble self-regulating, especially big feelings like—you guessed it—anger. As a result, it can be hard to form healthy relationships, because it’s difficult to trust others and even yourself. It’s my fault. There must be something wrong with me. I’m bad. These are common beliefs buried in the shameful wounds of trauma. For me, abandonment played out in countless familiar ways. As an adult, I often chose romantic partners who were emotionally cut off, were unaffectionate, or had a difficult time seeing me. I constantly made negative assumptions about what others thought of me (mirroring what I thought of myself). When my discomfort felt too big to cope with, I swiftly cut people out of my life, amputation style. And like many of us, I also self-abandoned. Not long after I was diagnosed with cancer in my early 30s, BD visited me. We’d stayed in touch over the years—a visit here, a dinner there—but we struggled to form a solid relationship. After a few pleasantries, I learned why he had come in the first place. “You need to get your affairs in order. You also need to figure out who’s going to pull the plug if it comes to that.” I was stunned. We hadn’t created the kind of relationship that allowed for deeply personal and difficult talks like this, one that took an incredible amount of trust and tenderness—not to mention sensitivity. Maybe in his own awkward way he was only trying to be helpful. But it still hurt. “Pull the plug”? Who says that? After his attempt at fatherly advice, he got up to leave. This visit lasted all of an hour. “Right-oh,” he said, nodding my way as he stood at the door. And with that, he was gone. I sat there frozen, not knowing how to process what had just happened. BD and I had barely talked about the basics, like where he was for most of my life or why he’d refused to acknowledge me. When we did connect, he preferred light banter. Throughout my 20s, the pain stacked up, and no matter how many drugs, cocktails, or boys I devoured, I couldn’t numb the truth: I wasn’t wanted. His disconnected tone about DNRs and end-of-life planning did nothing to dispel this feeling. Even with the parent who did want me, I sometimes felt like I was a burden. Growing up, I watched my mom work herself to the bone to make ends meet. Despite her efforts to hide her stress and show me love, the weight of caring for me and her two aging parents wrung her out.

• From Chéri and The Last of Chéri (1920)

  “She defended me,” he kept repeating to himself. “She defended me with no love in her heart. She protected me as she protects the garden against blackbirds, her store of sugar against thieving nurses, or her cellar against the footmen. Little doubt she knows that I went to the Rue Reynouard, and came back here, never to go there again. She’s not said a word about it to me, in any case — perhaps because she doesn’t care. She protected me, because it wouldn’t have done for my mother to talk. She defended me with no love in her heart.” He heard Edmee’s voice in the garden. She was testing his mood from afar. ‘You don’t feel ill, Fred, do you? Would you like to go straight to bed? ’ She put her head through the half-open door, and he laughed bitterly to himself: “How cautious she’s being.” She saw his smile and grew bolder. * Come along, Fred. I believe I’m just as tired as you, or I wouldn’t have let myself go just now. I’ve been apologizing to your mother.’ She switched off some of the cruel light, and gathered the roses from the table-cloth to put them into water. Her body, her hands, her head bending over the roses and set off by a haze of fair hair from which the heat had taken most of the crimp — everything about her might have charmed a man. *1 said a man — I didn’t say any man* Lea’s insidious voice kept ringing in Chen’s ears. “I can behave as I like to her,” he thought, as he followed Edm6e with his eyes. “ She’ll never complain, she’ll never divorce me; I’ve nothing to fear from her, not even love. I should be happy enough, if I chose.” But, at the same time, he recoiled with unspeakable repugnance from the idea of the two of them living together in a home where love no longer held sway. His childhood as a bastard, his long adolescence as a ward, had taught him that his world, though people thought of it as reckless, was governed by a code almost as narrow minded as middle-class prejudice* In it, Cheri had learned that love is a question of money, infidelity, betrayals, and cowardly resignation. But now he was well on the way to forgetting the rules he had been taught, and to be repelled by acts of silent condescension. He therefore ignored the gentle hand on his sleeve. And, as he walked with Edmee towards the room whence would issue no sound of endearment or reproach, he was overcome with shame, and blushed at the horror of their unspoken agreement.

