Tenderness

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 Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  PSEUDO-JEROME. Further, he who obtains healing is always drawn aside from turbulent thoughts, disorderly actions, and incoherent speeches. And the fingers which are put into the ears are the words and the gifts of the Holy Ghost, of whom it is said, This is the finger of God. (Exod. 8:19) The spittle is heavenly wisdom, which loosens the sealed lips of the human race, so that it can say, I believe in God, the Father Almighty, and the rest of the Creed. And looking up to heaven, he groaned, (Cf. Mat. 12:20. Luke 11:20) that is, He taught us to groan, and to raise up the treasures of our hearts to the heavens; because by the groaning of hearty compunction, the silly joy of the flesh is purged away. But the ears are opened to hymns, and songs, and psalms; and He looses the tongue, that it may pour forth the good word, which neither threats nor stripes can restrain. CHAPTER 8 8:1–91. In those days the multitude being very great, and having nothing to eat, Jesus called his disciples unto him, and saith unto them, 2. I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now been with me three days, and have nothing to eat: 3. And if I send them away fasting to their own houses, they will faint by the way: for divers of them came from far. 4. And his disciples answered him, From whence can a man satisfy these men with bread here in the wilderness. 5. And he asked them, How many loaves have ye? And they said, Seven. 6. And he commanded the people to sit down on the ground: and he took the seven loaves, and gave thanks, and brake, and gave to his disciples to set before them; and they did set them before the people. 7. And they had a few small fishes: and he blessed, and commanded to set them also before them. 8. So they did eat, and were filled: and they took up of the broken meat that was left seven baskets. 9. And they that had eaten were about four thousand: and he sent them away.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  BEDE. To convey therefore the truth of His resurrection, He condescends not only to be touched by His disciples, but to eat with them, that they might not suspect that His appearance was not actual, but only imaginary. Hence it follows, And when he had eaten before them, he took the remnant, and gave to them. He ate indeed by His power, not from necessity. The thirsty earth absorbs water in one way, the burning sun in another way, the one from want, the other from power. GREEK EXPOSITOR. But some one will say, If we allow that our Lord ate after His resurrection, let us also grant that all men will after the resurrection take the nourishment of food. But these things which for a certain purpose are done by our Saviour, are not the rule and measure of nature, since in other things He has purposed differently. For He will raise our bodies, not defective but perfect and incorrupt, who yet left on His own body the prints which the nails had made, and the wound in His side, in order to shew that the nature of His body remained the same after the resurrection, and that He was not changed into another substance. BEDE. He ate therefore after the resurrection, not as needing food, nor as signifying that the resurrection which we are expecting will need food; but that He might thereby build up the nature of a rising body. But mystically, the broiled fish of which Christ ate signifies the sufferings of Christ. For He having condescended to lie in the waters of the human race, was willing to be taken by the hook of our death, and was as it were burnt up by anguish at the time of His Passion. But the honeycomb was present to us at the resurrection. By the honeycomb He wished to represent to us the two natures of His person. For the honeycomb is of wax, but the honey in the wax is the Divine nature in the human. THEOPHYLACT. The things eaten seem also to contain another mystery. For in that He ate part of a broiled fish, He signifies that having burnt by the fire of His own divinity our nature swimming in the sea of this life, and dried up the moisture which it had contracted from the waves, He made it divine food; and that which was before abominable He prepared to be a sweet offering to God, which the honeycomb signifies. Or by the broiled fish He signifies the active life, drying up the moisture with the coals of labour, but by the honeycomb, the contemplative life on account of the sweetness of the oracles of God.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  She seemed to accept this, she didn’t keep begging once we turned away, as most dogs would have, I thought; she disappeared behind the building again to whatever shelter she had found. WE FOUND THE TREE by chance one late afternoon. We were in a part of town I’d never seen before, on the other side of the city center, looking for a German supermarket, a chain that was popular in Western Europe but that had only the single store in Sofia. It was less a store than a warehouse, really, there weren’t shelves but huge bins people pawed through, everything mixed together, a dozen kinds of chocolate bars in one bin, toothpaste and shaving cream in another. The chain had its own brand of food, and R. was craving something from his life in Lisbon, a frozen lasagna, and when we found it in an oversized freezer case he clutched it to his chest with happiness. It was a long walk from the store to the metro, longer because the sidewalks were caked with ice. R. scolded me as we walked, telling me to take my hands out of my pockets, to keep them free in case I slipped, as for whatever reason I did often enough; if it had been night he would have passed his arm through mine to keep me upright. R. saw the trees first, in the window of a little shop that was full of Christmas decorations. Even from outside you could see how cheap they were, all metal wire and plastic bristles, but R. insisted that we needed one, and ornaments, a box of lights; I want to have a real Christmas, he said. It was maybe three feet tall, it hardly weighed anything but it was cumbersome, I held it in both arms like a child as we walked. I felt a little ridiculous sitting with it on the train but R. seemed proud, he kept one arm around it to hold it steady on the seat between us. When we got home, he wanted to trim the tree right away, and he opened the box of tinsel to find that it was far too large, we hadn’t been paying attention, it was meant for a much bigger tree. He laughed as he wrapped it again and again around the branches; she was swaddled now, he said, it would keep her warm. Her, I repeated back to him, inquisitive, mocking him a little, and this gave him an idea: she needed a name, he said, and he decided to call her Madeleine, I don’t have any idea where it came from but he loved to say it. He liked to give things names, I think it was a way of laying claim to them, and he called out to her every time he passed, almost singing it, Madeleine, Madeleine. He saved the box of ornaments for Christmas Eve, little glass balls we hung from hooks on the branches, tucked among the tinsel.

