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(The Cut recently published anexcerpt, about Cooper Joness experiences during her pregnancy.)
The works of art I love the most dont always cohere in some seamless way.
They embrace the human messiness of the mind, says the writer.
You get there first and choose a seat in which your body is uncomfortable.
You write, That night, my body was a heavy thing between us.
I used to feel as though my body was something I had to wait for people to unsee.
It was like a visual tension that was released.
It would happen for some people really, really quickly.
And for some people it would never happen theyd always have a startle response.
But I would just wait.
Thats obviously a really bad way to think about your body.
All peoples bad, dehumanizing assumptions would live like a rock between us.
And I would just wait, wait, wait for them to go away.
She writes about what she calls being in a stareable body.
Which is really all of us, depending on context, right?
Maybe with disability, that context is more frequent, but it is definitely not singular to disability.
The way that people think about which bodies are deserving of attention or inclusion.
Disability is still so absent from some of these conversations.
The freedom to be outside of that in your daily experience is an incredible freedom.
I dont think any human body is completely free of that.
But I do think were all at a different place on a spectrum.
So you could really chart this tension, this duality I referenced, geographically in my life.
Theres a real power in looking at the way in which that shapes choices.
Thats largely what the book is about.
Like, what does it really mean for my body to move around in space?
So you often grow up in a family that is not like you in that way.
That was true for me.
But of course that is actually true for all of us.
I never talked about it.
That was a completely new experience for me.
There are people Ive been friends with for decades that I had never had a conversation about disability with.
And how that helps no one.
These are very obvious things to say, but hard things to actually internalize.
And I was like, no!
That idea of kinship is foundational to the book.
Vivian Gornicksays inThe Situation and the Storythat a memoir really should not be about your whole life.
It shouldnt tell the reader everything.
You dont even need to tell them about some big traumatic or exciting event.
Theres a moment toward the end ofEasy Beautywhere we get to see you shifting almost in real time.
But toward the end, those voices quiet.
I noticed the absence, and how much relief I felt when I didnt have to encounter them.
But your reaction to him is different than it wouldve been before.
What were you thinking of when you wrote that sequence?
And so theyre not going to occupy space in the book in the same way.
Im having a great night.
Im celebrating my friend.
I remember it was the most beautiful night in the way that only New York fall nights can be.
But, of course, theres no happy ending in which the reality of being human goes away.
I have spent my whole life feeling very reduced to one aspect of my personhood.
So I dont have to condone what that guy says.
I certainly dont have to agree with it.