• From The Surprising Lives of Christian Saints Course Guidebook (2023)

  67 9. Margaret of Cortona: Midwife and Mystic When he was about 12, she sent him to the Franciscans of Arezzo as a novice. It is unclear whether they ever met again or what her son’s impressions of his mother were. Emphasizing this aspect of their relationship furthered Giunta’s efforts to portray Margaret as desperately penitent for her sins and eager to shed her former life, son included. The connections Margaret had built with wealthy Cortonese families benefited many of her later projects and raised her status in the community. Even as her fame as a holy woman and ascetic grew, Margaret proved herself a savvy manager of people and resources. She leveraged her contacts to become an able fundraiser and administrator. As her charitable efforts became well known, she inspired the wealthy families of her circle to greater acts of charity themselves. One Lady Diabella dedicated her own home as a hospice of mercy, which Margaret ran as an infirmary for the local Franciscans. She built the small hospice into a thriving charity. In 1286, she convinced one of the most powerful noblemen of Cortona, Uguccio Casali, to support the foundation of a hospital. She became the driving force behind the foundation and administration of Spedale di Santa Maria della Misericordia, also founding an organization of pious laypeople (known as a confraternity) to run the hospital. 9. Margaret of Cortona: Midwife and Mystic 68 Margaret’s Rising Status While Margaret’s embrace of poverty and good works benefitted her reputation in Cortona, it was her mystical visions that attracted followers and elevated her authority above that of priests and bishops. Margaret became a local celebrity. She was asked to perform baptisms, healings, and even exorcisms so often that she began to refuse, fearing that she was spending too much time on these worldly things. But Margaret also wondered if, by refusing to attend, she would lose favor with Christ. She was constantly on the alert for signs of weakness in herself, and the Legenda is full of passages in which she castigates herself for not being ascetic enough—devout enough—to atone for her past sins. She was devoted to prayer and frequently overcome with contrition. She would give away all her possessions, and paupers clustered around her cell in expectation of alms. Margaret also became the holy defender of Cortona. A miracle describes her prayers as forming a wall around the city. This was not a hypothetical attack she envisioned. Arezzo and Cortona had been at war for some time and only reached a fragile peace in 1277. They had a difficult relationship for decades afterward. The holy woman’s defense of her city was held up as an example of Cortonese independence. Margaret’s devoted followers tried to tempt her with good food, but she reprimanded them and rejected their offerings—though apparently, she had a weakness for figs, which she ate but later bemoaned as a temptation.

• From The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)

  I didn’t know which way to look. My only feeling was embarrassment and relief, relief that I was no longer responsible. But O’Reilly said to me, “Okay, you can come over for your share too,” and he raised an arm and beckoned me to his side. I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want love of this kind, love from a man who didn’t really like me though he professed he did, a humiliating love to promote “regression,” for O’Reilly subscribed to the theory that his patients must revert to infancy and grow up all over again under his benign tutelage. I preferred loneliness and pain. The wolf in me trotted away from the campfire, threw back a finely modeled head, and howled—but the sheep went to O’Reilly, because I didn’t know how to say no. Taken out of his office and spirited here, O’Reilly looked crazy and ill—puffy, disordered, breathing laboriously, reeking of bourbon. I was ashamed of him. Over the next few weeks, Annie stopped eating. She’d got it into her head that William had found her repulsively fat, and she’d spit with scorn at the reflection in the mirror of her meager breasts and nearly fleshless hips. She longed for the purity of a boy’s body (a boy before puberty). She’d found another girl at school with the same obsessions. They slept all day, prided themselves on their luminous paleness, grew their hair very long. They wrote poetry and began to go to cocktail parties with professors; they were invited by a teaching fellow in art history whom they’d befriended. At midnight they’d get together in Annie’s dorm room, light candles, and take several hours to eat two cucumbers. The rest of the time they lived on vodka, cigarettes, and black tea. O’Reilly hospitalized Annie for not eating, but she tore the intravenous tubes out of her arms and trotted frantically up and down the stairs to work off the disfiguring calories. I took her home to my father’s for Christmas. My stepmother gave us a tour of the house, as Midwesterners will do. We looked at cedar closets, the linen cupboard with enough sheets to outfit an infirmary, the whole cooked turkey and cold ham waiting in the fridge for our midnight snacks. We inspected the basement, saw the furnace, the bar locked tight against pilfering maids, the Ping-Pong table. “If you kids feel in the mood for a game,” Dad said, “even in the middle of the night, go right ahead since it’s soundproof down here.” “Anyway, you’ll be up,” my stepmother said to my father sourly. She launched into a recital of his annoying nocturnal habits. “He doesn’t get up till late afternoon, and at six in the evening he sits down to a breakfast of a pound of bacon. I’ve had to go my own way. Otherwise I’d never have had a life.”