• From On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019)

  Halfway down her shinbone, a brownish stub protrudes, smooth and round as the end of a baguette—or what it is, an amputated leg. I glance at you, hoping for an answer. Without skipping a beat, you take out your file and start to scrub her one foot, the puckered nub beside it shaking from the work. The woman places the prosthesis at her side, her arm resting protectively around its calf, then sits back, exhaling. “Thank you,” she says again, louder, to the crown of your head. I sit on the carpet and wait for you to call for the hot towel from the warming case. Throughout the pedicure, the woman sways her head from side to side, eyes half-closed. She moans with relief when you massage her one calf. When you finish, turning to me for the towel, she leans over, gestures toward her right leg, the nub hovering above the water, dry this whole time. She says, “Would you mind,” and coughs into her arm. “This one also. If it’s not too much.” She pauses, stares out the window, then down at her lap. Again, you say nothing—but turn, almost imperceptibly, to her right leg, run a measured caress along the nub’s length, before cradling a handful of warm water over the tip, the thin streams crisscrossing the leathered skin. Water droplets. When you’re almost done rinsing the soap off, she asks you, gently, almost pleading, to go lower. “If it’s the same price anyway,” she says. “I can still feel it down there. It’s silly, but I can. I can.” You pause—a flicker across your face. Then, the crow’s-feet on your eyes only slightly starker, you wrap your fingers around the air where her calf should be, knead it as if it were fully there. You continue down her invisible foot, rub its bony upper side before cupping the heel with your other hand, pinching along the Achilles’ tendon, then stretching the stiff cords along the ankle’s underside. When you turn to me once more, I run to fetch a towel from the case. Without a word, you slide the towel under the phantom limb, pad down the air, the muscle memory in your arms firing the familiar efficient motions, revealing what’s not there, the way a conductor’s movements make the music somehow more real. Her foot dry, the woman straps on her prosthesis, rolls down her pant leg, and climbs off. I grab her coat and help her into it. You start walking over to the register when she stops you, places a folded hundred-dollar bill in your palm. “The lord keep you,” she says, eyes lowered—and hobbles out, the bell chime over the door clanging twice as it closes. You stand there, staring at nothing. Ben Franklin’s face darkening in your still wet fingers, you slip the bill under your bra, not the register, then retie your hair. —

• From Cleanness (2020)

  He ate his all at once, tossing them in his mouth and putting his mitten back on before he leaned down for his bottle and turned to watch the fire. But I didn’t watch the fire, I kept my eyes on him, though it was cold and I wanted to be back in the hotel with him, in the warmth of our bed. I took my time, I put the raisins in my mouth one by one, thinking a wish for each, though all my wishes were the same wish. THE LITTLE SAINT His name meant light, or that was the root of it, the root too of the word for holy, for any number of words associated with sanctity and the church; and this was why later, when I grew fond of him, I called him Svetcheto , the little saint. It made him laugh, both because it was bad Bulgarian, he told me, no one who actually spoke the language would say it, and also because he liked it, I thought, not the name but that I had made it up for him. I liked it too, not least because it was so at odds with the things we did together, with how I used him or how we used each other. And maybe there actually was something saintly about him, his slightness and quiet in the hoodie that framed his face like a monk’s cowl when I saw him that first time, or in the bathrobe he wrapped around himself later, when I came to his door; and maybe there was something saintly in his endurance, too, I guess I think there was, in his desire for pain. But that first day I didn’t know his name, I thought probably I would never see him again. We had chatted online for the first time just an hour or so earlier, though I had looked at his profile often; he was always online, for months I had been fascinated by him. It was a kind of profile common enough in the States or Western Europe but I had never seen one like it here; it claimed that anyone who wanted to could fuck him, that he wanted it rough, that his only demand was to be fucked bare, he wanted as many loads as he could get. No limits whore, it said, in good pornographic English, with a Bulgarian translation beneath. I was curious to know what that meant here, no limits, and where he had learned it.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  He had meant every word of it, what he had said about himself online, I wasn’t sure I had ever met anyone who embodied so fully his fantasy of himself. I thought of all the men who had fucked him, adding a third finger to the two already inside, feeling again that strange tenderness for him, even as I twisted my hand to give him the pain he wanted, as I thrust my hips up to gag him. Why should I care who fucks me, he would say to me later, why should I say no to anybody, I don’t want to say no. Why shouldn’t I give it away, his body, he meant, what could I do with it that would be better? I like for guys to fuck me, who cares if they’re ugly or old, I hate all that, people who think they’re so special nobody deserves to fuck them. Why should you have to deserve it, he would say, his head on my chest, who doesn’t deserve a little fucking? I think we should all give it away, wouldn’t it be wonderful, everyone fucking all the time, everywhere, I would love it, and I laughed, I said I would too, it