Calm After The Storm Quotes

Have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before the dawn? Or the quiet and calm just as a storm ends? Or perhaps you know the silence when you haven't the answer to a question you've been asked, or the hush of a country road at night, or the expectant pause of a room full of people when someone is just about to speak, or, most beautiful of all, the moment after the door closes and you're alone in the whole house? Each one is different, you know, and all very beautiful if you listen carefully.

Fall in love with someone who tastes like adventure but looks like the calm, beautiful morning after a terrible storm

This is like the calm after the storm. Everything has settled, and even though it left destruction in its wake, you know the worst is over.

[...] just remember, the storm doesn't last forever. It can scare you; it can shake you to your core. But it never lasts. The rain subsides, the thunder dies, and the winds calm to a soft whisper. And that moment after the storm clouds pass, when all is silent and still, you find peace. Quiet, gentle peace.

The melody faded like a rainbow after a storm, or like winds calming down at last; and what was left was calm, and possibility, and relief.

I have to get my life back on track. Order as an antidote to chaos. Calm after the storm.

I somehow know it is the calm before the storm, but right now Hardin is my anchor. I just pray that he doesn't pull me under.

How is it that everything must begin and end with you? There you are, before sunrise, perfuming the world with your scent. Have you made a deal with the moon so that you can linger even when she tapers off? And what about the wind? Even when he has been scolded and is sitting in a corner, there you are, my calm before the storm. Despite the inevitable destruction and my ruin, there you are again, my calm after the storm. I must, I really must know: 'How is it that there was never you until there was and then all was you?

I used to collect snow globes when I was younger. They lined a shelf in my bedroom, and sometimes I would shake them up, one after the other, then sit on my bed and watch as the flurries and the glitter swirled around inside the glass. Eventually, the contents inside the globe would begin to settle. All would grow still, and then the globes on my shelf would return to their quiet, peaceful states. I liked them because they reminded me of life. How sometimes, it feels like someone is shaking the world around you, and things are flying at you from every direction, but if you wait long enough, everything will start to calm. I liked that feeling of knowing that the storm inside always eventually settles.

Have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before the dawn?" she inquired. "Or the quiet and calm just as the storm ends? Or perhaps you know the silence when you haven't the answer to a question you've been asked, or the hush of a country road at night, or the expectant pause in a roomful of people when someone is just about to speak, or, most beautiful of all, the moment after the door closes and you're all alone in the whole house? Each one is different, you know, and all very beautiful, if you listen carefully.

After a storm comes a calm.

After the calm comes the storm; it starts out slowly, reaches its peak, then it's over and other periods of calm, some longer, some shorter, come along. It's just been our bad luck to be born in a century full of storms, that's all. They'll die down.

You’re the period of calm after a storm or, like, I don’t know, a well-fed panda.

There is a peace that springs soon after sorrow, Of hope surrendered, not of hope fulfilled; A peace that does not look upon tomorrow, But calmly on the storm that it has stilled. A peace that lives not now in joy’s excesses, Nor in the happy life of love secure; But in the unerring strength the heart possesses, Of conflicts won while learning to endure.

The Aether flowed, corded and angry, giving the night a blue, marbled glow. After the storm, the calm skies had only held for a day. Now there was little difference between day and night anymore. Days were darkened by clouds and the blue cast of Aether. Nights were brightened by the same. They flowed together, the edges blurring into an endless day. An ever night.

This level reach of blue is not my sea; Here are sweet waters, pretty in the sun, Whose quiet ripples meet obediently A marked and measured line, one after one. This is no sea of mine. that humbly laves Untroubled sands, spread glittering and warm. I have a need of wilder, crueler waves; They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm. So let a love beat over me again, Loosing its million desperate breakers wide; Sudden and terrible to rise and wane; Roaring the heavens apart; a reckless tide That casts upon the heart, as it recedes, Splinters and spars and dripping, salty weeds.

She thought of him sprawled in the armchair in the downstairs study, calmly demolishing pastry after pastry while Aubrey looked at him in shock. Or what about that god-awful dinner? A variety of people looked daggers at him and tried several times to deliver a direct verbal cut, while he plowed through alarming amounts of beautifully prepared food with evident enjoyment for the cuisine and a monumental indifference for anybody else’s opinion.

But why, why all the hurt? Because, said Mr. Halloway. You need fuel, gas, someting to run a carnival on, don't you? Women live off gossip, and what's gossip but a swap of headaches, sour spit, arthritic bones, ruptured and mended flesh, indiscretions, storms of madness, calms after the storms? If some people didn't have something juicy to chew on, their choppers would prolapse, their souls with them. Multiply their pleasure at funerals, their chuckling through breakfast obituaries, add all the cat-fight marriages where folks spend careers ripping skin off each other and patching it back upside around, add quack doctors slicing persons to read their guts like tea leaves, then sewing them tight with fingerprinted thread, square the whole dynamite factory by ten quadrillion, and you got the black candlepower of this one carnival. All the meannesses we harbor, they borrow in redoubled spades. They're a billion times itchier for pain, sorrow, and sickness than the average man. We salt our lives with other people's sins. Our flesh to us tastes sweet. But the carnival doesn't care if it stinks by moonlight instead of sun, so long as it gorges on fear and pain. That's the fuel, the vapor that spins the carousel, the raw stuffs of terror, the excruciating agony of guilt, the scream from real or imagined wounds. The carnival sucks that gas, ignites it, and chugs along its way.

This feels like a dream. I somehow know it is the calm before the storm, but right now Hardin is my anchor. I just pray that he doesn’t pull me under.

The storm has passed, the field is calm, the air is fresh, after the summer rain, to start with, timidly, like a psalm, after that intensely, sprout the weeds plain…

Casey is a calm to my chaos. A rainbow after my storm.

If we look through the aperture which we have opened up onto the absolute, what we see there is a rather menacing power--something insensible, and capable of destroying both things and worlds, of bringing forth monstrous absurdities, yet also of never doing anything, of realizing every dream, but also every nightmare, of engendering random and frenetic transformations, or conversely, of producing a universe that remains motionless down to its ultimate recesses, like a cloud bearing the fiercest storms, then the eeriest bright spells, if only for an interval of disquieting calm. We see an omnipotence equal to that of the Cartesian God, and capable of anything, even the inconceivable; but an omnipotence that has become autonomous, without norms, blind, devoid of the other divine perfections, a power with neither goodness nor wisdom, ill-disposed to reassure thought about the veracity of its distinct ideas. We see something akin to Time, but a Time that is inconceivable for physics, since it is capable of destroying without cause or reason, every physical law, just as it is inconceivable for metaphysics, since it is capable of destroying every determinate entity, even a god, even God. This is not a Heraclitean time, since it is not the eternal law of becoming, but rather the eternal and lawless possible becoming of every law. It is a Time capable of destroying even becoming itself by bringing forth, perhaps forever, fixity, stasis, and death.