• From The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)

  My stepmother discovered in the morning that the entire ham and turkey had vanished from the refrigerator overnight. That evening, when my father arose, he found that his sink had stopped up. The blocked drain was located exactly one floor below in Annie’s bathroom. When he put on his special, comical plumber’s cap and overalls and roguishly opened the pipe leading down from her sink, his face fell, his mouth turned down in disgust, and he pulled out stinking, half-chewed gobs of turkey and ham with his bare hands. “I just don’t understand,” my stepmother whispered. “Why couldn’t your friend get sick in the toilet instead of the sink? And it seems such a waste of good food—I was planning a cold supper.” Annie had tried to prevent my father from opening the drain, but once he did she calmed down and packed her bag. My stepmother drove her to the station and waited as I put her on the train. On the platform Annie said, “Are you furious?” “No, it serves them right,” I said smiling. “I wish I had your guts—they need to be shocked.” “I wasn’t trying to shock them. But no matter. I don’t see how you came out of this family. You’re so much better than they are—sweeter, more open.” I tasted her praise but suspiciously, as though the candy might be poisoned. Like my sister, who scorned our real mother’s habit of praising herself, I felt I was being honest only when I said the worst things about myself. Now, all these years later, I realize one self-evaluation is as true as another and that my mother’s relentless Pollyannism was a less melancholy and more efficient way of muddling through than my gloom or my sister’s saturnine honesty. Nor did my sister’s honesty keep her from talking herself into marrying a man she didn’t love and becoming the suburban mom she had a drive but no talent to impersonate. My sister was ashamed of my mother and me for being so weird. She locked herself into an iron-maiden normality that gave her no room to breathe. She was stifling as she mixed the frozen orange juice on wintry mornings, attended PTA meetings, baked brownies, suffered the attentions of a dull, doting husband. Her upper lip would swell every time he wanted to make love to her. She sipped from bottles of liquor she’d secreted all over the house (mouthwash bottles, perfume bottles, Coke empties under the sink, a Lysol bottle in the spare bathroom). After Christmas vacation back at school I was invited by William Everett Hunton to a gay dance. “Spit-polish your Mary Janes,” he said, “and pray a man will see reflected in them up your skirt that you don’t have any panties on, you naughty thing.”

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

  Despite the disturbing interlude of self-abuse, I even enjoyed much of the remaining evening. Grandma wouldn’t have approved of my methods, but at least she’d give me points for carrying cover-up and getting on with a grand old time. A COCKTAIL OF SHAME The next morning I woke up with a big AR (agonizing reappraisal) hangover. Even though I was the only one who witnessed my unhinged spectacle, I was sick with shame. Why couldn’t I be the type of person who didn’t do insane things like that? Instead, I felt like Annette Bening’s character in the film American Beauty . A positive-thinking, obsessed Realtor who breaks down in a self-slapping fit when she fails to sell a house. “You big baby! Stop it!” she screams, before collecting herself and silently walking out. But like Annette’s character, this house was my everything, too. At least no one saw me , I thought. I can keep this pathetic meltdown to myself. Lock it up. Throw away the key. Smile. Yeah, right. Who was I kidding? A few weeks later, our Bucket List Tour brought us all to Newport, to celebrate my birthday. By this time, I really thought I could keep a lid on any outbursts. I’d talked about it in therapy. Did a bunch of energy work, yada yada. In my mind, I was all set. After a lovely dinner (with no interludes), I was standing outside the restaurant waiting for the valet to bring the car around. My parents were using the restroom; Brian was searching through his pockets for a tip. I’m so grateful we’re here together , I thought. And bonus points for not losing my shit. Clearly, I believed I was growing. Not so fast, Speed Racer. As the car pulled up, three drunk dudes tumbled out of the lobby. One guy put his hand on my shoulder and said/slurred, “You’re pretty, come to a bar with us.” Another crawled into the back seat of our car. I lost track of the third one. He was probably puking in the bushes. “Not gonna happen,” I replied as I removed his grabby hand from my shoulder, before turning to his friend. “Hey, buddy. This isn’t an Uber. Please get out of our car.” He stared at me defiantly, while rifling through our things. It all happened so fast, it was disorienting. Though Brian was nearby talking to the attendant, he hadn’t registered what was going on yet. Not willing to take no for an answer, Grabby Hands made another attempt. This time leaning in closer. “Come on, baby, don’t be so lame. Have some fun with us.” “Dude! Back off. I’m not interested. And get your friend out of our car!” “Oh, fuck you, cunt,” he said, his tone suddenly turning dangerous. “You’re not even worth it—you’re just all that’s left.” Oopsy. . . .