would be my version of heaven. And when I asked him if he worried about disease he said Fuck worrying, I hate it, I don’t want to worry. I don’t want to live forever, I’d rather live ten years the way I want than live forever and be miserable, I want to be happy. I don’t care about being safe, he said, I don’t care if I get sick, why should I be special, and I wondered what feeling he was speaking from, whether it was joy or defiance or despair, I wanted to know where one ended and the others began. I wanted to argue with him, but I didn’t argue, what would have been the use, and anyway to argue with him would have been to lay claim to him somehow, to violate his ethics of claimlessness. Because it was an ethics, I thought as I lay with him, it was more coherent than my own life, with its alternating precaution and risk; I tried to imagine his life of wholeheartedness but I knew it would never be mine.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  HE HAD SEEN SNOW for the first time that winter, and he loved to be out in it, to stand with his arms outstretched as it fell, his mouth open to the sky. We went out that afternoon, the snow already tracked through but still lovely; the streets were quiet for the holiday, all the shops were closed. We were wearing the scarves I had found when I opened the presents under the tree, which were long and knit in the same pattern, one yellow and one blue; we wouldn’t ever be boyfriends who wore the same clothes, R. said, but one shared thing was acceptable, having one shared thing was nice. We didn’t go far, just halfway down the block, where I whistled, a short upward swoop I repeated three times, the usual signal. She might not be here, I had said, she isn’t always, she goes other places or maybe somebody takes her in, but she came quickly enough from her usual spot around the back of the building. She was beautiful in her way, tawny and medium-sized like most of Sofia’s street dogs, too skinny and with mange along one side. She was happy to see us, I thought, happy as she always was to get attention, though she lacked the confidence of some of the other dogs; she stayed near the wall, wagging her tail but not coming too close at first. Even when she let us pet her she tried to keep her distance, cringing in a sidling motion that brought her body within our reach but kept her head angled away, a mixture of eagerness and fear. Somebody had taught her that, I thought, somebody had beaten her, or many people had, but not in this neighborhood, here everyone was kind to her, she was a sort of communal pet. She lost some of her shyness when R. pulled the packet of treats out of his coat pocket, clumsy in his mittens, which he had to take off before he could tear open the packet and pull out one of the strips of leathery meat. She started whining when she saw it, prancing closer, and he crooned her name, Lilliyana, though that didn’t mean anything to her, it was just a name he had invented, it suited her, he thought. Ela tuka, he said, a phrase I had taught him, come here, and he held out the treat so she could take it, which she did by stretching her neck and pulling back her lips, taking hold of it with her front teeth, like a deer plucking a leaf. He had bought the treats the night before, when we were buying supplies; she should have Christmas dinner too, he said. She let us pet her more vigorously then, finally coming close, even pressing her side against his legs as she begged for a second piece, which he gave her, though that was all for today, he told her, there would be more tomorrow. She seemed to accept this, she didn’t keep begging once we turned away, as most dogs would have, I thought; she disappeared behind the building again to whatever shelter she had found.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  And he didn’t speak any English, so he couldn’t tell me how anything felt, I just kept asking him okay? okay? until the teacher told me to stop. It was kind of hot, he said, looking up at me, and something he saw made him smile. Are you jealous, he asked, and I denied it too quickly, though it wasn’t exactly jealousy I felt. It made me worry we had different ideas about the story we were living together; I would tell that to a friend, not a lover, and it was as though R. had heard this thought when he continued. I’ve never had anybody to talk to about this, he said, you’re the only one, and then he smiled again. But I like that you’re jealous, he said, it’s nice, nobody’s ever been jealous of me before, and again he made that gesture with his fingers that was like a caress, or the idea of a caress. But he snatched his hand back quickly, almost guiltily, as the waitress set down our food, saying first Zapovyadaite , here you are, and then, more extravagantly, da vi e sladko , may it be sweet to you, a kind of courtesy that was out of place in such a casual restaurant. I glanced up as I thanked her, and in the moment before she turned away I thought I caught a look on her face that was something more than politeness, a look that was kind, and I wondered whether she had seen R.’s gesture and read it rightly and given it, in this small way, a kind of blessing. R. had already turned his attention to his food, salting it and then rotating his plate until its arrangement pleased him. I loved to watch him eat, which he did with a kind of joyful absorption, and I left my pizza untouched as I watched him lift the first bite to his mouth and close his eyes with pleasure, only then returning his attention to me. After class it was a boring day, he said, M. and I went back to our room and slept, but then the Polish girl woke us up, the annoying one, remember, I told you about her. I did remember, though I had forgotten her name; she had pursued R. since they arrived, more and more aggressively, until one night shortly after he and I met he let her take him back to her room.

