Stay Solid Quotes

When people asked me for my autograph, I used to write, "Stay Solid, Daisy J." But when it was a young girl - which wasn't often but it did happen from time to time - I used to write, "Dream big, little bird. Love, Daisy

You're going to keep a low profile throughout the entire competition... You're going to stay solidly in the middle, where no one will look your way, because you're not a threat, because they'll think that you'll be eliminated sooner or later, and they should focus their attention on getting rid of bigger, stronger, faster champions like Cain. 'But you're going to outlast them,' Chaol continued. 'And when they wake up the morning of the final duel and find that you are their opponent, and that you have beaten them, the look on their faces will make all of the insults and lack of attention worthwhile.

But I stayed where I was, afraid to move toward him, afraid I might lose my footing on solid ground, detach from what had anchored me before and drift out into the void of space - a vagabond, wandering moon.

Smoke You stand infront of me, pretending to be solid, but you are nothing more than smoke and mirors. You said you'd never leave, that you would care for us forever, but now you claim you cannot stay? That you've been called away. When you go, who will i turn to when it all crashes down? Tell me who. Then tell me, how I can believe anone again, if all your promises have been lies.

It's odd how faces, solid and visible as they are, evaporate, while words, made of breath, stay.

The most true-love words are not the ones that grasp and hold and bind you, twisting you both up together in some black dance. No, they are ones that leave you free to stand alone on your own solid ground, leave him to do the same, a tender space between you.

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.

... I stayed because running seemed too strange and too complicated. All I knew was how to fall back, find a patch of solid ground, and then dig my heels in and fight to start over.

Sybil’s female forebears had valiantly backed up their husbands as distant embassies were besieged, had given birth on a camel or in the shade of a stricken elephant, had handed around the little gold chocolates while trolls were trying to break into the compound, or had merely stayed at home and nursed such bits of husbands and sons as made it back from endless little wars.  The result was a species of woman who, when duty called, turned into solid steel.

You read all kinds of books and see all kinds of movies about the man who is obsessed and devoted, whose focus is a single solid beam, same as the lighthouse and that intense, too. It is Heathcliff with Catherine. It is a vampire with a passionate love stronger than death. We crave that kind of focus from someone else. We'd give anything to be that "loved." But that focus is not some soul-deep pinnacle of perfect devotion - it's only darkness and the tormented ghosts of darkness. It's strange, isn't it, to see a person's gaping emotional wounds, their gnawing needs, as our romance? We long for it, I don't know why, but when we have it, it is a knife at our throat on the banks of Greenlake. It is an unwanted power you'd do anything to be rid of. A power that becomes the ultimate powerlessness.

I'm not body-shy--it's hard to grow up in the Summerlands, where clothes are solidly optional, and stay body-shy--but that doesn't mean I enjoy nudity. Naked people are, by definition, unarmed.​

The Trump marriage veered furthest away from my concept of the union — and surprised me most as a student of American politics. Donald and Melania seem to inhabit separate realms and to come together when necessary, when one could not move forward without the other. The presidency was one instance in which they were forced into a joint undertaking. If my choice of language sounds businesslike, that’s because that’s how I’ve come to view the Trumps. Having learned more about each partner’s history, I believe they are two highly ambitious individuals who benefit from their partnership. It’s a transaction: he gains a beautiful woman on his arm, a solid-seeming marriage, a son, and a savvy adviser. She gains wealth and international cachet.

If a book were written all in numbers, it would be true. It would be just. Nothing said in words ever came out quite even. Things in words got twisted and ran together, instead of staying straight and fitting together. But underneath the words, at the center, like the center of the Square, it all came out even. Everything could change, yet nothing would be lost. If you saw the numbers you could see that, the balance, the pattern. You saw the foundations of the world. And they were solid.

A Second Childhood.” When all my days are ending And I have no song to sing, I think that I shall not be too old To stare at everything; As I stared once at a nursery door Or a tall tree and a swing. Wherein God’s ponderous mercy hangs On all my sins and me, Because He does not take away The terror from the tree And stones still shine along the road That are and cannot be. Men grow too old for love, my love, Men grow too old for wine, But I shall not grow too old to see Unearthly daylight shine, Changing my chamber’s dust to snow Till I doubt if it be mine. Behold, the crowning mercies melt, The first surprises stay; And in my dross is dropped a gift For which I dare not pray: That a man grow used to grief and joy But not to night and day. Men grow too old for love, my love, Men grow too old for lies; But I shall not grow too old to see Enormous night arise, A cloud that is larger than the world And a monster made of eyes. Nor am I worthy to unloose The latchet of my shoe; Or shake the dust from off my feet Or the staff that bears me through On ground that is too good to last, Too solid to be true. Men grow too old to woo, my love, Men grow too old to wed; But I shall not grow too old to see Hung crazily overhead Incredible rafters when I wake And I find that I am not dead. A thrill of thunder in my hair: Though blackening clouds be plain, Still I am stung and startled By the first drop of the rain: Romance and pride and passion pass And these are what remain. Strange crawling carpets of the grass, Wide windows of the sky; So in this perilous grace of God With all my sins go I: And things grow new though I grow old, Though I grow old and die.

You moved my head so that it was lying in your lap. "Keep your eyes open," you said. "Stay with me." I tried. It felt like I was using every muscle in my face. But I did it. I saw you from upside down, your lips above my eyes and your eyes above my lips. "Talk to me," you said. My throat felt like it was closing up, as if my skin had swollen, making my throat a lump of solid flesh. I gripped your hand. "Keep watching me, then," you said. "Keep listening.

Still on my knees, I droop against Morpheus’s thighs—a solid support. The cool leather of his pants cushions my cheek. I close my eyes. Yes … I’ve been here before, held safely against him. At first, I think I’m imagining it when he bends over to scoop me into his arms. But when the scent of licorice and warm skin surrounds me, I know it’s real. “You left,” I accuse him, fighting to stay awake. “I was hurt … and you left me.” “A mistake I vow on my life-magic to never make again.” Even though he’s cradling me close, his response sounds far away. But distance doesn’t matter; he gave his word. I’ll be holding him to it.

Somehow you always stayed quiet.” He laid his hands beside each of mine, so that if he’d been solid, I would’ve been pinned between his body and the dresser. “Remember?

... I had stayed still and let the days pass, which is the best way to allow things in the real world to dissolve or break down, although they remain forever in our thoughts and in our knowledge, solid and putrid and stinking to high heaven. But that is bearable and we can live with it. Who doesn't carry something of that nature around with them?

I like knowing there’s certain laws in the universe, Ayla’s father had said once, a very long time ago, before everything. You can’t count on much. Can’t trust most things to stay solid. But there is always some sort of force at work. Even way out there past the sky, so far away that we can’t even imagine it, things work the same. Your mother would explain it better. Everything is just bodies in motion, bodies in orbit, just like here. Pushing and pulling. You know what that’s called? The law of falling.

Underneath my imagination there didn't seem to be anything solid except for the space where I shoved my pain and sadness. Besides that, there were only twisted steel threads of axiety, woven through my body and brain, wired into me like a constant warning. Watch out, stay still, move away, stay silent, fight back, run and hide. Even when I was dreaming, but more so when I was awake, there was the constant fear of being caught off-guard, or by the wrong person at the wrong time.

WEAN YOURSELF Little by little, wean yourself. This is the gist of what I have to say. From an embryo, whose nourishment comes in the blood, move to an infant drinking milk, to a child on solid food, to a searcher after wisdom, to a hunter of more invisible game. Think how it is to have a conversation with an embryo. You might say, "The world outside is vast and intricate. There are wheatfields and mountain passes, and orchards in bloom. At night there are millions of galaxies, and in sunlight the beauty of friends dancing at a wedding." You ask the embryo why he, or she, stays cooped up in the dark with eyes closed. Listen to the answer. There is no "other world." I only know what I've experienced. You must be hallucinating.

The voice called his name again and it came through a lot of throat. Steven twisted quickly on his stool. Just a white wall and, down near the floor, the ventilation grille. Then movement behind the grille and Steven was on his knees, peering through it, pressing his face against the mesh. In there, in the shadows beyond the spill of light from the hall, the outline of an anvil-shaped head swayed gently. Two eyes blinked limpidly, insolent in their slowness. A dark mass moved forward into the light. “That Cripps man is going to fuck you up, dude.” It was a cow. Most of the body was below floor level but Steven could tell it was a full grown animal. A sienna Guernsey. He looked closely at the flawless sandy curves of forehead and cheek, at the chocolate darkening of the mouth and nostrils, at the badger rings around the eyes. For an absurd second he thought that if he looked hard enough at it the thing might phase back into his head and disappear. But it was real and it stayed. “What … ?” “Yeah, I’m a cow, man. Touch me.” Steven stuck his fingers through the grille. The cow was a cow, warm and solid.

We are the dead,' he said. 'We're not dead yet,' said Julia prosaically. 'Not physically. Six months, a year – five years, conceivably. I am afraid of death. You are young, so presumably you're more afraid of it than I am. Obviously we shall put it off as long as we can. But it makes very little difference. So longs as human beings stay human, death and life are the same thing.' 'Oh, rubbish! Which would you sooner sleep with, me or a skeleton? Don't you enjoy being alive? Don't you like feeling: This is me, this is my hand, this is my leg, I'm real, I'm solid, I'm alive!

I was in error when I saw him as fixed and stable and thought I would have him forever. He was never fixed, nor stable, but always just a passing, temporary energy-burst. I had reason to know this. Had he not looked this way at birth, that way at four, another way at seven, been made entirely anew at nine? He had never stayed the same, even instant to instant. He came out of nothingness, took form, was loved, was always bound to return to nothingness. Only I did not think it would be so soon. Or that he would precede us. Two passing temporarinesses developed feelings for one another. Two puffs of smoke became mutually fond. I mistook him for a solidity and now must pay.

Instead of trying to freeze the present moment and hang on to it, we need to remember that life is a process of constantly letting go. The ego wants dependable rituals and people who stay the same. But to be free means that we enjoy this touch, this kiss, this sunrise, and then let it go. This is sometimes described as not letting the ground under your feet get too solid, not grasping for security or predictability.

Immediately when you arrive in Sahara, for the first or the tenth time, you notice the stillness. An incredible, absolute silence prevails outside the towns; and within, even in busy places like the markets, there is a hushed quality in the air, as if the quiet were a conscious force which, resenting the intrusion of sound, minimizes and disperses sound straightaway. Then there is the sky, compared to which all other skies seem fainthearted efforts. Solid and luminous, it is always the focal point of the landscape. At sunset, the precise, curved shadow of the earth rises into it swiftly from the horizon, cutting into light section and dark section. When all daylight is gone, and the space is thick with stars, it is still of an intense and burning blue, darkest directly overhead and paling toward the earth, so that the night never really goes dark. You leave the gate of the fort or town behind, pass the camels lying outside, go up into the dunes, or out onto the hard, stony plain and stand awhile alone. Presently, you will either shiver and hurry back inside the walls, or you will go on standing there and let something very peculiar happen to you, something that everyone who lives there has undergone and which the French call 'le bapteme de solitude.' It is a unique sensation, and it has nothing to do with loneliness, for loneliness presupposes memory. Here in this wholly mineral landscape lighted by stars like flares, even memory disappears...A strange, and by no means pleasant, process of reintergration begins inside you, and you have the choice of fighting against it, and insisting on remaining the person you have always been, or letting it take its course. For no one who has stayed in the Sahara for a while is quite the same as when he came. ...Perhaps the logical question to ask at this point is: Why go? The answer is that when a man has been there and undergone the baptism of solitude he can't help himself. Once he has been under the spell of the vast luminous, silent country, no other place is quite strong enough for him, no other surroundings can provide the supremely satisfying sensation of existing in the midst of something that is absolute. He will go back, whatever the cost in time or money, for the absolute has no price.