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  warm your childblained fingers as you count coins in the Manhattan snow or is it only Linda who dreams of home? [image file=image_rsrc6HF.jpg] When my mother’s first-born crys for milk in the brutal city winter do the faces of your other daughters dim like the image of the treeferned yard where a dark girl first cooked for you and her ash heap still smells curry? III Did the secret of my sisters steal your tongue like I stole money from your midnight pockets stubborn and quaking as you threaten to shoot me if I am the one? the naked lightbulbs in our kitchen ceiling glint off your service revolver as you load​whispering. Did two little dark girls in Grenada dart like flying fish between your averred eyes and my pajamaless body our last adolescent summer eavesdropped orations to your shaving mirror our most intense conversations were you practicing how to tell me of my twin sisters​abandoned as you had been abandoned by another Black woman seeking her fortune​Grenada​Barbados Panama​Grenada. New York City. IV You bought old books at auction for my unlanguaged world gave me your idols​Marcus Garvey​Citizen Kane and morsels from your dinner plate when I was seven. I owe you my Dahomeyan jaw the free high school for gifted girls no one else thought I should attend and the darkness that we share. Our deepest bonds remain the mirror and the gun. V An elderly Black judge known for his way with women visits this island where I live shakes my hand, smiling “I knew your father,” he says “quite a man!” Smiles again. I flinch at his raised eyebrow. A long-gone woman’s voice lashes out at me​in parting “You will never be satisfied until you have the whole world in your bed!” Now I am older than you were when you died overwork and silence exploding in your brain. You are gradually receding from my face. Who were you outside the 23rd Psalm? Knowing so little how did I become so much like you? Your hunger for rectitude blossoms into rage the hot tears of mourning never shed for you before your twisted measurements the agony of denial the power of unshared secrets. [January 23–September 10, 1992] jessehelms I am a Black woman writing my way to the future off a garbage scow knit from moral fiber stuck together with jessehelms’ come​where Art is a dirty word scrawled on the wall of Bilbo’s memorial outhouse and obscenity is catching even I’d like to hear you scream ream out your pussy with my dildo called Nicaragua ram Grenada up your fighole till Panama runs out of you like Savimbi aflame. But you prefer to do it on the senate floor amid a sackful of paper pricks keeping time to a 195 million dollar military band safe-sex dripping from your tongue into avid senatorial ears. Later you’ll get yours behind the senate toilets where they’re waiting for you jessehelms those white boys with their pendulous rules

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

  The conviction came to me in a flash: I was ugly with irregular features, sharp eyes and short squat figure: the certainty overpowered me: I had learned before that I was too small to be a great athlete, now I saw that I was ugly to boot: my heart sank: I can not describe my disappointment and disgust. Jessie asked; what was the matter and at length I told her. She wouldn’t have it: “You’ve a lovely white skin”, she cried, “and you’re quick and strong: no one would call you ugly!—the idea!” But the knowledge was in me indisputable, never to leave me again for long. It even led me to some erroneous inferences then and there: for example, it seemed clear to me that if I had been tall and handsome like Paris, Jessie would have given herself to me in spite of her sister; but further knowledge of women makes me inclined to doubt this: they have a luscious eye for good looks in the male, naturally; but other qualities, such as strength and dominant self-confidence have an even greater attraction for the majority, especially for those who are richly endowed sexually and I am inclined to think that it was her sister’s warnings and her own matter-of-fact hesitation before the irrevocable that induced Jessie to withhold her sex from complete abandonment. But the pleasure I had experienced with her, made me keener than ever, and more enterprising. The conviction of my ugliness, too, made me resolve to develop my mind and all other faculties as much as I could. Finally, I saw Jessie home and had a great hug and long kiss and was told she had had a bully afternoon and we made another appointment. I worked at boot-blacking every morning and soon got some regular customers, notably a young, well-dressed man who seemed to like me. Either Allison, or he himself, told me his name was Kendrick and he came from Chicago. One morning he was very silent and absorbed. At length I said, “Finished” and “Finished”, he repeated after me: “I was thinking of something else”, he explained. “Intent”, I said smiling. “A business deal”, he explained, “but why do you say intent?” “The Latin phrase came into my head”, I replied without thinking, “‘Intentique ore tenebant’, Vergil says.” “Good God!” he cried, “fancy a bootblack quoting Vergil. You’re a strange lad, what age are you?” “Sixteen”, I replied. “You don’t look it”, he said, “but now I must hurry; one of these days we’ll have a talk.” I smiled, “Thank you, Sir”, and away he hastened.

