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 Jesus and His Jewish Influences (2015)

  152 -HVXVDQG+LV-HZLVK,QÀXHQFHV ƔAccording to Luke 7:20–22: When the men had come to him they asked, “John the Baptist has sent us to you to ask, are you the one who is to come? Or are we to wait for another?” Jesus had just then cured many people of diseases, plagues, and evil spirits, and had given sight to many who were blind. And he answered them, “Go and tell John that you have seen and heard the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them.” ƔInterestingly, Jesus embarked on a campaign of exorcisms and healings immediately after being baptized by John and assembling a group of disciples. According to Mark 1:21, while teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum, Jesus reportedly exorcised a man with an unclean spirit. This was followed by the performance of many more exorcisms and the healing of numerous people who suffered from various diseases and disabilities. ƔAlso early on, in Mark 1:40–45, we read: A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling, he said to him, “If you choose you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean.” Immediately the leprosy left him and he was made clean. After sternly warning him, he sent him away at once, saying to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone. But go show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded as a testimony to them.” ż:KDW¶VVLJQL¿FDQWLQWKLVSDVVDJHLVWKHIDFWWKDW-HVXVLV FOHDQVLQJ UDWKHU WKDQ KHDOLQJ WKH OHSHU UHÀHFWLQJ -HVXV¶V FRQFHUQZLWKULWXDOSXUL¿FDWLRQ$QRWKHULQWHUHVWLQJDVSHFWRI the passage is that Jesus refers the leper to a priest.

• From Wild (2012)

  “The first thing I did when each of you was born was kiss every part of you,” my mother used to say to my siblings and me. “I’d count every finger and toe and eyelash,” she’d say. “I’d trace the lines on your hands.” I didn’t remember it, and yet I’d never forgotten it. It was as much a part of me as my father saying he’d throw me out the window. More. I lay back and closed my eyes and let my head sink into the water until it covered my face. I got the feeling I used to get as a child when I’d done this very thing: as if the known world of the bathroom had disappeared and become, through the simple act of submersion, a foreign and mysterious place. Its ordinary sounds and sensations turned muted, distant, abstract, while other sounds and sensations not normally heard or registered emerged. I had only just begun. I was three weeks into my hike, but everything in me felt altered. I lay in the water as long as I could without breathing, alone in a strange new land, while the actual world all around me hummed on. 9 STAYING FOUNDI’d bypassed. Passed by. I was out of danger now. I’d leapfrogged over the snow. It was clear sailing through the rest of California, I supposed. Then through Oregon to Washington. My new destination was a bridge that crossed the Columbia River, which formed the border between the two states. The Bridge of the Gods. It was 1,008 trail miles away; I’d hiked only 170 so far, but my pace was picking up. In the morning, Greg and I walked out of Sierra City for a mile and a half along the shoulder of the road until we reached the place where it intersected the PCT, then walked together for a few minutes on the trail before pausing to say goodbye. “That’s called mountain misery,” I said, pointing at the low green bushes that edged the trail. “Or at least that’s what the guidebook says. Let’s hope it’s not literal.” “I think it might be,” Greg said, and he was right: the trail would rise nearly three thousand feet over the eight miles ahead. I was braced for the day, Monster loaded down with a week’s worth of food. “Good luck,” he said, his brown eyes meeting mine. “Good luck to you too.” I pulled him into a hard embrace. “Stay with it, Cheryl,” he said as he turned to go. “You too,” I called after him, as if he wouldn’t. Within ten minutes he was out of sight.

• From Another Country (1962)

  Mrs. Scott had opened the door. She was dressed as though she, too, were going out, in a dark gray dress a little too short for her. Her hair was short but had lately been treated with the curling iron. She kissed Rufus lightly on the cheek. “Hey, there,” she said, “how’s my bad boy?” “Hey, yourself,” said Rufus, grinning. There was an expression on his face which Vivaldo had never seen before. It was a kind of teasing flush of amusement and pleasure; as though his mother, standing there in her high heels, her gray dress, and with her hair all curled, had just done something extraordinarily winning. And this flush was repeated in his mother’s darker face as she smiled—gravely—back at him. She seemed to take him in from top to toe and to know exactly how he had been getting along with the world. “This here’s a friend of mine,” Rufus said, “Vivaldo.” “How do you do?” She gave him her hand, briefly. The brevity was not due to discourtesy or coldness, simply to lack of habit. Insofar as she saw him at all, she saw him as Rufus’ friend, one of the inhabitants of the world in which her son had chosen to live. “Sit down, do. Ida’ll be right out.” “She ready?” “Lord, she been getting ready for days. Done drove me nearly wild.” They sat down. Vivaldo sat near the window which looked out on a dirty back yard and the back fire escape of other buildings. Across the way, a dark man sat in front of his half-open window, staring out. In spite of the cold, he wore nothing but an undershirt. There was nothing in the yard except cans, bottles, papers, filth, and a single tree. “If anything had happened and you hadn’t showed up, I hate to think of the weeping and wailing that would have gone on in this house.” She paused and looked toward the door which led to the rest of the apartment. “Maybe you boys like a little beer while you waiting?” “That all you got to offer us?” Rufus asked, with a smile. “Where’s Bert?” “Bert’s down to the store and he ain’t back yet. You know how your father is. He going to be sorry he missed you.” She turned to Vivaldo. “Would you like a glass of beer, son? I’m sorry we ain’t got nothing else—–” “Oh, beer’s fine,” said Vivaldo, looking at Rufus, “I’d love a glass of beer.” She rose and walked into the kitchen. “What your friend do? He a musician?” “Naw,” said Rufus, “he ain’t got no talent.” Vivaldo blushed. Mrs. Scott returned with a quart bottle of beer and three glasses. She had a remarkably authoritative and graceful walk. “Don’t you mind my boy,” she said, “he’s just full of the devil, he can’t help it. I been trying to knock it out of him, but I ain’t had much luck.”