Ali In Battle Learn from Ali how to fight without your ego participating. God's Lion did nothing that didn't originate from his deep center. Once in battle he got the best of a certain knight and quickly drew his sword. The man, helpless on the ground, spat in Ali's face. Ali dropped his sword, relaxed, and helped the man to his feet. "Why have you spared me? How has lightning contracted back into its cloud? Speak, my prince, so that my soul can begin to stir in me like an embryo." Ali was quiet and then finally answered, "I am God's Lion, not the lion of passion. The sun is my lord. I have no longing except for the One. When a wind of personal reaction comes, I do not go along with it. There are many winds full of anger, and lust and greed. They move the rubbish around, but the solid mountain of true nature stays where it's always been. There's nothing now except the divine qualities. Come through the opening into me. Your impudence was better than any reverence, because in this moment I am you and you are me. I give you this opened heart as God gives gifts: the poison of your spit has become the honey of friendship.

Time is like wax, dripping from a candle flame. In the moment, it is molten and falling, with the capability to transform into any shape. Then the moment passes, and the wax hits the tabletop, and solidifies into the shape it will always be. It becomes the past, a solid, single record of what happened, still holding in its wild curves and contours the potential of every shape it could have held. It is impossible, no matter how blessed you are by luck or the government or some remote, invisible deity gently steering your life with hands made of moonlight and wind, it is impossible not to feel a little sad looking at that bit of wax, that bit of the past. It is impossible not to think of all the wild forms that wax now will never take. ... ... But then you remember, I remember, that we are even now in another bit of molten wax. We are in a moment and it is still falling, still volatile, and we will never be anywhere else. We will always be in that most dangerous, most exciting, most possible time of all: the now, where we never can know what shape the next moment will take. Stay tune fore... well, let's just find out together, shall we?

Hamlet's Cat's Soliloquy "To go outside, and there perchance to stay Or to remain within: that is the question: Whether 'tis better for a cat to suffer The cuffs and buffets of inclement weather That Nature rains on those who roam abroad, Or take a nap upon a scrap of carpet, And so by dozing melt the solid hours That clog the clock's bright gears with sullen time And stall the dinner bell. To sit, to stare Outdoors, and by a stare to seem to state A wish to venture forth without delay, Then when the portal's opened up, to stand As if transfixed by doubt. To prowl; to sleep; To choose not knowing when we may once more Our readmittance gain: aye, there's the hairball; For if a paw were shaped to turn a knob, Or work a lock or slip a window-catch, And going out and coming in were made As simple as the breaking of a bowl, What cat would bear the houselhold's petty plagues, The cook's well-practiced kicks, the butler's broom, The infant's careless pokes, the tickled ears, The trampled tail, and all the daily shocks That fur is heir to, when, of his own will, He might his exodus or entrance make With a mere mitten? Who would spaniels fear, Or strays trespassing from a neighbor's yard, But that the dread of our unheeded cries And scraches at a barricaded door No claw can open up, dispels our nerve And makes us rather bear our humans' faults Than run away to unguessed miseries? Thus caution doth make house cats of us all; And thus the bristling hair of resolution Is softened up with the pale brush of thought, And since our choices hinge on weighty things, We pause upon the threshold of decision.

You think you cannot live anymore. You think that the light of your soul has been put out and that you will stay in the dark forever. But when you are engulfed by such solid darkness, when you have both eyes closed to the world, a third eye opens in your heart. And only then do you come to realize that eyesight conflicts with inner knowledge. No eye sees so clear and sharp as the eye of love. After grief comes another season, another valley, another you. And the lover who is nowhere to be found, you start to see everywhere. You see him in the drop of water that falls into the ocean, in the high tide that follows the waxing of the moon, or in the morning wind that spreads its fresh smell; you see him in the geomancy symbols in the sand, in the tiny particles of rock glittering under the sun, in the smile of a newborn baby, or in your throbbing vein. How can you say Shams is gone when he is everywhere and in everything?

Stay solid on your end, hold on to your wise opinion, you can't control what other people do or say, you can't stop a fool from being foolish, and you won't share in his shame, sorrow, and regrets.

I took my right hand off the wheel and reverse-punched him square between the eyes. It was a good solid smack. It put him right back to sleep. Manual anesthetic. He stayed out all the way back to the post.

when you stay with something instead of walking away, it builds something new inside of you, something solid and weighty, something durable. But you do have to wait for it. You have to earn it the hard way.

I am an idiot for wasting any time thinking about a girl named Garrett who I barely know. Because there is one solid truth about women, and that is this: they never stay.

Iam a sensitive, introverted woman, which means that I love humanity but actual human beings are tricky for me. I love people but not in person. For example, I would die for you but not, like…meet you for coffee. I became a writer so I could stay at home alone in my pajamas, reading and writing about the importance of human connection and community. It is an almost perfect existence. Except that every so often, while I’m thinking my thoughts, writing my words, living in my favorite spot—which is deep inside my own head—something stunning happens: A sirenlike noise tears through my home. I freeze. It takes me a solid minute to understand: The siren is the doorbell. A person is ringing my doorbell. I run out of my office to find my children also stunned, frozen, and waiting for direction about how to respond to this imminent home invasion. We stare at each other, count bodies, and collectively cycle through the five stages of doorbell grief: Denial: This cannot be happening. ALL OF THE PEOPLE ALLOWED TO BE IN THIS HOUSE ARE ALREADY IN THIS HOUSE. Maybe it was the TV. IS THE TV ON? Anger: WHO DOES THIS? WHAT KIND OF BOUNDARYLESS AGGRESSOR RINGS SOMEONE’S DOORBELL IN BROAD DAYLIGHT? Bargaining: Don’t move, don’t breathe—maybe they’ll go away. Depression: Why? Why us? Why anyone? Why is life so hard? Acceptance: Damnit to hell. You—the little one—we volunteer you. Put on some pants, act normal, and answer the door. It’s dramatic, but the door always gets answered. If the kids aren’t home, I’ll even answer it myself. Is this because I remember that adulting requires door answering? Of course not. I answer the door because of the sliver of hope in my heart that if I open the door, there might be a package waiting for me. A package!

You remember the old Roadrunner cartoons, where the coyote would run off a cliff and keep going, until he looked down and happened to notice that he was running on nothing more than air?" "Yeah." "Well," he said, "I always used to wonder what would have happened if he'd never looked down. Would the air have stayed solid under his feet until he reached the other side? I think we're all like that. We start heading out across this canyon, looking straight ahead at the thing that matters, but something, some fear or insecurity, makes us look down. And we see we're walking on air, and we panic, and turn around and scramble like hell to get back to solid ground. And if we just wouldn't look down, we could make it to the other side. The place where things matter.

You can’t take credit for what you do when your back is against the wall. That’s nothing more than instinct, falling back on what you know best. I think I stayed because running seemed too strange and too complicated. All I knew was how to fall back, find a patch of solid ground, and then dig my heels in and fight to start over.

I love you.” He grinned unexpectedly, traced he lower lip with the tip of a finger. “What is more, I know you love me. You hide it from yourself, but I found it in a little corner, tucked away in your mind.” Shea stared up at the teasing smile on his face, then pushed at the solid wall of his chest. “You’re making that up.” Jacques moved off her, then reached down to pull her to her feet. His clothes were scattered everywhere, and he made no move to retrieve them. Shea’s shirt was still hanging open, and her jeans were down around her ankles. Blushing, she pulled them up. His hand stayed hers, preventing her from fastening them. “Do not bother, Shea. The pools are just ahead.” He walked a few feet, then looked back over his shoulder. “I did not make it up, and I know you are staring at my backside.” Shea tossed her mane of red hair so that it flew in all directions. “Any woman in her right mind would stare at your particular backside, so you don’t need to add that to your arrogant list of virtues. And stay out of my mind unless you’re invited.” She was staring, but she couldn’t help it. He was so beautifully masculine. Jacques reached behind him and captured her hand, lacing their fingers together. “But I find the most interesting things in your mind, my love. Things you do not have any intention of telling me.

I’d made my parents laugh. I’d made them proud. I’d brought home solid grades, fought tooth and nail to keep up with Gus Everett. I’d stayed up late reading with Dad and gotten up early to pretend I liked yoga with Mom. I’d told them about my life, asked them endlessly about theirs so I’d never regret wasting time with them. And I hid the complicated feelings that came with trying to memorize someone you loved, just in case.

...I continued to sit there hour after hour watching the unrelenting rain slosh against the glass, thinking of our life together, Lotte's and mine, how everything in it was designed to give a sense of permanence, the chair against the wall that was there when we went to sleep and there again when we awoke, the little habits that quoted from the day before and predicted the day to come, though in truth it was all just an illusion, just as solid matter is an illusion, just as our bodies are an illusion, pretending to be one thing when really they are millions upon millions of atoms coming and going, some arriving while others are leaving us forever, as if each of us were only a great train station, only not even that since at least in a train station the stones and the tracks and the glass roof stay still while everything else rushes through it, no, it was worse than that, more like a giant empty field where every day a circus erected and dismantled itself, the whole thing from top to bottom, but never the same circus, so what hope did we really have of ever making sense of ourselves, let alone one another?

Dear Madam Vorsoisson, I am sorry. This is the eleventh draft of this letter. They’ve all started with those three words, even the horrible version in rhyme, so I guess they stay. You once asked me never to lie to you. All right, so. I’ll tell you the truth now even if it isn’t the best or cleverest thing, and not abject enough either. I tried to be the thief of you, to ambush and take prisoner what I thought I could never earn or be given. You were not a ship to be hijacked, but I couldn’t think of any other plan but subterfuge and surprise. Though not as much of a surprise as what happened at dinner. The revolution started prematurely because the idiot conspirator blew up his secret ammo dump and lit the sky with his intentions. Sometimes these accidents end in new nations, but more often they end badly, in hangings and beheadings. And people running into the night. I can’t be sorry that I asked you to marry me, because that was the one true part in all the smoke and rubble, but I’m sick as hell that I asked you so badly. Even though I’d kept my counsel from you, I should have at least had the courtesy to keep it from others as well, till you’d had the year of grace and rest you’d asked for. But I became terrified that you’d choose another first. So I used the garden as a ploy to get near you. I deliberately and consciously shaped your heart’s desire into a trap. For this I am more than sorry, I am ashamed. You’d earned every chance to grow. I’d like to pretend I didn’t see it would be a conflict of interest for me to be the one to give you some of those chances, but that would be another lie. But it made me crazy to watch you constrained to tiny steps, when you could be outrunning time. There is only a brief moment of apogee to do that, in most lives. I love you. But I lust after and covet so much more than your body. I wanted to possess the power of your eyes, the way they see form and beauty that isn’t even there yet and draw it up out of nothing into the solid world. I wanted to own the honor of your heart, unbowed in the vilest horrors of Komarr. I wanted your courage and your will, your caution and your serenity. I wanted, I suppose, your soul, and that was too much to want. I wanted to give you a victory. But by their essential nature triumphs can’t be given. They must be taken, and the worse the odds and the fiercer the resistance, the greater the honor. Victories can’t be gifts. But gifts can be victories, can’t they. It’s what you said. The garden could have been your gift, a dowry of talent, skill, and vision. I know it’s too late now, but I just wanted to say, it would have been a victory most worthy of our House. Yours to command, Miles Vorkosigan

How to Climb a Mountain Make no mistake. This will be an exercise in staying vertical. Yes, there will be a view, later, a wide swath of open sky, but in the meantime: tree and stone. If you're lucky, a hawk will coast overhead, scanning the forest floor. If you're lucky, a set of wildflowers will keep you cheerful. Mostly, though, a steady sweat, your heart fluttering indelicately, a solid ache perforating your calves. This is called work, what you will come to know, eventually and simply, as movement, as all the evidence you need to make your way. Forget where you were. That story is no longer true. Level your gaze to the trail you're on, and even the dark won't stop you.