• From The Surprising Lives of Christian Saints Course Guidebook (2023)

  9. Margaret of Cortona: Midwife and Mystic 66 Margaret returned to her father, but he was unwilling to have her in the house. The family’s business relationships and their other children’s future prospects would have been materially affected by what the neighbors saw as Margaret’s public disgrace. Margaret, bereft, sat beneath a fig tree in her father’s yard and wept. While the devil tempted her with an easy life as a concubine to more wealthy men, Margaret experienced an epiphany from God that directed her to go to Cortona and “surrender yourself to the obedience of my Friars Minor.” Margaret’s Penitent Life and Good Works Margaret entered Cortona in 1272 as a single mother without resources or shelter. Her early days in the city would not have been easy. Nor was her transition to the penitent life, despite her growing mysticism and personal connection with the divine. The Friars Minor were not convinced by her conversion. They were reluctant to become responsible for penitents like Margaret. Those who imitated religious clothing but still lived a secular life risked being mistaken for corrupt friars, bringing the order into disrepute. It took Margaret 3 years of ascetic living and good works to win the Franciscans’ grudging permission to even wear the clothing of a penitent. During that time, she depended on two wealthy patronesses who granted Margaret and her son a small room in a house they owned and arranged for her to work as a midwife. Margaret was filled with self-reproach for her former sinfulness and began to deny herself basic needs and comforts such as adequate food and shelter. This denial seems to have extended even to her son, as she often neglected him during this period. The Franciscan order had a long history of discomfort with ministering to women. They feared the scandal and gossip that closeness between male and female religious might provoke.

• From Henry and June (1986)