• From Reading the Bible from the Margins (2002)

  When speaking about God's mercy in Luke 15, Jesus likens God to the father of a prodigal son, a shepherd who lost one sheep, and a woman who has lost her coin. God is Father, God is Shepherd, God is Woman. Again, as mentioned in chapter 4 , God is beyond gender. For this reason, Pope John Paul I was able to proclaim, “We know [God] always has his eyes open on us, even when it seems to be dark. God is our father; even more God is our mother.”24 Nevertheless, many feminist theologians have raised concerns about praising the Deity's feminine side by idealizing a romantic notion of motherhood. If “mother” becomes the only attribute projected upon the Deity, then a patriarchal ideology is maintained, where being a woman is reduced to bearing and rearing children. In addition to the concerns raised by some feminist scholars, some black feminists, better known as “womanists,” insist that their white counterparts have not seriously considered the dimensions of racism (and classism) within the women's movement. White feminists’ goals and objectives do not always consider the needs of African American women. Likewise, a theological understanding of Christ is different when considered from within the black community. For womanists like Jacquelyn Grant, five experiences grounded in the black woman's social location demonstrate how Jesus can be liberated from the patriarchy, white supremacy, and economic privilege that imprison Christ. First, Jesus is a cosufferer because he made an option to suffer with the marginalized of his time. Second, Jesus is an equalizer because he came for all humanity. Third, Jesus initiates freedom, remembering that freedom is not defined as becoming equal to the oppressor (what womanists claim white feminists are doing) but as liberation from the oppressor for the women and men of the black community. Fourth, Jesus is the sustainer, a model for the family that has been systematically violated due to slavery and its aftermath. And finally, fifth, Jesus is the liberator because his liberative activities during his earthly ministry empower black women in their own quest for liberation.25 For some Asian feminists, Jesus is the compassionate mother, bearing the sins and suffering of everyone, making him the ultimate symbol for oppressed women on the margins. In some Asian cultures, such as Korea, shamans who liberate people from han (the feeling of resentment, helplessness, bitterness, sorrow, and revenge felt deep in the victim's guts) tend to be women. Hence, Jesus, the compassionate mother, willingly bears the sufferings of the minjung and symbolically participates in the feminine activity of healing the han of the minjung. In Jesus, suffering women identify with the suffering of Jesus not to glorify suffering but rather to find a Deity who understands the pain of oppression and is willing to become one with the sufferer. Jesus weeps and cries out in pain, like so many Asian women who have lost their sons and daughters to foreign Western military aggression or national secret police agencies.

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  Yet I have also observed that these very restrictions lead many men to other venues of self-expression. In the absence of a more developed verbal narrative of the self, the body becomes a vital language, a conduit for emotional intimacy. While much has been written about the aggressive manifestations of male sexuality, it is not sufficiently appreciated that the erotic realm also offers men a restorative experience for their more tender side. The body is our original mother tongue, and for a lot of men it remains the only language for closeness that hasn’t been spoiled. Through sex, men can recapture the pure pleasure of connection without having to compress their hard-to-articulate needs into the prison of words. The adherents of talk intimacy (often, though not always, women) have a hard time recognizing these other languages for closeness, hence they feel cheated when their partners are reluctant to confide in them. “Why won’t you talk to me?” they plead. “You should be able to tell me anything. Don’t you trust me? I want to be your best friend.” In this setup, the pressure is always on the non-talker to change, rather than on the talker to be more versatile. This situation minimizes the importance of nonverbal communication: doing nice things for each other, making attentive gestures, or sharing projects in a spirit of collaboration. A priceless smile or a well-timed wink expresses complicity and attunement, especially when words are unavailable. Eddie, a longtime friend of mine, had a history of getting dumped by women who were dismayed because he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—“open up.” The consensus among these women was that Eddie had a fear of commitment. “Whatever that means,” he said. They never knew how he felt about them. He would respond defensively. “What do you mean? I see you every day, don’t I? How can you not know how I feel?” When he met his wife, Noriko, she spoke almost no English, and he spoke no Japanese at all. Their courtship was literally speechless. Twelve years later, with two children in tow, he reflects on the early days. “I really think that not being able to talk made this whole thing possible. For once, there was no pressure on me to share. And so Noriko and I had to show how much we liked each other in other ways. We cooked for each other a lot, gave each other baths. I washed her hair. We looked at art. I remember one day I had just seen some amazing sculpture this homeless guy Curtis had made on Lafayette Street—he was crazy but brilliant. Try explaining that in pantomime. Whatever we couldn’t say, we showed, so I put her coat on her and led her by the hand all the way across town.