I stay pressed against the solid structure as the doors open . “I’d get some air if I were you. From the feel of it, you seem a little hot and bothered.

She knew that if she asked him to stay, he would. He’d settle right in on the couch and stay the night, the whole week. He wouldn’t ask for a blanket. He wouldn’t ask for a shower. He’d stay exactly where she needed him to be until she told him it was okay to go. Just imagining him there made her feel easier, made her feel as if she’d been thrown a rope, made her feel as if the very room they were standing in was more solidly constructed. She wanted him to stay so badly that she had to sit down, turn away from him a little or else he’d know.

Somewhere among the commotion I grew rather depressed. The depression stayed with me for over a year; it was like an animal, a well-defined, spatially localizable thing. I would wake up, open my eyes, listen-is it here or isn’t it? No sign of it. Perhaps it’s asleep. Perhaps it will leave me alone today. Carefully, very carefully, I get out of bed. All is quiet. I go to the kitchen, start breakfast. Not a sound. TV-Good Morning America, David what’s-his-name, a guy I can’t stand. I eat and watch the guests. Slowly the food fills my stomach and gives me strength. Now a quick excursion to the bathroom, and out for my morning walk-and here she is, my faithful depression: “Did you think you could leave without me?" I had often warned my students not to identify with their work. I told them, “if you want to achieve something, if you want to write a book, paint a picture, be sure that the center of your existence if somewhere else and that it’s solidly grounded; only then will you be able to keep your cool and laugh at the attacks that are bound to come." I myself had followed this advice in the past, but now I was alone, sick with some unknown affliction; my private life was in a mess, and I was without a defense. I often wished I had never written that fucking book.

one of those pills. It’s not like I have to go to work in the morning. Anyway, as you can tell from how not dead I am, the Hab stayed sealed overnight. The seal is solid. Ugly as hell, but solid. Today’s task was the bedroom.

in my dreams, the sun does not blind me. i leave the house (white converse laced tight, hair tied with a ribbon) and my body remains that. my body stays a body. doesn't become a shadow / a ghost / a whisper. my body stays solid.

I love him. Have loved him through each of his growing stages. But I do not want him to stay the same. I want him to grow. To mature. To become everything God has in mind for him. To be a man. Accept responsibility. Be a leader...And he will. I have every confidence he will. He's on the right track-your brother. Following the leading of his Lord. I want him to change, but I never want him to leave behind the solid base he has already established for who he is deep inside. But I also want him to build and develop and carefully nurture that inner self. And as that happens, there will be changes.

Underneath my imagination there didn't seem to be anything solid except for the space where I shoved my pain and sadness. Besides that, there were only twisted steel threads of axiety, woven through my body and brain, wired into me like a constant warning. Watch out, stay still, move away, stay silent, fight back, run and hide. Even when I was dreaming, but more so when I was awake, there was the constant fear of being caught off-guard, or by the wrong person at the wrong time.

First I need to do something.’ He pulled me closer towards him until our lips were almost touching. ‘What might that be?’ I managed to stutter, closing my eyes, anticipating the warmth of his lips against mine. But the kiss didn’t come. I opened my eyes. Alex had jumped to his feet. ‘Swim,’ he said, grinning at me. ‘Come on.’ ‘Swim?’ I pouted, unable to hide my disappointment that he wanted to swim rather than make out with me. Alex pulled his T-shirt off in one swift move. My eyes fell straightaway to his chest – which was tanned, smooth and ripped with muscle, and which, when you studied it as I had done, in detail, you discovered wasn’t a six-pack but actually a twelve-pack. My eyes flitted to the shadowed hollows where his hips disappeared into his shorts, causing a flutter in parts of my body that up until three weeks ago had been flutter-dormant. Alex’s hands dropped to his shorts and he started undoing his belt. I reassessed the swimming option. I could definitely do swimming. He shrugged off his shorts, but before I could catch an eyeful of anything, he was off, jogging towards the water. I paused for a nanosecond, weighing up my embarrassment at stripping naked over my desire to follow him. With a deep breath, I tore off my dress then kicked off my underwear and started running towards the sea, praying Nate wasn’t doing a fly-by. The water was warm and flat as a bath. I could see Alex in the distance, his skin gleaming in the now inky moonlight. When I got close to him, his hand snaked under the water, wrapped round my waist and pulled me towards him. I didn’t resist because I’d forgotten in that instant how to swim. And then he kissed me and I prayed silently and fervently that he took my shudder to be the effect of the water. I tried sticking myself onto him like a barnacle, but eventually Alex managed to pull himself free, holding my wrists in his hand so I couldn’t reattach. His resolve was as solid as a nuclear bunker’s walls. Alex had said there were always chinks. But I couldn’t seem to find the one in his armour. He swam two long strokes away from me. I trod water and stayed where I was, feeling confused, glad that the night was dark enough to hide my expression. ‘I’m just trying to protect your honour,’ he said, guessing it anyway. I groaned and rolled my eyes. When was he going to understand that I was happy for him to protect every other part of me, just not my honour?

When one has apparently made up one’s mind to spend the evening at home and has donned one’s house-jacket and sat down at the lamplit table after supper and do the particular job or play the particular game on completion of which one is in the habit of going to bed, when the weather out is so unpleasant as to make staying in the obvious choice, when one has been sitting quietly at the table for so long already that one’s leaving must inevitably provoke general astonishment, when the stairwell is in any case in darkness and the street door locked, and when in spite of all this one stands up, suddenly ill at ease, changes one’s coat, reappears immediately in street clothes, announces that one has to go out and after a brief farewell does so, feeling that one has left behind one a degree of irritation commensurate with the abruptness with which one slammed the apartment door, when one then finds oneself in the street possessed of limbs that respond to the quite unexpected freedom one has procured for them with out-of-the-ordinary agility, when in the wake of this one decision one feels capable, deep down, of taking any decision, when one realizes with a greater sense of significance than usual that one has, after all, more ability than one has need easily to effect and endure the most rapid change, and when in this frame of mind one walks the long city streets—then for that evening one has stepped completely outside one’s family, which veers into inessentiality, while one’s own person, rock solid, dark with definition, thighs thrusting rhythmically, assumes it true form. The whole experience is enhanced when at that late hour one looks up a friend to see how he is.

The Doper's Dream Last night I dreamed I was plugged right in To a bubblin' hookah so high, When all of a sudden some Arab jinni Jump up just a-winkin' his eye. 'I'm here to obey all your wishes,' he told me. As for words I was trying to grope. 'Good buddy,' I cried, 'you could surely oblige me By turning me on to some dope!' With a bigfat smile he took ahold of my hand, And we flew down the sky in a flash, And the first thing I saw in the land where he took me Was a whole solid mountain of hash! All the trees was a-bloomin' with pink 'n' purple pills, Whur the Romilar River flowed by, To the magic mushrooms as wild as a rainbow, So pretty that I wanted to cry. All the girls come to greet us, so sweet in slow motion, Mourning glories woven into their hair, Bringin' great big handfuls of snowy cocaine, All their dope they were eager to share. We we dallied for days, just a-ballin' and smokin', In the flowering Panama Red, Just piggin' on peyote and nutmeg tea, And those brownies so kind to your head. Now I could've passed that good time forever, And I really was fixing to stay, But you know that jinni turned out, t'be a narco man, And he busted me right whur I lay. And he took me back to a cold, cold world 'N' now m'prison's whurever I be... And I dream of the days back in Doperland And I wonder, will I ever go free?

By and large over time, pain turns to grief, grief turns to silence, and silence turns to lonesomeness, as vast and bottomless as the dark oceans... You think you cannot live anymore. You think that the light of your soul has been put out and that you will stay in the dark forever. But when you are engulfed by such solid darkness, when you have both eyes closed to the world, a third eye opens in your heart. And only then do you come to realize that eyesight conflicts with inner knowledge. No eye sees so clear and sharp as the eye of love. After grief comes another season, another valley, another you. And the lover who is nowhere to be found, you start to see everywhere.

what love isn’t It is not a five star stay. It is not compliments and it is never ever flattery. It is solid. Not sweet but always nutritious always herb, always salt. Sometimes grit. It is now and till the end. It is never a slither, never a little it is a full serving it is much too much and real never pretty or clean. It stinks - you can smell it coming it is weight it is weight and it is too heavy to feel good sometimes. It is discomfort - it is not what the films say. Only songs get it right it is irregular it is difficult and always, always surprising.

When you look at a tree in a storm, you see that the top of the tree is very unstable and vulnerable. The wind can break the smaller branches at any time. But when you look down to the trunk of the tree, you have a different impression. You see that the tree is very solid and still, and you know that it will be able to withstand the storm. We are also like a tree. Our head is like the top of the tree during a tempest of a strong emotion, so we have to bring our attention down to the level of our navel. We begin to practice mindful breathing. We concentrate just on our breathing and on the rise and fall of our abdomen. It is a very important practice because it helps us to see that, although an emotion may be very strong, it will stay only for a while and then go; it cannot last forever. If you train yourself to practice like this during difficult times, you will survive these storms. You have to be aware that your emotion is just an emotion. It comes, stays for some time, and then goes away. Why should someone die because of an emotion? You are more than your emotions. It is important to remember this. During a crisis, when you breathe in and out, maintain the awareness that your emotion will go away if you continue to practice. After you have succeeded a few times, you will have confidence in yourself and in the practice. Let us not get caught by our thoughts and feelings. Let us bring our attention down to our belly and breathe in and out. This storm will go away, so don’t be afraid.

Chris loved to look at every type of plant, animal, and bug he hadn’t seen before on the trail and point out those he did recognize. He enjoyed walking along small streams, listening to the water as it traveled, and searching for eddies where we could watch the minnows scurry amongst the rocks. On one Shenandoah trip, while we were resting at a waterfall, eating our chocolate-covered granola bars and watching the water pummel the rocks below, he said, “See, Carine ? That’s the purity of nature. It may be harsh in its honesty, but it never lies to you”. Chris seemed to be most comfortable outdoors, and the farther away from the typical surroundings and pace of our everyday lives the better. While it was unusual for a solid week to pass without my parents having an argument that sent them into a negative tailspin of destruction and despair, they never got into a fight of any consequence when we were on an extended family hike or camping trip. It seemed like everything became centered and peaceful when there was no choice but to make nature the focus. Our parents’ attention went to watching for blaze marks on trees ; staying on the correct trail ; doling out bug spray, granola bars, sandwiches, and candy bars at proper intervals ; and finding the best place to pitch the tent before nightfall. They taught us how to properly lace up our hiking boots and wear the righ socks to keep our feet healthy and reliable. They showed us which leaves were safe to use as toilet paper and which would surely make us miserable downtrail. We learned how to purify water for our canteens if we hadn’t found a safe spring and to be smart about conserving what clean water we had left. At night we would collect rocks to make a fire ring, dry wood to burn, and long twigs for roasting marshmallows for the s’more fixings Mom always carried in her pack. Dad would sing silly, non-sensical songs that made us laugh and tell us about the stars.

