Releasing Expectations Quotes

That is why it is so important to let certain things go. To release them. To cut loose. People need to understand that no one is playing with marked cards; sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Don't expect to get anything back, don't expect recognition for your efforts, don't expect your genius to be discovered or your love to be understood. Complete the circle. Not out of pride, inability or arrogance, but simply because whatever it is no longer fits in your life. Close the door, change the record, clean the house, get rid of the dust. Stop being who you were and become who you are.

Prayer of an Anonymous Abbess: Lord, thou knowest better than myself that I am growing older and will soon be old. Keep me from becoming too talkative, and especially from the unfortunate habit of thinking that I must say something on every subject and at every opportunity. Release me from the idea that I must straighten out other peoples' affairs. With my immense treasure of experience and wisdom, it seems a pity not to let everybody partake of it. But thou knowest, Lord, that in the end I will need a few friends. Keep me from the recital of endless details; give me wings to get to the point. Grant me the patience to listen to the complaints of others; help me to endure them with charity. But seal my lips on my own aches and pains -- they increase with the increasing years and my inclination to recount them is also increasing. I will not ask thee for improved memory, only for a little more humility and less self-assurance when my own memory doesn't agree with that of others. Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I may be wrong. Keep me reasonably gentle. I do not have the ambition to become a saint -- it is so hard to live with some of them -- but a harsh old person is one of the devil's masterpieces. Make me sympathetic without being sentimental, helpful but not bossy. Let me discover merits where I had not expected them, and talents in people whom I had not thought to possess any. And, Lord, give me the grace to tell them so. Amen

People who feel imprisoned in a pen of alienation, in a world of misfits, clobbered by unresponsiveness and indifference, may find release by ring-fencing a mental space to reflect on their mindset and to recover their true self. ("Did not expect it would ever happen there" )

I cleared my throat and spoke into his kiss. “Sorry, it’s been a while.” “You should expect to hear the same thing from me in about five minutes,” he murmured. “Five minutes, huh?” “I’ll make it the best five minutes of your life.” I bit his lip, hard, then released him and looked into those intense blues. “Clock’s ticking.

When you expect the best, you release a magnetic force in your mind which by a law of attraction tends to bring the best to you.

Sincere forgiveness isn't colored with expectations that the other person apologize or change. Don't worry whether or not they finally understand you. Love them and release them. Life feeds back truth to people in its own way and time.

Disappointment will come when your effort does not give you the expected return. If things don’t go as planned or if you face failure. Failure is extremely difficult to handle, but those that do come out stronger. What did this failure teach me? is the question you will need to ask. You will feel miserable. You will want to quit, like I wanted to when nine publishers rejected my first book. Some IITians kill themselves over low grades – how silly is that? But that is how much failure can hurt you. But it’s life. If challenges could always be overcome, they would cease to be a challenge. And remember – if you are failing at something, that means you are at your limit or potential. And that’s where you want to be. Disappointment’ s cousin is Frustration, the second storm. Have you ever been frustrated? It happens when things are stuck. This is especially relevant in India. From traffic jams to getting that job you deserve, sometimes things take so long that you don’t know if you chose the right goal. After books, I set the goal of writing for Bollywood, as I thought they needed writers. I am called extremely lucky, but it took me five years to get close to a release. Frustration saps excitement, and turns your initial energy into something negative, making you a bitter person. How did I deal with it? A realistic assessment of the time involved – movies take a long time to make even though they are watched quickly, seeking a certain enjoyment in the process rather than the end result – at least I was learning how to write scripts, having a side plan – I had my third book to write and even something as simple as pleasurable distractions in your life – friends, food, travel can help you overcome it. Remember, nothing is to be taken seriously. Frustration is a sign somewhere, you took it too seriously.

The greatest weapon anyone can use against us is our own mind. By preying upon the doubts and uncertainities that already lurk there. Are we true to ourselves or do we live to the expectations of others? And if we are open and honest, can we ever truly be loved? Can we find the courage to release our deepest secrets? Or in the end are we all unknowable even to ourselves.

Closing The Cycle One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through. Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters - whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished. Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave your parents' house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden? You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened. You can tell yourself you won't take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that. But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister, everyone will be finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill. None of us can be in the present and the past at the same time, not even when we try to understand the things that happen to us. What has passed will not return: we cannot for ever be children, late adolescents, sons that feel guilt or rancor towards our parents, lovers who day and night relive an affair with someone who has gone away and has not the least intention of coming back. Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away. That is why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home. Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts - and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place. Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them. Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood. Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else. Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the "ideal moment." Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back. Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person - nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a need. This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important. Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life. Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust. Stop being who you were, and change into who you are.

Anybody who has the courage to raise his eyes and look sanely at the awful human condition ... must realize finally that tiny periods of temporary release from intolerable suffering is the most that any individual has the right to expect.

He burst in the door like he'd expected to find us, and in that horrible moment, with him raging like a storm, I knew why Mason had called him a god. In the blink of an eye, he crossed the room and jerked Jesse up by his shirt, nearly holding the Moroi off the ground. "What's your name?" barked Dimitri. "J-Jesse, sir. Jesse Zeklos, sir." "Mr. Zeklos, do you have permission to be in this part of the dorm?" "No, sir." "Do you know the rules about male and female interactions around here?" "Yes, sir." "Then I suggest you get out of here as fast as you can before I turn you over to someone who will punish you accordingly. If I ever see you like this again -" Dimitri pointed to where I cowered, half dressed, on the couch. - "I will be the one to punish you. And it will hurt. A lot. Do you understand me?" Jesse swallowed, eyes wide. None of the bravado he usually showed was there. I guess there was 'usually' and then there was being held in the grip of a really ripped, really tall, and really pissed-off Russian guy. "Yes, sir." "Then go." Dimitri released him, and, if possible, Jesse got out of there faster than Dimitri had burst in. My mentor then turned to me, a dangerous glint in his eyes.

If a society permits one portion of its citizenry to be menaced or destroyed, then, very soon, no one in that society is safe. The forces thus released in the people can never be held in check, but run their devouring course, destroying the very foundations which it was imagined they would save. But we are unbelievably ignorant concerning what goes on in our country--to say nothing of what goes on in the rest of the world--and appear to have become too timid to question what we are told. Our failure to trust one another deeply enough to be able to talk to one another has become so great that people with these questions in their hearts do not speak them; our opulence is so pervasive that people who are afraid to lose whatever they think they have persuade themselves of the truth of a lie, and help disseminate it; and God help the innocent here, that man or womn who simply wants to love, and be loved. Unless this would-be lover is able to replace his or her backbone with a steel rod, he or she is doomed. This is no place for love. I know that I am now expected to make a bow in the direction of those millions of unremarked, happy marriages all over America, but I am unable honestly to do so because I find nothing whatever in our moral and social climate--and I am now thinking particularly of the state of our children--to bear witness to their existence. I suspect that when we refer to these happy and so marvelously invisible people, we are simply being nostalgic concerning the happy, simple, God-fearing life which we imagine ourselves once to have lived. In any case, wherever love is found, it unfailingly makes itself felt in the individual, the personal authority of the individual. Judged by this standard, we are a loveless nation. The best that can be said is that some of us are struggling. And what we are struggling against is that death in the heart which leads not only to the shedding of blood, but which reduces human beings to corpses while they live.

As you engage the enemy and pray the powerful prayer points in this book, pray them with Holy Spirit fire, full of faith and expecting that your prayers will destroy the satanic powers of the devil and his cronies, in the spirit realm, at the very moment you release the arsenals of heaven upon their heads.

To be effective, propaganda must constantly short-circuit all thought and decision. It must operate on the individual at the level of the unconscious. He must not know that he is being shaped by outside forces...but some central core in him must be reached in order to release the mechanism in the unconscious which will provide the appropriate - and expected - action.

There is something joyful about storms that interrupt routine. Snow or freezing rain suddenly releases you from expectations, performance demands, and the tyranny of appointments and schedules. And unlike illness, it is largely a corporate rather than individual experience. One can almost hear a unified sigh rise from the nearby city and surrounding countryside where Nature has intervened to give respite to the weary humans slogging it out within her purview. All those affected this way are united by a mutual excuse, and the heart is suddenly and unexpectedly a little giddy. There will be no apologies needed for not showing up to some commitment or other. Everyone understands and shares in this singular justification, and the sudden alleviation of the pressure to produce makes the heart merry.

The slow cancellation of the future has been accompanied by a deflation of expectations. There can be few who believe that in the coming year a record as great as, say, the Stooges’ Funhouse or Sly Stone’s There’s A Riot Goin’ On will be released. Still less do we expect the kind of ruptures brought about by The Beatles or disco. The feeling of belatedness, of living after the gold rush, is as omnipresent as it is disavowed. Compare the fallow terrain of the current moment with the fecundity of previous periods and you will quickly be accused of ‘nostalgia’. But the reliance of current artists on styles that were established long ago suggests that the current moment is in the grip of a formal nostalgia, of which more shortly. It is not that nothing happened in the period when the slow cancellation of the future set in. On the contrary, those thirty years has been a time of massive, traumatic change. In the UK, the election of Margaret Thatcher had brought to an end the uneasy compromises of the so-called postwar social consensus. Thatcher’s neoliberal programme in politics was reinforced by a transnational restructuring of the capitalist economy. The shift into so-called Post-Fordism – with globalization, ubiquitous computerization and the casualisation of labour – resulted in a complete transformation in the way that work and leisure were organised. In the last ten to fifteen years, meanwhile, the internet and mobile telecommunications technology have altered the texture of everyday experience beyond all recognition. Yet, perhaps because of all this, there’s an increasing sense that culture has lost the ability to grasp and articulate the present. Or it could be that, in one very important sense, there is no present to grasp and articulate anymore.

I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it.

When healing, the healer should be calm and detached. He should not be nervous, “overconcerned” or attached to the expected results. Otherwise, the projected pranic energy will not be released and will return to him.

We have been raised to fear the yes within ourselves, our deepest cravings. For the demands of our released expectations lead us inevitably into actions which will help bring our lives into accordance with our needs, our knowledge, our desires. And the fear of our deepest cravings keeps them suspect, keeps us docile and loyal and obedient, and leads us to settle for or accept many facets of our oppression as women.

Lies are often much more plausible, more appealing to reason, than reality, since the liar has the great advantage of knowing beforehand what the audience wishes or expects to hear,” scholar of fascism Hannah Arendt wrote after the release of the Pentagon Papers in 1971.13

And Edward was staring at me curiously, that same, familiar edge of frustation even more distinct now in his black eyes. I stared back, surprised, expecting him to look quickly away. But instead he continued to gaze with probing intensity into my eyes. There was no question of me looking away. My hands started to shake. "Mr. Cullen?" the teacher called, seeking the answer to a question that I haden't heard. "The Krebs Circle," Edward answered, seeming relucant as he turned to look at Mr. Banner. I looked down at my book as soon as his eyes released me, trying to find my place. Cowardly as ever, I shifted my hair over my right shoulder to hide my face. I couldn't believe the rush of emotion pulsing through me - just because he'd happened to look at me for the first time in a half-dozen weeks. I couldn't allow him to have this level of influence over me. It was pathetic. More than pathetic, it was unhealthy.

Lok’tar ogar!” The daemon holding me pulled my head back, exposing my throat. “Victory or death,” I retorted at my captor hoarsely. “For the Horde. And for the record, shouting World of Warcraft battle cries kind of kills the whole ‘imminent death’ expectation.” The daemon paused. “What server are you on?” he demanded. “Blackhand.” “Righteous. Guild?” I couldn’t imagine what the hell that mattered at this point, but it was keeping me alive so that was a bonus. I’d gladly spit out the rest of my Warcraft stats if it bought me a few more minutes. “Yeah,” I coughed. “ElfhunterBitches.” He blinked and then grinned, tapping himself on the chest. “No shit. I’m TartBarbie. Undead DeathKnight.” I stared at him. “TB? Seriously? I’m Baconator. Blelf Warlock. You did a hell of a job tanking on that raid the other night.” “Yeah, I am pretty awesome.” He glanced over his shoulder, releasing me. “Look, if I’d known it was you, I’d never have agreed to this. Go on.” He nudged me with a leather boot. “I’ll tell them you got away.” I didn’t have to be told twice. “Thanks,” I said softly. “I’ll make it up to you, somehow.” “No worries.” He winked. “See you next Thursday.