He took her in his arms then, imagining the life growing inside of her and the future they would have together, a family, more love to fill the absences left by those they'd lost, more love than either of them had ever imagined still possible. The future was so precarious, shadowed by a looming danger neither of them fully understood, and Jem wondered what kind of world his child would be born into. He thought of all the blood that had been shed these last few years, the growing sense among the Shadowhunters he knew that something dark was rising, that this Cold Peace after the war might be only the eerie calm at the eye of the hurricane, those still, silent moments in which it was possible to deceive yourself into imagining the worst was over. He and Tessa have been alive too long to deceive themselves, and he thought about what might happen to a child born at the eye of such a storm. He thought about Tessa, her will and her strength, her refusal to let loss after loss harden her against love, her refusal to hide any longer from the brutality of the mortal world, her determination to fight, to hold on. She too had been a child born of storms, he thought, as had he, as had Will. All three had risen in love through their struggles to find happiness - and without the struggle, would the happiness have been so great? He closed his eyes and pressed a kiss to Tessa's hair. Behind his lids, he did not see darkness but the light of a London morning and Will there, smiling at him. "A new soul made of you and Tessa," Will said. "I can hardly wait to meet such a paragon." "Do you see him too?" Tessa whispered. "I see him," Jem said, and he held her even more tightly against him, the new life they had created together between them.

Maybe before a big storm rolls in, you’ll use it to catch fireflies (see, I did remember something, city mouse. But they’re still lightning bugs down here). And if you do, just remember, the storm doesn’t last forever. It can scare you; it can shake you to your core. But it never lasts. The rain subsides, the thunder dies, and the winds calm to a soft whisper. And that moment after the storm clouds pass, when all is silent and still, you find peace. Quiet, gentle peace. That’s what I wish for you. Even if you couldn’t find it with me.

This sea is bound to be stirred up and roused and enraged, so as to cast out of it again on to the dry land the wood, and hay, and all the corruption that was brought down into it by the rivers of the passions. Let us watch nature and we shall find that after a storm at sea there comes a deep calm.

I am the story teller, charged with the secrets of this world and beyond. I am the calm in the storm, the quiet in the quake and the stillness in the dark. I am the old lady with the pot of water when you are dying of thirst. I am the sapling after the forest fire and the child who survives after pestilence. For those who will listen, hear you the first secret. Love is the sea in which all of nature exists and the greatest love of all is that which is spilled for another.

Lal Wyburd would naturally have interpreted as selfishness every floundering attempt anybody made to break out of the straitjacket and recover a sanity which must have been theirs in the beginning, and might be theirs again in the end. That left the long stretch of the responsible years, when you were lunging in your madness after love, money, position, possessions, while an inkling persisted, sometimes even a certainty descended: of a calm in which the self had been stripped, if painfully, of its human imperfections.

When the clouds shifted, His light shined through, and a sense of calm came after the storm. It was then, we will see hope for a better tomorrow.

After the storm, reigns the calm.

You're like the period of calm after a storm or, like, I don't know, a well-fed panda.

I think it would be best if, when you’re having suicidal thoughts of stabbing yourself, that you try to think of rainbows instead.” “Rainbows?” Ann said hugging a pillow. “Yeah,” Lisa said, standing back to look at her wall art. “Ya know—happy, bright, refreshing, the calm after the storm, God’s gift to the earth.” “Or the aliens’ gift,” Ann added. “Course,” Lisa agreed. “Can’t rule that out.

One night, during a storm, an engineer named W. W. Bradfield was sitting at the Wimereux transmitter, when suddenly the door to the room crashed open. In the portal stood a man disheveled by the storm and apparently experiencing some form of internal agony. He blamed the transmissions and shouted that they must stop. The revolver in his hand imparted a certain added gravity. Bradfield responded with the calm of a watchmaker. He told the intruder he understood his problem and that his experience was not unusual. He was in luck, however, Bradfield said, for he had “come to the only man alive who could cure him.” This would require an “electrical inoculation,” after which, Bradfield promised, he “would be immune to electro-magnetic waves for the rest of his life.” The man consented. Bradfield instructed him that for his own safety he must first remove from his person anything made of metal, including coins, timepieces, and of course the revolver in his hand. The intruder obliged, at which point Bradfield gave him a potent electrical shock, not so powerful as to kill him, but certainly enough to command his attention. The man left, convinced that he was indeed cured.

God never uses duct tape to fix things—He will take your flesh and blood if you offer it to Him and use it like Play-Doh: “Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it?” (Isa. 43:19 NKJV). I did know it, in the calm after my storm.

Look at the thousands of flocks and herds, the thousands of human ceremonies, every sort of voyage in storm or calm, the range of creation, combination, and extinction. Consider too the lives once lived by others long before you, the lives that will be lived after you, the lives lived now among foreign tribes; and how many have never even heard your name, how many will very soon forget it, how many may praise you now but quickly turn to blame. Reflect that neither memory nor fame, nor anything else at all, has any importance worth thinking of.

It is deeps such as these that we have beneath our keel after putting out to sea from the Philippines: the world of mystery, of the fathomless, the irrational. If the ocean surface, in savagery and rebellion, in calm and storm, resembles human feelings—that sea on which we sail our little ships of reason and consciousness, in the violent but known world of the emotions — then the great deeps, the ocean's dark abysses, resemble the human heart's unknown, never-visited worlds: the inscrutable, inaccessible, night-dark, soundless underworld of the soul.

Look down from above on the countless gatherings and countless ceremonies, and every sort of voyage in storm and calm, and the disputes between those being born, living together, and dying. Think also of the life that was lived by others long ago, and that will be lived after you, and that is being lived now in other countries; think of how many don’t know your name at all, how many will quickly forget it, how many who – perhaps praising you now – will soon be finding fault. Realize that being remembered has no value, nor does your reputation, nor anything else at all. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 9.30

Friday, April 2. In the afternoon I felt, in secret prayer, much resigned, calm, and serene. What are all the storms of this lower world, if Jesus by his Spirit does but come walking on the seas!--Some time past, I had much pleasure in the prospect of the heathen being brought home to Christ, and desired that the Lord would employ me in that work:--but now, my soul more frequently desires to die, to be with Christ. O that my soul were wrapt up in divine love, and my longing desires after God increased!--In the evening, was refreshed in prayer, with the hopes of the advancement of Christ's kingdom in the world.

Perhaps some wine will wash things clean,’ suggested Bugg. ‘Won’t hurt. Pour us some, please. You, guard, come and join us—standing there doing nothing must be a dreadful bore. No need to gape like that, I assure you. Doff that helm and relax—there’s another guard just like you on the other side of that door, after all. Let him bear the added burden of diligence. Tell us about yourself. Family, friends, hobbies, scandals—’ ‘Sire,’ warned Bugg. ‘Or just join us in a drink and feel under no pressure to say anything at all. This shall be one of those interludes swiftly glossed over in the portentous histories of great and mediocre kings. We sit in the desultory aftermath, oblivious to omens and whatever storm waits behind yonder horizon. Ah, thank you, Bugg—my Queen, accept that goblet and come sit on my knee—oh, don’t make that kind of face, we need to compose the proper scene. I insist and since I’m King I can do that, or so I read somewhere. Now, let’s see . . . yes, Bugg, stand right over there—oh, massaging your brow is the perfect pose. And you, dearest guard—how did you manage to hide all that hair? And how come I never knew you were a woman? Never mind, you’re an unexpected delight—ow, calm down, wife—oh, that’s me who needs to calm down. Sorry. Women in uniforms and all that. Guard, that dangling helm is exquisite by the way, take a mouthful and do pass judgement on the vintage, yes, like that, oh, most perfect! ‘Now, it’s just occurred to me that we’re missing something crucial. Ah, yes, an artist. Bugg, have we a court artist? We need an artist! Find us an artist! Nobody move!