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  But she didn’t go, she stood staring at me, the movement of her tail slowing just slightly, and then she inched forward and pressed her snout against my hand, her nose wet in my palm. Still I didn’t respond, but she insisted, jerking her nose up as if to toss my hand to her head, where she wanted to be scratched. I laughed and said Okay, Mama, okay, as I raked my fingers through her fur. She whined happily and came closer, pressing her trunk against my leg and rippling her body in that puppyish movement that communicates joy better than anything we can manage, and I used both hands to scratch along her sides, feeling bits of leaf and pine needles and accumulated grime. You’re filthy, I said, but I love you, and I bent my face down to hers, touching our foreheads together and gripping her in something like a hug. She tolerated this briefly, and then she tilted her snout slightly up and quickly licked my face, her tongue wet across my lips. I pulled back, making a sound of disgust and wiping my lips clean, but then I laughed again. She pressed against me more insistently, rubbing the top of her head against my jeans. She wanted a treat, and wanted more to be let inside. She had been a house dog once, I had heard, years ago she had belonged to a foreign teacher who left her behind when he went back to the States, she loved to sleep in our houses. But we had been told it wasn’t allowed; she was almost always dirty, and though she was treated for fleas and ticks you could never be sure, she was an outdoor dog now, we shouldn’t encourage her. But there was no one around to admonish me, and so Ela , I said to her, come on, and then I stood, successfully this time, maybe because Mama kept her side pressed against me, as if to prop me up as I kept one hand braced against the brick wall of the house. She whined at the door as I fumbled the key into the lock. Okay, Mama, I said soothingly again, okay. I would take the box of treats from the cabinet above the sink, I would put towels down on the kitchen floor so she would have a soft place to lie down. She was dirty but what was a little dirt, I thought as I turned the latch, I should have let you in a long time ago, I said, I’m sorry.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  BEDE. (ubi sup.) In this passage then we should notice, in one and the same, our Redeemer, a distinct operation of Divinity and of Manhood; thus the error of Eutyches1, who presumes to lay down the doctrine of one only operation in Christ, is to be cast out far from the Christian pale. For who does not here see that the pity of our Lord for the multitude is the feeling and sympathy of humanity; and that at the same time His satisfying four thousand men with seven loaves and a few fishes, is a work of Divine virtue? It goes on, And they took up of the broken meat that was left seven baskets. THEOPHYLACT. The multitudes who ate and were filled did not take with them the remains of the loaves, but the disciples took them up, as they did before the baskets. In which we learn according to the narration, that we should be content with what is sufficient, and not look for any thing beyond. The number of those who ate is put down, when it is said, And they that had eaten were about four thousand: and he sent them away; where we may see that Christ sends no one away fasting, for He wishes all to be nourished by His grace. BEDE. (ubi sup.) The typical difference between this feeding and the other of the five loaves and two fishes, is, that there the letter of the Old Testament, full of spiritual grace, is signified, but here the truth and grace of the New Testament, which is to be ministered to all the faithful, is pointed out. Now the multitude remains three days, waiting for the Lord to heal their sick, as Matthew relates, when the elect, in the faith of the Holy Trinity, supplicate for sins, with persevering earnestness; or because they turn themselves to the Lord in deed, in word, and in thought. THEOPHYLACT. Or by those who wait for three days, He means the baptized; for baptism is called illumination, and is performed by trine immersion. GREGORY. (Mor. 1, 19) He does not however wish to dismiss them fasting, lest they should faint by the way; for it is necessary that men should find in what is preached the word of consolation, lest hungering through want of the food of truth, they sink under the toil of this life.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  A VALEDICTION There was a moment, as the little beaten cab took another tight turn too quickly, when suddenly to our left we could see all at once the three hills of Veliko Turnovo, the houses of the old town clinging to their terraces, the river Yantra snaking its way beneath. I had seen it in precisely this way when I had visited the city a year before, and now R., sitting in the back seat beside me, took a sharp breath at the wonder of it. His fingers found mine as I reached for him across the seat, and we continued looking with our hands linked low, beneath the driver’s notice, freed from the weight of uncertainty or sorrow we had carried with us on the train from Gorna Oryahovitsa, a pressure that had almost seemed caused by the trees crowding the tracks, their long branches brushing the clouded glass of our wagon. It was mid-August, nearly the end of summer; R. would be leaving soon. He had come back to Sofia in May, just after finishing his degree in Lisbon, and our idea had been that he would stay, though it was a sacrifice for him to exchange his sun-drunk city, with its river and avenues and tiles, for a city that even in high summer held on to its grayness, like an animal somehow suspicious of the season, unwilling to shed its coat. But R. quickly realized how little there was for him in Sofia, where he had no friends or relatives, and where without the language there was almost no prospect of work, and so what we had thought of as the beginning of real life had become instead an extended vacation, culminating in this final trip together before he went back home. The road curved toward the town, following the river, and both of us looked down at the water. We had just come from Rousse, a city three hours to the north, where I had finally seen the Danube, the first river I had encountered in Europe on the scale of those I had grown up beside in America.