• From Another Country (1962)

  Our last night. Again, he heard their voices in the kitchen, Madame Belet seeming to protest, then agreeing to come in the morning. He finished the last of his wine. Then the kitchen door closed and Yves returned. “I think, perhaps, she is a little angry,” Yves said, smiling, “but she is gone. She will come again in the morning, especially to say good- bye to you. I think that is because she wants to make certain that you know how much she dislikes you.” He did not sit down again, but stood at his end of the table, his hands on his hips. “She says the chicken is ready, we should not let it get cold.” He laughed, and Eric laughed. “I told her it does not matter with chicken, if it is cold or hot, I like it either way.” They both laughed again. Then, abruptly, silence fell between them. Eric rose and crossed to Yves, and they stood for a moment like two wrestlers, watching each other with a kind of physical calculation, smiling and pale. Yves always seemed, a moment before the act, tentative and tremulous; not like a girl—like a boy: and this strangely innocent waiting, this virile helplessness, always engendered in Eric a positive storm of tenderness. Everything in him, from his heights and depths, his mysterious, hidden source, came rushing together, like a great flood barely channeled in a narrow mountain stream. And it chilled him like that—like icy water; and roared in him like that, and with the menace of things scarcely understood, barely to be controlled; and he shook with the violence with which he flowed toward Yves. It was this violence which made him gentle, for it frightened him. And now he touched Yves lightly and wonderingly on the cheek. Yves’ smile faded, he watched Eric, they moved into each other’s arms. There were the wine bottle and the glasses on the table, their plates, the platter, the bread; Yves had left a cigarette burning in an ashtray on the table, it was nearly nothing but ash now, long and gray; and the kitchen light was on. “You say you don’t care about the chicken?” Eric whispered, laughing. Yves laughed, giving off a whiff of garlic, of peppery sweat. Their arms locked around each other, then they drew apart, and, holding hands, stumbled into the bedroom, into the great haven of their bed. Perhaps it had never before seemed so much like a haven, so much their own, now that the terrible floodwaters of time were about to overtake it. And perhaps they had never before so belonged to each other, had never before given or taken so much from each other, as they did now, burning and sobbing on the crying bed. They labored together slowly, violently, a long time: both feared the end.

• From Wild (2012)

  “That’s what it is,” he said, looking at me intensely. He stood. “I’ve got something I want to give you.” He went to the back of the truck and returned with a T-shirt. He handed it to me and I held it up. On the front was a giant picture of Bob Marley, his dreadlocks surrounded by images of electric guitars and pre-Columbian effigies in profile. On the back was a picture of Haile Selassie, the man Rastafarians thought was God incarnate, rimmed by a red and green and gold swirl. “That is a sacred shirt,” Paco said as I studied it by the firelight. “I want you to have it because I can see that you walk with the spirits of the animals, with the spirits of the earth and the sky.” I nodded, silenced by emotion and the half-drunk and entirely stoned certitude that the shirt really was sacred. “Thank you,” I said. When I walked back to my camp, I stood gazing up at the stars with the shirt in my hand before crawling into my tent. Away from Paco, sobered by the cool air, I wondered about walking with the spirits. What did that even mean? Did I walk with the spirits? Did my mom? Where had she gone after she died? Where was Lady? Had they really ridden together across the river to the other side? Reason told me that all they’d done was die, though they’d both come to me repeatedly in my dreams. The Lady dreams were the opposite of those I’d had about my mother—the ones in which she’d ordered me to kill her over and over again. In the dreams of Lady, I didn’t have to kill anyone. I had only to accept a giant and fantastically colorful bouquet of flowers that she carried to me clenched in her soft mouth. She would nudge me with her nose until I took it, and in that offering, I knew that I was forgiven. But was I? Was that her spirit or was it only my subconscious working it out?

