Here’s the thing about tantra and BDSM and meditation and hook pulls and prayer and so on: We’re all climbing the mountain, but we’re climbing up different sides. The peak of the mountain is the few moments you get to be utterly present and in utter acceptance, and your spirit explodes out of you and fills the universe. It’s worth a lot of work and pain to get there, however briefly.

“It may seem a contradiction that I learned from playing with strangers that love is essential to any successful kink scene, and certainly to the ones that are about ecstasy and catharsis. Which is not to say that those scenes were bad (some were, most weren’t). The corollary to my theory is that love happens in odd places – sometimes in a dungeon in a strange city, with someone you’ll never see again.”

I’d like to say that the appearance part of aging – the loose skin, the saggy muscles, the gradual merger of boobs and waistline – doesn’t bother me. But you wouldn’t believe me, and I wouldn’t believe me either.

”When you’re old, the line between stylish and absurd gets very iffy. Upright posture and a confident stride will get you only so far (although perhaps further than you’d guess) – but the difference between the elderly lady in the drop-dead ensemble on the book cover, and your tipsy Great-Aunt Mildred who insists on polyester animal prints and refuses to acknowledge that size eight is far behind her, is little but context.”

“I’ve come to think of my lifetime as a relatively brief vacation, and my body as resortwear – perhaps a nice sundress, or a pair of colorful shorts. Like all vacations, this one will feel like it’s over much too soon. And also like all vacations, I will return to my real existence with a handful of nice memories and a certain sense of relief about leaving all that rigmarole behind me.”

from “On Grief”