Life is not about control or making things happen in the ways we think they should happen. In fact, it's rather arrogant for us to be on this planet that's been here for so long and expect to be able to control life on it. If we want to see changes, then our task is to set things in motion, not to micromanage and make them happen in the ways we think they should. If we have something that is possessing us, such as alcohol or our television sets or our cell phones, then it could be time to let it go and move on with our lives. If we're holding on to resentment and anger, we're simply raising our own stress levels and blood pressure, but we're not contributing anything positive to the situation--and it's time to let it go.

You okay?" he says, touching my cheek. His hand cradles the side of my head, his long fingers slipping through my hair. He smiles and holds my head in place as he kisses me. Heat spreads through me slowly.And fear, buzzing like an alarm in my chest. His lips still on mine,he pushes the jacket from my shoulders.I flinch when I hear it drop,and push him back,my eyes burning. I don't know why I feel this way. I didn't feel like this when he kissed me on the train.I press my palms to my face,covering my eyes. "What? What's wrong?" I shake my head. "Don't tell me it's nothing." His voice is cold.He grabs my arm. "Hey. Look at me." I take my hands from my face and lift my eyes to his.The hurt in his eyes and the anger in his clenched jaw surprise me. "Sometimes I wonder," I say,as calmly as I can, "what's in it for you. This...whatever it is." "What's in it for me," he repeats. He steps back,shaking his head. "You're an idiot,Tris." "I am not an idiot," I say. "Which is why I know that it's a little weird that,of all the girls you could have chosen,you chose me.So if you're just looking for...um,you know...that..." "What? Sex?" He scowls at me. "You know, if that was all I wanted, you probably wouldn't be the first person I would go to." I feel like he just punched me in the stomach. Of course I'm not the first person he would go to-not the first, not the prettiest,not desirable. I press my hands to my abdomen and look away, fighting off tears. I am not the crying type.Nor am I the yelling type. I blink a few times, lower my hands, and stare up at him. "I'm going to leave now," I say quietly. And I turn toward the door. "No,Tris." He grabs my wrist and wrenches me back. I push him away,hard, but he grabs my other wrist, holding our crossed arms between us. "I'm sorry I said that," he says. "What I meant was that you aren't like that. Which I knew when I met you." "You were an obstacle in my fear landscape." My lower lip wobbles. "Did you know that?" "What?" He releases my wrists, and the hurt look is back. "You're afraid of me?" "Not you," I say. I bite my lip to keep it still. "Being with you...with anyone. I've never been involved with someone before,and...you're older, and I don't know what your expectations are,and..." "Tris," he says sternly, "I don't know what delusion you're operating under,but this is all new to me, too." "Delusion?" I repeat. "You mean you haven't..." I raise my eyebrows. "Oh. Oh.I just assumed..." That because I am so absorbed by him, everyone else must be too. "Um. You know." "Well,you assumed wrong." He looks away. His cheeks are bright,like he's embarrassed. "You can tell me anything, you know," he says. He takes my face in his hands,his fingertips cold and his palms warm. "I am kinder than I seemed in training. I promise." I believe him.But this has nothing to do with his kindness. He kisses me between the eyebrows, and on the tip of my nose,and then carefully fits his mouth to mine. I am on edge.I have electricity coursing through my veins instead of blood. I want him to kiss me,I want him to; I am afraid of where it might go.

There are no guarantees in trading. The sooner you accept that you sooner you can release your expectations and focus unconditionally on a proven process.

Once you’ve truly forgiven someone, wipe the slate clean. So often we form judgments about people and then, no matter what they do, we see them through the lens of that judgment. Which means we’re just waiting for them to piss us off again. Which means we’re still in the Forvginess-lite stage; we’re pretending we’re cool but we’re really still holding on to some resentment. Release all expectations, let everyone off the hook, treat people as a blank slate over and over again, expect only the best from them regardless of what they’ve done in the past

I cannot accept the proposition that the four-hundred-year travail of the American Negro should result merely in his attainment of the present level of American civilisation. I am far from convinced that being released from the African witch doctor was worthwhile if I am now - in order to support the moral contradictions and the spiritual aridity of my life - expected to become dependent on the American psychiatrist. It is a bargain I refuse.

Relish the paradox. Celebrate change. Trust your unique process. Igniting your divine spark is one of the most natural, yet brave, things you can do at this time in your life. No less is asked of you now. No less should be expected of you in return. Realize who you are. Release your divinity into the world. We are waiting.

I release my parents from the feeling that they have already failed me. I release my children from the need to bring pride to me; that they may write their own ways according to their hearts, that whisper all the time in their ears. I release my partner from the obligation to complete myself. I do not lack anything, I learn with all beings all the time. I thank my grandparents and forefathers who have gathered so that I can breathe life today. I release them from past failures and unfulfilled desires, aware that they have done their best to resolve their situations within the consciousness they had at that moment. I honor you, I love you and I recognize you as innocent. I am transparent before your eyes, so they know that I do not hide or owe anything other than being true to myself and to my very existence, that walking with the wisdom of the heart, I am aware that I fulfill my life project, free from invisible and visible family loyalties that might disturb my Peace and Happiness, which are my only responsibilities. I renounce the role of savior, of being one who unites or fulfills the expectations of others. Learning through, and only through, love, I bless my essence, my way of expressing, even though somebody may not understand me. I understand myself, because I alone have lived and experienced my history; because I know myself, I know who I am, what I feel, what I do and why I do it. I respect and approve myself. I honor the Divinity in me and in you. We are free.

At Latham House, we were asked to believe in unlikely miracles. In second chances. We woke up each morning hoping that the odds had somehow swung in our favor. But that’s the thing about odds. Roll a die twice, and you expect two different results. Except it doesn’t work that way. You could roll the same side over and over again, the laws of the universe intact and unchanging with each turn. It’s only when you consider the past that the odds change. That things become less and less likely. Here’s something I know because I’m a nerd: up until the middle of the twentieth century, dice were made out of cellulose nitrate. It’s a material that remains stable for decades but, in a flash, can decompose. The chemical compound breaks down, releasing nitric acid. So every time you roll a die, there’s a small chance that it won’t give you a result at all, that instead it will cleave, crumble, and explode.

When the outcome of our struggles feels disappointing, this can place great strain on our faith. It requires trust in God at the highest level to release our expectations. This aspect of faith is probably one of the hardest for us to fully embrace. We need the discernment of the Holy Spirit to recognize that God’s highest priority is to transform us, not just our circumstances.

I like Damien Stark. He’s not what I expected, but there’s something compelling about him— and it’s more than just the fact that he’s hotter than sin and got me worked up into quite a lather. He seems perfectly comfortable in his own skin.

According to scientists, there are three stages of love: lust, attraction, and attachment. And, it turns out, each of the stages is orchestrated by chemicals—neurotransmitters—in the brain. As you might expect, lust is ruled by testosterone and estrogen. The second stage, attraction, is governed by dopamine and serotonin. When, for example, couples report feeling indescribably happy in each other’s presence, that’s dopamine, the pleasure hormone, doing its work. Taking cocaine fosters the same level of euphoria. In fact, scientists who study both the brains of new lovers and cocaine addicts are hard-pressed to tell the difference. The second chemical of the attraction phase is serotonin. When couples confess that they can’t stop thinking about each other, it’s because their serotonin level has dropped. People in love have the same low serotonin levels as people with OCD. The reason they can’t stop thinking about each other is that they are literally obsessed. Oxytocin and vasopressin control the third stage: attachment or long-term bonding. Oxytocin is released during orgasm and makes you feel closer to the person you’ve had sex with. It’s also released during childbirth and helps bond mother to child. Vasopressin is released postcoitally. Natasha knows these facts cold. Knowing them helped her get over Rob’s betrayal. So she knows: love is just chemicals and coincidence. So why does Daniel feel like something more?

Release Others’ Expectations. If you focus on what others expect of you, you’ll continue to act on and attract more of what they desire for you. But when you can shift your inner thoughts to what you intend to create and attract into your life, you will no longer have to give mental energy to what others want for you....

With the weapons that God has made available to you, he expects you to capture and hold captive every thought and idea that comes into your mind, and to examine these against the backdrop of the Word of God. Those thoughts that are in line with God’s will and purpose for your life are to be released and allowed to move freely within your mind. However, those thoughts and ideas that are contrary to the Word of God are to be held perpetually captive and cast out of your mind in the name of Jesus!

Jacin’s fingers curled around his knife. It was torture. Jacin looked more afraid than when he’s stood on trial. More afraid than when his torso had been stripped raw from the lashings. This was the last time she would ever see him. This was her last moment. Her last breath. Suddenly, all of the politics and all of the games stopped mattering. Suddenly, she felt daring. “Jacin,” she said, with a shaky smile. “You must know. I cannot remember a time when I didn’t love you. I don’t think such a time ever existed.” His eyes filled with a thousand emotions. But before he could say whatever he would say, before he could kill her, Winter grabbed the front of his shirt with both hands and kissed him. He thawed much quicker than shed expected. Almost instantly, like he’d been waiting for this moment, he grabbed her hips and pulled her against him with a possessiveness that overwhelmed her. His lips were desperate and starved as he leaned into the kiss, pressing her against the rail. She gasped, and he deepened the kiss, threading one hand into the hair at the nape of her neck. Her head swam, muddles with heat and a lifetime of desire. Jacin’s other hand abandoned her hip. She heard the ring of steel as the knife was pulled from its scabbard. Winter shuddered and kissed him harder, filling it with every fantasy she’d ever had. Jacin’s hand slipped out of her hair. His arm encircled her. He held her against him like he couldn’t get close enough. Like he meant to absorb her body into his. Releasing his shirt, Winter found his neck, his jaw. She felt the tips of his hair on her thumbs. He made a noise and she couldn’t tell if it was desire or pain or regret or a mix of everything. His arm tensed against her back. His weight shifted as he raised the knife.

My,don't you have pretty eyes," he says. "It's a shame the rest of you is so plain." My heart pounds. I tug my hand back, but his grip tightens. I smell something acrid and unpleasant on his breath. "You look a little young to be walking around by yourself,dear," he says. I stop tugging, and stand up straighter. I know I look young; I don't need to be reminded. "I'm older than I look," I retort. "I'm sixteen." His lips spread wide, revealing a gray molar with a dark pit in the side. I can't tell if he's smiling or grimacing. "Then isn't today a special day for you? The day before you choose?" "Let go of me," I say. I hear rining in my ears. My voice sounds clear and stern-not what I expected to hear. I feel like it doesn't belong to me. I am ready.I know what to do. I picture myself bringing my elbow back and hitting him. I see the bag of apples flying away from me. I hear my running footsteps. I am prepared to act. But then he releases my wrist, takes the apples,and says, "Choose wisely, little girl.

How can I expect them to understand me when I haven't let them know who I am? It's me who's made myself a prisoner. And only I hold the key to my release.

I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it. "I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things." Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world — prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own closest comrades I would live my beautiful ideal.

There is something joyful about storms that interrupt routine. Snow or freezing rain suddenly releases you from expectations, performance demands, and the tyranny of appointments and schedules.

I became alive once more. At the dances I was one of the most untiring and gayest. One evening a cousin of Sasha, a young boy, took me aside. With a grave face, as if he were about to announce the death of a dear comrade, he whispered to me that it did not behoove an agitator to dance. Certainly not with such reckless abandon, anyway. It was undignified for one who was on the way to become a force in the anarchist movement. My frivolity would only hurt the Cause. I grew furious at the impudent interference of the boy. I told him to mind his own business. I was tired of having the Cause constantly thrown into my face. I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it. "I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things." Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world — prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own closest comrades I would live my beautiful ideal

Our goal in life is to carry with us the wisdom of experience, yet treat each new day as its own unique reality, rather than comparing what currently is to what has been in the past. When we compare, we plant expectations that then become self-fulfilling prophesies through the Law of Attraction.

I might not get into any of them,” Adam said. “It might have been for nothing.” “Whatever. Then you make a new list.” “You don’t understand. I’d miss a semester unless I went for rolling admissions and that completely screws up the financial aid. Look, I don’t expect you to care about this.” Right after saying this, Adam said, in a different voice, “I’m being a shithead.” “You are. And a shitfoot. Where are your shoes?” “Still under the table.” “Opal, could you get them for him?” Opal could not, because it was too boring to go back to the house when they were out here being exciting in the dark. What she could get them was that jar of twenty fireflies, which she released in Adam’s face as she scampered by him. He reared back while Ronan enjoyed the scenery. “She’s so useful,” Adam said. Opal preened.

We get to--have to--finally release the perfectionism and expectations, expectations being resentments under construction. We can't get bogged down in this stupid stuff. It's actually a miracle just to be here at all, with a few truly great friends, and to keep muddling through, grateful if not sometimes perplexed.