I meant to resist your charms; I really did.I wasn't going to do this." Alan took her wrist, guiding her hand over so that he could press a kiss to the palm. "Make love with me?" "No." Shelby's gaze traveled from his mouth to his eyes. "Be in love with you." She felt his fingers tighten on her wrist, then loosen slowly as his eyes stayed dark and fixed on hers. Beneath her, she felt the change in his heartbeart. "And are you?" "Yes." The word, hardly audible, thundered in his head. Alan brought her to him, cradling her head against his chest, feeling her low slow expulsion of air as his arm came around her. He hadn't expected her to give him so much so soon. "When?" "When?" Shelby repeated, enjoying the solid feel of his chest under her cheek. "Sometime between when we first stepped out on the Write's terrace and when I opened a basket of strawberries." "It took you that long? All I had to do was look at you.

Say something.” I struggled to get the word out. “What?” “My name.” I wasn’t sure why he wanted me to say that, and I didn’t know how it would feel to say it again after all this time, but I drew in a deep breath. “Rider.” Another breath shuddered through me. “Rider Stark.” His throat worked and, for a heartbeat, neither of us moved as a steamy breeze tossed strands of hair across my face. Then he dropped his notebook to the pavement. I was surprised it didn’t burst into dust. His long-legged pace ate up the distance. One second there was several feet between us, and in the next breath he was right there in front of me. He was so much taller now. I barely reached his shoulders. And then his arms were around me. My heart exploded as those strong arms pulled me against his chest. There was a moment where I froze, and then my arms swept around his neck. I held on, squeezing my eyes shut as I inhaled the clean scent and the lingering trace of aftershave. This was him. His hugs were different now, stronger and tighter. He lifted me clear off my feet, one arm around my waist, the other hand buried deep in my hair, and my breasts were mushed against his surprisingly hard chest. Whoa. His hugs were most definitely different than they were when we were twelve. “Jesus, Mouse, you don’t even know...” His voice was gruff and thick as he set me back on my feet, but he didn’t let go. One arm stayed around my waist. His other hand fisted the ends of my hair. His chin grazed the top of my head as I slid my hands down his chest. “I never thought I’d see you again.” I rested my forehead between my hands, feeling his heart beat fast. I could hear people around us, and I imagined some were probably staring, but I didn’t care. Rider was warm and solid. Real. Alive.

He sighs and wiggles around in his chair to get comfortable-it's going to be a long night. Watching humans play pretend for two hours doesn't exactly flip his fin. But he can tell Emma's getting restless. And so is he. Just as he nods off, a loud noise pops from the screen. Emma latches onto his arm as if he's dangling her over a cliff. She presses her face into his biceps and moans. "Is it over yet?" she whispers. "The movie?" "No. The thing that jumped out at her. Is it gone?" Galen chuckles and pries his arm from her grasp, then wraps it around her. "No. You should definitely stay there until I tell you it's clear." She whips her head up, but there's an almost-smile in her eyes. "I might take you up on that, pretend date or no. I hate scary movies." "Why didn't you tell me that? Everyone at school was practically salivating over this movie." The lady next to her leans over. "Shhh!" she whisper-yells. Emma nestles into the crook of his arm and buries her face in his chest, where she returns frequently as the movie goes on. Galen admits to himself that humans can make everything look pretty real. Still, he can't understand how Emma can be afraid when she knows they're only actors on the screen getting paid to scream like boiling lobsters. But who is he to complain? Their convincing performance keeps Emma in his arms for almost two solid hours. When the movie is over, he pulls the car to the curb and opens the door for her just as Rachel instructed. Emma accepts his hand as he helps her in. "What should we call our new little game?" he says on the way home. "Game?" "You know, 'Have some Lemonheads, sweet lips!'" "Oh, right." She laughs. "How about...Upchuck?" "Sounds appropriate. You realize it's your turn, right? I was thinking of making you eat a live crab." She leans over him. He almost swerves off the road when her lips brush his ear. "Where will you get a live crab? All I have to do is poke my head in the water and tell them to scatter." He grins. She's been getting more comfortable with her Gift. Yesterday, she sent some dolphins chasing after him.

I once read a theory about ‘positive thinking’ that seems to be true or, at least, made a sufficient impression on me to remember it. I have always been distrustful of positive thinking, believing it to be as fixed and unyielding as negative thinking. Yet it is the advice most often offered to depressives. That it does not work seems not to occur to those who offer it up like some benevolent panacea. Perhaps it works for them or perhaps they are a product of some positive thinking gene pool. Who knows? Anywhere, here is the theory that helped me. I hope that it will help you too. Imagine you are driving a car, and you are heading straight for a brick wall. If you stay in habitual or rigid thinking (the kind of thinking that says, ‘this is the way I always do things’) and do not change the direction in the way you are headed, you will drive you car into the brick wall. Now imagine you are driving that same car towards that same brick wall. Now use positive thinking to imagine that wall is, in fact, a tunnel. It is not, of course, you simply hope or wish that it is a tunnel but it is the same old, intractable brick. You still drive your car into the wall. You are in the same car, facing the same wall except that you use creative or constructive thinking. You see the wall as an obstacle set dead ahead and see that it is solid and immoveable. You use your thinking to change direction and drive your car around it. Understanding that our thinking is not always helpful sounds so obvious and simple. So does changing our thinking, yet both are formidably difficult to do, perhaps because, most of the time, we never question it. We go right ahead and do what we have always done, in the same way we have always done it. We crash into relationships, mess up jobs, ruin friendships and all because we believe that our way is the right way. There is a saying: ‘I’d rather be right than happy.’ And here is another: ‘My way or no way.’ I see that wall as a symbol for an obstacle (or obstacles, there may be many) in our emotional make-up. If we go on behaving in the same way, we will crash. If we pretend that those obstacles in our character don’t exist, or are something else entirely, we will still crash. But if we acknowledge them and behave in a different way, we will come to a better and safer place. Or at least we will, until we meet the next obstacle.

lower her to my side and pull her against me so that her head is resting on my jacket. Her breath tastes like starburst and it makes me want to keep kissing her until I can identify every single flavor. Her hand touches my arm and she gives it a tight squeeze just as my tongue slips inside her mouth. That would be strawberry on the tip of her tongue. She keeps her hand on my arm, periodically moving it to the back of my head, then returning it to my arm. I keep my hand on her waist, never once moving it to touch any other part of her. The only thing we explore is each other’s mouths. We kiss without making another sound. We kiss until the alarm sounds off on my phone. Despite the noise, neither of us stops kissing. We don’t even hesitate. We kiss for another solid minute until the bell rings in the hallway outside and suddenly lockers are slamming shut and people are talking and everything about our moment is stolen from us by all the inconvenient external factors of school. I still my lips against hers, then slowly pull back. “I have to get to class,” she whispers. I nod, even though she can’t see me. “Me, too,” I reply. She begins to scoot out from beneath me. When I roll onto my back, I feel her move closer to me. Her mouth briefly meets mine one more time, then she pulls away and stands up. The second she opens the door, the light from the hallway pours in and I squeeze my eyes shut, throwing my arm over my face. I hear the door shut behind her and by the time I adjust to the brightness, the light is gone again. I sigh heavily. I also remain on the floor until my physical reaction to her subsides. I don’t know who the hell she was or why the hell she ended up here, but I hope to God she comes back. I need a whole hell of a lot more of that. • • • She didn’t come back the next day. Or the day after that. In fact, today marks exactly a week since she literally fell into my arms, and I’ve convinced myself that maybe that whole day was a dream. I did stay up most of the night before watching zombie movies with Chunk, but even though I was going on two hours of sleep, I don’t know that I would have been able to imagine that. My fantasies aren’t that fun. Whether she comes back or not, I still don’t have a fifth period and until someone calls me out on it, I’ll keep hiding out in here. I actually slept way too much last night, so I’m not tired. I pull my phone out to text Holder when the door to the closet begins to open. “Are you in here, kid?” I hear her whisper. My heart immediately picks up pace and I can’t tell if it’s that she came back or if it’s because the

The older you get, the harder it is to experience a singular grief. Instead, when loss comes again, it doesn't bring something solid all the way through or isolated, it brings you a Russian doll. Loss comes; a new layer of grief forms. And instead of staying still, it opens, and out all the others pour, popping into their composite forms until you are sitting surrounded by an eager, bleeding crowd of them. Grief is cumulative and to feel one kind is to feel at least a little of them all, renewed. When I wake from the shock, there it is, right here in my hands. All my past losses, nestled.

He doesn’t say anything for a while, just studies me in that intense way. His nostrils flare, and again it’s like he’s taking in my scent or something. He continues, “Somehow, I think I know you. From the first moment I saw you, I felt that I knew you.” The words run through me, reminding me of when he let me escape in the mountains. He’s good. Protective. I have nothing to fear from him, but everything to fear from his family. I scoot closer, the draw of him too great. My warming core, the vibrations inside my chest feel so natural, so effortless around him. I know I need to be careful, exercise restraint, but it feels so good. The pulse at his neck skips against his flesh. “Jacinda.” My skin ripples at his hoarse whisper. I stare up at him, waiting. He slides sown to land solidly on my step. He brings his face close to mine, angles his head. His breath is hard. Fast. Fills the space, the inch separating us. I touch his cheek, see my hand shake, and quickly pull it back. He grabs my wrist, places my palm back against his cheek, and closes his eyes like he’s in agony. Or bliss. Or maybe both. Like he’s never been touched before. My heart squeezes. Like I’ve never touched anyone before. “Don’t stay away from me anymore.” I stop myself, just barely, from telling him I won’t. I can’t promise that. Can’t lie. He opens his eyes. States starkly, bleakly. “I need you.

Two boys on fluorescent bikes with extravagant ape-hanger handlebars were doing wheelies in the parking lot, weaving in and out of each other’s paths with a dexterity that suggested a solid background in video gaming and possible high-paying futures as air-traffic controllers . . . if they managed to stay away from coke and car accidents, that was.

If you are to live in this world, then you must be willing to actively participate in life." You cannot just be an expectator. You cannot just be sitting down at the bleachers and comtemplate the game and expect to win. You are to step out of your comfortable zone. You are to participate and do your very best. Remember, "Every pro was once an amateur. Every expert was once a beginner." And every beginner once decided to step down from the bleachers and start participating. Build a solid foundation for your life. Stay rooted in the Word. Don't let the holy things become common. Be disciplined and be committed. Sacrifice what you are to sacrifice in order to succeed. But never ever your values, integrity, character, and principles. Never give up nor give in. Be aware that people will hate you on your way up. People will rate you. They'll will shake you and try to bring you down. "But how strong you stand, is what makes you." Choose to live by choice not by chance. Be motivated and not manipulated. BE useful not used. Make changes and not excuses. Aim to excel not to compete. Choose self-esteem, not self pitty. Choose to listen to your inner voice, (which is GOd's word whispering to you) not to the random opinions of others. And finally, choose to live for yourself and not to please others. Word of advice, "make your goals so big, that your everyday problems seem insignificant." Have a bless day

Thinking back, ladies, looking back, gentlemen, thinking and looking back on my European tour, I feel a heavy sadness descend upon me. Of course, it is partly nostalgia, looking back at that younger me, bustling around Europe, having adventures and overcoming obstacles that, at the time, seemed so overwhelming, but now seem like just the building blocks of a harmless story. But here is the truth of nostalgia: we don’t feel it for who we were, but who we weren’t. We feel it for all the possibilities that were open to us, but that we didn’t take. Time is like wax, dripping from a candle flame. In the moment, it is molten and falling, with the capability to transform into any shape. Then the moment passes, and the wax hits the table top and solidifies into the shape it will always be. It becomes the past, a solid single record of what happened, still holding in its wild curves and contours the potential of every shape it could have held. It is impossible - no matter how blessed you are by luck or the government or some remote, invisible deity gently steering your life with hands made of moonlight and wind - it is impossible not to feel a little sad, looking at that bit of wax. That bit of the past. It is impossible not to think of all the wild forms that wax now will never take. The village, glimpsed from a train window, beautiful and impossible and impossibly beautiful on a mountaintop, and you wonder what it would be if you stepped off the train and walked up the trail to its quiet streets and lived there for the rest of your life. The beautiful face of that young man from Luftknarp, with his gaping mouth and ashy skin, last seen already half-turned away as you boarded the bus, already turning towards a future without you in it, where this thing between you that seemed so possible now already and forever never was. All variety of lost opportunity spied from the windows of public transportation, really. It can be overwhelming, this splattered, inert wax recording every turn not taken. ‘What’s the point?’ you ask. ’Why bother?’ you say. ’Oh, Cecil,’ you cry. ’Oh, Cecil.’ But then you remember - I remember! - that we are even now in another bit of molten wax. We are in a moment that is still falling, still volatile, and we will never be anywhere else. We will always be in that most dangerous, most exciting, most possible time of all: the Now. Where we never can know what shape the next moment will take. Stay tuned next for, well, let’s just find out together, shall we?