Something profound happens when you wake up in a calm green pasture on the other side of the treacherous storm that you thought would end you. You discover who you are beyond the unimaginable. You discover what you are made of. Suddenly, the thing that may have broken you becomes the very thing that empowers and emboldens you.

I was remarkably calm. Calm and fatigued. There would be no violence. It was like a storm coming up. The café chairs are carried inside, the awnings are rolled up, but nothing happens. The storm passes over. And, at the same time, that’s too bad. After all, we would all rather see the roofs ripped from the houses, the trees uprooted and tossed through the air.

Have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before the dawn? Or the quiet and calm just as a storm ends? Or perhaps you know the silence when you haven't the answer to a question you've been asked, or the hush of a country road at night, or the expectant pause of a room full of people when someone is just about to speak, or, most beautiful of all, the moment after the door closes and you're alone in the whole house? Each one is different, you know, and all very beautiful if you listen carefully.

Have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before the dawn? Or the quiet and calm just as a storm ends? Or perhaps you know the silence when you haven’t the answer to a question you’ve been asked, or the hush of a country road at night, or the expectant pause of a room full of people when someone is just about to speak, or, most beautiful of all, the moment after the door closes and you’re alone in the whole house? Each one is different, you know, and all very beautiful if you listen carefully.

Khizar, can you see that star emitting bright yellow light?” She asked me while handing over the binocular she was using to see the stars. We were standing on the terrace of our university cafe. I looked through the very powerful lenses of the binocular and said “Yes, I can see. Looks like a star that must have died millions of years ago but we can still see the stardust it emitted while exploding” She took the binocular from my hands, looked into my eyes and said “Khizar, you know memories are like those particles of the stardust of a star which died millions of years ago but we can see them emitting lights now. I hope you won’t become a star that once existed in my universe”  I looked at her. Except for the tears floating in her eyes betraying the emotional turmoil she was suffering from, she was as calm as the sea is after a storm. They say that every atom in a human body is the grain of the stardust of the stars which exploded millions of years ago. Then I understood why her eyes used to sparkle when she was looking at me.

So it is that when on Friday, November 16, 1855, Denmark’s most venerable newspaper announced: “On the evening of Sunday, the eleventh of this month, after an illness of six weeks, Dr Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was taken from this earthly life, in his forty-third year, by a calm death, which hereby is sorrowfully announced on his own behalf of the rest of the family by his brother / P. Chr. Kierkegaard,” it did so with the full knowledge that enclosed in these simple lines raged a storm that threatened to spill out onto the quiet streets of Copenhagen and beyond. Or so they must have hoped.

Look down from above on the countless herds of men and their countless solemnities, and the infinitely varied voyagings in storms and calms, and the differences among those who are born, who live together, and die. And consider, too, the life lived by others in olden time, and the life of those who will live after thee, and the life now lived among barbarous nations, and how many know not even thy name, and how many will soon forget it, and how they who perhaps now are praising thee will very soon blame thee, and that neither a posthumous name is of any value, nor reputation, nor anything else.

Floods will rob us of one thing, fire of another. These are conditions of our existence which we cannot change. What we can do is adopt a noble spirit, such a spirit as befits a good man, so that we may bear up bravely under all that fortune sends us and bring our wills into tune with nature’s; reversals, after all, are the means by which nature regulates this visible realm of hers: clear skies follow cloudy; after the calm comes the storm; the winds take turns to blow; day succeeds night; while part of the heavens is in the ascendant, another is sinking. It is by means of opposites that eternity endures.

So, O king, does the present life of man on earth seem to me, in comparison with the time which is unknown to us, as though a sparrow flew swiftly through the hall, coming in by one door and going out by the other, and you, the while, sat at meat with your captains and liegemen, in wintry weather, with a fire burning in your midst and heating the room, the storm raging out of doors and driving snow and rain before it. For the time for which he is within, the bird is sheltered from the storm, but after this short while of calm he flies out again into the cold and is seen no more. Thus the life of man is visible for a moment, but we know not what comes before it or follows after it.

Winter brings on cold weather; and we must shiver. Summer returns, with its heat; and we must sweat. Unseasonable weather upsets the health; and we must fall ill. In certain places we may meet with wild beasts, or with men who are more destructive than any beasts. Floods, or fires, will cause us loss. And we cannot change this order of things; but what we can do is to acquire stout hearts, worthy of good men, thereby courageously enduring chance and placing ourselves in harmony with Nature. 8. And Nature moderates this world-kingdom which you see, by her changing seasons: clear weather follows cloudy; after a calm, comes the storm; the winds blow by turns; day succeeds night; some of the heavenly bodies rise, and some set. Eternity consists of opposites.

sunsets are for the romantics, for the idealists and the believers. for those fond of the calm, those who've been sheltered, who've never had to weather a storm. but sunrises, sunrises are for the survivors, for the ones who've weathered storms, the ones left standing after a hell of a night in the er, the ones holding your hand through darkness, because they've learned to only need the light inside them. sunsets are for first dates, for exchanging names and hobbies and talking about dreams. sunrises are for the few who will survive nightmares with you, who will help you fight monsters and slay dragons. sunsets are for promises, but sunrises are for reality, for the grittiness of it, for the bags under your eyes, messy hair and spotty skin. sunrises are where life begins. so, i guess what i'm saying is - fall asleep only next to the ones you want to see the first thing in the morning.

golden opportunity to learn to cope with criticism and anger effectively. This came as a complete surprise to me; I hadn't realized what good fortune I had. In addition to urging me to use cognitive techniques to reduce and eliminate my own sense of irritation. Dr. Beck proposed I try out an unusual strategy for interacting with Hank when he was in an angry mood. The essence of this method was: (1) Don't turn Hank off by defending yourself. Instead, do the opposite—urge him to say all the worst things he can say about you. (2) Try to find a grain of truth in all his criticisms and then agree with him. (3) After this, point out any areas of disagreement in a straightforward, tactful, nonargumentative manner. (4) Emphasize the importance of sticking together, in spite of these occasional disagreements. I could remind Hank that frustration and fighting might slow down our therapy at times, but this need not destroy the relationship or prevent our work from ultimately becoming fruitful. I applied this strategy the next time Hank started storming around the office screaming at me. Just as I had planned, I urged Hank to keep it up and say all the worst things he could think of about me. The result was immediate and dramatic. Within a few moments, all the wind went out of his sails—all his vengeance seemed to melt away. He began communicating sensibly and calmly, and sat down. In fact, when I agreed with some of his criticisms, he suddenly began to defend me and say some nice things about me! I was so impressed with this result that I began using the same approach with other angry, explosive individuals, and I actually did begin to enjoy his hostile outbursts because I had an effective way to handle them. I also used the double-column technique for recording and talking back to my automatic thoughts after one of Hank's midnight calls (see Figure 16–1, page 415).

The Sea of Galilee is usually calm and tranquil, but it can become treacherous when violent storms spring up. The lake is like life itself: beautiful and tranquil at times, stormy and threatening at others.     At the end of a long day, Jesus and his disciples got into a boat to cross the lake (4:35-36). After pushing away from the shore, Jesus fell asleep . . . and then a storm exploded. Twelve frightened men rushed to Jesus and exclaimed, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re going to drown?” (4:38). Now go back to verse 35. What did Jesus say to his disciples just before entering the boat? “Let’s go to the middle of the lake and drown”? Of course not! He said, “Let’s cross to the other side of the lake.”     What stormy, unexpected event in your life has you feeling panicked and fretful? Remember, Christ intends to take you to the other side safe and secure. Invite him into your “boat” right now, and let him still your storms of doubt. NO TRIAL TROUBLES THE CHILD OF GOD WHO KNOWS GOD HAS A REASON FOR ALLOWING IT.