I hereby break all contracts I made unconsciously & consciously before I knew the depth of my own Spirit; the silent ones, the ones I inherited, passed down & accepted as my own from generation to generation. I hereby severe all ties with that which holds me down & back, unable to see the glimmer of what I know to be true, whether by my own creation or by expectations tied like weights around my ankles by others lost in the sea of their own confused hearts. I hereby reclaim my right to choose how my story unfolds, armed with creativity, a heart made of gold & reverent humility. I hereby fully accept all of this living & what-is-yet-to-come with brash integrity & loving determination. I hereby swear to use my superpowers for the love of all beings & I return anything that no longer serves my Higher & Lower Self (& the ones Caught-in-Between) with gratitude & consciousness. I do this all with love, from the great source of it found in my very own beating heart.

But too many of Trump’s core supporters do hold views that I find—there’s no other word for it—deplorable. And while I’m sure a lot of Trump supporters had fair and legitimate reasons for their choice, it is an uncomfortable and unavoidable fact that everyone who voted for Donald Trump—all 62,984,825 of them—made the decision to elect a man who bragged about sexual assault, attacked a federal judge for being Mexican and grieving Gold Star parents who were Muslim, and has a long and well-documented history of racial discrimination in his businesses. That doesn’t mean every Trump voter approved of those things, but at a minimum they accepted or overlooked them. And they did it without demanding the basics that Americans used to expect from all presidential candidates, from releasing tax returns to offering substantive policy proposals to upholding common standards of decency.

Once you are released from the fruit of action, the action will happen by itself. You don’t have to stop working to be released from action. Simply, it will dissolve, melt and disappear. Once the expectation of the fruit of action is completely removed from your life, the action occurs by itself. You don’t have to do anything about it.

...affirm my life every morning and let myself have a good day, free myself each night to dream the necessary dreams, find pleasure in serving those I love, give up guilt at refusing to when they demand my self-annihilation, find joy in teaching, joy in talking to loving readers..., give my self time every day to walk or go to a museum, be generous because it reminds me how much abundance I have been given, be loving because it reminds me not to feel jealous of those who only seem to have more, seize my life, release my anger, bless the known and the unknown world.... If, every day, I dare to remember that I am here on loan, that this house, this hillside, these minutes are all leased to me, not given, I will never despair. Despair is for those who expect to live for ever. I no longer do.

Cinder." Kai pulled one leg onto the bank, turning his body so they were facing each other. He took her hands between his and her heart began to drum unexpectedly. Not because of his touch, and not even because of his low, serious tone, but because it occurred to Cinder all at once that Kai was nervous. Kai was never nervous. "I asked you once," he said, running his thumbs over her knuckles, "if you thought you would ever be willing to wear a crown again. Not as the queen of Luna, but ... as my empress. And you said that you would consider it, someday." She swallowed a breath of cool night air. "And ... this is that day?" His lips twitched, but didn't quite become a smile. "I love you. I want to be with you for the rest of my life. I want to marry you, and, yes, I want you to be my empress." Cinder gaped at him for a long moment before she whispered, "That's a lot of wanting." "You have no idea." She lowered her lashes. "I might have some idea." Kai released one of her hands and she looked up again to see him reaching into his pocket - the same that had held Wolf's and Scarlet's wedding rings before. His fist was closed when he pulled it out and Kai held it toward her, released a slow breath, and opened his fingers to reveal a stunning ring with a large ruby ringed in diamonds. It didn't take long for her retina scanner to measure the ring, and within seconds it was filling her in on far more information than she needed - inane worlds like carats and clarity scrolled past her vision. But it was the ring's history that snagged her attention. It had been his mother's engagement ring once, and his grandmother's before that. Kai took her hand and slipped the ring onto her finger. Metal clinked against metal, and the priceless gem looked as ridiculous against her cyborg plating as the simple gold band had looked on Wolf's enormous, deformed, slightly hairy hand. Cinder pressed her lips together and swallowed, hard, before daring to meet Kai's gaze again. "Cinder," he said, "will you marry me?" Absurd, she thought. The emperor of the Eastern Commonwealth was proposing to her. It was uncanny. It was hysterical. But it was Kai, and somehow, that also made it exactly right. "Yes," she whispered. "I will marry you." Those simple words hung between them for a breath, and then she grinned and kissed him, amazed that her declaration didn't bring the surge of anxiety she would have expected years ago. He drew her into his arms, laughing between kisses, and she suddenly started to laugh too. She felt strangely delirious. They had stood against all adversity to be together, and now they would forge their own path to love. She would be Kai's wife. She would be the Commonwealth's empress. And she had every intention of being blissfully happy for ever, ever after.

The process of all healing is a definite, positive, mental attitude, an inner attitude, or a way of thinking, called faith. Healing is due to a confident expectancy, which acts as a powerful suggestion to the subconscious mind releasing its healing potency.

You're a handsome one, aren't you?" she cooed. "So strong and sturdy. What a good hasp you must have; what a firm sense of your purpose. But you've been holding your place for so long. You can't be expecting to stay closed forever. Why, that isn't fair! The people who put you here don't appreciate you the way I do. They don't understand how difficult it is to be a lock, and do the things you do. I would appreciate you always. I would never leave you alone in the rain to rust." "Are we watching a woman try to seduce a lock?" asked Andrew. "I'm not objecting if we are -- your kink is okay and all -- but I just want to confirm that everyone else is seeing what I'm seeing, here." The lock clicked as it released, popping open. "No, we're watch a woman successfully seduce a lock, said Jeffery. "Fascinating." "Her love life must involve a lot of handcuffs," I said, earning myself a snort from Ciara as she reached out and removed the padlock from its place on the door. "Don't ask about mine and I won't ask about yours," she said, making the lock disappear into her pocket.

While an impulse toward wholeness is natural and exists in everyone, each of us heals in our own way. Some people heal because they have work to do. Others heal because they have been released from their work and the pressures and expectations that others place on them. Some people need music, others need silence, some need people around them, others heal alone. Many different things can activate and strengthen the life force in us. For each of us there are conditions of healing that are as unique as a fingerprint. Sometimes people ask me what I do in my sessions with patients. Often I just remind people of the possibility of healing and study their own way of dealing with them.

When you travel you become invisible if you want. I do want. I like to be the observer. What makes these people who they are Could I feel at home here No one expects you to have the stack of papers back by Tuesday or to check messages or to fertilize the geraniums or to sit full of dread in the waiting room at the protologist’s office. When travelling you have the delectable possibility of not understanding a word of what is said to you. Language becomes simply a musical background for watching bicycles zoom along a canal calling for nothing from you. Even better if you speak the language you catch nuances and make more contact with people. Travel releases spontaneity. You become a godlike creature full of choice free to visit the stately pleasure domes make love in the morning sketch a bell tower read a history of Byzantium stare for one hour at the face of Leonardo da Vinci’s Madonna dei fusi. You open as in childhood and – for a time – receive this world. There’s the visceral aspect too – the huntress who is free. Free to go Free to return home bringing memories to lay on the hearth.

I do not know what infinite yearning possesses you, so that you are driven to a perilous, lonely search for some goal where you expect to find a final release from the spirit that torments you. I see you as the eternal pilgrim to some shrine that perhaps does not exist. I do not know to what inscrutable Nirvana you aim. Do you know yourself? Perhaps it is Truth and Freedom that you seek, and for a moment you thought that you might find release in Love. I think your tired soul sought rest in a woman’s arms, and when you found no rest there you hated her. You had no pity for her, because you have no pity for yourself. And you killed her out of fear, because you trembled still at the danger you had barely escaped.

Spiritual assistance isn't there to make things easy and have everything go your way, but to help you grow into the fuller version of who you are. Rather than revealing that you're on the wrong track, shake-up and breakup often indicate that you're really starting to get somewhere. Of course, it's hard to feel this way while getting battered around by the severe crosswinds of our time, but that's when you most need to know it. In the Western world we lack a clear set of guidelines for times like these. We lack meaningful rites of passage. We fail to equip people for knowing what to expect at key crossroads of the soul. We lack substantial guides for teaching individuals how to stay with their deep inner truth when all hell breaks loose. We get thrown into extreme life-changing passages like birth, first blood, first sex, marriage, pregnancy, child-bearing, divorce and death with only superficial guidance, and no deep cultural support for grasping the full significance of what we're coming out of and going into. So disruptions along the way don't usually appear as well-designed hurdles of initiation in a spiritual journey. Usually they appear as impossible dilemmas that bust your ass and belie evidence of any greater design. Major rites of passage in the Western world rarely come in the form of sacred rituals but are embedded within mundane circumstance. It takes special perception to recognize the initiatory path through the chaos. It takes a shamanic perspective to realize that, like a winepress of the gods, rigorous challenges are there to squeeze out your impurities and release your essence. ...

Deep inquiry leads to contemplation, or prayer. Through dedicated contemplation we can attune to consciousness, the light which constitutes all phenomena. This light is our intrinsic nature. Our being is always shining. Our real nature is openness, listening, release, surrender without producing or will. Prayer or contemplation is welcoming free from projection and expectation. It is without demand and formulation. It invites the object to unfold in you and reveals your openness to you. Live with this opening, this vastness. Attune yourself to it. It is love. Ardent contemplation brings you to living meditation so ultimately they are one.

Television. Maybe it was all a study in the art of mummification. The effect of the medium is so evanescent that those who work in its time apparatus feel the need to preserve themselves, delivering their bodies to be lacquered and trussed, sprayed with the rarest of pressurized jellies, all to one end, a release from the perilous context of time. This is their only vanity, to expect to dwell forever in hermetic sub-corridors, free of every ravage, secure as old kings asleep in sodium.

With his release imminent, Knight seems more unsettled than ever. He scratches furiously at his knees. Jail, he's realized, might not be all bad. There's routine and order in jail, and he's able to click into a survival mode that is not too dissimilar, in terms of steeliness of mental state, to the one he'd perfected during winters in the woods. "I'm surrounded in here by less than desirable people," he says, "but at least I wasn't thrown into the waters of society and expected to swim.

God created you to leave your mark on this generation. You have gifts and talents that you have not tapped into. There are new levels of your destiny still in front of you. But break out starts in your thinking. As you put these keys into action, making room for increase, expecting shifts of God’s favor, praying bold prayers, and keeping the right perspective, then God will release floods of His goodness that will thrust you beyond barriers of the past into the extraordinary life you were designed to live.

Cannabis sativa and its derivatives are strictly prohibited in Turkey, and the natural correlative of this proscription is that alcohol, far from being frowned upon as it is in other Moslem lands, is freely drunk; being a government monopoly it can be bought at any cigarette counter. This fact is no mere detail; it is of primary social importance, since the psychological effects of the two substances are diametrically opposed to each other. Alcohol blurs the personality by loosening inhibitions. The drinker feels, temporarily at least, a sense of participation. Kif abolishes no inhibitions; on the contrary it reinforces them, pushes the individual further back into the recesses of his own isolated personality, pledging him to contemplation and inaction. It is to be expected that there should be a close relationsip between the culture of a given society and the means used by its members to achieve release and euphoria. For Judaism and Christianity the means has always been alcohol; for Islam it has been hashish. The first is dynamic in its effects, the other static. If a nation wishes, however mistakenly, to Westernize itself, first let it give up hashish. The rest will follow, more or less as a manner of course. Conversely, in a Western country, if a whole segment of the population desires, for reasons of protest (as has happened in the United States), to isolate itself in a radical fashion from the society around it, the quickest and surest way is for it to replace alcohol by cannabis.

Morpheus puts an arm around me. “You’re all right, blossom,” he says, his mouth at my ear. “Can you drive?” I nod and sniffle. “Good.” He scoots back to his seat, then grabs my chin to force me to look at him. “Next time, I expect you to figure a way out. A netherling way.” My tears gather around his hand, smudging his fingers with makeup. “You didn’t leave me,” I utter in disbelief. “I thought you would leave me.” He releases my face and looks out the opposite window while rubbing his hand on his jeans to wipe off my mascara. “Nonsense. I stayed for the car.”

That is why it is so important to let certain things go. To release them. To cut loose. People need to understand that no one is playing with marked cards; sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Don’t expect to get anything back, don’t expect recognition for your efforts, don’t expect your genius to be discovered or your love to be understood. Complete the circle. Not out of pride, inability or arrogance, but simply because whatever it is no longer fits in your life. Close the door, change the record, clean the house, get rid of the dust. Stop being who you were and become who you are.