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  She pressed against me more insistently, rubbing the top of her head against my jeans. She wanted a treat, and wanted more to be let inside. She had been a house dog once, I had heard, years ago she had belonged to a foreign teacher who left her behind when he went back to the States, she loved to sleep in our houses. But we had been told it wasn’t allowed; she was almost always dirty, and though she was treated for fleas and ticks you could never be sure, she was an outdoor dog now, we shouldn’t encourage her. But there was no one around to admonish me, and so Ela, I said to her, come on, and then I stood, successfully this time, maybe because Mama kept her side pressed against me, as if to prop me up as I kept one hand braced against the brick wall of the house. She whined at the door as I fumbled the key into the lock. Okay, Mama, I said soothingly again, okay. I would take the box of treats from the cabinet above the sink, I would put towels down on the kitchen floor so she would have a soft place to lie down. She was dirty but what was a little dirt, I thought as I turned the latch, I should have let you in a long time ago, I said, I’m sorry. I pushed the door open and she went ahead of me into the house, going just a few feet before she dropped onto the tile of the entranceway, a spot she claimed as if it had long been hers, and gave a quick deep sigh as she laid her head on her paws. She kept her eyes on me as I tossed my keys in the little dish by the door, her tail more subdued but still striking the wall beside her as I put my bag down, waiting for the dizziness to pass. Okay, Mama, I said again, you sleep there, we’ll sleep and in the morning we’ll feel better, though I feared I wouldn’t feel better, in body and spirit both I thought I would likely feel much worse. And then, because the dizziness didn’t pass or maybe because I wanted her warmth next to me, I lowered myself to the floor, I stretched myself out beside her and laid one hand on her flank. We’ll sleep, I said again, and she rolled onto her side, her stomach toward me, and placed one of her paws against my chest. It would leave a mark, I knew, I would have to scrub it out in the morning, but what did it matter, I thought as I closed my eyes, what does it matter, why not let it stay.

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  This brings me to another point. Stephanie gets tremendous physical pleasure from her children. Let me be perfectly clear here: she knows the difference between adult sexuality and the sensuousness of caring for small children. She, like most mothers, would never dream of seeking sexual gratification from her children. But, in a sense, a certain replacement has occurred. The sensuality that women experience with their children is, in some ways, much more in keeping with female sexuality in general. For women, much more than for men, sexuality exists along what the Italian historian Francesco Alberoni calls a “principle of continuity.” Female eroticism is diffuse, not localized in the genitals but distributed throughout the body, mind, and senses. It is tactile and auditory, linked to smell, skin, and contact; arousal is often more subjective than physical, and desire arises on a lattice of emotion. In the physicality between mother and child lie a multitude of sensuous experiences. We caress their silky skin, we kiss, we cradle, we rock. We nibble their toes, they touch our faces, we lick their fingers, let them bite us when they’re teething. We are captivated by them and can stare at them for hours. When they devour us with those big eyes, we are besotted, and so are they. This blissful fusion bears a striking resemblance to the physical connection between lovers. In fact, when Stephanie describes the early rapture of her relationship with Warren—lingering gazes, weekends in bed, baby talk, toe-nibbling—the echoes are unmistakable. When she says, “At the end of the day, I have nothing left to give,” I believe her. But I also have come to believe that at the end of the day, there may be nothing more she needs. All this play activity and intimate involvement with her children’s development, all this fleshy connection, has captured Stephanie’s erotic potency to the detriment of the couple’s intimacy and sexuality. This is eros redirected. Her sublimated energy is displaced onto the children, who become the centerpiece of her emotional gratification. The Cult Status of Children The sensuous pleasure of caring for small children is natural and universal. It is also wise from an evolutionary standpoint—the mother’s bond to her child is a powerful physiological response that ensures the infant’s survival. However, I’d like to make a distinction between the parent-child bond, on the one hand, and a recent culture of child rearing that has inflated this bond to astonishing levels, on the other.