On quitting Bretton, which I did a few weeks after Paulina’s departure—little thinking then I was never again to visit it; never more to tread its calm old streets—I betook myself home, having been absent six months. It will be conjectured that I was of course glad to return to the bosom of my kindred. Well! the amiable conjecture does no harm, and may therefore be safely left uncontradicted. Far from saying nay, indeed, I will permit the reader to picture me, for the next eight years, as a bark slumbering through halcyon weather, in a harbour still as glass—the steersman stretched on the little deck, his face up to heaven, his eyes closed: buried, if you will, in a long prayer. A great many women and girls are supposed to pass their lives something in that fashion; why not I with the rest? Picture me then idle, basking, plump, and happy, stretched on a cushioned deck, warmed with constant sunshine, rocked by breezes indolently soft. However, it cannot be concealed that, in that case, I must somehow have fallen overboard, or that there must have been wreck at last. I too well remember a time—a long time—of cold, of danger, of contention. To this hour, when I have the nightmare, it repeats the rush and saltness of briny waves in my throat, and their icy pressure on my lungs. I even know there was a storm, and that not of one hour nor one day. For many days and nights neither sun nor stars appeared; we cast with our own hands the tackling out of the ship; a heavy tempest lay on us; all hope that we should be saved was taken away. In fine, the ship was lost, the crew perished. As far as I recollect, I complained to no one about these troubles. Indeed, to whom could I complain? Of Mrs. Bretton I had long lost sight. Impediments, raised by others, had, years ago, come in the way of our intercourse, and cut it off. Besides, time had brought changes for her, too: the handsome property of which she was left guardian for her son, and which had been chiefly invested in some joint-stock undertaking, had melted, it was said, to a fraction of its original amount. Graham, I learned from incidental rumours, had adopted a profession; both he and his mother were gone from Bretton, and were understood to be now in London. Thus, there remained no possibility of dependence on others; to myself alone could I look. I know not that I was of a self-reliant or active nature; but self-reliance and exertion were forced upon me by circumstances, as they are upon thousands besides; and when Miss Marchmont, a maiden lady of our neighbourhood, sent for me, I obeyed her behest, in the hope that she might assign me some task I could undertake.

THE INSTRUCTION OF PTAHHOTEP Part III Report your commission without faltering, Give your advice in your master’s council. If he is fluent in his speech, It will not be hard for the envoy to report, Nor will he be answered, "Who is he to know it ?” As to the master, his affairs will fail If he plans to punish him for it. He should be silent upon (hearing): "I have told.” If you are a man who leads. Whose authority reaches wide, You should do outstanding things, Remember the day that comes after. No strife will occur in the midst of honors, But where the crocodile enters hatred arises. If you are a man who leads. Listen calmly to the speech of one who pleads; Don’t stop him from purging his body Of that which he planned to tell. A man in distress wants to pour out his heart More than that his case be won. About him who stops a plea One says: “Why does he reject it ?” Not all one pleads for can be granted, But a good hearing soothes the heart. If you want friendship to endure In the house you enter As master, brother, or friend, In whatever place you enter, Beware of approaching the women! Unhappy is the place where it is done. Unwelcome is he who intrudes on them. A thousand men are turned away from their good: A short moment like a dream, Then death comes for having known them. Poor advice is “shoot the opponent,” When one goes to do it the heart rejects it. He who fails through lust of them, No affair of his can prosper. If you want a perfect conduct, To be free from every evil, Guard against the vice of greed: A grievous sickness without cure, There is no treatment for it. It embroils fathers, mothers, And the brothers of the mother, It parts wife from husband; It is a compound of all evils, A bundle of all hateful things. That man endures whose rule is rightness, Who walks a straight line; He will make a will by it, The greedy has no tomb. Do not be greedy in the division. Do not covet more than your share; Do not be greedy toward your kin. The mild has a greater claim than the harsh. Poor is he who shuns his kin, He is deprived of 'interchange' Even a little of what is craved Turns a quarreler into an amiable man. When you prosper and found your house, And love your wife with ardor, Fill her belly, clothe her back, Ointment soothes her body. Gladden her heart as long as you live, She is a fertile held for her lord. Do not contend with her in court, Keep her from power, restrain her — Her eye is her storm when she gazes — Thus will you make her stay in your house. Sustain your friends with what you have, You have it by the grace of god; Of him who fails to sustain his friends One says, “a selfish ka". One plans the morrow but knows not what will be, The ( right) ka is the ka by which one is sustained. If praiseworthy deeds are done, Friends will say, “welcome!” One does not bring supplies to town, One brings friends when there is need. Do not repeat calumny. Nor should you listen to it, It is the spouting of the hot-bellied. Report a thing observed, not heard, If it is negligible, don’t say anything. He who is before you recognizes worth. lf a seizure is ordered and carried out, Hatred will arise against him who seizes; Calumny is like a dream against which one covers the face. If you are a man of worth, Who sits in his master’s council. Concentrate on excellence, Your silence is better than chatter. Speak when you know you have a solution, It is the skilled who should speak in council; Speaking is harder than all other work. He who understands it makes it serve.

When a strong emotion arises within us like a storm, we are in great turmoil. We have no peace. Many of us try to pacify the storm by watching television or eating comfort foods. But the storm does not calm down after hours of watching. The storm does not go away after a bag of chips or a bowl of ice cream. We hate ourselves afterward for eating the chips and the ice cream. We dread stepping on the scale the next day. We vow to never do it again. But time after time, we do. Why? Because our habit energy pushes us.

Occasionally, even today, you come across certain people who seem to possess an impressive inner cohesion. They are not leading fragmented, scattershot lives. They have achieved inner integration. They are calm, settled, and rooted. They are not blown off course by storms. They don't crumble in adversity. Their minds are consistent and their hearts are dependable. Their virtues are not the blooming virtues you see in smart college students; they are the ripening virtues you see in people who have lived a little and have learned from joy and pain. Sometimes you don't even notice these people, because while they seem kind and cheerful, they are also reserved. They possess the self- effacing virtues of people who are inclined to be useful but don't need to prove anything to the world: humility, restraint, reticence, temperance, respect, and soft self-discipline. They radiate a sort of moral joy. They answer softly when challenged harshly. They are silent when unfairly abused. They are dignified when others try to humiliate them, restrained when others try to provoke them. But they get things done. They perform acts of sacrificial service with the same modest everyday spirit they would display if they were just getting the groceries. They are not thinking about what impressive work they are doing. They are not thinking about themselves at all. They just seem delighted by the flawed people around them. They just recognize what needs doing and they do it. They make you feel funnier and smarter when you speak with them. They move through different social classes not even aware, it seems, that they are doing so. After you've known them for a while it occurs to you that you've never heard them boast, you've never seen them self-righteous or doggedly certain. They aren't dropping little hints of their own distinctiveness and accomplishments. They have not led lives of conflict-free tranquillity, but have struggled toward maturity. They have gone some way toward solving life's essential problem, which is that, as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put it, 'the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart.' These are the people who have built a strong inner character, who have achieved a certain depth. In these people, at the end of this struggle, the climb to success has surrendered to the struggle to deepen the soul. After a life of seeking balance, Adam I bows down before Adam II. These are the people we are looking for.