Being with Jody and Mark and Cal was beginning to weigh on my nerves, like a dull wooden block on the strings of a piano. I was afraid that at any moment my control would snap, and I would start babbling about how I couldn't read and couldn't write and how I must be just about the only person who had stayed awake for a solid month without dropping dead of exhaustion.

All over this country people talk about a silver spoon, but truth be told, the spoon is gold. And solid. And stacked high and across. That’s how you have to do if you’re colored, black, Negro, brown . . . Whatever you’re calling yourself that isn’t white. Lord. But when your child shows up with a belly and she’s not even full grown yet, you think for a minute that all those blocks of gold don’t mean a damn thing out in the world if you haven’t even taught your own child how to stay pure. How to hold on. How to grow into womanhood right. You cry into the night until your throat is raw and there’s not another heave left inside of you. Not another drop of water left for your body to squeeze out. Not enough ways left to curse God and yourself.

The pretense that place does not matter turns us all into straw dogs subjected to the whims of marketing. If we are unattached, we need. We need so many things to ground us. If we point the lens into the core of us and no galaxy appears, then what? We dangle, storyless, bland words rolling across the windy landscapes of our tongues. We stay awake all hours of the night, peering out windows until, at last, we let go of longing and accept the constellations that connect us all. We rest our eyes on a horizon that tells a story from the bones out, embraces us from the skin in, lets us rise from the dust of where we’ve been and where we are, like coyotes, hunting, hungry, finally knowing exactly what it is that feeds us. MINERAL AS IN SOLID, CRYSTALLINE, INTERLOCKED, CREATING A SOMETIMES

The Difference Between Sympathy, Empathy and Compassion: If someone was stuck in a quagmire: Sympathy would be: sitting on the side, feeling sorry for them. Empathy would be: getting into the quagmire with them, and trying to find a way out for both of you. Compassion would be: keeping your own feet on solid ground and staying in a state of love while you reach out a hand or branch to help them to get out.

By habit we perceive ourselves and the world around us as solid, real, and enduring. Yet without much effort, we can easily determine that not one aspect within the whole world’s system exists independent of change. I had just been in one physical location, and now I was in another; I had experienced different states of mind. We have all grown from babies to adults, lost loved ones, watched children grow, known changes in weather, in political regimes, in styles of music and fashion, in everything. Despite appearances, no aspect of life ever stays the same. The deconstruction of any one object—no matter how dense it appears, such as an ocean liner, our bodies, a skyscraper, or an oak tree—will reveal the appearance of solidity to be as illusory as permanence. Everything that looks substantial will break down into molecules, and into atoms, and into electrons, protons, and neutrons. And every phenomenon exists in interdependence with myriad other forms. Every identification of any one form has meaning only in relationship to another. Big only has meaning in relation to small. To mistake our habitual misperceptions for the whole of reality is what we mean by ignorance, and these delusions define the world of confusion, or samsara.

Through ecstasy, emotion reaches its climax, and thereby at the same time its negation (its oblivion). Ecstasy means being "outside oneself," as indicated by the etymology of the Greek word: the act of leaving one's position (stasis). To be "outside oneself" does not mean outside the present moment, like a dreamer escaping into the past or the future. Just the opposite: ecstasy is absolute identity with the present instant, total forgetting of past and future. If we obliterate the future and the past, the present moment stands in empty space, outside life and its chronology, outside time and independent of it (this is why it can be likened to eternity, which too is the negation of time). [...] Man desires eternity, but all he can get is its imitation: the instant of ecstasy. [...] Living is a perpetual heavy effort not to lose sight of ourselves, to stay solidly present in ourselves, in our stasis. Step outside ourselves for a mere instant, and we verge on death's dominion.

Brian ‘The Tax Man’ Cockerill - While I’m mentioning drug dealers, I have to give a mention to a man hated by the peddlers of soul destroying stuff, big Brian ‘The Tax Man’ Cockerill (AKA as Scot’s Brian), born on 16 December 1964 in Coatbridge, in Lanarkshire, at 6ft 3in, with 23 stone of rock solid muscle, his awesome power has made him a truly terrifying force in Britain’s underworld. A walking colossus, anyone who gets in his way and tries to stay there had better be ready for the hiding of their life.

Pastry-making, as every amateur baker fears, is as much about technique as ingredients. The rationale behind the well-known advice to keep the hands, implements and kitchen cool while making pastry, to use minimal water and to handle it lightly is obvious, now that we understand the process. Cool handling lengthens the time that the fat in the dough stays solid; using minimum amount of water reduces the gluten content and also allows the dough to be crisper; minimal handling also reduces the gluten, so we do not knead pastry dough as we do bread.

Always keep mint on your windowsill in August, to ensure that buzzing flies will stay outside, where they belong. Don’t think the summer is over, even when roses droop and turn brown and the stars shift position in the sky. Never presume August is a safe or reliable time of the year. It is the season of reversals, when the birds no longer sing in the morning and the evenings are made up of equal parts golden light and black clouds. The rock-solid and the tenuous can easily exchange places until everything you know can be questioned and put into doubt.

The ninth is an easy driving hole. Plenty of room. The kind that makes you want to come out of your shoes at the ball. I was feeling a little cocky so as I addressed the ball I looked over at some of the people and said: “I been hittin’ shots for you people all day. I think I’ll hit this one for myself.” I didn’t catch it anywhere but on the screws. The ball looked like it might stay in the air long enough to send back weather reports. The crowd around the tee exploded with a cheer, and above it I heard Grover Scomer. He yelled: “Waxahachie, Nacogdoches!

But you're worried I'll get in trouble?" I try not to show how much this pleases me. I've managed to ignore him for days now and here I sit. Lapping up his attention like a neglected puppy. My voice takes on an edge. "Why do you care? I've ignored you for days." His smile fades. He looks serious, mockingly so. "Yeah. You got to stop that." I swallow back a laugh. "I can't." "Why?" There's no humor in his eyes now, no mockery. "You like me. You want to be with me." "I never said-" "You didn't have to." I inhale sharply. "Don't do this." He looks at me so fiercely, so intently. Angry again. "I don't have friends. Do you see my hang with anyone besides my jerk cousins? That's for a reason. I keep people away on purpose," he growls. "But then you came along..." I frown and shake my head. His expression softens then, pulls at some part of me. His gaze travels my face, warming the core of me. "Whoever you are, Jacinda, you're someone I have to let in." He doesn't say anything for a while, just studies me in that intense way. His nostrils flare, and again it's like he's taking in my scent or something. He continues, "Somehow, I think I know you. From the first moment I saw you, I felt that I knew you." The words run through me, reminding me of when he let me escape in the mountains. He's good. Protective. I have nothing to fear from him, but everything to fear from his family. I scoot closer, the draw of him too great. My warming core, the vibrations inside my chest feel so natural, so effortless around him. I know I need to be careful, exercise restraint, but it feels too good. The pulse at his neck skips against his flesh. "Jacinda." My skin ripples at his hoarse whisper. I stare up at him, waiting. He slides down to land solidly on my step. He brings his face close to mine, angles his head. His breath is hard. Fast. Fills the space, the inch separating us. I touch his cheek, see my hand shake, and quickly pull it back. He grabs my wrist, places my palm back against his cheek, and closes his eyes like he's in agony. Or bliss. Or maybe both. Like he's never been touched before. My heart squeezes. Like I've never touched anyone before. "Don't stay away from me anymore." I stop myself, just barely, from telling him I won't. I can't promise that. Can't lie. He opens his eyes. Stares starkly, bleakly. "I need you." He says this like it doesn't make sense to him. Like it's the worst possible thing. A misery he must endure. I smile, understanding. Because it's the same for me. "I know." Then he kisses me.

She stared at her mother's hat resting so quiet and rich on top of her parent's closet. It had a soft brown velvet brim ad white feathers were peeking out brown with dots and that hat was amazing because it stayed so solid and fixed to the shelf and yet the girl thought the feathers made it seem as if it could just fly away when she wasn't looking and if it really wanted to. Anyway, maybe the hat had thoughts of its own or could absorb all the thoughts and made-up stories of the person who wore the hat and keep them under the velvet brim and hide them in between the soft feathers as if they were eggs and keep them warm until they escaped.

Happy birthday,” he whispered, his breath landing warm and suddenly close to my lips, making my insides flip. And just as quickly as he’d surprised me with the cake, he kissed me, one frosting-covered hand moving from my hair to the back of my neck, the other solid and warm in the small of my back, pressing us together, my chest against his ribs, my hip bones just below his, the tops of our bare summer legs hot and touching. I stopped breathing. My eyes were closed and his mouth tasted like marzipan flowers and clove cigarettes, and in ten seconds the whole of my life was wrapped up in that one kiss, that one wish, that one secret that would forever divide my life into two parts. Up, down. Happy, sad. Shock, awe. Before, after. In that single moment, Matt, formerly known as friend, became something else entirely. I kissed him back. I forgot time. I forgot my feet. I forgot the people outside, waiting for us to rejoin the party. I forgot what happens when friends cross into this space. And if my lungs didn’t fill and my heart didn’t beat and my blood didn’t pump without my intervention, I would have forgotten about them, too. I could have stayed like that all night, standing in front of the sink, Matt’s black apple hair brushing my cheeks, heart thumping, lucky and forgetful…

Chase grunts at that, shoving himself up and away. For a moment he looks down at me, flushed and open mouthed. “Suck me.” It’s a demand. “I want to feel your tongue on my cock.” He isn’t gentle. Once I take him in my mouth he twists his fingers in my hair, the hold burning as I tilt my face to see the drop of his head, his eyes closed, his mouth parted to an O. “Fuck.” He shudders, the word hardly a shaping of his heavy breath. “Like that.” He feels so good in my mouth. Hot and hard, too much for me to take into my throat without gagging a little over his length. That makes him grunt, the hard planes of his belly tensing. I can feel his twitching indecision in the movements of his fingers through my hair, torn between the need to hold me close and the need to be inside another part of me. He doesn’t stay indecisive for long. “You want me to fuck you?” His voice is ragged. Yes, yes. I try to tell him with the sweep of my tongue and the hollow of my cheeks, the enthusiastic bob of my head. When Chase grabs me he’s rough. His hands hold tight at my shoulders as he shoves me over, face down on the bed. One fist tugs my hip up as the other braces low over my spine. “Wait,” is a rasped order. I can feel the mattress move as he leans to the bedside drawer, and then there’s the ripping sound of a foil packet torn on his teeth. There’s no warning after that. Only his cock, buried inside of me in one savage thrust. I cry out his name, and everything splinters with too much and yes and the good-ache pain of being opened by him. “Brooke.” It’s grunted at my ear as Chase begins a slow, solid pound into me, each thrust shoving to full sink. It hurts a little. He’s too big. It’s too quick. But god, it’s amazing. “Your pussy feels so good wrapped around my cock. So fucking good.” His fingers find my clit, and it’s all I can do not to cry out with how good it feels. His hips slam against my raised ass as he pounds into me, all that muscle riding me as expertly as he rode the mountains today. “Come.” He bites it at my ear, grinding his cock into me, holding the deepest penetration all the way into my aching core. “Come for me.” He’s starting to pound me again, and where my face is smashed against the pillow I whimper out the too-much-good of it, each slam of his body into mine forcing the breath from my lungs and spiking pleasure along my spine. “Please—please—please—” “Beg me,” Chase growls. “Say you want me. Say you need me inside of you.” “Please. Make me come. Chase. Please. Fuck me.” It’s so much I’m almost sobbing with it. Chase pounds on, relentless, until as I begin to spasm with my orgasm he grunts out his own. My hips pinned in his fingers. His body slammed into mine. Both of us, breaking apart together.