• From Boys & Sex (2020)

  Around the same time, one of Anwen’s closest friends filed a formal complaint against a guy who had, essentially, done the same thing as Sameer: the only difference was the girl had been incapacitated at the time, while Anwen had not. She asked Anwen to accompany her to a hearing where both students, as well as witnesses, would give statements and be questioned by a three-person panel of specially trained faculty and staff. The committee found the boy responsible for misconduct, but not much came of it. He was briefly suspended, possibly faced some other minor sanctions. The girl was satisfied—she had just wanted something to happen—but Anwen suspected the guy, who until then had been a friend of hers as well, never really believed that he’d done anything wrong. Going through the process, meeting the staff at the office of student conduct, and booking a few sessions with a therapist friend of her mom’s made Anwen realize that she, too, wanted to file a formal complaint, but she was put off by the standard disciplinary proceeding in which neither the accuser nor the accused had a voice in the outcome. The assault had made her feel powerless; she didn’t want the resolution to do the same. “My friend wanted a higher authority to tell the guy he’d done something wrong and what he had to do because of that,” she said. “That’s totally valid. But I needed to be integrally involved in creating something that wouldn’t just fix our issue but could also maybe open a couple more people’s minds.” She wasn’t looking to have Sameer suspended or expelled. She wanted him to be actively involved in deciding how he could make amends. She wanted to be an agent of change, not punishment. “I didn’t want his power taken away, either,” she continued. “The current system creates resentment because the verdict is just handed down by someone. There’s never a point where you get to understand the other person as a human being. I believe we have such potential for compassion and understanding, but you have to talk to each other. You have to hear that firsthand experience.” From “Monster” to Man

• From Little Women (1868)

  Laurie was in a flutter of excitement at the idea of having company, and flew about to get ready, for as Mrs. March said, he was 'a little gentleman', and did honor to the coming guest by brushing his curly pate, putting on a fresh color, and trying to tidy up the room, which in spite of half a dozen servants, was anything but neat. Presently there came a loud ring, than a decided voice, asking for 'Mr. Laurie', and a surprised-looking servant came running up to announce a young lady. "All right, show her up, it's Miss Jo," said Laurie, going to the door of his little parlor to meet Jo, who appeared, looking rosy and quite at her ease, with a covered dish in one hand and Beth's three kittens in the other. "Here I am, bag and baggage," she said briskly. "Mother sent her love, and was glad if I could do anything for you. Meg wanted me to bring some of her blanc mange, she makes it very nicely, and Beth thought her cats would be comforting. I knew you'd laugh at them, but I couldn't refuse, she was so anxious to do something." It so happened that Beth's funny loan was just the thing, for in laughing over the kits, Laurie forgot his bashfulness, and grew sociable at once. "That looks too pretty to eat," he said, smiling with pleasure, as Jo uncovered the dish, and showed the blanc mange, surrounded by a garland of green leaves, and the scarlet flowers of Amy's pet geranium. "It isn't anything, only they all felt kindly and wanted to show it. Tell the girl to put it away for your tea. It's so simple you can eat it, and being soft, it will slip down without hurting your sore throat. What a cozy room this is!" "It might be if it was kept nice, but the maids are lazy, and I don't know how to make them mind. It worries me though." "I'll right it up in two minutes, for it only needs to have the hearth brushed, so—and the things made straight on the mantelpiece, so—and the books put here, and the bottles there, and your sofa turned from the light, and the pillows plumped up a bit. Now then, you're fixed." And so he was, for, as she laughed and talked, Jo had whisked things into place and given quite a different air to the room. Laurie watched her in respectful silence, and when she beckoned him to his sofa, he sat down with a sigh of satisfaction, saying gratefully... "How kind you are! Yes, that's what it wanted. Now please take the big chair and let me do something to amuse my company." "No, I came to amuse you. Shall I read aloud?" and Jo looked affectionately toward some inviting books near by. "Thank you! I've read all those, and if you don't mind, I'd rather talk," answered Laurie. "Not a bit.

• From Little Women (1868)

  Bereft of his cake, defrauded of his frolic, and borne away by a strong hand to that detested bed, poor Demi could not restrain his wrath, but openly defied Papa, and kicked and screamed lustily all the way upstairs. The minute he was put into bed on one side, he rolled out on the other, and made for the door, only to be ignominiously caught up by the tail of his little toga and put back again, which lively performance was kept up till the young man's strength gave out, when he devoted himself to roaring at the top of his voice. This vocal exercise usually conquered Meg, but John sat as unmoved as the post which is popularly believed to be deaf. No coaxing, no sugar, no lullaby, no story, even the light was put out and only the red glow of the fire enlivened the 'big dark' which Demi regarded with curiosity rather than fear. This new order of things disgusted him, and he howled dismally for 'Marmar', as his angry passions subsided, and recollections of his tender bondwoman returned to the captive autocrat. The plaintive wail which succeeded the passionate roar went to Meg's heart, and she ran up to say beseechingly... "Let me stay with him, he'll be good now, John." "No, my dear. I've told him he must go to sleep, as you bid him, and he must, if I stay here all night." "But he'll cry himself sick," pleaded Meg, reproaching herself for deserting her boy. "No, he won't, he's so tired he will soon drop off and then the matter is settled, for he will understand that he has got to mind. Don't interfere, I'll manage him." "He's my child, and I can't have his spirit broken by harshness." "He's my child, and I won't have his temper spoiled by indulgence. Go down, my dear, and leave the boy to me." When John spoke in that masterful tone, Meg always obeyed, and never regretted her docility. "Please let me kiss him once, John?" "Certainly. Demi, say good night to Mamma, and let her go and rest, for she is very tired with taking care of you all day." Meg always insisted upon it that the kiss won the victory, for after it was given, Demi sobbed more quietly, and lay quite still at the bottom of the bed, whither he had wriggled in his anguish of mind. "Poor little man, he's worn out with sleep and crying. I'll cover him up, and then go and set Meg's heart at rest," thought John, creeping to the bedside, hoping to find his rebellious heir asleep.