Later on, however . . . (Hebrews 12:11) There is a legend that tells of a German baron who, at his castle on the Rhine, stretched wires in the air from tower to tower so that the wind might treat them as a wind harp and thereby create music as it blew across them. Yet as the soft breezes swirled around the castle, no music was born. One night, however, a fierce storm arose, and the hill where the castle sat was struck with the fury of the violent wind. The baron looked out his doorway on the terror of the wind, and the wind harp was filling the air with melodies that rang out even above the noise of the storm. It had taken a fierce storm to produce the music! Haven’t we all known people whose lives have never produced any pleasing music during their days of calm prosperity but who, when fierce winds have blown across their lives, have astonished us by the power and beauty of their music? Rain, rain Beating against the pane! How endlessly it pours Out of doors From the darkened sky— I wonder why! Flowers, flowers, Springing up after showers, Blossoming fresh and fair, Everywhere! God has now explained Why it rained! You can always count on God to make the “later on” of difficulties a thousand times richer and better than the present, if we overcome them correctly. “No discipline seems pleasant at the time. . . . Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace” (Heb. 12:11). What a yield!

I hate storms but calms undermine my spirits.’ Bernard Moitessier, The Long Way

The city was spread out in the soft darkness, calm after the big thunder and hail storm, still moist and warm like a woman very satisfied in love.

the devastation and misery that attend our progress, but that all history teaches us that war, pestilence and famine are the usual order of things by which the Almighty allays the storms of human passion after the long calm of peace.

I was remarkably calm. Calm and fatigued. There would be no violence. It was like a storm coming up. The café chairs are carried inside, the awnings are rolled up, but nothing happens. The storm passes over. And, at the same time, that's too bad. After all, we would all rather see the roofs ripped from the houses, the trees uprooted and tossed through the air; documentaries about tornadoes, hurricanes, and tsunamis have a soothing effect. Of course, it's terrible — we've all been taught to say that we think it's terrible. But a world without disasters and violence — be it the violence of nature of that of muscle and blood — would be a truly unbearable thing.

He is a savage storm followed by a blissful calm, like the still that comes after a catastrophic earthquake or the deafening silence after a ruthless hurricane. He is the beauty in chaos, and I am undoubtedly in love with him.

Honus took out his healing kit, and set a pot of water to boil. “When the water’s ready,” he said, “I’ll tend your wound.”   Yim touched the cut on her chin. “Is it bad?”   Honus peered at it in the firelight. “No, but you’ll have a scar.”   Yim smiled wryly. “I’m catching up with your collection.”   “I’m keeping apace with you,” replied Honus.   For the first time, Yim noticed that Honus’s shirtsleeve was torn and blood-soaked. She gasped. “Honus! Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt?”   “I didn’t wish to trouble you. Besides, it’s not deep.” He rolled up his right sleeve to reveal a bloody gash on his forearm.   When the water boiled, Honus poured some into a wooden bowl and added powder from a vial in his healing kit. After cleaning the blood from Yim’s face, he wetted a cloth with the solution in the bowl. “This will sting,” he said.   “I remember,” replied Yim. She winced as the solution foamed inside her cut. Glimpsing the concern in Honus’s eyes, she tried to hide her pain. She took a deep breath and said, “I’m glad that’s over.”   Honus cleaned the gash on his arm with the same solution, then asked, “Would you stitch my wound closed? I’d rather not do it left-handed.”   “I’ll try,” said Yim, “but I’ve never done the like before.”   “It’s not hard, and I’m certain your dainty fingers will do finer work than Theodus’s thick ones ever managed.”   “Before you malign his stitching, you should compare it to mine,” said Yim. “As a girl, I was more adept with goats than needlework.”   “Then pretend I’m a goat.”   Honus took out a curved needle and a strand of gut from his kit and dipped them in the cleansin g solution. He declined Yim’s suggestion to prepare a brew for his pain, stating he wanted to stay alert. When Yim nervously sewed his wound, he was absolutely stoic. He guided her stitching calmly, tensing only slightly each time the needle pierced his flesh. The only evidence of his pain was the deep breath he took when Yim was done. Honus gazed at his stitches and smiled. “You underestimate your skill.”   “I’m glad you’re so easily pleased,” Yim replied. “The woman who raised me would’ve made me tear out the seam and restitch it.”   Honus winced. “Let’s talk of food, instead,” he said quickly. “Perhaps this would be a good night to have that cheese we were saving.”   “To celebrate our new scars?’   “To celebrate we’re both alive.

He feels the touch of her hand on his cheek, or more precisely the touch of three fingertips, and the trace of it is cold, like after the touch of fog. Her caresses were always slow, calm, it used to seem to him that they were meant to prolong time. Whereas these three fingers laid briefly on his cheek were not a caress but a reminder. As if a woman snatched up by a storm, carried off by a wave, could muster just one fleeting gesture to say: ‘And yet I was here! I did pass through! Whatever happens, don’t forget me!

Well, it come a famine and all de crops was dried up and Brother John was ast to pray. He had prayed for rain last year and it had rained, so all de white folks 'sembled at they church and called on Brother John to pray agin, so he got down and prayed: "Lord, first thing, I want you to understand that this ain't no n****r talking to you. This is a white man and I want you to hear me. Pay some attention to me. I don't worry and bother you all the time like these n****rs--asking you for a whole heap of things that they don't know what to do with after they git 'em--so when I do ask a favor, I want it granted. Now, Lord, we want some rain. Our crops is all burning up and we'd like a little rain. But I don't mean for you to come in a hell of a storm like you did last year--kicking up racket like n****rs at a barbecue. I want you to come calm and easy. Now, another thing, Lord, I want to speak about. Don't let these n****rs be as sassy as they have been in the past. Keep 'em in their places, Lord, Amen.

When the clouds shifted, His light shined through, then came a calm after the storm. It was then, I could see hope for a better tomorrow.

And there’s that moment, which Hannah remembers since childhood. After all the weeks of anticipation, the preparation, meals planned and served, gifts purchased, wrapped, torn open, surprises revealed and enjoyed, the inevitable time comes when it’s all done. There are no more presents to give or to get, just the mess to clean up, the dishes to do. When she was little, she always felt this moment, its quiet, its subtle sadness, keenly. Now that she was older, she knew it for what it was—the flow of life. The calm after the storm where you were meant to recalibrate, reset before the onset of the next event—good or bad.

despite the wounds from which he still suffers, the author of Reveries displays a remarkable serenity here; it is the calm after the storm, the evening glow, the feeling perhaps that despite everything, something was accomplished.

Perhaps this is what people call the calm after the storm. The stuff of nightmares had come to pass and I was still alive. Now it was time to figure out the next steps.

Elphaba had an okay voice. He saw the imaginary place she conjured up, a land where injustice and common cruelty and despotic rule and the beggaring fist of drought didn't work together to hold everyone by the neck. No he wasn't giving her credit: Elphaba had a good voice. It was controlled and feeling and not histrionic. He listened through to the end, and the song faded into the hush of a respectful pub. Later, he thought: The melody faded like a rainbow after a storm, or like winds calming down at last; and what was left was calm, and possibility, and relief. "You next, you promised," cried Elphaba, pointing at Fiyero, but nobody would sing again, because she had done so well. Nessarose nodded to Nanny to wipe a tear from the corner of her eye. "Elphaba says she's not religious but see how feelingly she sings of the afterlife," said Nessarose, and for once no one was inclined to argue.