What the hell is taking so long?” Elijah complained. “Elijah, hush,” Legna admonished. “It is their joining. Let them be.” Legna moved to snuggle up against her brother, allowing him to keep her warm as the three of them awaited the bride and her groom. “Jacob! I swear if you don’t put me down this very instant I’m going to marry someone else!” Isabella’s voice carried shrilly through the night, half annoyed, half laughing. The three waiting at the altar turned in unison to see the couple break from the tree line. Jacob had indeed carried his bride out of the woods, but he’d done so by slinging her over a shoulder, leaving her backside displayed prominently. Elijah choked on a laugh and Legna released a horrified gasp. Noah reached out to stay her from moving. “Let it be, Legna. What did you expect from the two of them?” Serves you right, you little tease. Jacob, please! You’re embarrassing me! And having me walk out of the woods in a state of arousal would not have embarrassed me? I said I was sorry! Was that before or after the mental striptease you sent me? Isabella sighed with exasperation, and then giggled. “You know, Emily Post is having heart failure right about now.” “Good, then that makes two of us.

He let his fingers tease her until she uttered soft cries. Stella spread her legs further and wider as his hand explored, touched, and pleasured every part of her womanhood. She untied her outer bodice and lifted her breasts so they spilled from her corset. Her hands rubbed and played with her nipples. She knew what excited Bartolomeo. He continued to pleasure her while she touched herself, and he stroked his erection until he was near to bursting. Finally, he pulled her forward and slid into her, and her exclamation was louder than either of them expected. She clamped a hand over her mouth, wide-eyed. He did not release her. Instead, he slowed his motion, and once he felt sure no one could have heard them, he began to rock against her, deeper and harder. The bed began to creak, but he was lost in the depths of his desire. When she reached her climax, her cries more urgent and sustained, he lost control and spilled into her, his hips bucking a few more times. His legs threatened to give way with pleasure and exhaustion.

Pattern recognition is so basic that the brain's pattern detection modules and its reward circuitry became inextricably linked. Whenever we successfully detect a pattern-or think we detect a pattern-the neurotransmitters responsible for sensations of pleasure squirt through our brains. If a pattern has repeated often enough and successfully enough in the past, the neurotransmitter release occurs in response to the mere presence of suggestive cues, long before the expected outcome of that pattern actually occurs. Like the study participants who reported seeing regular sequences in random stimuli, we will use alomst any pretext to get our pattern recognition kicks. Pattern recognition is the most primitive form of analogical reasoning, part of the neural circuitry for metaphor. Monkeys, rodents, and birds recognize patterns, too. What distinguishes humans from other species, though, is that we have elevated pattern recognition to an art. "To understand," the philosopher Isaiah Berlin observed, "is to perceive patterns." Metaphor, however, is not the mere detection of patterns; it is the creation of patterns, too. When Robert Frost wrote, "A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain" his brain created a pattern connecting umbrellas to banks, a pattern retraced every time someone else reads this sentence. Frost believed passionately that an understanding of metaphor was essential not just to survival in university literature courses but also to survival in daily life.

Invitations not obligations: Our expectations of other people can be a big drain on our emotions. When we ask someone to do something, or, worse, have a belief that someone should do something and insist that he or she comply, it places a great stress on us. And the other person, noting our anxiety and insistence that they conform to our expectations, may actually become less inclined to respond as we like. Instead, consider everything you want someone else to do to be an invitation that the other person may or may not choose to accept. Of course, if you are an employer or a parent who is trying to ensure a child's safety, you must have parameters and ground rules. Everyone else, however, should be released from the obligation of doing, being, living, and acting as you feel they should.

I felt a strange sense of calm and realized what I was feeling was the release of responsibility. Nobody expected me to be at work the next day. Nobody was trying to call me. I had no e-mail to check. Ghost enthusiasts weren’t stalking me on Facebook. Our responsibilities were stripped down to the bare biological basics: thirst, hunger, cold. All at once I could see why lifelong convicts got to where they couldn’t function outside of prison walls. You’re almost functioning more at a level for which the human brain was intended.

In the early months of World War II, San Francisco's Fill-more district, or the Western Addition, experienced a visible revolution. On the surface it appeared to be totally peaceful and almost a refutation of the term “revolution.” The Yakamoto Sea Food Market quietly became Sammy's Shoe Shine Parlor and Smoke Shop. Yashigira's Hardware metamorphosed into La Salon de Beauté owned by Miss Clorinda Jackson. The Japanese shops which sold products to Nisei customers were taken over by enterprising Negro businessmen, and in less than a year became permanent homes away from home for the newly arrived Southern Blacks. Where the odors of tempura, raw fish and cha had dominated, the aroma of chitlings, greens and ham hocks now prevailed. The Asian population dwindled before my eyes. I was unable to tell the Japanese from the Chinese and as yet found no real difference in the national origin of such sounds as Ching and Chan or Moto and Kano. As the Japanese disappeared, soundlessly and without protest, the Negroes entered with their loud jukeboxes, their just-released animosities and the relief of escape from Southern bonds. The Japanese area became San Francisco's Harlem in a matter of months. A person unaware of all the factors that make up oppression might have expected sympathy or even support from the Negro newcomers for the dislodged Japanese. Especially in view of the fact that they (the Blacks) had themselves undergone concentration-camp living for centuries in slavery's plantations and later in sharecroppers' cabins. But the sensations of common relationship were missing. The Black newcomer had been recruited on the desiccated farm lands of Georgia and Mississippi by war-plant labor scouts. The chance to live in two-or three-story apartment buildings (which became instant slums), and to earn two-and even three-figured weekly checks, was blinding. For the first time he could think of himself as a Boss, a Spender. He was able to pay other people to work for him, i.e. the dry cleaners, taxi drivers, waitresses, etc. The shipyards and ammunition plants brought to booming life by the war let him know that he was needed and even appreciated. A completely alien yet very pleasant position for him to experience. Who could expect this man to share his new and dizzying importance with concern for a race that he had never known to exist? Another reason for his indifference to the Japanese removal was more subtle but was more profoundly felt. The Japanese were not whitefolks. Their eyes, language and customs belied the white skin and proved to their dark successors that since they didn't have to be feared, neither did they have to be considered. All this was decided unconsciously.

[Daughter], I want to release you. IF you hate me or want to reject me, I understand. If you curse me, then want to atone, I also understand. I expect to be your home plate: kicked, scuffed, but always returned to. I expect to be the earth from which you spring. But if I release you too much, what will you have to fight against? You need my acceptance, but you may need my resistance more. I promise to stand firm while you come and go. I promise unwavering live while you experiment with hate. Hate is energy too -- sometimes brighter-burning energy than love. Hate is often the precondition for freedom. No matter how I try to disappear, I fear I cast too big a shadow. I would erase that shadow if I could. but if I erased it, how would you know your own shadow? And with no shadow, how would you ever fly? I want to release you from the fears that bound me, yet I know you can only release yourself. I stand here wearing my catcher's padding. I pray you won't need me to catch you if you fall. But I'm here waiting anyway. Freedom is full of fear. But fear isn't the worst thing we face. Paralysis is.

I always felt that someone, a long time ago, organized the affairs of the world into areas that made sense-catagories of stuff that is perfectible, things that fit neatly in perfect bundles. The world of business, for example, is this way-line items, spreadsheets, things that add up, that can be perfected. The legal system-not always perfect, but nonetheless a mind-numbing effort to actually write down all kinds of laws and instructions that cover all aspects of being human, a kind of umbrella code of conduct we should all follow. Perfection is crucial in building an aircraft, a bridge, or a high-speed train. The code and mathematics residing just below the surface of the Internet is also this way. Things are either perfectly right or they will not work. So much of the world we work and live in is based upon being correct, being perfect. But after this someone got through organizing everything just perfectly, he (or probably a she) was left with a bunch of stuff that didn't fit anywhere-things in a shoe box that had to go somewhere. So in desperation this person threw up her arms and said, 'OK! Fine. All the rest of this stuff that isn't perfectible, that doesn't seem to fit anywhere else, will just have to be piled into this last, rather large, tattered box that we can sort of push behind the couch. Maybe later we can come back and figure where it all is supposed to fit in. Let's label the box ART.' The problem was thankfully never fixed, and in time the box overflowed as more and more art piled up. I think the dilemma exists because art, among all the other tidy categories, most closely resembles what it is like to be human. To be alive. It is our nature to be imperfect. The have uncategorized feelings and emotions. To make or do things that don't sometimes necessarily make sense. Art is all just perfectly imperfect. Once the word ART enters the description of what you're up to , it is almost getting a hall pass from perfection. It thankfully releases us from any expectation of perfection. In relation to my own work not being perfect, I just always point to the tattered box behind the couch and mention the word ART, and people seem to understand and let you off the hook about being perfect a go back to their business.

Meanwhile she's coldly interrogating me with her eyes. She's definitely in charge of this house and this moment. This must be Chloe. She escorts me to a table full of people and presents me. She introduces them briefly. This one's from Morocco, that one from Italy, he's Persian--I'm not exactly sure what that means--this one's from "the UK." They're all in their twenties, poised and dismissive. They don't know or care who I'm supposed to be at home or where I went to school. They're measuring something else I can't see and don't understand. They nod and turn back to each other. They seem to be waiting for a cue from Chloe to release them from having to feign interest. She introduces herself at substantially more length. Her father is Chinese and her mother is Swiss; she grew up in Hong Kong and "in Europe." I grew up in Michigan and in Michigan. But she didn't ask.

Watanabe-san and Sadie exchanged gifts. She brought him a pair of carved wooden Ichigo chopsticks that their Japanese distributor had had made to celebrate the release of the second Ichigo in Japan. In return, he gave her a silk scarf with a reproduction of Cherry Blossoms at Night, by Katsushika Ōi, on it. The painting depicts a woman composing a poem on a slate in the foreground. The titular cherry blossoms are in the background, all but a few of them in deep shadow. Despite the title, the cherry blossoms are not the subject; it is a painting about the creative process---its solitude and the ways in which an artist, particularly a female one, is expected to disappear. The woman's slate appears to be blank. "I know Hokusai is an inspiration for you," Watanabe-san said. "This is by Hokusai's daughter. Only a handful of her paintings survived, but I think she is even better than the father.

Two people, locked safely inside, briefly released from their complicated histories, and the weighty expectations of the town around them, ate good food, and laughed. ... And while there was barely a touch between them, apart from the accidental brushing of skin against skin, while passing bread or refiling a glass, [she] rediscovered a little part of her that she hadn't known she'd missed. The flirtatious young woman who liked to talk about things she had read, seen, and thought about, as much as she liked to ride a mountain track. In turn, [he] enjoyed a woman's full attention. A ready laugh at his jokes, and the challenge of an idea that might differ from his own. Time flew. And each ended the night full and happy with the rare glow that comes from knowing your very being has been understood by somebody else. And that there might just be someone out there, who will only ever see the best in you.

Do not, cherie, ever think you cannot measure up to my expectations." "You might get tired teaching me things." His hand spanned the slim column of her throat so that her pulse was beating into the center of his palm. "Never. It will never happen. And I have much to learn from you.There has been no laughter in my life.You have brought that to me.There are many things you have brought to my life-feelings and emotions I could never experience without you." He bent to brush her mouth with his. "Can you not feel that I speak the truth?" Savannah closed her eyes as his mouth took possession of hers, as his mind merged firmly with hers. There was such an intimacy in sharing his thoughts and feelings. Gregori was intense in his hunger and need. There were no doubts in him, no hesitation. He knew they would always be together; he would accept nothing else.If something ever changed that,he would choose to follow her into the dawn. Gregori released her slowly, almost reluctantly. She stood very still, looking up at him, her blue eyes studying his face. "We can do this Savannah," he encouraged her softly. "Do not get frightened and try to run from your fate. Stay with me and fight." A small smile touched her mouth. "Fate. Interesting word to use. You make it sound like I've been sentenced to prison." She took a deep breath and made herself relax. "You're bad, but not quite that bad," she teased him. His white teeth gleamed, his predator's smile. "I am very bad, ma petite. Do not forget that if you wish to be safe." She shrugged casually, but her heart leapt in response. "Safety is not a concept I strictly adhere to," she ansered, her chin up. "That is a double-edged sword for me." Savannah burst out laughing, her natural sense of humor bubbling up. "You bet it is. I don't intend to make things easy for you. You've had your way for far too long.