• From Another Country (1962)

  Vivaldo took the glass from him and set it down. “I don’t want any coffee now,” he said. He opened his arms. “Let’s make the most of our little day.” By ten minutes to four, Eric was, somehow, showered, shaved, and dressed, with his raincoat and his rain cap on. The coffee was too hot, he only managed to drink half a cup. Vivaldo was still undressed. “You go on,” he said. “I’ll clean up a little and I’ll lock the door.” “All right.” But Eric dreaded leaving in the same way that Vivaldo dreaded getting dressed. “I’ll leave you the cigarettes, I’ll buy some.” “That’s big of you. Go on, now. Give my love to Cass.” “Give my love,” he said, “to Ida.” They both grinned. “I’m going to call her,” Vivaldo said, “just as soon as you get your ass out of here.” “ Okay , I’m gone.” Yet, at the door, he stopped, looking at Vivaldo, who stood in the center of the room, holding a cup of coffee. He stared at the floor with a harsh bewilderment in his face. Then he felt Eric’s eyes and looked up. He put down his coffee cup and walked to the door. He kissed Eric on the mouth and looked into his eyes. “See you soon, baby. ” “Yes,” said Eric, “see you soon.” He opened the door and left. Vivaldo listened to him go down the stairs. Then he walked to the window and opened the blinds and watched him. Eric appeared in the street as though he had been running, or as though he had been propelled. He looked first in one direction and then in the other; then, his hands in his pockets, head lowered and shoulders raised, he walked the long block, hugging the sides of buildings. Vivaldo watched him till he turned the corner. Then he turned back into the room, pale with assessments, with guilt deliciously beginning to gnaw at the rope with which he had tied it, sharpening its teeth for him. And yet, at the same time, he felt radiantly, wonderfully spent. He poured himself another small drink and sat on the edge of the bed. Slowly, he dialed his number. The receiver was lifted almost at once, and Ida’s voice came at him: with the force of an electric shock. “Hello?” In the background, he heard Billie Holiday singing Billie’s Blues . “Hello, sugar. This is your man, checking on his woman.” “Do you know what time it is? Where the hell are you?” “I’m at Eric’s. We passed out here. I’m just pulling myself together.” There was a peculiar relief in her voice. He was aware of it because she tried to hide it. “You’ve been there all night? ever since I left you?” “Yes.

• From Little Women (1868)

  Well, dear, if I were you, I'd let John have more to do with the management of Demi, for the boy needs training, and it's none too soon to begin. Then I'd do what I have often proposed, let Hannah come and help you. She is a capital nurse, and you may trust the precious babies to her while you do more housework. You need the exercise, Hannah would enjoy the rest, and John would find his wife again. Go out more, keep cheerful as well as busy, for you are the sunshine-maker of the family, and if you get dismal there is no fair weather. Then I'd try to take an interest in whatever John likes—talk with him, let him read to you, exchange ideas, and help each other in that way. Don't shut yourself up in a bandbox because you are a woman, but understand what is going on, and educate yourself to take your part in the world's work, for it all affects you and yours." "John is so sensible, I'm afraid he will think I'm stupid if I ask questions about politics and things." "I don't believe he would. Love covers a multitude of sins, and of whom could you ask more freely than of him? Try it, and see if he doesn't find your society far more agreeable than Mrs. Scott's suppers." "I will. Poor John! I'm afraid I have neglected him sadly, but I thought I was right, and he never said anything." "He tried not to be selfish, but he has felt rather forlorn, I fancy. This is just the time, Meg, when young married people are apt to grow apart, and the very time when they ought to be most together, for the first tenderness soon wears off, unless care is taken to preserve it. And no time is so beautiful and precious to parents as the first years of the little lives given to them to train. Don't let John be a stranger to the babies, for they will do more to keep him safe and happy in this world of trial and temptation than anything else, and through them you will learn to know and love one another as you should. Now, dear, good-by. Think over Mother's preachment, act upon it if it seems good, and God bless you all." Meg did think it over, found it good, and acted upon it, though the first attempt was not made exactly as she planned to have it. Of course the children tyrannized over her, and ruled the house as soon as they found out that kicking and squalling brought them whatever they wanted. Mamma was an abject slave to their caprices, but Papa was not so easily subjugated, and occasionally afflicted his tender spouse by an attempt at paternal discipline with his obstreperous son.