  As soon as I achieve cruelty, I want to prostrate myself. One bracelet for Hugo and one for Eduardo. This, I do not believe. I chose the two bracelets with a feeling of absolute subjection to Henry and liberation from the tenderness which binds me to Hugo and Eduardo. When I showed them to Henry, I stretched out both my wrists as one does in being handcuffed. Allendy is probing the moment at the concert when I imagined him sad and troubled. What exactly did I imagine? Did he have financial worries, concern over his work, emotional troubles? “Emotional,” I said quickly. “What did you think of my wife?” “I observed that she was not beautiful, and it gave me pleasure. I also asked your maid if it was your wife who decorated your house, because I liked the decoration. I think I was making comparisons between us. I am sorry I said that about your wife not being beautiful.” “That is not very wicked, if that is all you thought.” “But I also felt that I was beautiful the night of the concert.” “You certainly were en beauté. Is that all?” “Yes.” “You are repeating the experience of your childhood. Identifying my wife, who is forty years old, with your mother and wondering if you can win your father (or me) from her. My wife represents your mother and that is why you dislike her. You must have been, as a child, very jealous of your mother.” He talks a great deal about a woman’s need to be subjugated, the joy I do not know yet, he believes, of letting go entirely. Physically first, because Henry has aroused me so deeply. I begin to find flaws in his formulas, to be irritated at his quick filing away of my dreams and ideas. When he is silent, I analyze my own actions and feelings. Of course, he could say that I am trying to find him defective, to make an equal of him, because he obtained my confidence about his wife. At the moment I feel he is distinctly stronger than I, and I want to balance this by doing some independent analysis about the bracelets. I am therefore half submissive, half rebellious. Allendy accentuates the ambivalence of my desires. He senses that he is also approaching the sexual key to my neuroses, and I realize he is, too, like a deft detective. To test Hugo I have mentioned once or twice the idea of an “evening off”—once a week, perhaps, when we might each go out separately. It is understood that he finds no pleasure in going out with Henry because of an obscure jealousy. Finally we agreed that I could go to the movies with Henry and Fred while he went out with Eduardo. At the last moment Eduardo could not go.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  Self-blame and self-hatred are common among molestation and rape survivors, who judge themselves harshly for not “putting up a fight,” even where fight was not a viable survival option. However, both the experience of paralysis and the critical self-judgment about “weakness” and helplessness are common components of trauma. In addition, the younger, the more developmentally immature or insecurely attached the victim is, the more likely it is that he or she will respond to stress, threat and danger with paralysis rather than active struggle. People who lack solid early attachment bonding to a primary caregiver, and therefore lack a foundation of safety, are much more vulnerable to being victimized and traumatized and are more likely to develop the entrenched symptoms of shame, dissociation and depression. 37 In addition, since the psychophysiological patterns of trauma and shame are similar, there is an intrinsic association of shame and trauma. This includes the collapse of shoulders, slowing of heart rate, aversion of eyes, nausea, etc. 38 Shame also feeds into the common misperception of traumatized individuals that they are, somehow, the cause of (or, at least, deserving of) their own misfortune. Another (powerfully corrosive) factor comes into play in the formation of shame: while it appears to be an almost structural component of trauma, all too frequently trauma is inflicted by the people who are supposed to protect and love the child. Children who are molested by family and friends, of course, bear this additional confused and chaotic burden. Shame becomes deeply embedded as a pervasive sense of “badness” permeating every part of their lives. Similar erosion of a core sense of dignity is also found in adults who have been tortured, on whom pain, disorientation, terror and other violations have been deliberately inflicted. 39 While the principles of uncoupling fear from immobility discussed in this chapter apply to these cases, the therapeutic process is generally much more complex. It requires a broader skill for negotiating the therapeutic relationship so that the therapist does not get tangled up in taking on the (projected) role of the perpetrator(s) or rescuer . As They Go In, So They Come Out: The Rage Connection When a pigeon that is blithely pecking at some grain is quietly approached from behind, gently picked up, and then turned upside down, it becomes immobilized. The pigeon will, like the guinea pigs I saw in Brazil, or Picasso’s dove in the play, remain in that position, with its feet stuck straight up in the air. In a minute or two, it will come out of this trancelike state, right itself, and hop or fly away.

• From Giovanni's Room (1956)

  GIOVANNrS ROOM 133 approached Sue as though she were a job of work, a job which it was necessary to do in an unforgettable manner. Somewhere, at the very bottom of myself, I realized that I was doing something awful to her and it became a matter of my honor not to let this fact become too obvious. I tried to convey, through this grisly act of love, the intelligence, at least, that it was not her, not her flesh, that I despised—it would not be her I could not face when we became vertical again. Again, somewhere at the bottom of me, I realized that my fears had been ex- cessive and groundless and, in ejffect, a lie: it became clearer every instant that what I had been afraid of had nothing to do with my body. Sue was not Hella and she did not lessen my terror of what would happen when Hella came: she increased it, she made it more real than it had been before. At the same time, I realized that my performance with Sue was succeeding even too well, and I tried not to despise her for feeling so Uttle what her laborer felt. I travelled through a network of Sue's cries, of Sue's tom- tom fists on my back, and judged by means of her thighs, by means of her legs, how soon I could be free. Then I thought, The end is com- ing soon, her sobs became even higher and harsher, I was terribly aware of the small of my back and the cold sweat there, I thought. Well, let her have it for Christ sake, get it over with; then it was ending and I hated her and me, then it was over, and the dark, tiny room rushed — 134 back. And I wanted only to get out of there. James Baldwin She lay still for a long time. I felt the night outside and it was calling me. I leaned up at last and found a cigarette. Terhaps/ she said, Ve should finish our drinks.* She sat up and switched on the lamp which stood beside her bed. I had been dreading this moment. But she saw nothing in my eyes she stared at me as though I had made a long journey on a white charger all the way to her prison house. She lifted her glass. *A la voire/ I said. 'A la votre?' She giggled. *A la tienne, cheriT She leaned over and kissed me on the mouth. Then, for a moment, she felt something; she leaned back and stared at me, her eyes not quite tightening yet; and she said, lightly, 'Do you suppose we could do this again sometime?' 1 don't see why not,' I told her, trying to laugh. 'We carry our own equipment. together— tonight?' She was silent. Then : 'Could we have supper Tm sorry,' I said. Tm really sorry, Sue, but I've got a date.'