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  And that did not simply mean listening well, or encouraging catharsis, or consoling her. It meant rather that I would get as close as I could to her, that I would focus on “the space between us” (a phrase I used in virtually every hour I saw Irene), on the “here-and-now”: that is, on the relationship between her and me here (in this office) and now (in the immediate moment). Now, it is one thing to focus on the here-and-now with patients who seek therapy because of relationship problems but another matter completely for me to have asked Irene to examine the here-and-now. Think of it: Is it not both absurd and churlish to expect a woman in extremis (a woman whose husband lay dying of a brain tumor, who was also grieving for a mother, a father, a brother, a godson) to turn her attention to the most minute nuances of a relationship with a professional she hardly knows? Nonetheless, that was just what I did. I began it in the first sessions and never relented. In every session, without fail, I inquired about some aspect of our relationship. “How lonely do you feel in the room with me?” “How far from, how close to me do you feel today?” If she said, as she often did, “I feel miles away,” I was sure to address that feeling directly. “At what precise point of our session did you first notice that today?” Or, “What did I say or do to increase the distance?” And most of all, “What can we do to reduce it?” I tried to honor her responses. If she answered, “The best way for us to be closer is for you to give me the name of a good novel to read,” I always responded with a title. If she said that her despair was too overwhelming for words and the most I could do was simply to hold her hand, then I moved my chair closer and held her hand, sometimes for a minute or two, sometimes for ten or fifteen minutes. I was sometimes uncomfortable about the hand- holding, though not because of all the legalistic proscriptions against ever touching a patient: to surrender one’s clinical and creative judgment to such concerns is deeply corrupting. Rather, I was uncomfortable because the hand-holding was invariably effective: it made me feel like a magus, someone with extraordinary powers I didn’t understand. Ultimately, a few months after she had buried her husband, Irene stopped needing and requesting hand-holding. Throughout our therapy I was dogged about engagement. I refused to be pushed away. To her, “I’m numb; I don’t want to talk; I don’t know why I’m here today,” I responded with some comment such as, “But you are here. Some part of you wants to be here, and I want to talk to that part today.”

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  “Honey,” Magnolia gave Rosa an enormous, toothy smile, “you don’t wanna go to mah house. Jes’ can’t fumigate it. They jes’ keep comin’ back.” Apparently, Magnolia was talking about her insect hallucinations. “You guys should hire Magnolia,” Rosa said, turning to me. “She’s the one who really helps me. And not just me. Everybody. Even the nurses come to Magnolia with their troubles.” “Chile, you makin’ a lot out of nuthin’. You ain’t got much. You so skinny you easy to give to. And you got a big heart. Makes folks want to give to you. Feels good to help out. Thas mah bes’ medicine. “Thas mah bes’ medicine, Doctah,” Magnolia repeated, looking over at me. “You jes’ let me help out folks.” For a few moments I couldn’t say a word. I felt entranced by Magnolia—by those wise eyes, that inviting smile, that bounteous lap. And those arms—just like my mother’s arms, with those generous folds of flesh cascading down to obscure her elbows. What would it be like to be held, to be cradled, in those pillowy chocolate arms? I thought of all the pressures in my life—writing, teaching, consulting, patients, wife, four children, financial commitments, investments, and now my mother’s death. I need comfort, I thought. Magnolia-comfort—that’s what I need, some of Magnolia’s big-armed comfort. A refrain from an old Judy Collins song drifted into my mind: “Too many sad times . . . Too many bad times . . . But if somehow . . . you could . . . pack up your sorrows and give them all to me . . . You would lose them . . . I know how to use them . . . Give them all to me.” I hadn’t thought of that song for ever so long. Years before, when I first heard Judy Collins’s dulcet voice sing out, “Pack up your sorrows and give them all to me,” desire stirred deep within me. I wanted to climb right into the radio to find that woman and pour my sorrows into her lap. Rosa jolted me out of my reverie: “Dr. Yalom, you asked earlier why I thought others here were better than me. Well, you can see now what I mean. You see how special Magnolia is. And Martin too. They both care about others. People—my folks, my sisters—used to tell me I was selfish. They were right. I don’t reach out to do anything for anyone. I don’t have anything to offer. All I really want is for people to leave me alone.” Magnolia leaned toward me. “That child is so artful,” she said. “Artful”—a strange word. I waited to see what she meant.