• From Little Women (1868)

  He reluctantly departs, but his wrongs weigh upon his spirit, and by-and-by when an opportunity comes to redress them, he outwits Mamma by a shrewd bargain. "Now you have been good children, and I'll play anything you like," says Meg, as she leads her assistant cooks upstairs, when the pudding is safely bouncing in the pot. "Truly, Marmar?" asks Demi, with a brilliant idea in his well-powdered head. "Yes, truly. Anything you say," replies the shortsighted parent, preparing herself to sing, "The Three Little Kittens" half a dozen times over, or to take her family to "Buy a penny bun," regardless of wind or limb. But Demi corners her by the cool reply... "Then we'll go and eat up all the raisins." Aunt Dodo was chief playmate and confidante of both children, and the trio turned the little house topsy-turvy. Aunt Amy was as yet only a name to them, Aunt Beth soon faded into a pleasantly vague memory, but Aunt Dodo was a living reality, and they made the most of her, for which compliment she was deeply grateful. But when Mr. Bhaer came, Jo neglected her playfellows, and dismay and desolation fell upon their little souls. Daisy, who was fond of going about peddling kisses, lost her best customer and became bankrupt. Demi, with infantile penetration, soon discovered that Dodo like to play with 'the bear-man' better than she did him, but though hurt, he concealed his anguish, for he hadn't the heart to insult a rival who kept a mine of chocolate drops in his waistcoat pocket, and a watch that could be taken out of its case and freely shaken by ardent admirers. Some persons might have considered these pleasing liberties as bribes, but Demi didn't see it in that light, and continued to patronize the 'the bear-man' with pensive affability, while Daisy bestowed her small affections upon him at the third call, and considered his shoulder her throne, his arm her refuge, his gifts treasures surpassing worth. Gentlemen are sometimes seized with sudden fits of admiration for the young relatives of ladies whom they honor with their regard, but this counterfeit philoprogenitiveness sits uneasily upon them, and does not deceive anybody a particle. Mr. Bhaer's devotion was sincere, however likewise effective—for

• From Little Women (1868)

  honesty is the best policy in love as in law. He was one of the men who are at home with children, and looked particularly well when little faces made a pleasant contrast with his manly one. His business, whatever it was, detained him from day to day, but evening seldom failed to bring him out to see—well, he always asked for Mr. March, so I suppose he was the attraction. The excellent papa labored under the delusion that he was, and reveled in long discussions with the kindred spirit, till a chance remark of his more observing grandson suddenly enlightened him. Mr. Bhaer came in one evening to pause on the threshold of the study, astonished by the spectacle that met his eye. Prone upon the floor lay Mr. March, with his respectable legs in the air, and beside him, likewise prone, was Demi, trying to imitate the attitude with his own short, scarlet-stockinged legs, both grovelers so seriously absorbed that they were unconscious of spectators, till Mr. Bhaer laughed his sonorous laugh, and Jo cried out, with a scandalized face... "Father, Father, here's the Professor!" Down went the black legs and up came the gray head, as the preceptor said, with undisturbed dignity, "Good evening, Mr. Bhaer. Excuse me for a moment. We are just finishing our lesson. Now, Demi, make the letter and tell its name." "I knows him!" and, after a few convulsive efforts, the red legs took the shape of a pair of compasses, and the intelligent pupil triumphantly shouted, "It's a We, Dranpa, it's a We!" "He's a born Weller," laughed Jo, as her parent gathered himself up, and her nephew tried to stand on his head, as the only mode of expressing his satisfaction that school was over. "What have you been at today, bubchen?" asked Mr. Bhaer, picking up the gymnast. "Me went to see little Mary." "And what did you there?" "I kissed her," began Demi, with artless frankness. "Prut! Thou beginnest early. What did the little Mary say to that?" asked Mr. Bhaer, continuing to confess the young sinner, who stood upon the knee, exploring the waistcoat pocket.

• From Cult: A Love Story: Ten Years Inside a Canadian Cult and the Subsequent Long Road of Recovery (2013)

  Michael and I stayed where we were, quiet and connected, for maybe six or seven minutes. We had never had this much physical contact for such a length of time. During the course of a normal day, in our friendship in the city, I would never have snuggled up to him in such a way. For one thing, he was dating Jessica and I would have felt duplicitous if I had touched him other than for a quick hug. For another, I was morbidly self-conscious and afraid of men in general. But in the communal circumstances of the workshop, and with the requisite silence of the day protecting me from some of my self-consciousness, my barriers were lowered briefly. Our embrace soothed me. My body and spirit relaxed in a way I hadn’t experienced before. I wished I could stay there all day but, too soon, I felt it was time to move on. I stood up straight and removed my arm from where it had lain on the rock, behind Michael’s behind, smiled at him again and turned back the way I’d come. I took a few steps toward the forest that surrounded the cabins, and there, coming out of the woods along the path, was Jessica. We smiled at each other silently and I knew that she would see Michael herself in a moment. After we’d passed one another, before I entered the envelope of the woods, I looked back and saw that she had joined him at the rock, leaning into him just as I had. Upon returning to the lodge at lunchtime, I could sense that something was amiss as soon as I entered the front hallway, where our boots and coats were stored. When I got into the living room, a few of my compatriots were already gathered with Limori and Luke, Limori’s “spiritual husband.” Limori and Luke were seated in chairs at the far end of the room and Luke was holding his right arm on his lap at an odd angle. Even from fifteen feet away I could see that there was a wooden splinter sticking out of the palm of his hand. At the time of this workshop, Limori was legally married to Matthew, who owned the property of Wolf’s Den. But she was also spiritually married to Luke. They had known each other before I joined the group, though I didn’t see much of Luke because he lived in the interior of BC. I would only encounter him at events such as this, where he would travel to join the group. Limori had proclaimed sometime in the last year that Luke was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. His importance in God’s plan was paramount and, as such, he was of particular importance to Limori herself.

