Thirteen Senses: A Memoir by Victor Villasenor

All this time, Salvador had only been grinning, but now he laughed. "Look," he said, turning to the priest, "I know you've never been married, Father, so you don't really understand what's going on. But believe me, to tell any woman, who's alive and breathing, that she must obey is so ridiculous that only men who've never married in one hundred generations would have ever come up with such an ignorant idea! Of course, she doesn't have to obey me! She never has in fifty years, so why in the hell would I be stupid enough to think that it was going to be any different now?"

***

"But mama, Luisa has a point," Salvador was saying with gusto, "if you're so close to God, then why is it that you're so ugly?"

"UGLY, ME?" yelled the old woman, laughing so loud that it even startled Lupe in the next room. "Why, mi hijito, don't you know?" she shouted. "I am the STANDARD from which all beauty is measured! If it wasn't for me, there'd be no beautiful people! Why, coming down the street what do people say - and sometimes even aloud - 'look at that dirty, ugly, little, old woman.' But in truth, they are saying, 'hey, I look pretty good and young compared to her.' I make their day! I put a smile on their face! Why, the rich, arrogant, beautiful people of this world would all be lost without me! I am the BASIS of all BEAUTY!"

The Secrets of Mary Bowser by Lois Leveen

... I knew I needed to figure my own way to honor my mama, without losing myself in grieving forever.

Once I set my mind to that, what I heard wasn't the sorrow thoughts that had been in my head all year. It was Mama's voice.

Mary El, I'm sorry I died without a chance to say good-bye proper to you. But we all got to die. What matters is what comes first. Don't be so sad I died that you forget to live. That's what a child's for, living long after her mama and papa are gone. And if you don't start living again, how you gonna do Jesus's work?

It didn't come all at once necessarily, but bits and pieces here and there, adding up to that. And when it did, suddenly everything felt easier to bear.

The one thing no one could do the whole year past was console me like Mama would. Now she seemed ready to comfort and love and badger me even from Heaven above. I smiled to think of it, imagining her wheedling and conniving to get the archangels themselves falling into line.

Finding Mama again was like having a veil of sorrow lifted from before my eyes. After that, it was easy enough for me to lift the real veil myself, fold it up and tuck it away with the rest of the mourning attire.

***

"Servus est." Sed fortasse liber animo. "Servus est." Hoc illi nocebit? Ostende quis non sit: alius libidini servit, alius avaritiae, alius ambitioni, omnes spei, omnes timori.

I silently declaimed the passage from the Stoic philosopher Seneca that I translated my first year in Miss Mapps's class, as the rapacious white men gathered outside Omohundro's looked me over just as though I were standing half-stripped on the auction block.

You say, "He is a slave." But he is a person with a free spirit. You say, "He is a slave." But how shall this harm him? Show me who is not a slave. One man is a slave to his lusts, another is a slave to greed, another a slave of ambition, and all are slaves to hope and fear. 

The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli

A letter from Linh arrived. In it a picture of Linh and herself. When she unfolded the letter, a sheaf of gold rice stalks fell into her lap. The letter detailed his new activities as staff photographer. She didn't know if it was his awkward use of written English, but the whole letter was disappointingly impersonal. Only the last line spoke to her so she could hear his voice: Each night I pray life is coming back to you, a piece at a time, just as on the burned hills the grass reappears. She studied the photo more closely. The day on the beach at Vung Tau. Linh staring not at the camera but at her. Of course. She had known but ignored what she knew. The war wouldn't be over for her until she saw that grass reappear on those scarred hills.

This is what happened when one left one's home - pieces of oneself scattered all over the world, no one place ever completely satisfied, always a nostalgia for the place left behind. Pieces of her in Vietnam, some in this place of bone. She brought the letter to her nose. The smell of Vietnam: a mix of jungle and wetness and spices and rot. A smell she hadn't realized she missed.

We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting for: Inner Light in a Time of Darkness by Alice Walker

In the Babemba tribe of South Africa, when a person acts irresponsibly or unjustly, he is placed in the center of the village, alone and unfettered.

All work ceases, and every man, woman and child in the village gathers in a large circle around the accused individual. Then each person in the tribe speaks to the accused, one at a time, about all the good things the person in the center of the circle has done in his lifetime. Every incident, every experience that can be recalled with any detail and accuracy is recounted. All his positive attributes, good deeds, strengths and kindnesses are recited carefully and at length.

The tribal ceremony often lasts several days. At the end, the tribal circle is broken, a joyous celebration takes place, and the person is symbolically and literally welcomed back into the tribe.