The storms don't last forever, they can't and they won't. It's not how the atmosphere works and it's not how life works.

I find myself with a day off. Rare. Unprecedented. Inconceivable. Mr. Fuchigami says I may go anywhere in Tokyo. And I know exactly where I want to spend my day: the Imperial Dog Kennels. Honestly, it's needed. It's really needed. Even though Akio told me The Tokyo Tattler was beneath me, it's been hard to get the article off my mind, hard not to overthink everything I might do wrong. Tomorrow kicks off a series of events. I'll accompany my father to assorted public outings. Cameras and press will be present, a soft launch of sorts before the prime minister's wedding. My nerves are frayed. What will the press say about me? I smiled too much? I didn't smile enough? A royal puppy pile is definitely in order.

Good tears are free-flowing. They move through, and they move on, like the rain. Once they’re gone, you feel relieved. It’s like the calm after the storm: everything just smells better, and the colors are resplendent. A natural pause comes in, and you breathe into that, and it’s over. Something has been washed clean: good tears.

with the first police officer that spoke with me, they said that I needed to turn around ‘cause it wasn’t safe after, ‘So, OK this is, know that’s safe for ya.’ So, but that was at the point that they were beginning to walk-walk-walk us down and walk us out, or push us out, as they’ve been doing so, uh, anyway ... NOTE: This gives us a glimpse of what the interactions with the police were like, from the protesters’ point of view. While there are well-documented cases of fights between the police and the stormers, there were also a lot of cases like this. To be clear, this doesn’t somehow excuse what the trespassers did, but it’s also not something the historical record should just ignore. Try to imagine it for a moment; imagine if you broke into a building and inside the police were calmly giving you advice about which areas were safe for you to break into next. For some people, that really happened.

I spend some time talking to a guy who has a remarkably calm voice, considering he’s only a few feet away from the line of police shields. “I hope that today is kind of the ... the catalyst for the Trump supporters and the populist right to, to realize that the populist left, the Antifa and the BLM movement, we all have a very common enemy, and that’s the establishment politicians,” he says. Ah! How often did I dream that dream in my idealistic youth? Then he calls out the government for “giving us back six hundred dollars after they close all of our businesses and stuff.” He argues for a “peaceful divorce” between the states, in which the federal government still handles dealing with foreign countries and a few other important matters, but individual states were free to have vastly different laws that fit their own culture. So, Texas could have unrestricted gun access and California could have Medicare For All, they just couldn’t force other states to do things they didn’t want to do. Which, for the record, is pretty much the way America used to work, during the 70 years between the ratification of the Constitution and the outbreak of the Civil War. This guy has actual plans! He’s thought of solutions beyond signaling how angry he is and hoping everything takes care of itself after that! I don’t agree with all his ideas, but at least he has them. “But what I’m saying is,” he goes on, “All the people here today, and all the people who have been protesting throughout the year, for the BLM and Antifa and the populist left, all want the same thing.” He eyes the line of black body armor with a troubled look on his face and walks off. NOTE: Let’s just cut through the noise and dwell on that for a minute. Breathe. Stop and Think. What did he just say? Just when I think these people are all nuts, I meet that one. Who the hell was that guy? Why can’t there be more like him?

then puts a magnifying lens on all his flaws and starts turning each of them over in his mind, wondering why he is the way he is, tortured by the fact that he can’t seem to just “let it go.” After an hour of this, he realizes with despair that he is no closer to making a decision about his health issue, and instantly feels depressed, sinking into a storm of negative self-talk where he tells himself over and over again that this always happens, that he never sorts himself out, that he’s too neurotic . . . Phew! It’s hard to see how all of this torment and mental anguish started with nothing more than James noticing he had a weird-looking mole on his shoulder! We all live in a highly strung, overstimulated, highly cerebral world. Overthinking puts our ordinary cognitive instincts in overdrive. Excessive thinking occurs when our thought processes are out of control, causing us distress. Endless analysis of life and of self is usually unwanted, unstoppable, and self-defeating. Ordinarily, our brains help us solve problems and understand things more clearly—but overthinking does the opposite. Whether you call it worry, anxiety, stress, rumination, or even obsession, the quality that characterizes overthinking is that it feels awful, and it doesn’t help us in any way.

My poor boy!” he cried. “It’s not you anymore! Hey! I’m not saying that those idiots at Vassetot and that scoundrel Roffieux were right when they said there was something wrong with your brain; but there’s something strange, something unnerving, going on with you. I want to take care of you here—right here. No mental hospitals, no annoying treatments! I know people who will understand that it’s simply a problem of nerves and who will pull you through with nothing but a little mental discipline, laying out a nice, calm program for you with a few distractions and outings…” Kmôhoûn kept me from hearing the rest of the sentence. I thought my head was going to explode. The Tkoukrian howled and stormed, but for me alone. Only I could hear his awful racket and his abominable explosion of rage made me panic. I was about to say something stupid again—after so many other things—but I could not talk reasonably anymore. It was a psychic racket that no one would be scared of, except me—but I was stunned by it. I did not miss a single word that Kmôhoûn yelled, even though he did not articulate any of them. But I do not have the least desire to repeat them all here; it tumbled out like a torrent of trash. I would be forced to write pages and pages on which the most terrifying curses and the most revolting obscenities would be repeated again and again. This whole flood of filth, moreover, could be boiled down pretty much to this: “You lunatic, moron, agitated idiot! Don’t you see your crook brother’s scam? Ha! I knew it! They’re not doing it to me! Let’s f…ly the coop—and quick! They’re going to have some fun in this… this… whorehouse! And you will have your rotten… whoremonger of a sister in-law to stir up the foul… pimp guards that they’ll give us. Your brother is a crap-stained pig, walking dung,” etc, etc. And I’m softening up many of Kmôhoûn’s terms! Pretty, yes, pretty, my expression psychic racket. Charming soul, that Kmôhoûn!

It only seems like that, Jeanne. It all seems caused by this man or that, by one circumstance or another, but it’s like in nature: after the calm comes the storm; it starts out slowly, reaches its peak, then it’s over and other periods of calm, some longer, some shorter, come along. It’s just been our bad luck to be born in a century full of storms, that’s all. They’ll die down.

Difficulties are just things to overcome, after all. —ERNEST SHACKLETON

He calmed the storm, but after that, he begun to follow me every time I went fishing. At first my sisters said, Ignore him, he'll go away. But Poseidon didn't go away. Every time I went fishing, he was there. Every time. I was fourteen and felt like ninety.' 'You should have stopped going fishing' 'Why should I have stopped doing something I loved? Poseidon shouldn't have been there in the first place. He should have stopped following me!

It was one of those late summer days that sometimes showed up in early October after a killing frost—warm, dry, and hazy; Indian summer. The term is over two hundred years old and was first coined by the French American writer John Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur in 1778, describing the warm calm before the winter storm.