• From Boys & Sex (2020)

  News travels fast in small towns, and although one might imagine that deep in rural Dixie, Zane would be shunned, for the most part, the opposite was true. People seemed to go out of their way to be seen talking to him on the street, touching him on the shoulder, saying, with just a little extra heft to their voice, that they were so happy that he was happy and living his life. “It was a different tone than when they ran into my friends,” Zane said. “The whole conversation was pretty much trying to say, ‘I know you’re gay and it’s okay with me.’ I didn’t take offense, though it could be tiring.” There was, for instance, the clerk at his favorite shoe store who dragged him over to meet another customer, a middle-aged woman whom he recognized as the mother of the only other openly gay boy in town. “It’s ‘othering,’” Zane said, “but it’s also kind of heartwarming. And it’s better than the alternative. If they’re willing to be this accepting, I can give them room to grow.” So everyone was fine. They were fine with Zane being out. They were fine with him being “somewhat of a twink” in his self-presentation, his speech, his cultural taste. At Christmas, when he stepped off the plane dressed in high-heeled boots and what he called a “Jackie Kennedy–esque peacoat,” his nails painted a tasteful shade of greige, his parents didn’t flinch (although his father also didn’t speak for the entire drive home). That basic level of support, at a minimum, was typical among the gay boys I met. Although some of the youngest ones weren’t yet out to family, and a few struggled to stay connected to parents whose religion considered homosexuality a sin, none had been entirely rejected and most felt comfortable somewhere—at least with their peers. For many straight teens, having a gay friend had become a mark of their open-mindedness. A gay friend (although probably no more than one) could even enhance the status of a straight boy, making him appear secure in his own masculinity. Still, that tolerance of a kind of social queerness—the gay sidekick, the theater boy, the bitchy queen, the must-have accessory—is not the same as an acceptance of sexuality. “My straight friends are still uncomfortable with that part,” Zane said, “particularly the idea of anal sex.”

• From Little Women (1868)

  Just come and help me put these books to rights, for I've turned everything upside down, trying to discover what he has done with the six new handkerchiefs I gave him not long ago." I went in, and while we worked I looked about me, for it was 'a den' to be sure. Books and papers everywhere, a broken meerschaum, and an old flute over the mantlepiece as if done with, a ragged bird without any tail chirped on one window seat, and a box of white mice adorned the other. Half-finished boats and bits of string lay among the manuscripts. Dirty little boots stood drying before the fire, and traces of the dearly beloved boys, for whom he makes a slave of himself, were to be seen all over the room. After a grand rummage three of the missing articles were found, one over the bird cage, one covered with ink, and a third burned brown, having been used as a holder. "Such a man!" laughed good-natured Mrs. K., as she put the relics in the rag bag. "I suppose the others are torn up to rig ships, bandage cut fingers, or make kite tails. It's dreadful, but I can't scold him. He's so absent-minded and goodnatured, he lets those boys ride over him roughshod. I agreed to do his washing and mending, but he forgets to give out his things and I forget to look them over, so he comes to a sad pass sometimes." "Let me mend them," said I. "I don't mind it, and he needn't know. I'd like to, he's so kind to me about bringing my letters and lending books." So I have got his things in order, and knit heels into two pairs of the socks, for they were boggled out of shape with his queer darns. Nothing was said, and I hoped he wouldn't find it out, but one day last week he caught me at it. Hearing the lessons he gives to others has interested and amused me so much that I took a fancy to learn, for Tina runs in and out, leaving the door open, and I can hear. I had been sitting near this door, finishing off the last sock, and trying to understand what he said to a new scholar, who is as stupid as I am. The girl had gone, and I thought he had also, it was so still, and I was busily gabbling over a verb, and rocking to and fro in a most absurd way, when a little crow made me look up, and there was Mr. Bhaer looking and laughing quietly, while he made signs to Tina not to betray him. "So!" he said, as I stopped and stared like a goose, "you peep at me, I peep at you, and this is not bad, but see, I am not pleasanting when I say, haf you a wish for German?" "Yes, but you are too busy.