No one charged you with being my savior,” Camille’s voice shook, the confrontation not something she really wanted. “No one had to charge me with it. I made the decision on my own the night the Christina went down.” Oscar sealed his lips as if he’d let something slip he hadn’t intended. “What are you talking about?” she asked, her boots slipping once on the moss. He avoided her by looking out at the stream. He took a few moments to answer, and when he did he still didn’t meet her stare. “Do you remember when you woke up on the Londoner? When you asked me if I’d seen your father?” Camille nodded, and hoped their argument was over. “You said you didn’t see him.” He shook his head. “I lied. I did see him in the water. He was trying to stay above the surface after I got ahold of the dory.” It was as though freezing shocks of ocean water were striking Camille in the face all over again. She jumped from the rock, the hem of her skirt nearly tripping her. “Did you row to him? Did you try and save him?” He shook his head again. “No.” “Why not?” she screeched. “Oscar, how could you not help him?” She couldn’t blink. She couldn’t do anything but stare at him in disbelief. He’d abandoned her father, the man who had given him everything. “Because I spotted you,” he answered, hardly loud enough for her to hear. “I saw you in the waves and I chose to row to you.” She loosened her fists, stunned. Oscar sat down on the rock, the toes of his scuffed leather boots buried in the dry layer of pine needles. “I tried to go back for him,” he said, kicking at the needles, “but by the time I pulled you out of the water and looked back, he was gone.” She couldn’t move, could barely breathe. If she’d only held on to her father’s hand. Oscar would have been able to save them both. “If there had just been a way to get to the both of you,” he said. Camille sat on the rock beside him, laying a tentative hand on his arm. “You’re the most capable man I know, Oscar. If there had been a way, you’d have found it.” She pressed her hand against his solid arm, the flaxen hairs covering his skin coarse against her fingertips. She wanted to soothe him more, reassure him like he always did her.

the challenges of our day-to-day existence are sustained reminders that our life of faith simply must have its center somewhere other than in our ability to hold it together in our minds. Life is a pounding surf that wears away our rock-solid certainty. The surf always wins. Slowly but surely. Eventually. It may be best to ride the waves rather than resist them. What are your one or two biggest obstacles to staying Christian? What are those roadblocks you keep running into? What are those issues that won’t go away and make you wonder why you keep on believing at all? These are questions I asked on a survey I gave on my blog in the summer of 2013. Nothing fancy. I just asked some questions and waited to see what would happen. In the days to come, I was overwhelmed with comments and e-mails from readers, many anonymous, with bracingly honest answers often expressed through the tears of relentless and unnerving personal suffering. I didn’t do a statistical analysis (who has the time, plus I don’t know how), but the responses fell into five categories.         1.        The Bible portrays God as violent, reactive, vengeful, bloodthirsty, immoral, mean, and petty.         2.        The Bible and science collide on too many things to think that the Bible has anything to say to us today about the big questions of life.         3.        In the face of injustice and heinous suffering in the world, God seems disinterested or perhaps unable to do anything about it.         4.        In our ever-shrinking world, it is very difficult to hold on to any notion that Christianity is the only path to God.         5.        Christians treat each other so badly and in such harmful ways that it calls into question the validity of Christianity—or even whether God exists. These five categories struck me as exactly right—at least, they match up with my experience. And I’d bet good money they resonate with a lot of us. All five categories have one big thing in common: “Faith in God no longer makes sense to me.” Understanding, correct thinking, knowing what you believe—these were once true of their faith, but no longer are. Because life happened. A faith that promises to provide firm answers and relieve our doubt is a faith that will not hold up to the challenges and tragedies of life. Only deep trust can hold up.

Chapter One: The Dawn and the Dread Heartbeat, heartbeat comes from Valhallan way, To meet down in judgment, to ply its trade. Two →swords← to join in worthy cross, Actions to be rendered, one to be lost. She did come now from ’yond northern slope, A day of reckoning did she again once hope. A devout meeting was her qwesterly bane, To stay her hand was to go insane. St. Kari of the Blade to meet her past, A wicked enemy, peerless of match. Rode Kari she her charger on down, Past the Dead Land where Gaul sat crowned. A killing job, yea, she desired to lastly kill, To set things right so her heart might lie still. Upon the mist and roaring plain, She entered in, a soul uncontained. A fierce wind in deed, and forever freed, Enemies she annihilhates (’tis hur’ creed). Her own advanced guard of a sort, Multitudes to follow in her report. Know this Valkyrie from on cold, An ancient maiden soft and bold. A warrior spirit from Ages past, A fragmented mind like broken glass. Solid in stature this eternal framed being, Yet crippled within from internaled bleedings. A sword saint so refined in the poetic art, A noble character yet with a banshee’s heart. Rhythmed horse now to the beats, Kari emboldened amid the sleet. Beyond the mountain she does come, Unto southern fields wherein rules hot sun. Far from that murderous Deadlands ground, The land up swells; the dead still abound. Traverses she those bygones of leprous civilizations Those cities crumbled by the exhalted of oblivions. Stark traces etched now bare in the land, That are no more again, save dust in the hand. A cool stream now in desert sans (Does more good when one is damned). Stopped she her mount to admire the flow, A lovely stream with skeletons packed below. Blue air whisps; dragon flied motion. Flintsteel striking!!! Sparked of commotion. Cold water chortles rushtish with tint, Told of past carnage, it whetted her glint. Fallen warriors, they are no more, Swirls and eddies mark their discord. Gurgled shouts slung and gathered, Faces glazed while steel lathered. Refreshing though it was to her mouth, She smelled an air; she flared about. Came up that ridge of loud, sanded hill, Below a man and his half-score of kills. Kari’s eyes waxed in smug contempt, Possibilities ran deep with no repent . . . On Kari, Valkyrie, Cold Steel Eternity Vol. II

I do love you.” He said it suddenly, raising his head so his black eyes could meet her startled green ones. “I mean it, Shea. I do not just need you, I love you. I know everything about you, I have been in your head, shared your memories, shared your dreams and your ideas. I know you think I need you and that is why I am with you, but it is much more than that. I love you.” He grinned unexpectedly, traced her lower lip with the tip of a finger. “What is more, I know you love me. You hide it from yourself, but I found it in a little corner, tucked away in your mind.” Shea stared up at the teasing smile on his face, then pushed at the solid wall of his chest. “You’re making that up.” Jacques moved off her, then reached down to pull her to her feet. His clothes were scattered everywhere, and he made no move to retrieve them. Shea’s shirt was still hanging open, and her jeans were down around her ankles. Blushing, she pulled them up. His hands stayed hers, preventing her from fastening them. “Do not bother, Shea. The pools are just ahead.” He walked a few feet, then looked back over his shoulder. “I did not make it up, and I know you are staring at my backside.” Shea tossed her mane of red hair so that it flew in all directions. “Any woman in her right mind would stare at your particular backside, so you don’t need to add that to your arrogant list of virtues. And stay out of my mind unless you’re invited.” She was staring, but she couldn’t help it. He was so beautifully masculine. Jacques reached behind him and captured her hand, lacing their fingers together. “But I find the most interesting things in your mind, my love. Things you do not have any intention of telling me.

I’m not—I’m not talking about myself.” “Oh, darling,” her mother said, the sharp planes of her face softening. “We’re all talking about ourselves. Always, because the only way we see the world is through our own eyes. The way you’ve always seen Anthony in Will, and you’re so scared that he’s his dad all over again. That he’s weak at the core after all, and that he’ll disgrace you in the end, and desert you, too. This is all just one more way you’re afraid he’s done it. But he hasn’t, and he won’t, because he’s not his dad. He’s got you in him, too. He’s got the mum who stayed, and stuck. That’s why he’ll never do a runner on the people he loves, no matter how heavy the burden gets. He’ll take care of you until you’re in your grave, and he’ll take care of his brother and sisters as well. Because he’s strong to the core, and solid to the bone. Because he’s a good man.

After nine nights must come ten and every desperate meeting only leaves you desperate for another. There is never enough to eat, never enough garden for your love. So you refuse and then you discover that your house is haunted by the ghost of a leopard. When passion comes late in life it is hard to bear. One more night. How tempting. How innocent. I could stay tonight surely? What difference could it make, one more night? No. If I smell her skin, find the mute curves of her nakedness, she will reach in her hand and withdraw my heart like a bird’s egg. I have not had time to cover my heart in barnacles to elude her. If I give in to this passion, my real life, the most solid, the best known, will disappear and I will feed on shadows again like those sad spirits whom Orpheus fled. I wished her goodnight, touching her hand only and thankful for the dark that hid her eyes.

I am, reluctantly, a self-confessed carbon chauvinist. Carbon is abundant in the Cosmos. It makes marvelously complex molecules, good for life. I am also a water chauvinist. Water makes an ideal solvent system for organic chemistry to work in and stays liquid over a wide range of temperatures. But sometimes I wonder. Could my fondness for materials have something to do with the fact that I am made chiefly of them? Are we carbon- and water-based because those materials were abundant on the Earth at the time of the origin of life? Could life elsewhere—on Mars, say—be built of different stuff? I am a collection of water, calcium and organic molecules called Carl Sagan. You are a collection of almost identical molecules with a different collective label. But is that all? Is there nothing in here but molecules? Some people find this idea somehow demeaning to human dignity. For myself, I find it elevating that our universe permits the evolution of molecular machines as intricate and subtle as we. But the essence of life is not so much the atoms and simple molecules that make us up as the way in which they are put together. Every now and then we read that the chemicals which constitute the human body cost ninety-seven cents or ten dollars or some such figure; it is a little depressing to find our bodies valued so little. However, these estimates are for human beings reduced to our simplest possible components. We are made mostly of water, which costs almost nothing; the carbon is costed in the form of coal; the calcium in our bones as chalk; the nitrogen in our proteins as air (cheap also); the iron in our blood as rusty nails. If we did not know better, we might be tempted to take all the atoms that make us up, mix them together in a big container and stir. We can do this as much as we want. But in the end all we have is a tedious mixture of atoms. How could we have expected anything else? Harold Morowitz has calculated what it would cost to put together the correct molecular constituents that make up a human being by buying the molecules from chemical supply houses. The answer turns out to be about ten million dollars, which should make us all feel a little better. But even then we could not mix those chemicals together and have a human being emerge from the jar. That is far beyond our capability and will probably be so for a very long period of time. Fortunately, there are other less expensive but still highly reliable methods of making human beings. I think the lifeforms on many worlds will consist, by and large, of the same atoms we have here, perhaps even many of the same basic molecules, such as proteins and nucleic acids—but put together in unfamiliar ways. Perhaps organisms that float in dense planetary atmospheres will be very much like us in their atomic composition, except they might not have bones and therefore not need much calcium. Perhaps elsewhere some solvent other than water is used. Hydrofluoric acid might serve rather well, although there is not a great deal of fluorine in the Cosmos; hydrofluoric acid would do a great deal of damage to the kind of molecules that make us up, but other organic molecules, paraffin waxes, for example, are perfectly stable in its presence. Liquid ammonia would make an even better solvent system, because ammonia is very abundant in the Cosmos. But it is liquid only on worlds much colder than the Earth or Mars. Ammonia is ordinarily a gas on Earth, as water is on Venus. Or perhaps there are living things that do not have a solvent system at all—solid-state life, where there are electrical signals propagating rather than molecules floating about. But these ideas do not

Of the laws we can deduce from the external world, one stands above all: the Law of Transience. Nothing is intended to last. The trees fall year by year, the mountains tumble, the galaxies burn out like tall tallow candles. Nothing is intended to last — except time. The blanket of the universe wears thin, but time endures. Time is a tower, an endless mine; time is monstrous. Time is the hero. Human and inhuman characters are pinned to time like butterflies to a card; yes, though the wings stay bright, flight is forgotten. Time, like an element which can be solid, liquid or gas, has three states. In the present, it is a flux we cannot seize. In the future, it is a veiling mist. In the past, it has solidified and become glazed; then we call it history. Then it can show us nothing but our own solemn faces; it is a treacherous mirror, reflecting only our limited truths. So much is it a part of man that objectivity is impossible; so neutral is it that it appears hostile.