I used to collect snow globes when I was younger. They lined a shelf in my bedroom, and sometimes I would shake them up, one after the other, then sit on my bed and watch as the flurries and the glitter swirled around inside the glass. Eventually, the contents inside the globe would begin to settle. All would grow still, and then the globes on my shelf would return to their quite, peaceful states. I liked them because they reminded me of life. How sometimes, it feels like someone is shaking the world around you, and things are flying at you from every direction, but if you wait long enough, everything will start to calm. I liked the feeling of knowing that the storm inside always eventually settles.

During that second year of law school, Usha and I traveled to D.C. for follow-up interviews with a few law firms. I returned to our hotel room, dejected that I had just performed poorly with one of the firms I really wanted to work for. When Usha tried to comfort me, to tell me that I’d probably done better than I expected, but that even if I hadn’t, there were other fish in the sea, I exploded. “Don’t tell me that I did fine,” I yelled. “You’re just making an excuse for weakness. I didn’t get here by making excuses for failure.” I stormed out of the room and spent the next couple of hours on the streets of D.C.’s business district. I thought about that time Mom took me and our toy poodle to Middletown’s Comfort Inn after a screaming match with Bob. We stayed there for a couple of days, until Mamaw convinced Mom that she had to return home and face her problems like an adult. And I thought about Mom during her childhood, running out the back door with her mother and sister to avoid another night of terror with her alcoholic father. I was a third-generation escaper. I was near Ford’s Theatre, the historic location where John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln. About half a block from the theater is a corner store that sells Lincoln memorabilia. In it, a large Lincoln blow-up doll with an extraordinarily large grin gazes at those walking by. I felt like this inflatable Lincoln was mocking me. Why the hell is he smiling? I thought. Lincoln was melancholy to begin with, and if any place invoked a smile, surely it wouldn’t be a stone’s throw away from the place where someone shot him in the head. I turned the corner, and after a few steps I saw Usha sitting on the steps of Ford’s Theatre. She had run after me, worried about me being alone. I realized then that I had a problem—that I must confront whatever it was that had, for generations, caused those in my family to hurt those whom they loved. I apologized profusely to Usha. I expected her to tell me to go fuck myself, that it would take days to make up for what I’d done, that I was a terrible person. A sincere apology is a surrender, and when someone surrenders, you go in for the kill. But Usha wasn’t interested in that. She calmly told me through her tears that it was never acceptable to run away, that she was worried, and that I had to learn how to talk to her. And then she gave me a hug and told me that she accepted my apology and was glad I was okay. That was the end of it. Usha hadn’t learned how to fight in the hillbilly school of hard knocks.

The darkness around me slowly fades and a new fear takes over as I realize that she’s my calm after the storm. She’s like a poison to my heart, slowly leaking her way inside and killing me in the worst way possible. She’s the salvation that I seek but know that I can’t keep forever, and that’s what scares me.

Gregory?” Julia’s voice gentled. She had noticed the sudden change in him. “Please talk to me.” Talk was the last thing he wanted from her now. He didn’t want to talk or to think. He didn’t want to continue to hate himself in front of the one person he was beginning to adore. Gregory didn’t speak the truth. Instead, he lashed out with a lie. “Very well, if you must know. I’m tired of waiting for our bargain to be completed.” He practically growled the words as he turned to her, and Julia shrank back in surprise. “If you’re not interested in your duties as a wife, then say so and I’ll be on my way. But your indecision has interfered with my plans, so either return to the house and find your way into my bed, Your Grace, or bid me farewell.” Julia never spoke, only watched calmly as Gregory finished and rose, tromping off to collect his ward. Felicity was still hopping near the creek, gleefully squealing whenever Miss Winslow attempted to get her under control. “Felicity!” he shouted. That got the child’s attention. “Put your shoes on and return to the house at once—” “Your Grace?” Miss Winslow kept one hand to her bonnet, trying to stop the wind from snatching it away, and pointed at something behind him. “The duchess is leaving.” Gregory whirled around in shock and saw that the governess was right. Julia had taken her horse and was currently riding it in the exact opposite direction of the house. She cantered farther ahead, into the heart of the storm as the clouds burst open and rain began to pound the countryside. Dear God, she’d be soaked and catch her death, or else thrown from her horse in the storm and break her neck. “Damn everything to hell,” Gregory snapped. He raced for his own horse, saddled up, and rode hard after his errant wife.

That is the curse of old empires and cities that have faced a thousand misfortunes. They rely on the fact that calm always returns after the storm. But the Nazis were not just a simple storm, not even a winter front that left old Europe wracked and exhausted. Hitler’s Germans were an eternal winter that allowed no regrowth anywhere.

you are the peace after wars the calm after storms and everything insanely beautiful that shapes after a tragedy

Böhm-Bawerk declared that the cultural level of a nation is mirrored by its rate of interest. In the ancient world, interest rates charted the course of great civilizations. In Babylon, Greece and Rome interest rates followed a U-shaped curve over the centuries; declining as each civilization became established and prospered, and rising sharply during periods of decline and fall.57 Very low interest rates appear to have been the calm before the storm. In the early Neo-Babylonian period (700–630 BC) rates on silver loans fell to a low of 8.33 per cent. By early fifth century BC, after Babylonia fell to the Persians, they spiked above 40 per cent.58 In similar fashion, interest rates in eighteenth-century Holland reached a nadir shortly before the Dutch Republic was overrun by Revolutionary France. Given the extraordinarily low interest rates of the early twenty-first century, this is not a comforting thought.

Occasionally, even today, you come across certain people who seem to possess an impressive inner cohesion. They are not leading fragmented, scattershot lives. They have achieved inner integration. They are calm, settled, and rooted. They are not blown off course by storms. They don’t crumble in adversity. Their minds are consistent and their hearts are dependable. Their virtues are not the blooming virtues you see in smart college students; they are the ripening virtues you see in people who have lived a little and have learned from joy and pain. Sometimes you don’t even notice these people, because while they seem kind and cheerful, they are also reserved. They possess the self-effacing virtues of people who are inclined to be useful but don’t need to prove anything to the world: humility, restraint, reticence, temperance, respect, and soft self-discipline. They radiate a sort of moral joy. They answer softly when challenged harshly. They are silent when unfairly abused. They are dignified when others try to humiliate them, restrained when others try to provoke them. But they get things done. They perform acts of sacrificial service with the same modest everyday spirit they would display if they were just getting the groceries. They are not thinking about what impressive work they are doing. They are not thinking about themselves at all. They just seem delighted by the flawed people around them. They just recognize what needs doing and they do it. They make you feel funnier and smarter when you speak with them. They move through different social classes not even aware, it seems, that they are doing so. After you’ve known them for a while it occurs to you that you’ve never heard them boast, you’ve never seen them self-righteous or doggedly certain. They aren’t dropping little hints of their own distinctiveness and accomplishments. They have not led lives of conflict-free tranquillity, but have struggled toward maturity. They have gone some way toward solving life’s essential problem, which is that, as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put it, “the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either— but right through every human heart.” These are the people who have built a strong inner character, who have achieved a certain depth. In these people, at the end of this struggle, the climb to success has surrendered to the struggle to deepen the soul. After a life of seeking balance, Adam I bows down before Adam II. These are the people we are looking for.

A different day has come, though. I flinch less and less when I am touched. I don’t always see gentleness as the calm before the storm because, more often than not, I can trust that no storm is coming. I harbor less hatred toward myself. I try to forgive myself for my trespasses. In my novel, An Untamed State, after Miri, my protagonist, has been through hell, she thinks about how sometimes broken things need to be broken further before they can truly heal.