• From Heptaméron (1559)

  parture, asked after his host, and was told he was so ill he could not bear to see the light or hear anyone speak. Surprised at this sudden malady, the prince would hav^e gone to see him, but hearing that he was asleep, and not wishing to disturb him, he went away with his wife and sister without bidding him farewell. His sister, con eluding that the gentleman's illness was only a pretence to avoid showing the marks she had left upon his face, was now assured beyond all doubt that it was he who had been her nightly assailant. The prince repeatedly sent word to him to return to court, but he did not obey until he had been thoroughly cured of all his wounds, except those which love and vexation had made in his heart. On his return to court, he could not sustain the presence of his victorious enemy without blushing. Though he had been possessed of more assurance than any man at court, he was so disconcerted that he often appeared before her quite abashed — a new proof that her suspicions were well founded. She broke with him, therefore, little by little. Adroitly as she did this, he failed not to perceive it, but durst not remonstrate for fear of worse. He kept his love concealed, and endured patiently a disgrace he had well merited.* There, ladies, is a story which should strike fear into * The princess and the gallant spoken of jn this novel are none other than the Queen of Navarre herself and Guillaume de Bonni- vet, Admiral of France, as we are informed by Brantome [Datnes Galantcs, Discours iv. t. vii.). He states the fact upon the au- thority of his grandmother, who> as well as his mother, Anne de Vivonne, was about Margaret's person, and it is generally regard- ed as true. It is to be observed, however, that Margaret has pur- posely introduced into her narrative several circumstances calcu lated to disguise her own identity ; the second widowhood, for in- stance, for the King of Navarre survived her, and the absence of children by both marriages, for Margaret had a surviving daughter by her second husband. The handsome and gallant Bonnivet fig- ures repeatedly in the Heptameroa 42 THE HEPTAMERON OF THE {Novel i, those who would seize what does not belong to them, and which should inspire ladies with courage, consider- ing the virtue of the young princess and the good sense of her lady of honour. Should a similar thing befall one of you, here you see how it is to be remedied.

• From Henry and June (1986)

  I was terribly depressed and ashamed afterwards.” “That’s nonsense. Masturbation is not physically harmful. It is only the feeling of guilt we have about it that oppresses.” “I used to fear it would diminish my mental power, my health, and that I would disintegrate morally.” Here, I add other details, which he listens to silently, trying to coordinate them. I tell him things I have never entirely admitted to myself, and which I have not written in my journal, things I wanted to forget. Allendy is piecing the fragments together and talks about my partial frigidity. He discovers that I also consider this an inferiority and believe it is due to my frail physique. He laughs. He attributes it to a psychic cause, a strong sense of guilt. Sixty out of a hundred women feel as I do and never admit it and, most important of all, Allendy says, if I only knew what little difference this makes to men and how unaware they are of it. He always transforms what I term an inferiority into a natural thing, or one whose curse can be easily removed. I immediately feel a great relief and lose my terror and secretiveness. I tell him about June, of my desiring to be a femme fatale, of my cruelty towards Hugo and Eduardo, and my surprise that they should love me as much or more afterwards. We also discuss my frank, bold sex talk, how I reverse my true, innate modesty and exhibit a forced obscenity. (Henry says he doesn’t like my telling obscene stories, because it doesn’t suit me.) “But I am full of dissonances,” I say, feeling that strange anguish Allendy creates—half relief, because of his exactness, half sorrow for no specific reason, the feeling of having been discovered. “Yes, and until you can act perfectly naturally, according to your own nature, you will never be happy. The femme fatale arouses men’s passions, exasperates them, torments them, and they want to possess her, even to kill her, but they do not love her profoundly. You have already discovered that you are loved profoundly. Now you have also discovered that cruelty to both Eduardo and Hugo has aroused them, and they want you even more. This makes you want to play a game which is not really natural to you.” “I have always despised such games. I have never been able to conceal from a man that I loved him.” “But you tell me profound loves do not satisfy you. You crave to give and to receive stronger sensations. I understand, but that is only a phase. You can play the game now and then, to heighten passion, but profound loves are the loves which suit your true self, and they alone will satisfy you. The more you act like yourself the nearer you come to a fulfillment of your real needs.