I feel so far away from them, on the top of this hill. It seems as though I belong to another species. They come out of their offices after their day of work, they look at the houses and the squares with satisfaction, they think it is their city, a good, solid, bourgeois city. They aren’t afraid, they feel at home. All they have ever seen is trained water running from taps, light which fills bulbs when you turn on the switch, half-breed, bastard trees held up with crutches. They have proof, a hundred times a day, that everything happens mechanically, that the world obeys fixed, unchangeable laws. In a vacuum all bodies fall at the same rate of speed, the public park is closed at 4 p.m. in winter, at 6 p.m. in summer, lead melts at 335 degrees centigrade, the last streetcar leaves the Hotel de Ville at 11.05 p.m. They are peaceful, a little morose, they think about Tomorrow, that is to say, simply, a new today; cities have only one day at their disposal and every morning it comes back exactly the same. They scarcely doll it up a bit on Sundays. Idiots. It is repugnant to me to think that I am going to see their thick, self-satisfied faces. They make laws, they write popular novels, they get married, they are fools enough to have children. And all this time, great, vague nature has slipped into their city, it has infiltrated everywhere, in their house, in their office, in themselves. It doesn’t move, it stays quietly and they are full of it inside, they breathe it, and they don’t see it, they imagine it to be outside, twenty miles from the city. I see it, I see this nature . . . I know that its obedience is idleness, I know it has no laws: what they take for constancy is only habit and it can change tomorrow. What if something were to happen? What if something suddenly started throbbing? Then they would notice it was there and they’d think their hearts were going to burst. Then what good would their dykes, bulwarks, power houses, furnaces and pile drivers be to them? It can happen any time, perhaps right now: the omens are present.

Claire fell asleep on the couch with her head in Shane's lap as he and Michael and Eve kept talking, and talking, and talking. It was three a.m. when she woke up; Shane hadn't moved, but she was covered with a blanket, and he was sound asleep, sitting straight up. Claire yawned, groaned at sore muscles, and rolled to her feet. "Shane. Up. You need to go to bed." He woke up cute, softened by sleep. "Come with?" He was only half joking. She remembered being curled up with him in her bed, the night she'd been so scared; he'd been careful then, but she wasn't sure she could count on that kind of self-restraint at three a.m., when he was half-asleep. "I can't," she said reluctantly. "Not that I don't want to ..." He smiled and stretched out on his side on the couch, leaving a narrow space between his warm, solid body and the cushions. "Stay," he said. "I promise, no clothes will come off. Well, maybe shoes. Do shoes count as clothes?" She kicked hers off and climbed over him to slip into that small pocket, and sighed in relief as his body pressed against hers. She didn't even need the blanket, but he put it over the two of them anyway, and then combed her hair back from her neck and kissed her on the soft, vulnerable skin.

That life and this. This life. That life. The one beneath is drawn in solid lines and bold strokes; it is a picture drawn in permanence with ink. It’s a tattoo. Indelible. The one on top of it is sketched on vellum in soft brushes of charcoal, easily smudged. It covers the one beneath, but can’t hide it. That life. This life. It looks as if you can have both. I mean, they’re both right there, one on top of the other, and it looks as if they’ll blend. But they never will. So, you take this thing. You take this thing you want, and you put it in a box and you close the lid. You can let your fingers trace the cracks, the places where the light gets in, the dark gets out, but the lid stays on. You don’t look inside. You don’t look at this thing you want so much, because you can. Not. Have. It. So there’s this box, you know, with the thing inside, and you could throw it away or bury it or shoot it into space; you could set it on fire and watch it burn to ashes, but really, none of that would make a difference, because you cannot destroy what you want. It only makes you want it more. So. You take this thing you want and you put it in a box and you close the lid. And you hold the box close to your heart, which is where it wants to go, and you pretend it doesn’t kill you every time you feel yourself breathe.

It can’t be over, not when I finally found my courage. I can’t let it be. My heart is pounding like a million trillion beats a minute as I scoot closer to him. I bend my head down and press my lips against his, and I feel his jolt of surprise. And then he’s kissing me back, open-mouthed, soft-lipped kissing-me-back, and at first I’m nervous, but then he puts his hand on the back of my head, and he strokes my hair in a reassuring way, and I’m not so nervous anymore. It’s a good thing I’m sitting down on this ledge, because I am weak in the knees. He pulls me into the water so I’m sitting in the hot tub too, and my nightgown is soaked now but I don’t care. I don’t care about anything. I never knew kissing could be this good. My arms are at my sides so the jets won’t make my skirt fly up. Peter’s holding my face in his hands, kissing me. “Are you okay?” he whispers. His voice is different: it’s ragged and urgent and vulnerable somehow. He doesn’t sound like the Peter I know; he is not smooth or bored or amused. The way he’s looking at me right now, I know he would do anything I asked, and that’s a strange and powerful feeling. I wind my arms around his neck. I like the smell of chlorine on his skin. He smells like pool, and summer, and vacations. It’s not like in the movies. It’s better, because it’s real. “Touch my hair again,” I tell him, and the corners of his mouth turn up. I lean into him and kiss him. He starts to run his fingers through my hair, and it feels so nice I can’t think straight. It’s better than getting my hair washed at the salon. I move my hands down his back and along his spine, and he shivers and pulls me closer. A boy’s back feels so different than a girl’s back--more muscular, more solid somehow. In between kisses he says, “It’s past curfew. We should go back inside.” “I don’t want to,” I say. All I want is to stay and be here, with Peter, in this moment. “Me either, but I don’t want you to get in trouble,” Peter says. He looks worried, which is so sweet. Softly, I touch his cheek with the back of my hand. It’s smooth. I could look at his fce for hours, it’s so beautiful. Then I stand up, and immediately I’m shivering. I start wringing the water out of my nightgown, and Peter jumps out of the hot tub and gets his towel, which he wraps around my shoulders. The he gives me his hand and I step out, teeth chattering. He starts drying me off with the towel, my arms and legs. I sit down to put on my socks and boots. He puts my coat on me last. He zips me right in. Then we run back inside the lodge. Before he goes to the boys’ side and I go to the girls’ side, I kiss him one more time and I feel like I’m flying.

The Netherlands capital of Amsterdam amsterdam cruise is a thriving metropolis and one from the world's popular cities. If you are planning a trip to the metropolis, but are unclear about what you should do presently there, why not possess a little fun and spend time learning about how it's stereotypically known for? How come they put on clogs? When was the wind mill first utilised there? In addition, be sure to include all your feels on your journey and taste the phenomenal cheeses along with smell the stunning tulips. It's really recommended that you stay in a city motel, Amsterdam is quite spread out and residing in hotels close to the city-centre allows for the easiest access to public transportation. Beyond the clichés So that you can know precisely why a stereotype exists it usually is important to discover its source. Clogs: The Dutch have already been wearing solid wood shoes, as well as "Klompen" as they are referred to, for approximately 700 years. They were originally made out of a timber sole along with a leather top or band tacked for the wood. Nevertheless, the shoes had been eventually created completely from wood to safeguard the whole base. Wooden shoe wearers state the shoes are usually warm during the cold months and cool during the warm months. The first guild associated with clog designers dates back to a number exceeding 1570 in Holland. When making blockages, both shoes of a set must be created from the same kind of timber, even the same side of a tree, in order that the wood will certainly shrink in the same charge. While most blocks today are produced by equipment, a few shoemakers are left and they normally set up store in vacationer areas near any city hotel. Amsterdam also offers a clog-making museum, Klompenmakerij De Zaanse Schans, that highlights your shoe's history and significance. Windmills: The first windmills have been demonstrated to have existed in Netherlands from about the year 1200. Today, there are eight leftover windmills in the capital. The most effective to visit is De Gooyer, which has been built in 1725 over the Nieuwevaart Canal. Their location in the east involving city's downtown area signifies it is readily available from any metropolis hotel. Amsterdam enjoys its beer and it actually has a brewery right on the doorstep to the wind generator. So if you are enjoying a historic site it's also possible to enjoy a scrumptious ice-cold beer - what more would you ask for? Mozerella: It's impossible to vacation to Amsterdam without sampling several of its wonderful cheeses. In accordance with the locals, probably the most flavourful cheeses are available at the Wegewijs Emporium. With over 50 international cheese and A hundred domestic parmesan cheesse, you will surely have a wide-variety to pick from.

The kid in the newspaper was named Stevie, and he was eight. I was thirty-nine and lived by myself in a house that I owned. For a short time our local newspaper featured an orphan every week. Later they would transition to adoptable pets, but for a while it was orphans, children your could foster and possibly adopt of everything worked out, the profiles were short, maybe two or three hundred words. This was what I knew: Stevie liked going to school. He made friends easily. He promised he would make his bed every morning. He hoped that if he were very good we could have his own dog, and if he were very, very good, his younger brother could be adopted with him. Stevie was Black. I knew nothing else. The picture of him was a little bigger than a postage stamp. He smiled. I studied his face at my breakfast table until something in me snapped. I paced around my house, carrying the folded newspaper. I had two bedrooms. I had a dog. I had so much more than plenty. In return he would make his bed, try his best in school. That was all he had to bargain with: himself. By the time Karl came for dinner after work I was nearly out of my mind. “I want to adopt him,” I said. Karl read the profile. He looked at the picture. “You want to be his mother?” “It’s not about being his mother. I mean, sure, if I’m his mother that’s fine, but it’s like seeing a kid waving from the window of a burning house, saying he’ll make his bed if someone will come and get him out. I can’t leave him there.” “We can do this,” Karl said. We can do this. I started to calm myself because Karl was calm. He was good at making things happen. I didn’t have to want children in order to want Stevie. In the morning I called the number in the newspaper. They took down my name and address. They told me they would send the preliminary paperwork. After the paperwork was reviewed, there would be a series of interviews and home visits. “When do I meet Stevie?” I asked. “Stevie?” “The boy in the newspaper.” I had already told her the reason I was calling. “Oh, it’s not like that,” the woman said. “It’s a very long process. We put you together with the child who will be your best match.” “So where’s Stevie?” She said she wasn’t sure. She thought that maybe someone had adopted him. It was a bait and switch, a well-written story: the bed, the dog, the brother. They knew how to bang on the floor to bring people like me out of the woodwork, people who said they would never come. I wrapped up the conversation. I didn’t want a child, I wanted Stevie. It all came down to a single flooding moment of clarity: he wouldn’t live with me, but I could now imagine that he was in a solid house with people who loved him. I put him in the safest chamber of my heart, he and his twin brother in twin beds, the dog asleep in Stevie’s arms. And there they stayed, going with me everywhere until I finally wrote a novel about them called Run. Not because I thought it would find them, but because they had become too much for me to carry. I had to write about them so that I could put them down.