The quick reflexes, the calmness in the face of a storm, the ability to think in the midst of danger that most people don’t have.

It was one of those late summer days that sometimes showed up in early October after a killing frost—warm, dry, and hazy; Indian summer. The term is over two hundred years old, coined in 1778 by the French American writer J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur to describe the warm calm before the winter storm.

Life in the Islamic Republic was as capricious as the month of April, when short periods of sunshine would suddenly give way to showers and storms. It was unpredictable: the regime would go through cycles of some tolerance, followed by a crackdown. Now, after a period of relative calm and so-called liberalization, we had again entered a time of hardships.

The United States periodically reaches a point of crisis in which it appears to be at war with itself, yet after an extended period it reinvents itself, in a form both faithful to its founding and radically different from what it had been.

She believed the relationship would work He wanted her to do all the work for the relationship She believed adjustments needed to be made He wanted her to improve for the sake of it She was in pain, she was suffering because of the hardships He told her the hardships were because of her. She tolerated all the abuse silently, verbal and psychological; He abused her every single time that he could She grew tired of it, finally - Started to ignore his tantrums He intensified the tantrums; She told him she was depressed He told her he was depressed It was a battle of emotions To see who wins in the end. It was not a relationship anymore, It was a game, to prove who is suffering more. She lost her calm, made it clear that she cannot take it anymore He walked away, like he always did - He made sure people knew he suffered ‘thanks’ to her She did not know what to do, What step next to take He knew exactly what he had to do - He knew the ways He pulled out his sword of manipulation Scared the other family members so much That she was scared as well - And decided to give it another chance. She’d done enough to bring herself out of the loop And finally she walked into another one willingly Because for her, the relationship mattered - She failed to see the manipulation; For her it seemed like his love for her. Promises were made - He said he’d change, She believed. Because she still wants the relationship to work - And he knows it well. Amidst all this drama between the couple In some corner, an alone child suffers - And - learns that tantrums give favourable results. In some corner, a child grows up - Trying to understand the complexities of a relationship The dynamics of it and its worthiness In some tender-mind corner, a doubt grows - Is it all worth in the end? Meanwhile - The calm after the storm continues No one bothers to see what the storm has damaged Fresh efforts are put in - She believes the relationship can work He knows he still has the control. Things might continue the same - For how long, no one knows - Why? No one knows. But it does - While others stand spectators - Trying to understand the dynamics of the relationship.

Row, Row, Row Your Boat Row, row, row your boat Gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily Life is but a dream. Preparation and Instructions: Sit on the floor with your legs crossed. Have the child sit in your lap with his back to your front. Put your arms around the child, holding him snugly. The child is now sitting inside a wonderful, cozy “boat.” The Game: Rock side to side or back and forth as you sing the song. After you sing the song once, say to the child, “Oh, my gosh, a storm is coming. I have to hold you tight so you won’t fall out of the boat.” At this point, begin to roll around from side to side as if the boat were in stormy waters, holding the child closer and closer. Sing the song again in a loud, stormy voice. After you sing the song one time in stormy seas, say, “The storm is over, the sea is calm.” Return to your gentle rocking side to side and back and forth, singing the song once again in a calm, soothing voice. Variations: My grandfather used to play this game with me.* During the storm part, he would say, “Oh no, we have hit a rock. We are going down. I will save you.” Then he would lift me up and put me on his shoulders to save me from drowning in the sea. From here he would carry me to the dinner table or to bed. Snuggle Up Preparation and Instructions: A “safe place” is an alternative to time out.

After a routine breakfast, I sat down to check my incoming emails. My heart missed several beats as I starred unflinchingly at an email from my long lost ex-lover, protector, Valet and trusted friend. Goosebumps formed on my shielded skin while my body went into involuntary concatenate convulsion. Terrified, I sat frozen for several minutes, not daring to read its contents. For no apparent reason, tears of joy and sorrow began forming in the corners of my eyes, throwing me into a state of utter confusion. Pulling away from the computer, I sat hypnotized on my veranda’s chaise lounge, desperately trying to calm myself from this recalcitrant ambivalence. Years of hurt and despair exploded to the vanguard, issues kept neatly and tidily locked in my recesses were ripped open by the invisible impending storm. The inception of my dream was simply too terrifying to perceive what was to happen next.

Furi walked across Syn’s living room carpet for what felt like the millionth time while he waited for him to come back. How dare he order me to leave? Like I’m a damn kid. Furi decided right then and there that he was going to have a talk with Syn. Furi wouldn’t be his kept man or his bitch. Furi stopped mid-stride when he heard the door open and close behind Syn. All the anger and hostility he’d felt while alone in Syn’s place just disappeared when the ruggedly handsome man yanked his dark coat off and threw it on the couch, approaching Furi with a hungry look. “Did he hurt you?” Syn’s voice was gravelly. He put both hands on either side of Furi’s neck and lifted it gently, eyeing the slight redness there. “I’m fine. Despite the fact you keep having to rescue me, I’m not a weakling. I can defend myself,” Furi said with venom, pulling away from Syn’s examination. “Right. That Mr. Miyagi crash course at the Y.” Syn stifled a laugh, but Furi thought it was anything but funny and he let Syn know it. “Don’t fucking mock me.” Furi stormed past him down the hall. Syn’s footsteps sounded behind him. He’d just caught up with him when he opened the bathroom door. “Hey, hey, hey,” Syn said in a whisper. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t mocking you, I was teasing you.” Furi frowned and Syn shook his head. “Let me clarify. Joking after an intensely stressful situation helps to calm me. I need to come down from the high of an adrenaline rush, that’s all that was.

The quest of the handsome prince was complete. He had found his fair maiden and the world had its fairytale. In her ivory tower, Cinderella was unhappy, locked away from her friends, her family and the outside world. As the public celebrated the Prince’s fortune, the shades of the prison-house closed inexorably around Diana. For all her aristocratic breeding, this innocent young kindergarten teacher felt totally at sea in the deferential hierarchy of Buckingham Palace. There were many tears in those three months and many more to come after that. Weight simply dropped off, her waist shrinking from 29 inches when the engagement was announced down to 23 inches on her wedding day. It was during this turbulent time that her bulimia nervosa, which would take nearly a decade to overcome, began. The note Diana left her friends at Coleherne Court saying: “For God’s sake ring me up--I’m going to need you.” It proved painfully accurate. As Carolyn Bartholomew, who watched her waste away during her engagement, recalls: “She went to live at Buckingham Palace and then the tears started. This little thing got so thin. I was so worried about her. She wasn’t happy, she was suddenly plunged into all this pressure and it was a nightmare for her. She was dizzy with it, bombarded from all sides. It was a whirlwind and she was ashen, she was grey.” Her first night at Clarence House, the Queen Mother’s London residence, was the calm before the coming storm. She was left to her own devices when she arrived, no-one from the royal family least of all her future husband, thinking it necessary to welcome her to her new world. The popular myth paints a homely picture of the Queen Mother clucking around Diana as she schooled her in the subtle arts of royal protocol while the Queen’s senior lady-in-waiting, Lady Susan Hussey took the young woman aside for tuition in regal history. In reality, Diana was given less training in her new job than the average supermarket checkout operator.

After the storm there will always be calm - once the winds of change have subsided

There is a sense of calmness before and after a storm and the difference between two calms is analogous to lightness and darkness.