Religion may not be something you approve of, and that's just fine. But agrarian religious culture is going to be powerful. If you think all religious people are the same, that religion is the cause of all problems and religious people are idiots, that's your privilege; but shut up about it. As we’re less and less able to control our future, more and more people going to praying in their foxholes, maybe even you. Get over it, and stop feeling superior. And if you reject religion and don't want to see it flourish but you aren't working to provide community support, food for the hungry, care for the sick and dying, festivals of celebration and release, and a way to think about why the world of so screwed up, then expect to spend a lot of time wondering why you aren't as successful as religious groups. Don't blame it on religion – blame it on the fact that you aren't very good a doing the things that religion does very well for many of us.

All social orders command their members to imbibe in pipe dreams of posterity, the mirage of immortality, to keep them ahead of the extinction that would ensue in a few generations if the species did not replenish itself. This is the implicit, and most pestiferous, rationale for propagation: to become fully integrated into a society, one must offer it fresh blood. Naturally, the average set of parents does not conceive of their conception as a sacrificial act. These are civilized human beings we are talking about, and thus they are quite able to fill their heads with a panoply of less barbaric rationales for reproduction, among them being the consolidation of a spousal relationship; the expectation of new and enjoyable experiences in the parental role; the hope that one will pass the test as a mother or father; the pleasing of one’s own parents, not to forget their parents and possibly a great-grandparent still loitering about; the serenity of taking one’s place in the seemingly deathless lineage of a familial enterprise; the creation of individuals who will care for their paternal and maternal selves in their dotage; the quelling of a sense of guilt or selfishness for not having done their duty as human beings; and the squelching of that faint pathos that is associated with the childless. Such are some of the overpowering pressures upon those who would fertilize the future. These pressures build up in people throughout their lifetimes and must be released, just as everyone must evacuate their bowels or fall victim to a fecal impaction. And who, if they could help it, would suffer a building, painful fecal impaction? So we make bowel movements to relieve this pressure. Quite a few people make gardens because they cannot stand the pressure of not making a garden. Others commit murder because they cannot stand the pressure building up to kill someone, either a person known to them or a total stranger. Everything is like that. Our whole lives consist of metaphorical as well as actual bowel movements, one after the other. Releasing these pressures can have greater or lesser consequences in the scheme of our lives. But they are all pressures, all bowel movements of some kind. At a certain age, children are praised for making a bowel movement in the approved manner. Later on, the praise of others dies down for this achievement and our bowel movements become our own business, although we may continue to praise ourselves for them. But overpowering pressures go on governing our lives, and the release of these essentially bowel-movement pressures may once again come up for praise, congratulations, and huzzahs of all kinds.

One question I feel compelled to ask; Before they agreed to marry, did all the Cynster females behave as irrationally as Heather is?" He glanced briefly up, but Richard didn't look up from the lure he was tying off as he unperturably replied, "Prickly at the best of times, then 'have-at-you' the instant you set a foot, nay, a toe, wrong?" "Exactly." "Then yes." Richard straightened, tipping his head as he examined his lure. "It seems to be a family failing, even when they're not Cynster-born." Breckenridge humphed. He was carefully placing the fresh hook into his clamp when Richard continued, "There seems to be this prevailing wisdom, not just over marrying for love, but what that actually equates to. They seem to all have it firmly in their heads that without some cast-iron assurance, preferably in the form of an open declaration from us, then no matter the reality of any love, that love won't be solid and strong." Unwinding the vise to release his completed lure, Richard grimaced. "It's almost as if they think that unless we state our feelings out aloud, we won't know what they-our feelings-are." He snorted. "As if we somehow might not notice that our lives have suddenly shifted to revolve solely about them and their well-being." Breckenridge grunted in masculine agreement. "Sadly," Richard said, selecting another hook, "it appears futile to expect them to go against the familial grain.

I feel as though dispossessed from the semblances of some crystalline reality to which I’d grown accustomed, and to some degree, had engaged in as a participant, but to which I had, nevertheless, grown inexplicably irrelevant. But the elements of this phenomenon are now quickly dissolving from memory and being replaced by reverse-engineered Random Access actualizations of junk code/DNA consciousness, the retro-coded catalysts of rogue cellular activity. The steel meshing titters musically and in its song, I hear a forgotten tale of the Interstitial gaps that form pinpoint vortexes at which fibers (quanta, as it were) of Reason come to a standstill, like light on the edge of a Singularity. The gaps, along their ridges, seasonally infected by the incidental wildfires in the collective unconscious substrata. Heat flanks passageways down the Interstices. Wildfires cluster—spread down the base trunk Axon in a definitive roar: hitting branches, flaring out to Dendrites to give rise to this release of the very chemical seeds through which sentience is begotten. Float about the ether, gliding a gentle current, before skimming down, to a skip over the surface of a sea of deep black with glimmering waves. And then, come to a stop, still inanimate and naked before any trespass into the Field, with all its layers that serve to veil. Plunge downward into the trenches. Swim backwards, upstream, and down through these spiraling jets of bubbles. Plummet past the threshold to trace the living history of shadows back to their source virus. And acquire this sense that the viruses as a sample, all of the outlying populations withstanding: they have their own sense of self-importance, too. Their own religion. And they mine their hosts barren with the utilitarian wherewithal that can only be expected of beings with self-preservationist motives.

It as mathematical, marriage, not, as one might expect, additional; it was exponential. This one man, nervous in a suite a size too small for his long, lean self, this woman, in a green lace dress cut to the upper thigh, with a white rose behind her ear. Christ, so young. The woman before them was a unitarian minister, and on her buzzed scalp, the grey hairs shone in a swab of sun through the lace in the window. Outside, Poughkeepsie was waking. Behind them, a man in a custodian's uniform cried softly beside a man in pajamas with a Dachshund, their witnesses, a shine in everyone's eye. One could taste the love on the air, or maybe that was sex, or maybe that was all the same then. 'I do,' she said. 'I do,' he said. They did. They would. Our children will be so fucking beautiful, he thought, looking at her. Home, she thought, looking at him. 'You may kiss,' said the officiant. They did, would. Now they thanked everyone and laughed, and papers were signed and congratulations offered, and all stood for a moment, unwilling to leave this gentile living room where there was such softness. The newlyweds thanked everyone again, shyly, and went out the door into the cool morning. They laughed, rosy. In they'd come integers, out they came, squared. Her life, in the window, the parakeet, scrap of blue midday in the London dusk, ages away from what had been most deeply lived. Day on a rocky beach, creatures in the tide pool. All those ordinary afternoons, listening to footsteps in the beams of the house, and knowing the feeling behind them. Because it was so true, more than the highlights and the bright events, it was in the daily where she'd found life. The hundreds of time she'd dug in her garden, each time the satisfying chew of spade through soil, so often that this action, the pressure and release and rich dirt smell delineated the warmth she'd felt in the cherry orchard. Or this, each day they woke in the same place, her husband waking her with a cup of coffee, the cream still swirling into the black. Almost unremarked upon this kindness, he would kiss her on the crown of her head before leaving, and she'd feel something in her rising in her body to meet him. These silent intimacies made their marriage, not the ceremonies or parties or opening nights or occasions, or spectacular fucks. Anyway, that part was finished. A pity...

Look at me, Elizabeth,” he commanded. His voice dark and deep. “Lizzie,” I corrected without thought, completely out of habit. My eyes widened. I couldn’t believe I had just corrected him. Instinctively I felt that was something people just didn’t do around this man. If he said the sky were purple with pink spots, I’m pretty sure everyone would agree wholeheartedly… and worse, actually believe it. He just seemed to exude that kind of authoritative power. The kind that could make you believe just about anything he said. He gave my hair a painful tug with both hands. “Elizabeth,” he stated emphatically, as if he were a god or a king commanding it be so. “I left a package in your dressing room. It’s a dress. I want you to wear it tonight.” Tonight was the cast party. It was taking place right after our final curtain call. I had no idea he was even attending. Wait, a dress? “The party is at The Brewery next door. I don’t think the cast party is that formal,” I offered, still trying to process why this man would buy me a dress. Realizing quickly that I might sound ungrateful, I stammered, “Not that I don’t appreciate it… I mean I’m sure it’s lovely and—” “Elizabeth.” The sharp command of his voice stopped my rambling. “Yes, sir?” “Wear the dress,” he ordered, not expecting a refusal and not getting one. “Yes, sir,” I whispered. Releasing my hair, he stroked the back of his knuckles down my cheek. “Good girl.” The moment I heard the Hall door close on his retreating back, I sank to my knees in the middle of the stage, feeling shaken and more than a little alarmed. What the hell had just happened?

She asked, “Are you well?” “Yes.” His voice was a deep rasp. “Are you?” She nodded, expecting him to release her at the confirmation. When he showed no signs of moving, she puzzled at it. Either he was gravely injured or seriously impertinent. “Sir, you’re…er, you’re rather heavy.” Surely he could not fail to miss that hint. He replied, “You’re soft.” Good Lord. Who was this man? Where had he come from? And how was he still atop her? “You have a small wound.” With trembling fingers, she brushed a reddish knot high on his temple, near his hairline. “Here.” She pressed her hand to his throat, feeling for his pulse. She found it, thumping strong and steady against her gloved fingertips. “Ah. That’s nice.” Her face blazed with heat. “Are you seeing double?” “Perhaps. I see two lips, two eyes, two flushed cheeks…a thousand freckles.” She stared at him. “Don’t concern yourself, miss. It’s nothing.” His gaze darkened with some mysterious intent. “Nothing a little kiss won’t mend.” And before she could even catch her breath, he pressed his lips to hers. A kiss. His mouth, touching hers. It was warm and firm, and then…it was over. Her first real kiss in all her five-and-twenty years, and it was finished in a heartbeat. Just a memory now, save for the faint bite of whiskey on her lips. And the heat. She still tasted his scorching, masculine heat. Belatedly, she closed her eyes. “There, now,” he murmured. “All better.” Better? Worse? The darkness behind her eyelids held no answers, so she opened them again. Different. This strange, strong man held her in his protective embrace, and she was lost in his intriguing green stare, and his kiss reverberated in her bones with more force than a powder blast. And now she felt different. The heat and weight of him…they were like an answer. The answer to a question Susanna hadn’t even been aware her body was asking. So this was how it would be, to lie beneath a man. To feel shaped by him, her flesh giving in some places and resisting in others. Heat building between two bodies; dueling heartbeats pounding both sides of the same drum. Maybe…just maybe…this was what she’d been waiting to feel all her life. Not swept her off her feet-but flung across the lane and sent tumbling head over heels while the world exploded around her. He rolled onto his side, giving her room to breathe. “Where did you come from?” “I think I should ask you that.” She struggled up on one elbow. “Who are you? What on earth are you doing here?” “Isn’t it obvious?” His tone was grave. “We’re bombing the sheep.” “Oh. Oh dear. Of course you are.” Inside her, empathy twined with despair. Of course, he was cracked in the head. One of those poor soldiers addled by war. She ought to have known it. No sane man had ever looked at her this way. She pushed aside her disappointment. At least he had come to the right place. And landed on the right woman. She was far more skilled in treating head wounds than fielding gentlemen’s advances. The key here was to stop thinking of him as an immense, virile man and simply regard him as a person who needed her help. An unattractive, poxy, eunuch sort of person. Reaching out to him, she traced one fingertip over his brow. “Don’t be frightened,” she said in a calm, even tone. “All is well. You’re going to be just fine.” She cupped his cheek and met his gaze directly. “The sheep can’t hurt you here.