Lillian’s lashes lowered as she let him ease her closer, his hand sliding over the length of her spine. Her breasts and waist felt swollen within the insulating grip of her corset, and she suddenly longed to be rid of it. Taking as deep a breath as the stays would allow, she became aware of a sweetly spicy scent in the air. “What is that?” she murmured, drawing in the fragrance. “Cinnamon and wine…” Turning in the circle of his arms, she looked around the spacious bedroom, past the poster bed to the small table that had been set near the window. There was a covered silver dish on the table, from which a few traces of sweet-scented steam were still visible. Perplexed, she twisted back to look at Marcus. “Go and find out,” he said. Curiously Lillian went to investigate. Taking hold of the cover’s handle, which had been wrapped with a linen napkin, she lifted the lid, letting a soft burst of intoxicating fragrance into the air. Momentarily puzzled, Lillian stared at the dish, and then burst out laughing. The white porcelain dish was filled with five perfect pears, all standing on end, their skin gleaming and ruby-red from having been poached in wine. They sat in a pool of clear amber sauce that was redolent of cinnamon and honey. “Since I couldn’t obtain a pear from a bottle for you,” came Marcus’s voice from behind her, “this was the next best alternative.” Lillian picked up a spoon and dug into one of the melting-soft pears, lifting it to her lips with relish. The bite of warm, wine-soaked fruit seemed to dissolve in her mouth, the spiced honey sauce causing a tingle in the back of her throat. “Mmmm…” She closed her eyes in ecstasy. Looking amused, Marcus turned her to face him. His gaze fell to the corner of her lips, where a stray drop of honey sauce glittered. Ducking his head, he kissed and licked away the sticky drop, the caress of his mouth causing a new pleasurable ache deep inside her. “Delicious,” he whispered, his lips settling more firmly, until she felt as if her blood were flowing in streams of white-hot sparks. She dared to share the taste of wine and cinnamon with him, tentatively exploring his mouth with her tongue, and his response was so encouraging that she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed herself closer. He was delicious, the taste of his mouth clean and sweet, the feel of his lean, solid body immeasurably exciting. Her lungs expanded with shaky-hot breaths, restrained by the clench of her corset stays, and she broke the kiss with a gasp. “I can’t breathe.” Wordlessly Marcus turned her around and unfastened the gown. Reaching her corset, he untied the laces and loosened them with a series of expert tugs, until the stays expanded and Lillian gulped in relief. “Why did you lace so tightly?” she heard him ask. “Because the dress wouldn’t fasten otherwise. And because, according to my mother, Englishmen prefer their women to be narrow-waisted.” Marcus snorted as he eased her back to face him. “Englishmen prefer women to have larger waists in lieu of fainting from lack of oxygen. We’re rather practical that way.” Noticing that the sleeve of her unfastened gown had slipped over her white shoulder, he lowered his mouth to the smooth curve.

He found himself thinking of something Barry Grieg had once said to him about a rhythm guitar player from L.A., a guy named Jory Baker who was always on time, never missed a practice session, or fucked up an audition. Not the kind of guitar player that caught your eye, no showboat like Angus Young or Eddie Van Halen, but competent. Once, Barry had said, Jory Baker had been the driving wheel of a group called Sparx, a group everybody seemed to think that year's Most Likely to Succeed. They had a sound something like early Creedence: hard solid guitar rock and roll. Jory Baker had done most of the writing and all of the vocals. Then a car accident, broken bones, lots of dope in the hospital. He had come out, as the John Prine song says, with a steel plate in his head and a monkey on his back. He progressed from Demerol to heroin. Got busted a couple of times. After a while he was just another street-druggie with fumble fingers, spare-changing down at the Greyhound station and hanging out on the strip. Then, somehow, over a period of eighteen months, he had gotten clean, and stayed clean. A lot of him was gone. He was no longer the driving wheel of any group, Most Likely to Succeed or otherwise, but he was always on time, never missed a practice session, or fucked up an audition. He didn't talk much, but the needle highway on his left arm had disappeared. And Barry Grieg had said: 'He's come out the other side.' That was all. No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just . . . come out the other side. Or you don't.

He found himself thinking of something Barry Grieg had once said to him about a rhythm guitar player from L.A., a guy named Jory Baker who was always on time, never missed a practice session, or fucked up an audition. Not the kind of guitar player that caught your eye, no showboat like Angus Young or Eddie Van Halen, but competent. Once, Barry had said, Jory Baker had been the driving wheel of a group called Sparx, a group everybody seemed to think that year's Most Likely to Succeed. They had a sound something like early Creedence: hard solid guitar rock and roll. Jory Baker had done most of the writing and all of the vocals. Then a car accident, broken bones, lots of dope in the hospital. He had come out, as the John Prine song says, with a steel plate in his head and a monkey on his back. He progressed from Demerol to heroin. Got busted a couple of times. After a while he was just another street-druggie with fumble fingers, spare-changing down at the Greyhound station and hanging out on the strip. Then, somehow, over a period of eighteen months, he had gotten clean, and stayed clean. A lot of him was gone. He was no longer the driving wheel of any group, Most Likely to Succeed or otherwise, but he was always on time, never missed a practice session, or fucked up an audition. He didn't talk much, but the needle highway on his left arm had disappeared. And Barry Grieg had said: 'He's come out the other side.' That was all. No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just . . . come out the other side. Or you don't.

He found himself thinking of something Barry Grieg had once said to him about a rhythm guitar player from L.A., a guy named Jory Baker who was always on time, never missed a practice session, or fucked up an audition. Not the kind of guitar player that caught your eye, no showboat like Angus Young or Eddie Van Halen, but competent. Once, Barry had said, Jory Baker had been the driving wheel of a group called Sparx, a group everybody seemed to think that year's Most Likely to Succeed. They had a sound something like early Creedence: hard solid guitar rock and roll. Jory Baker had done most of the writing and all of the vocals. Then a car accident, broken bones, lots of dope in the hospital. He had come out, as the John Prine song says, with a steel plate in his head and a monkey on his back. He progressed from Demerol to heroin. Got busted a couple of times. After a while he was just another street-druggie with fumble fingers, spare-changing down at the Greyhound station and hanging out on the strip. Then, somehow, over a period of eighteen months, he had gotten clean, and stayed clean. A lot of him was gone. He was no longer the driving wheel of any group, Most Likely to Succeed or otherwise, but he was always on time, never missed a practice session, or fucked up an audition. He didn't talk much, but the needle highway on his left arm had disappeared. And Barry Grieg had said: 'He's come out the other side.' That was all. No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just . . . come out the other side. Or you don't.

How I Got That Name Marilyn Chin an essay on assimilation I am Marilyn Mei Ling Chin Oh, how I love the resoluteness of that first person singular followed by that stalwart indicative of “be," without the uncertain i-n-g of “becoming.” Of course, the name had been changed somewhere between Angel Island and the sea, when my father the paperson in the late 1950s obsessed with a bombshell blond transliterated “Mei Ling” to “Marilyn.” And nobody dared question his initial impulse—for we all know lust drove men to greatness, not goodness, not decency. And there I was, a wayward pink baby, named after some tragic white woman swollen with gin and Nembutal. My mother couldn’t pronounce the “r.” She dubbed me “Numba one female offshoot” for brevity: henceforth, she will live and die in sublime ignorance, flanked by loving children and the “kitchen deity.” While my father dithers, a tomcat in Hong Kong trash— a gambler, a petty thug, who bought a chain of chopsuey joints in Piss River, Oregon, with bootlegged Gucci cash. Nobody dared question his integrity given his nice, devout daughters and his bright, industrious sons as if filial piety were the standard by which all earthly men are measured. * Oh, how trustworthy our daughters, how thrifty our sons! How we’ve managed to fool the experts in education, statistic and demography— We’re not very creative but not adverse to rote-learning. Indeed, they can use us. But the “Model Minority” is a tease. We know you are watching now, so we refuse to give you any! Oh, bamboo shoots, bamboo shoots! The further west we go, we’ll hit east; the deeper down we dig, we’ll find China. History has turned its stomach on a black polluted beach— where life doesn’t hinge on that red, red wheelbarrow, but whether or not our new lover in the final episode of “Santa Barbara” will lean over a scented candle and call us a “bitch.” Oh God, where have we gone wrong? We have no inner resources! * Then, one redolent spring morning the Great Patriarch Chin peered down from his kiosk in heaven and saw that his descendants were ugly. One had a squarish head and a nose without a bridge Another’s profile—long and knobbed as a gourd. A third, the sad, brutish one may never, never marry. And I, his least favorite— “not quite boiled, not quite cooked," a plump pomfret simmering in my juices— too listless to fight for my people’s destiny. “To kill without resistance is not slaughter” says the proverb. So, I wait for imminent death. The fact that this death is also metaphorical is testament to my lethargy. * So here lies Marilyn Mei Ling Chin, married once, twice to so-and-so, a Lee and a Wong, granddaughter of Jack “the patriarch” and the brooding Suilin Fong, daughter of the virtuous Yuet Kuen Wong and G.G. Chin the infamous, sister of a dozen, cousin of a million, survived by everbody and forgotten by all. She was neither black nor white, neither cherished nor vanquished, just another squatter in her own bamboo grove minding her poetry— when one day heaven was unmerciful, and a chasm opened where she stood. Like the jowls of a mighty white whale, or the jaws of a metaphysical Godzilla, it swallowed her whole. She did not flinch nor writhe, nor fret about the afterlife, but stayed! Solid as wood, happily a little gnawed, tattered, mesmerized by all that was lavished upon her and all that was taken away!

Harvard pointed. “You know, right there is when the stuntman catches the sword out of frame.” “I know.” Aiden did know. Harvard always told him this fact at this precise moment. Aiden had watched this movie without Harvard once—on a date. Seeing the sword fly without the familiar murmur had upset Aiden enough to turn off the movie. Tonight, Harvard was here with him. They were both lying on their stomachs with their legs kicked up and their hands cupped in their chins, as though they were six years old. They weren’t. Aiden tangled their legs together slightly, deliberately. It felt far more dangerous than crossing swords. Aiden couldn’t imagine a match with so much at stake. “During a date when you stay in,” Aiden said, teaching, “you should try to see if the other person is receptive to you getting closer.” Harvard gave Aiden a look out of the corner of his eye, and let their legs stay tangled, resting with light pressure against one another. Love was a delusion, nothing but an electrical impulse in the brain, but there were many impulses running electric under Aiden’s skin right now. The man in black smiled beneath his mask and switched his sword to his right hand. The clash of swords rang over the sound of the sea. Aiden sneaked another look at Harvard, the shine of his dark eyes and white teeth in the silvery glow from the screen. Harvard caught him looking, but he returned Aiden’s look with a look of his own, warmly affectionate and never suspicious at all. Harvard never suspected a thing. Because Aiden was his best friend, and Harvard trusted him. And Harvard could trust him. Aiden would never do anything to hurt Harvard, not anything at all. Aiden moved in still closer, his arm set against Harvard’s, solid muscle under the thin material of his shirtsleeve. He could put his arm around Harvard’s shoulders or slip an arm around his waist or lean in. He was allowed, just for tonight.