• From Wild (2012)

  “Thank you for all your help with lightening my pack,” I said to Albert when we had a moment alone before he departed. He looked wanly up at me from his bed on the tarp. “I couldn’t have done it myself.” He gave me a weak smile and nodded. “By the way,” I said, “I wanted to tell you—about why I decided to hike the PCT? I got divorced. I was married and not long ago I got divorced, and also about four years ago my mom died—she was only forty-five and she got cancer suddenly and died. It’s been a hard time in my life and I’ve sort of gotten offtrack. So I …” He opened his eyes wider, looking at me. “I thought it would help me find my center, to come out here.” I made a crumpled gesture with my hands, out of words, a bit surprised that I’d let so many tumble out. “Well, you’ve got your bearings now, haven’t you?” he said, and sat up, his face lighting up despite his nausea. He rose and walked slowly to Ed’s truck and got in beside his son. I clambered into the back with their backpacks and the box of things I no longer needed and rode with them as far as the general store. When we reached it, Ed stopped for a few moments; I jumped out with my box and waved to Albert and Matt, hollering good luck. I felt a stinging rush of affection as I watched them drive away. Ed would return in a few hours, but most likely I’d never see Albert and Matt again. I would be hiking into the High Sierra with Doug and Tom the next day, and in the morning I’d have to say goodbye to Ed and Greg too—Greg was laying over in Kennedy Meadows another day, and though he would certainly catch up to me, it would likely be a fleeting visit, and then he too would pass out of my life. I walked to the porch of the general store and put everything but the foldable saw, the special high-tech flash for my camera, and the miniature binoculars into the PCT hiker free box. Those I packed into my old resupply box and addressed it to Lisa in Portland. As I sealed my box with a roll of tape Ed had loaned me, I kept having the feeling that something was missing. Later, as I walked the road back to the campground, I realized what it was: the fat roll of condoms. Every last one was gone. PART THREE RANGE OF LIGHTWe are now in the mountains and they are in us … JOHN MUIR, My First Summer in the Sierra If your Nerve, deny you – Go above your Nerve – EMILY DICKINSON

• From Little Women (1868)

  She wasn't there, but Minnie, who is a little old woman, introduced me very prettily. "This is Mamma's friend, Miss March." "Yes, and she's jolly and we like her lots," added Kitty, who is an 'enfant terrible'. We both bowed, and then we laughed, for the prim introduction and the blunt addition were rather a comical contrast. "Ah, yes, I hear these naughty ones go to vex you, Mees Marsch. If so again, call at me and I come," he said, with a threatening frown that delighted the little wretches. I promised I would, and he departed, but it seems as if I was doomed to see a good deal of him, for today as I passed his door on my way out, by accident I knocked against it with my umbrella. It flew open, and there he stood in his dressing gown, with a big blue sock on one hand and a darning needle in the other. He didn't seem at all ashamed of it, for when I explained and hurried on, he waved his hand, sock and all, saying in his loud, cheerful way... "You haf a fine day to make your walk. Bon voyage, Mademoiselle." I laughed all the way downstairs, but it was a little pathetic, also to think of the poor man having to mend his own clothes. The German gentlemen embroider, I know, but darning hose is another thing and not so pretty. Saturday Nothing has happened to write about, except a call on Miss Norton, who has a room full of pretty things, and who was very charming, for she showed me all her treasures, and asked me if I would sometimes go with her to lectures and concerts, as her escort, if I enjoyed them. She put it as a favor, but I'm sure Mrs. Kirke has told her about us, and she does it out of kindness to me. I'm as proud as Lucifer, but such favors from such people don't burden me, and I accepted gratefully. When I got back to the nursery there was such an uproar in the parlor that I looked in, and there was Mr. Bhaer down on his hands and knees, with Tina on his back, Kitty leading him with a jump rope, and Minnie feeding two small boys with seedcakes, as they roared and ramped in cages built of chairs. "We are playing nargerie," explained Kitty. "Dis is mine effalunt!" added Tina, holding on by the Professor's hair. "Mamma always allows us to do what we like Saturday afternoon, when Franz and Emil come, doesn't she, Mr. Bhaer?" said Minnie. The 'effalunt' sat up, looking as much in earnest as any of them, and said soberly to me, "I gif you my wort it is so, if we make too large a noise you shall say Hush!