What did you think when I first told you about the animals I found?” He seemed confused. It obviously wasn’t what he’d expected. “Violet, I was seven years old. I thought it was badass. I think I was probably even jealous.” She made a face at him. “Didn’t you think it was creepy? Or that I was weird?” “Yeah,” he agreed enthusiastically. “That’s why I was so jealous. I wanted to be the one finding dead bodies. You were like an animal detective or something. You were only weird ‘cause you were a girl.” He grinned. “But I learned to overlook that since you always took me on such cool adventures.” Violet released a breath, smiling. She knew he was telling the truth, which only made it funnier to hear him saying the words out loud. Of course, what little boy didn’t want to go scavenging through the woods and digging in the dirt? She tried again. “Did you ever tell anyone? Does your mom know?” He lifted her hand to his mouth and rubbed her knuckles across his lower lip, his gaze locked with hers. “No,” he promised. “I swore I wouldn’t, not even her. I think she knows something, or at least she thinks you have the worst luck ever, since you found all those dead girls.” He lowered his voice. “She was really worried about you after the shooting last year. You’re like a daughter to her.” He leaned close. “Of course, that makes it kind of creepy when I do things like this.” He kissed her. It was intimate. Not soft or sweet this time, it was deep and passionate, stealing Violet’s breath. She laid her hand against his chest, savoring the feel of his heartbeat beneath her palm, and then traced her fingertips up to his neck, into his hair. He pulled her over the console that separated them, dragging her onto his lap. He ran his hands up her back restlessly, drawing her as close as he could. It was nearly impossible for her to pull herself away. “Wait,” she insisted breathlessly. “Please, wait.” She had her hands braced against his shoulders, struggling more against herself than him. His glazed eyes teased her. “I thought I was the one who was supposed to say no. I’m the girl, right?” She sighed heavily, leaning her head against his shoulder and trying to recapture her runaway thoughts. She still wanted to talk. She wanted the other things, too, but she needed to sort through her thoughts first. “Sorry, it’s just…I have a lot of…” She shrugged against him. His damp T-shirt was warm and practically paper-thin, tempting her to touch him. She ran her finger down the length of his stomach. She knew it wasn’t fair to tease him, but she couldn’t help herself. He was too enticing. “…I have some stuff I need to work through.” It was the best she could do for an explanation. He caught her hand before she’d reached his waistline, and he held it tightly in his grip. “I’m trying to be patient, Violet, I really am. If there’s something you want to tell me…Well, I just wish you’d trust me.” “I’ll get there,” she explained. “I’ll figure it all out. I’m just a little confused right now.” He let out a shaky breath and then he kissed the top of her head, still not releasing her hand. “So, when you do, we’ll pick up where we left off.” She nodded against him. She thought she would keep talking; she still had so many doubts about what she should, and shouldn’t, be doing. But instead she just stayed there, curled up on his lap, absorbing him, taking relief from his touch…and strength from his presence.

My friend was aboard Sewee, untying his vessel from an ancient sunken post. “Ben?” No response. I slipped off my shoes and waded to the runabout. Pulled myself up the tiny ladder. Found Ben’s hand waiting at the rail. He effortlessly hoisted me into the boat, maneuvering my weight like it was nothing. I sometimes forgot how strong Ben was. How warm his hands could feel. Ben released me. Went back to coiling line. “Are you okay?” I immediately realized it was the wrong thing to say. “Of course I’m okay.” Gruff. Distant. I stood watching him, unsure what to say next. Unbidden, the image of a bench sprang to mind. The two of us, huddled close. Me crying in his arms. I felt blood rush to my face, was grateful for the concealing darkness. “No one expects you to like Chance,” I said finally. “Good.” Not looking up. “Because I don’t.” Another awkward silence. Then Ben huffed, “You like him enough for both of us.” I straightened, surprised. Was that what was bothering him? Jealousy? Why would Ben be jealous of Chance? After everything that spoiled boy had done to me? Did Ben think I was some ditz? That my memory reset with every pretty smile? Am I? I felt a nervous twinge in my stomach. Felt it grow. Ben. Jealous. Because of his feelings for me. The issue would not simply go away. “Ben. I . . .” Words failed. My face grew hot. Ben’s hands stopped moving. He stared at the deck, his long black hair fanning his face. He sucked in a breath, as if on the verge of something.

What did we talk about? I don't remember. We talked so hard and sat so still that I got cramps in my knee. We had too many cups of tea and then didn't want to leave the table to go to the bathroom because we didn't want to stop talking. You will think we talked of revolution but we didn't. Nor did we talk of our own souls. Nor of sewing. Nor of babies. Nor of departmental intrigue. It was political if by politics you mean the laboratory talk that characters in bad movies are perpetually trying to convey (unsuccessfully) when they Wrinkle Their Wee Brows and say (valiantly--dutifully--after all, they didn't write it) "But, Doctor, doesn't that violate Finagle's Constant?" I staggered to the bathroom, released floods of tea, and returned to the kitchen to talk. It was professional talk. It left my grey-faced and with such concentration that I began to develop a headache. We talked about Mary Ann Evans' loss of faith, about Emily Brontë's isolation, about Charlotte Brontë's blinding cloud, about the split in Virginia Woolf's head and the split in her economic condition. We talked about Lady Murasaki, who wrote in a form that no respectable man would touch, Hroswit, a little name whose plays "may perhaps amuse myself," Miss Austen, who had no more expression in society than a firescreen or a poker. They did not all write letters, write memoirs, or go on the stage. Sappho--only an ambiguous, somewhat disagreeable name. Corinna? The teacher of Pindar. Olive Schriener, growing up on the veldt, wrote on book, married happily, and ever wrote another. Kate Chopin wrote a scandalous book and never wrote another. (Jean has written nothing.). There was M-ry Sh-ll-y who wrote you know what and Ch-rl-tt- P-rk-ns G-lm-an, who wrote one superb horror study and lots of sludge (was it sludge?) and Ph-ll-s Wh--tl-y who was black and wrote eighteenth century odes (but it was the eighteenth century) and Mrs. -nn R-dcl-ff- S-thw-rth and Mrs. G--rg- Sh-ld-n and (Miss?) G--rg-tt- H-y-r and B-rb-r- C-rtl-nd and the legion of those, who writing, write not, like the dead Miss B--l-y of the poem who was seduced into bad practices (fudging her endings) and hanged herself in her garter. The sun was going down. I was blind and stiff. It's at this point that the computer (which has run amok and eaten Los Angeles) is defeated by some scientifically transcendent version of pulling the plug; the furniture stood around unknowing (though we had just pulled out the plug) and Lady, who got restless when people talked at suck length because she couldn't understand it, stuck her head out from under the couch, looking for things to herd. We had talked for six hours, from one in the afternoon until seven; I had at that moment an impression of our act of creation so strong, so sharp, so extraordinarily vivid, that I could not believe all our talking hadn't led to something more tangible--mightn't you expect at least a little blue pyramid sitting in the middle of the floor?

A friend tells the story of seeing percussionist Milford Graves perform a solo concert. Before the music commenced, Graves asked for someone from the audience to come up and help him with a demonstration. A young man volunteered, made his way onstage and stood facing the performer. Graves held out both wrists and asked the man to check his pulse, which was verified as normal. Then the drummer closed his eyes, concentrated, and halted his pulse—as the volunteer confirmed, in expectant delight. Relaxing, the regular pulse reappeared and the enlisted man released Graves's wrists. "No, no. Wait a minute," smiled Graves, holding his arms as they were, stock still. The assistant took ahold of Graves's wrists, once again feeling for a pulse. Once again, Graves closed his eyes and concentrated deeply. Some time passed, with the audience, volunteer, and graves absolutely hushed in anticipation. Suddenly, the man jerked away in disbelief, "My God, they're not beating together!" he exclaimed. Graves quickly took a seat at his kit and began to play.

Rudel Correze is far from the first to seek to aid me in my passage to Rian. But I find myself still among the living, and I have discovered that I value this world for itself, not merely as a matter for someone's song. I love it for its heady wines and its battles, for the beauty of its women and their generosity and their pride, for the companionship of brave men and clever ones, the promise of spring in the depths of winter and the even surer promise that Rian and Corannos are waiting for us, whatever we may do. And I find now, your highness, long past the fires of my heart's youth and yours, that there is one thing I love more, even more than the music that remains my release from pain.' 'Love, de Talair? This is a word I did not expect to hear from you. I was told you foreswore it more than twenty years ago. The whole world was speaking of that. This much I am certain I remember. My information, so far distant in our cold north, seems to have been wrong in yet another matter. What is the one thing, then, my lord duke? What is it you still love?' 'Arbonne.

The enemy of my soul didn't want me painting that day. To create meant that I would look a little bit like my Creator. To overcome the terrifying angst of the blank canvas meant I would forever have more compassion for other artists. You better believe as I placed the first blue and gray strokes onto the white emptiness before me, the "not good enough" statement was pulsing through my head in almost deafening tones... This parlaying lie is one of his favorite tactics to keep you disillusioned by disappointments. Walls go up, emotions run high, we get guarded, defensive, demotivated, and paralyzed by the endless ways we feel doomed to fail. This is when we quit. This is when we settle for the ease of facebook.... This is when we get a job to simply make money instead of pursuing our calling to make a difference. This is when we put the paintbrush down and don't even try. So there I was. Standing before my painted blue boat, making a choice of which voice to listen to. I'm convinced God was smiling. Pleased. Asking me to find delight in what is right. Wanting me to have compassion for myself by focusing on that part of my painting that expressed something beautiful. To just be eager to give that beauty to whoever dared to look at my boat. To create to love others. Not to beg them for validation. But the enemy was perverting all that. Perfection mocked my boat. The bow was too high, the details too elementary, the reflection on the water too abrupt, and the back of the boat too off-center. Disappointment demanded I hyper-focused on what didn't look quite right. It was my choice which narrative to hold on to: "Not good enough" or "Find delight in what is right." Each perspective swirled, begging me to declare it as truth. I was struggling to make peace with my painting creation, because I was struggling to make make peace with myself as God's creation. Anytime we feel not good enough we deny the powerful truth that we are a glorious work of God in progress. We are imperfect because we are unfinished. So, as unfinished creations, of course everything we attempt will have imperfections. Everything we accomplish will have imperfections. And that's when it hit me: I expect a perfection in me and in others that not even God Himself expects. If God is patient with the process, why can't I be? How many times have I let imperfections cause me to be too hard on myself and too harsh with others? I force myself to send a picture of my boat to at least 20 friends. I was determined to not not be held back by the enemy's accusations that my artwork wasn't good enough to be considered "real art". This wasn't for validation but rather confirmation that I could see the imperfections in my painting but not deem it worthless. I could see the imperfections in me and not deem myself worthless. It was an act of self-compassion. I now knew to stand before each painting with nothing but love, amazement, and delight. I refused to demand anything more from the artist. I just wanted to show up for every single piece she was so brave to put on display.. Might I just be courageous enough to stand before her work and require myself to find everything about it I love? Release my clenched fist and pouty disappointments, and trade my "live up" mentality for a "show up" one? It is so much more freeing to simply show up and be a finder of the good. Break from the secret disappointments. Let my brain venture down the tiny little opening of love.. And I realized what makes paintings so delightful. It's there imperfections. That's what makes it art. It's been touched by a human. It's been created by someone whose hands sweat and who can't possibly transfer divine perfection from what her eyes see to what her fingertips can create. It will be flawed.

She tightened her grip on his wrist and slowly pulled it towards her. His index finger slid in farther and she gasped at how it felt. She paused, pulled again. Deeper. Deeper. Her pussy throbbed and she took him as far in to her body as she could. His hand was flat against her pulsing lips, his palm pressing on her clit. “Oh!” she said. “Oh, Chris… oh, God.” “It feels good, baby?” “Yes… it feels amazing.” She withdrew his finger slowly, feeling the suction of her body, then pulled him in again, using both her hands this time. He groaned as her pussy muscles tightened on him, and he felt the answering burst of wetness between her lips. Jenny pulled his finger in and out of her, slowly at first, then faster, and Chris felt her body start to tremble. I’m going to come myself if this goes on much longer. She pulled him out of her heat completely, unfolded his middle finger to join his index one. The she pulled both of them in to her, giving a small cry at the renewed sensation. “Touch my clit,” she begged. “Use your thumb… Chris, please.” He did as she asked, swirling around her hard nub every time she pulled his fingers in to her body. She plunged his fingers faster, every pull in going deeper and harder. His thumb pushed down consistently, not breaking the contact, and she closed her eyes as the wave of pleasure rose and rose, became larger and stronger than she’d expected. She released his hand now. “I trust you,” she breathed. “I want you to do it. I want you to make me come…” He groaned and kissed her, hard, his fingers moving in and out of her at a steady pace. Her hands gripped the headboard above her, her toes curled, she threw her head back. “So close, sweetheart,” he said, his voice almost a growl against her mouth. “You’re going to love it. Let go. Let me see you.