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  An early heading in the beginning chapter reveals the essence of Peter’s teaching: “the power of kindness.” Injured in a motor vehicle accident, Peter finds his own healing potential unlocked by his willingness to attend fully to his physical/emotional experience, allowing it to unfold as it needs to. His process is facilitated by a compassionate human presence. The power of goodness—in this case, the organism’s innate capacity to restore itself to health and balance—is encouraged by a bystander, an empathetic witness who helps to prevent trauma by embodying kindness and acceptance. Not surprisingly, these are the very qualities Peter Levine considers essential in those called to do therapeutic work with traumatized human beings. As he says, the therapist must “help to create an environment of relative safety, an atmosphere that conveys refuge, hope and possibility.” But pure empathy and a warm therapeutic relationship are not enough, for traumatized people are often unable to read or fully receive compassion. They are too suppressed, too stuck in primal defenses more appropriate to our amphibian or reptilian evolutionary predecessors. So what is the therapist to do with human beings hurt and beaten down by past trauma? It is to help people listen to the unspoken voice of their own bodies and to enable them to feel their “survival emotions” of rage and terror without being overwhelmed by these powerful states. Trauma, as Peter brilliantly recognized decades ago, does not reside in the external event that induces physical or emotional pain—nor even in the pain itself—but in our becoming stuck in our primitive responses to painful events. Trauma is caused when we are unable to release blocked energies, to fully move through the physical/emotional reactions to hurtful experience. Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness. The salvation, then, is to be found in the body. “Most people,” Levine notes, “think of trauma as a ‘mental’ problem, even as a ‘brain disorder.’ However, trauma is something that also happens in the body.” In fact, he shows, it happens first and foremost in the body. The mental states associated with trauma are important, but they are secondary. The body initiates, he says, and the mind follows. Hence, “talking cures” that engage the intellect or even the emotions do not reach deep enough. The therapist/healer needs to be able to recognize the psychoemotional and physical signs of “frozen” trauma in the client.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  Our basic survival instincts are the evolutionary engine upon which the castle of consciousness was built. While consciousness is not a uniquely human attribute, conscious awareness varies in quality and quantity in relationship to the complexity of each organism’s nervous system, but not in the essential phenomenon itself. I am reminded of a “trick” performed by my dog, Pouncer (an exceptionally bright dingo–Australian shepherd mix), suggesting a fairly sophisticated form of conscious awareness. I shall use him as an example: Pouncer loved to go cross-country skiing with me and resembled a snow-dolphin as he joyfully leaped through the flaky white mounds by my side. However, when I chose downhill skiing, he would have to spend most of the time in my truck with only an occasional run around the parking lot. One morning, ready for a downhill day on new powder, I brought my downhill boots and skis up from the basement. Resigned, Pouncer flopped to the floor in apparent disappointment. However, after a bit, he got up, marched out of the room and returned a few moments later from the basement with one of my cross-country shoes gripped firmly in his mouth. He shook it in front of my face as though to tell me he had a different plan for the day. His point was so well made, and I was so touched, that I couldn’t help but change my course of action accordingly. Had Pouncer possessed full linguistic capability, words couldn’t have made his point any more clear than did his disarming unspoken response. As evidenced by Pouncer’s response, the give-and-take game of predictive consciousness does not involve symbols or abstractions but, rather, has its elementary roots with “plus-and-minus” values and purposive action; or, how do I get from here to there in a way that imparts an overall positive outcome?

• From Cleanness (2020)

  It was easy to tell apart the three artists as we scanned the walls: Her own paintings were swirling pale abstractions, her son’s glossy female nudes. Her husband’s work was larger and more striking, painted with the angular stylization of socialist-era art. Almost all of Sofia’s public art was in this style, which I liked, more or less, though my Bulgarian friends pursed their lips at my admiration. Mnogo sots , they would say, very socialist, not just about murals and monuments but about music, too, about movies and books, dismissing at a stroke whole generations. The largest of the paintings in the main room formed a series, each of them featuring a central figure with a lyre, his neck bent toward it as if playing for himself alone. That’s Orpheus, the woman said, do you know the story? I did, I had read Ovid in school, and when I said this her whole face lifted and lit up. How wonderful, she said, and then, he was from here, you know, he was Bulgarian, you can see his tomb in the south. I made a sound of polite interest, I had heard this before, and knew that for many people here the spiritual nation was still defined by its most expansive borders, Bulgaria na tri moreta , Bulgaria of the three seas, when for a brief moment it encompassed the whole of Thrace. I translated this too for R., and then, since he didn’t know the story, I sketched it for him: the wedding and the snake, the descent, the trees that uprooted themselves to dance, and then (though this wasn’t in the paintings) the Bacchantes, the slaughter, the head singing its way to Lesbos. We moved slowly, respectfully, through each of the rooms, and then, in the last, the woman directed us down a narrow staircase to a lower level. It was too steep for her, she said, not following us down, but take your time, look at whatever you like. The wooden planks made alarming noises as we descended, and I steadied myself against the wall; halfway down R. placed his hand on my shoulder, as if I were leading him through the dark. The basement was partitioned like the story above it, but it was unfinished; the floors were concrete, the space lit by bare bulbs hanging from wires. The walls here were crammed even more frantically with paintings, which were mounted haphazardly, wherever there was space, without any thought for coherence. In one room there was a heap of canvases stacked one on top of another, several columns of them piled almost to the ceiling, and I paused before them while R. explored the other rooms.