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  I knew what the trouble was. When Nanny had brought him to my room, she had whispered that he had got it into his head that there was going to be a storm. “It was those dark clouds we had earlier. I’ve told him that there won’t be a storm. But . . .” She sighed and shook her head. He had never managed to get used to thunderstorms. Jenifer explained that these irrational terrors were almost certainly related to his epilepsy, and were due to a syndrome called jamais vu, when an electrical discharge in the brain made everything so unfamiliar that it was as though he had never seen any of it before. “Look”—I took his hand, but he instantly snatched it away and clamped it over his ear—“there isn’t going to be a storm. If you like, we’ll listen to the weather forecast.” Even as I spoke, I knew that this would be useless. When Jacob was in one of these states, nothing logical could reassure him. “I’ve got a record with a lovely thunderstorm on it.” I don’t know what put this idea into my head. “You can hear the thunder and the lightning clearly, but it’s all been made into wonderful music by a man called Beethoven.” Jacob lifted his head and stared at the wall, but I could tell that he was listening. “And then,” I went on, “suddenly it’s all over, and you can hear the thunder going further and further away over the hills, just as it does when there is a real storm. And everything is peaceful, and the music becomes so free and happy.” Jacob swiveled round in the chair and studied my washbasin. “Would you like to listen to it?” Why not? Jacob loved ritual, which seemed to make the terror of his life recede and gave his chronically unpredictable world some kind of pattern. Perhaps this was the point of any ritual, religious or otherwise. The music might formalize the storm for him in some way, give it a beginning, middle, and end, and thus make it manageable. “The Royal—?” Jacob spoke softly. “Arms!” I replied on cue. He giggled, momentarily distracted. “Would you like to listen to it?” I asked again. Jacob got up and sat in the cane chair, gathering his dressing gown around him. “Put it on!” he ordered, looking at me slyly out of the corner of his eye. “I beg your pardon?” I demanded, feigning disapproval. “You’re not angry?” Jacob’s face was alight with glee. My insistence on good manners was another of our games. In Manor Place, where there was such principled informality, this was a novelty instead of a tedious and ubiquitous adult requirement. “I most certainly shall be angry.” I frowned theatrically, making Jacob squirm with delight. “Put it on what?” “Please. Put it on, please.” He came and stooped over me, his face angelic, while he stroked my arm. “Please. Dear Karen.”

• From Another Country (1962)

  The dream teetered on the edge of nightmare: how old was this rite, this act of love, how deep? in impersonal time, in the actors? He felt that he had stepped off a precipice into an air which held him inexorably up, as the salt sea holds the swimmer: and seemed to see, vastly and horribly down, into the bottom of his heart, that heart which contained all the possibilities that he could name and yet others that he could not name. Their moment was coming to its end. He moaned and his thighs, like the thighs of a woman, loosened, he thrust upward as Eric thrust down. How strange, how strange! Was Eric, now, silently sobbing and praying, as he, over Ida, silently sobbed and prayed? But Rufus had certainly thrashed and throbbed, feeling himself mount higher, as Vivaldo thrashed and throbbed and mounted now. Rufus. Rufus. Had it been like this for him? And he wanted to ask Eric, What was it like for Rufus? What was it like for him? Then he felt himself falling, as though the weary sea had failed, had wrapped him about, and he were plunging down—plunging down as he desperately thrust and struggled upward. He heard his own harsh breath, coming from far away; he heard the drumming rain; he was being overtaken. He remembered how Ida, at the unbearable moment, threw back her head and thrashed and bared her teeth. And she called his name. And Rufus? Had he murmured at last, in a strange voice, as he now heard himself murmur, Oh, Eric. Eric. What was that fury like? Eric. He pulled Eric to him through the ruined sheets and held him tight. And, Thank you, Vivaldo whispered, thank you, Eric, thank you. Eric curled against him like a child and salt from his forehead dripped onto Vivaldo’s chest.

• From Little Women (1868)

  heroes whom she admired, but he neither slapped his forehead nor tramped about the room as they did. He just stood looking at her so wistfully, so tenderly, that she found her heart relenting in spite of herself. What would have happened next I cannot say, if Aunt March had not come hobbling in at this interesting minute. The old lady couldn't resist her longing to see her nephew, for she had met Laurie as she took her airing, and hearing of Mr. March's arrival, drove straight out to see him. The family were all busy in the back part of the house, and she had made her way quietly in, hoping to surprise them. She did surprise two of them so much that Meg started as if she had seen a ghost, and Mr. Brooke vanished into the study. "Bless me, what's all this?" cried the old lady with a rap of her cane as she glanced from the pale young gentleman to the scarlet young lady. "It's Father's friend. I'm so surprised to see you!" stammered Meg, feeling that she was in for a lecture now. "That's evident," returned Aunt March, sitting down. "But what is Father's friend saying to make you look like a peony? There's mischief going on, and I insist upon knowing what it is," with another rap. "We were only talking. Mr. Brooke came for his umbrella," began Meg, wishing that Mr. Brooke and the umbrella were safely out of the house. "Brooke? That boy's tutor? Ah! I understand now. I know all about it. Jo blundered into a wrong message in one of your Father's letters, and I made her tell me. You haven't gone and accepted him, child?" cried Aunt March, looking scandalized. "Hush! He'll hear. Shan't I call Mother?" said Meg, much troubled. "Not yet. I've something to say to you, and I must free my mind at once. Tell me, do you mean to marry this Cook? If you do, not one penny of my money ever goes to you. Remember that, and be a sensible girl," said the old lady impressively. Now Aunt March possessed in perfection the art of rousing the spirit of opposition in the gentlest people, and enjoyed doing it. The best of us have a spice of perversity in us, especially when we are young and in love. If Aunt March had begged Meg to accept John Brooke, she would probably have