The kind you’re born with, the kind you choose, the kind that teach Catholic school
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A huge beach umbrella, a Methodist church parking lot, a fire hydrant
You cannot have both civilization and truth. Iris Murdoch
You cannot have both civilization and truth.
Iris Murdoch
Twenty years ago I had my first and only mescaline trip in a remote part of the Himalayas that borders India and Nepal. I had already traveled and studied Tibetan Buddhism in India for three years.
Radical: You talk about yoga, and meditation, and prayer, and the search for ultimate truth. But what is your spirituality in practice? Spiritual Seeker: You’re so angry. What kind of change will you create if you’re dominated by these feelings? Will the world you build be so different from the one we have now?
So Jeanne is either with someone and not writing, or writing to Barcelona Poste Restante, as I directed her. I think she has slept with someone by now and probably still is in love with me — that’s my guess. (“I’m lucky with women,” I tell myself.)
The trail had become steeper, winding past low trees and tall, dry grasses. Here and there were patches of snow. I tried to gauge how far there was to go, but rock outcroppings blocked the view: I couldn’t tell whether we were nearing the peak or merely coming to a change of grade.
This was it — the cool, very weird thing I had been hoping for. I was about to go to a strip joint with a Pentecostal Christian mentally ill recovering alcoholic young lady. These are the moments I live for.
Then my father saw me. Liam got up — to keep him from me, I think. What chance did he think he had against such hate? My father threw him down again.
She was wearing ragged cutoffs and a faded short-sleeved blouse, and her legs and arms were deeply tanned. You could have broken them like pieces of kindling.