When they rolled to a stop, she found herself pinned by a tremendous, huffing weight. And pierced by an intense green gaze. “Wh-?” Her breath rushed out in question. Boom, the world answered. Susanna ducked her head, burrowing into the protection of what she’d recognized to be an officer’s coat. The knob of a brass button pressed into her cheek. The man’s bulk formed a comforting shield as a shower of dirt clods rained down on them both. He smelled of whiskey and gunpowder. After the dust cleared, she brushed the hair from his brow, searching his gaze for signs of confusion or pain. His eyes were alert and intelligent, and still that startling shade of green-as hard and richly hued as jade. She asked, “Are you well?” “Yes.” His voice was a deep rasp. “Are you?” She nodded, expecting him to release her at the confirmation. When he showed no signs of moving, she puzzled at it. Either he was gravely injured or seriously impertinent. “Sir, you’re…er, you’re rather heavy.” Surely he could not fail to miss that hint. He replied, “You’re soft.” Good Lord. Who was this man? Where had he come from? And how was he still atop her? “You have a small wound.” With trembling fingers, she brushed a reddish knot high on his temple, near his hairline. “Here.” She pressed her hand to his throat, feeling for his pulse. She found it, thumping strong and steady against her gloved fingertips. “Ah. That’s nice.” Her face blazed with heat. “Are you seeing double?” “Perhaps. I see two lips, two eyes, two flushed cheeks…a thousand freckles.” She stared at him. “Don’t concern yourself, miss. It’s nothing.” His gaze darkened with some mysterious intent. “Nothing a little kiss won’t mend.” And before she could even catch her breath, he pressed his lips to hers. A kiss. His mouth, touching hers. It was warm and firm, and then…it was over. Her first real kiss in all her five-and-twenty years, and it was finished in a heartbeat.

I should know; perfectionism has always been a weakness of mine. Brene' Bown captures the motive in the mindset of the perfectionist in her book Daring Greatly: "If I look perfect and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame." This is the game, and I'm the player. Perfectionism for me comes from the feelings that I don't know enough. I'm not smart enough. Not hardworking enough. Perfectionism spikes for me if I'm going into a meeting with people who disagree with me, or if I'm giving a talk to experts to know more about the topic I do … when I start to feel inadequate and my perfectionism hits, one of the things I do is start gathering facts. I'm not talking about basic prep; I'm talking about obsessive fact-gathering driven by the vision that there shouldn't be anything I don't know. If I tell myself I shouldn't overprepare, then another voice tells me I'm being lazy. Boom. Ultimately, for me, perfectionism means hiding who I am. It's dressing myself up so the people I want to impress don't come away thinking I'm not as smart or interesting as I thought. It comes from a desperate need to not disappoint others. So I over-prepare. And one of the curious things I've discovered is that what I'm over-prepared, I don't listen as well; I go ahead and say whatever I prepared, whether it responds to the moment or not. I miss the opportunity to improvise or respond well to a surprise. I'm not really there. I'm not my authentic self… If you know how much I am not perfect. I am messy and sloppy in so many places in my life. But I try to clean myself up and bring my best self to work so I can help others bring their best selves to work. I guess what I need to role model a little more is the ability to be open about the mess. Maybe I should just show that to other people. That's what I said in the moment. When I reflected later I realized that my best self is not my polished self. Maybe my best self is when I'm open enough to say more about my doubts or anxieties, admit my mistakes, confess when I'm feeling down. The people can feel more comfortable with their own mess and that's needs your culture to live in that. That was certainly the employees' point. I want to create a workplace where everyone can bring the most human, most authentic selves where we all expect and respect each other's quirks and flaws and all the energy wasted in the pursuit of perfection is saved and channeled into the creativity we need for the work that is a cultural release impossible burdens and lift everyone up.

Was it as scary for you as it is for me? Falling for Sawyer?” “Not really, no.” She shakes her head. “I’m sure I had some of the same worries, everyone does. But I’m a leaper. You’re a thinker. We process things differently.” “You didn’t have a panic attack and run away?” I ask sarcastically. “No,” she muses. “Not even that time he refused to have sex with me.” “That was your first date, Everly. And you did have sex,” I remind her. I know, because I heard about it for a week. “Whew.” She blows out a breath. “It was a tough few hours though. How is Boyd’s POD by the way? Can we talk about that?” She leans forward on the couch, looking at me expectantly. “Um, no. I don’t think so.” She shrugs good-naturedly then changes the subject back to me. “Chloe, why didn’t you tell me you were struggling with your anxiety? You know I’m never too busy for you, no matter how many husbands or children I have.” “You have one husband, babe,” Sawyer says, walking into the room at that moment. “You’re still the one, baby.” “We’ve been married for three months, Everly. I sure as hell better still be the one.” “Sawyer,” she sighs. “I was trying to have a moment, okay? Work with me.” “Next time, try waiting more than a day after downloading Shania Twain’s greatest hits to your iPod. You do realize the receipts come to my email, don’t you?” “Um.” Everly looks away and scrunches her nose. “No?” “You’ve been on quite the 90’s love ballads kick this week. Which is weird, because you’re not old enough to have owned the CD’s those songs were originally released on.” He looks at her with amused interest. “What’s a CD?” She blinks at Sawyer dramatically. “Cute. Keep it up.” “Nineties music is all the rage with the millennials,” she tells him with a shrug. “I saw a blog post about it.” “Don’t worry, sweets. We’ll beat the odds together.” He winks and she scowls. “You’re still the only one I dream of,” he calls as he walks into the kitchen and grabs a bottle of water. “See! I don’t even care that you lifted that from a song. It still gave me all the feels!

At a talk I gave at a church months later, I spoke about Charlie and the plight of incarcerated children. Afterward, an older married couple approached me and insisted that they had to help Charlie. I tried to dissuade these kind people from thinking they could do anything, but I gave them my card and told them they could call me. I didn't expect to hear from them, but within days they called, and they were persistent. We eventually agreed that they would write a letter to Charlie and send it to me to pass on to him. When I received the letter weeks later, I read it. It was remarkable. Mr. and Mrs. Jennings were a white couple in their mid-seventies from a small community northeast of Birmingham. They were kind and generous people who were active in their local United Methodist church. They never missed a Sunday service and were especially drawn to children in crisis. They spoke softly and always seemed to be smiling but never appeared to be anything less than completely genuine and compassionate. They were affectionate with each other in a way that was endearing, frequently holding hands and leaning into each other. They dressed like farmers and owned ten acres of land, where they grew vegetables and lived simply. Their one and only grandchild, whom they had helped raise, had committed suicide when he was a teenager, and they had never stopped grieving for him. Their grandson struggled with mental health problems during his short life, but he was a smart kid and they had been putting money away to send him to college. They explained in their letter that they wanted to use the money they'd saved for their grandson to help Charlie. Eventually, Charlie and this couple began corresponding with one another, building up to the day when the Jenningses met Charlie at the juvenile detention facility. They later told me that they "loved him instantly." Charlie's grandmother had died a few months after she first called me, and his mother was still struggling after the tragedy of the shooting and Charlie's incarceration. Charlie had been apprehensive about meeting with the Jenningses because he thought they wouldn't like him, but he told me after they left how much they seemed to care about him and how comforting that was. The Jenningses became his family. At one point early on, I tried to caution them against expecting too much from Charlie after his release. 'You know, he's been through a lot. I'm not sure he can just carry on as if nothing has ever happened. I want you to understand he may not be able to do everything you'd like him to do.' They never accepted my warnings. Mrs. Jennings was rarely disagreeable or argumentative, but I had learned that she would grunt when someone said something she didn't completely accept. She told me, 'We've all been through a lot, Bryan, all of us. I know that some have been through more than others. But if we don't expect more from each other, hope better for one another, and recover from the hurt we experience, we are surely doomed.' The Jenningses helped Charlie get his general equivalency degree in detention and insisted on financing his college education. They were there, along with his mother, to take him home when he was released.

Cain and Abel represent two classes that will exist in the world till the close of time. One class avail themselves of the appointed [73] sacrifice for sin; the other venture to depend upon their own merits; theirs is a sacrifice without the virtue of divine mediation, and thus it is not able to bring man into favor with God. It is only through the merits of Jesus that our transgressions can be pardoned. Those who feel no need of the blood of Christ, who feel that without divine grace they can by their own works secure the approval of God, are making the same mistake as did Cain. If they do not accept the cleansing blood, they are under condemnation. There is no other provision made whereby they can be released from the thralldom of sin. The class of worshipers who follow the example of Cain includes by far the greater portion of the world; for nearly every false religion has been based on the same principle—that man can depend upon his own efforts for salvation. It is claimed by some that the human race is in need, not of redemption, but of development—that it can refine, elevate, and regenerate itself. As Cain thought to secure the divine favor by an offering that lacked the blood of a sacrifice, so do these expect to exalt humanity to the divine standard, independent of the atonement. The history of Cain shows what must be the results. It shows what man will become apart from Christ. Humanity has no power to regenerate itself. It does not tend upward, toward the divine, but downward, toward the satanic. Christ is our only hope. “There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” “Neither is there salvation in any other.” Acts 4:12.

Grom greets him with a smile full of nausea. "I'm not ready for this, little brother," he confesses. "Sure you are," Galen laughs, slapping his brother's back. Grom shakes his head. "It feels like...like I'm betraying her. Nalia." Galen stiffens. Oh. He doesn't feel qualified to talk Grom out of this kind of mood. "I'm sure she would understand," he offers. Grom studies him thoughtfully. "I'd like to think she would. But you didn't know Nalia. She had an amazing temper." He chuckles. "I keep looking over my shoulder, expecting to see her ready to bludgeon me with something for mating with someone else." Galen frowns, unsure of what to say. Grom chuckles. "I'm joking, of course." Then he shrugs. "Well, half joking, anyway. I swear I've been sensing her lately, Galen. It feels so real. It takes all I've got not to follow the pulse. Do you think I'm losing my mind?" Galen shakes his head out of obligation. Secretly though, he thinks he might be. "I'm sure you're just feeling guilty. Er...not that you have a reason to feel guilty. Uh, it's just natural that you feel that way before your mating ceremony. Nerves and all." Galen runs a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry. I'm not very good at this sort of thing." "What sort of thing? Being mature?" Grom smirks. "Funny." "Maybe you should spend some more time on land, then come back and talk to me. Being on land ages you, you know. Might do you some good." Galen snorts. Now you tell me. "I heard." Out of nowhere, Grom grabs Galen's face and wrestles him into a hold. Galen hates it when he does this. "Let me see that cute little face of yours, minnow. Yep, just like I thought. Your eyes are turning blue. How much time have you been spending on land? Please tell me you're not head over fin for a human?" Then he laughs and releases him just as suddenly. Galen stares at him. "What do you mean?" "I was just teasing, minnow. Giving you a hard time." "I know but...why did you say my eyes are turning blue? What does that have to go with the humans?" Grom waves a dismissive hand at him. "Forget it. I think you might be more uptight than me right now. I said I was just kidding.

The parasol wasn’t a very good cane. Its tip dug into the hard, grassless earth, and the folded frame creaked as Kestrel limped across the grounds. But it brought her where she needed to go. She found Arin walking through the bare orange grove, horse tack draped over his shoulder. It jangled when he stopped and stared at her. He stood, shoulders stiff. As Kestrel came close she saw that his jaw was clenched, and that there was no trace of what her guards had done to him. No bruises. Nor would there be, not for something that had happened nearly a month ago. “Did I shame you?” Kestrel said. Something strange crossed his face. “Shame me,” Arin repeated. He looked up into the empty branches as if he expected to see fruit there, as if it weren’t almost winter. “The book. The inscription I read. The duel. The way I tricked you. The order I gave to have you imprisoned. Did I shame you?” He crossed his arms over his chest. He shook his head, his gaze never wavering from the trees. “No. The god of debts knows what I owe.” “Then what is it?” Kestrel was trying so hard not to ask about the rumors or the woman in the market that she said something worse. “Why won’t you look at me?” “I shouldn’t even be speaking with you,” he muttered. It dawned on her why it had never made sense that Rax had been the one to release Arin. “My father,” she said. “Arin, you don’t have to worry about him. He’ll be leaving the morning of the Firstwinter ball. The entire regiment has been ordered east to fight the barbarians.” “What?” He glanced at her, eyes sharp. “Things can be as they were.” “I don’t think so.” “But…you are my friend.” His expression changed, though not in a way Kestrel could read. “Just tell me what’s wrong, Arin. Tell me the truth.” When he spoke, his voice was raw. “You own me. How can you believe I’ll tell you the truth? Why would I?” The parasol trembled in Kestrel’s grip. She opened her mouth to speak, yet realized that if she did, she wouldn’t be able to control what she said. “I will tell you something you can trust is true.” Arin’s eyes held hers. “We are not friends.” Kestrel swallowed. “You’re right,” she whispered. “We’re not.

She kissed his lips and felt his smile form. Alone in this beautiful space, Blake and Livia made things right. Blake kissed her slowly and patiently, like he had all the time in the world. Carefully, they eased back to lie down, and Blake braced himself above her. He smelled of mint and fresh soap. Livia put her hands on his chest and felt the densely packed muscles there. Empowered by his adoration, she shrugged off her fleece shirt, enjoying the feeling of being trapped between his arms. Blake’s eyes became stormy seas. “Damn it all to hell,” he cursed. Despite his words, Livia believed she was winning this battle of seduction. Blake kissed her mouth and sucked on her bottom lip. He moved to her earlobe and breathed, “First, I will blow, then I will lick, last I will bite.” Holy crap. Blake blew a gentle stream of minty breath along the outside of Livia’s ear, down to her neck, and along the edge of her breasts where they peeked out of her bright blue bra. Blake took his time creating an elaborate pattern on her stomach, and Livia was pretty sure he’d spelled the word torture. He increased the pressure of his breath as he grazed below her belly button to the top of her jeans. He skipped back to her mouth and gave her another long, slow kiss. “And now I lick,” he murmured. Livia bit back the embarrassingly loud moan she felt building. He gently traced the same trail his breath had left, this time with his tongue. When he reached her breast, she lost control and grabbed his hair, intent on kissing him. “No. No.” Blake held her wrists above her head. “I’ve done this to you so many times in my mind. I won’t have you rush me.” Livia groaned and arched her back in an effort to change his mind. But his slow, sexy smile told her he was doing it his way. “Fine.” Livia dutifully kept her hands above her head as he picked up where he’d left off. His tongue had her making noises that surely scared the wildlife. He spent an inordinate amount of time licking just above her belt buckle. Then again he was back to her mouth. He spoke through his kiss. “I’m going to bite you now.” Blake began down the same flaming path on Livia’s body with his teeth, nibbling in time with her heartbeat. When it speeded up, he bit slightly harder. After what seemed to be sixteen million glorious years, Blake was at the top of her jeans again. A light, almost invisible, mist from the gray clouds now gave the clearing a slick sheen. The cool rain and his hot mouth were ecstasy. Blake unbuckled her belt and used his tongue and teeth to unbutton her jeans. He chuckled as he flipped her zipper with his teeth. Each pop of the releasing zipper filled the woods as he blew again on the newly revealed skin. Livia knew what to expect this time: blow, lick, bite. Oh, sweet God! This is heaven. At last, Livia could no longer obey and reached her hands down to his angelic face. Blake glanced up as if to rebuke her, but quickly smiled and let her sit up to meet his lips. Love. Crazy, soon, ever. Love, Livia’s mind raged. She tried to tell him with kisses, but it wasn’t enough. Blake knelt before her, and Livia straddled his thighs. She pulled back to try putting it into words and noticed how Blake glistened, covered in tiny raindrops. The clear, cool pond she’d described to Cole had just exploded over them. But instead of drowning, they wore it like a cloak.

Many potential readers will skip the shopping cart or cash-out clerk because they have seen so many disasters reported in the news that they’ve acquired a panic mentality when they think of them. “Disasters scare me to death!” they cry. “I don’t want to read about them!” But really, how can a picture hurt you? Better that each serve as a Hallmark card that greets your fitful fevers with reason and uncurtains your valor. Then, so gospeled, you may see that defeating a disaster is as innocently easy as deciding to go out to dinner. Remove the dread that bars your doors of perception, and you will enjoy a banquet of treats that will make the difference between suffering and safety. You will enter a brave new world that will erase your panic, and release you from the grip of terror, and relieve you of the deadening effects of indifference —and you will find that switch of initiative that will energize your intelligence, empower your imagination, and rouse your sense of vigilance in ways that will tilt the odds of danger from being forever against you to being always in your favor. Indeed, just thinking about a disaster is one of the best things you can do —because it allows you to imagine how you would respond in a way that is free of pain and destruction. Another reason why disasters seem so scary is that many victims tend to see them as a whole rather than divide them into much smaller and more manageable problems. A disaster can seem overwhelming when confronted with everything at once —but if you dice it into its tiny parts and knock them off one at a time, the whole thing can seem as easy as eating a lavish dinner one bite at a time. In a disaster you must also plan for disruption as well as destruction. Death and damage may make the news, but in almost every disaster far more lives are disrupted than destroyed. Wit­ness the tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri, in May 2011 and killed 158 people. The path of death and destruction was less than a mile wide and only 22 miles long —but within thirty miles 160,000 citizens whose property didn’t suffer a dime of damage were profoundly disrupted by the carnage, loss of power and water, suspension of civic services, and inability to buy food, gas, and other necessities. You may rightfully believe your chances of dying in a disaster in your lifetime may be nearly nil, but the chances of your life being disrupted by a disaster in the next decade is nearly a sure thing. Not only should you prepare for disasters, you should learn to premeditate them. Prepare concerns the body; premeditate concerns the mind. Everywhere you go, think what could happen and how you might/could/would/should respond. Use your imagination. Fill your brain with these visualizations —run mind-movies in your head —develop a repertoire —until when you walk into a building/room/situation you’ll automatically know what to do. If a disaster does ambush you —sure you’re apt to panic, but in seconds your memory will load the proper video into your mobile disk drive and you’ll feel like you’re watching a scary movie for the second time and you’ll know what to expect and how to react. That’s why this book is important: its manner of vivifying disasters kickstarts and streamlines your acquiring these premeditations, which lays the foundation for satisfying your needs when a disaster catches you by surprise.

Then Daniel stepped forward and a trumpet sounded, followed by a drum. The dance was beginning. He took her hand. When he spoke, he spoke to her, not to the audience,as the other players did. "The fairest hand I ever touched," Daniel said. "O Beauty, till now I never knew thee." As if the lines had been written for the two of them. They began to dance,and Daniel locked eyes with her the whole time. His eyes were crystal clear and violet, and the way they never strayed from hers chipped away at Luce's heart. She knew he'd loved her always,but until this moment,dancing with him on the stage in front of all these people,she had never really thought about what it meant. It meant that when she saw him for the first time in every life,Daniel was already in love with her. Every time. And always had been. And every time, she had to fall in love with him from scratch.He could never pressure her or push her into loving him. He had to win her anew each time. Daniel's love for her was one long, uninterrupted stream.It was the purest form of love there was,purer even than the love Luce returned. His love flowed without breaking,without stopping. Whereas Luce's love was wiped clean with every death, Daniel's grew over time, across all eternity. How powerfully strong must it be by now? Hundreds of love stacked one on top of the other? It was almost too massive for Luce to comprehend. He loved her that much,and yet in every lifetime,over and over again,he had to wait for her to catch up. All this time,they had been dancing with the rest of the troupe, bounding in and out of the wings at breaks in the music,coming back onstage for more gallantry,for longer sets with more ornate steps,until the whole company was dancing. At the close of the scene,even though it wasn't in the script,even though Cam was standing right there watching,Luce held fast to Daniel's hand and pulled him to her,up against the potted orange trees.He looked at her like she was crazy and tried to tug her to the mark dictated by her stage directions. "What are you doing?" he murmured. He had doubted her before,backstage when she'd tried to speak freely about her feelings.She had to make him believe her.Especially if Lucinda died tonight,understanding the depth of her love would mean everything to him. It would help him to carry on,to keep loving her for hundreds more years, through all the pain and hardship she'd witnessed,right up to the present. Luce knew that it wasn't in the script, but she couldn't stop herself: She grabbed Daniel and she kissed him. She expected him to stop her,but instead he swooped her into his arms and kissed her back.Hard and passionately, responding with such intensity that she felt the way she did when they were flying,though she knew her feet were planted on the ground. For a moment, the audience was silent. Then they began to holler and jeer.Someone threw a shoe at Daniel, but he ignored it. His kisses told Luce that he believed her,that he understood the depth of her love,but she wanted to be absolutely sure. "I will always love you,Daniel." Only, that didn't seem quite right-or not quite enough. She had to make him understand,and damn the consequences-if she changed history,so be it. "I'll always choose you." Yes, that was the word. "Every single lifetime, I'll choose you.Just as you have always chosen me.Forever." His lips parted.Did he believe her? Did he already know? It was a choice, a long-standing, deep-seated choice that reached beyond anything else Luce was capable of.Something powerful was behind it.Something beautiful and- Shadows began to swirl in the rigging overhead. Heat quaked through her body, making her convulse,desperate for the fiery release she knew was coming. Daniel's eyes flashed with pain. "No," he whispered. "Please don't go yet." Somehow,it always took both of them by surprise.

He was taking another hit from his short-and-squat of Goose when his eyes skipped to the arched doorway of the room. Jane hesitated as she glanced inside, her white coat opening as she leaned to the side, as if she were looking for him. When their eyes met, she smiled a little. And then a lot. His first impulse was to hide his own grin behind his Goose. But then he stopped himself. New world order. Come on, smile, motherfucker, he thought. Jane gave a short wave and played it cool, which was what they usually did when they were together in public. Turning away, she headed over to the bar to make herself something. “Hold up, cop,” V murmured, putting his drink down and bracing his cue against the table. Feeling like he was fifteen, he put his hand-rolled between his teeth and tucked his wife-beater tightly into the waistband of his leathers. A quick smooth of the hair and he was . . . well, as ready as he could be. He approached Jane from behind just as she struck up a convo with Mary—and when his shellan pivoted around to greet him, she seemed a little surprised that he’d come up to her. “Hi, V . . . How are—” Vishous stepped in close, putting them body to body, and then he wrapped his arms around her waist. Holding her with possession, he slowly bent her backward until she gripped his shoulders and her hair fell from her face. As she gasped, he said exactly what he thought: “I missed you.” And on that note, he put his mouth on hers and kissed the ever-living hell out of her, sweeping one hand down to her hip as he slipped his tongue in her mouth, and kept going and going and going . . . He was vaguely aware that the room had fallen stone silent and that everything with a heartbeat was staring at him and his mate. But whatever. This was what he wanted to do, and he was going to do it in front of everyone—and the king’s dog, as it turned out. Because Wrath and Beth came in from the foyer. As Vishous slowly righted his shellan, the catcalls and whistling started up, and someone threw a handful of popcorn like it was confetti. “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout,” Hollywood said. And threw more popcorn. Vishous cleared his throat. “I have an announcement to make.” Right. Okay, there were a lot of eyes on the pair of them. But he was so going to suck up his inclination to bow out. Tucking his flustered and blushing Jane into his side, he said loud and clear: “We’re getting mated. Properly. And I expect you all to be there and . . . Yeah, that’s it.” Dead. Quiet. Then Wrath released the handle on George’s harness and started to clap. Loud and slow. “About. Fucking. Time.

Elizabeth, we’re going to have to stop.” Elizabeth’s swirling senses began to return to reality, slowly at first, and then with a sickening plummet. Passion gave way to fear and then to anguished shame as she realized she was lying in a man’s arms, her shirt unfastened, her flesh exposed to his gaze and touch. Closing her eyes, she fought back the sting of tears and shoved his hand away, lurching into an upright position. “Let me rise, please,” she whispered, her voice strangled with self-revulsion. Her skin flinched as he began to fasten her shirt, but in order to do it he had to release his hold on her, and the moment he did, she scrambled to her feet. Turning her back to him, she fastened her shirt with shaking hands and snatched her jacket from the peg beside the fire. He moved so silently that she had no idea he’d stood until his hands settled on her stiff shoulders. “Don’t be frightened of what is between us. I’ll be able to provide for you-“ All of Elizabeth’s confusion and anguish exploded in a burst of tempestuous, sobbing fury that was directed at herself, but which she hurtled at him. Tearing free of his grasp, she whirled around. “Provide for me,” she cried. “Provide what? A-a hovel in Scotland where I’ll stay while you dress the part of an English gentleman so you can gamble away everything-“ “If things go on as I expect,” he interrupted her in a voice of taut calm, “I’ll be one of the richest men in England within a year-two at the most. If they don’t, you’ll still be well provided for.” Elizabeth snatched her bonnet and backed away from him in a fear that was partly of him and partly of her own weakness. “This is madness. Utter madness.” Turning, she headed for the door. “I know,” he said gently. She reached for the door handle and jerked the door open. Behind her, his voice stopped her in midstep. “If you change your mind after we leave in the morning, you can reach me at Hammund’s town house in Upper Brook Street until Wednesday. After that I’d intended to leave for India. I’ll be gone until winter.” “I-I hope you have a safe voyage,” she said, too overwrought to wonder about the sharp tug of loss she felt at the realization he was leaving. “If you change your mind in time,” he teased, “I’ll take you with me.” Elizabeth fled in sheer terror from the gentle confidence she’d heard in his smiling voice. As she galloped through the thick fog and wet underbrush she was no longer the sensible, confident young lady she’d been before; instead she was a terrified, bewildered girl with a mountain of responsibilities and an upbringing that convinced her the wild attraction she felt for Ian Thornton was sordid and unforgivable.