Exploring Beauty and Disability with Chloé Cooper Jones
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What is the premise of Chloé Cooper Jones’s memoir *Easy Beauty*?
Hey everyone, before we dive into today's episode, I wanted to remind you that we have an open call for story pitches for our upcoming show in New York City on November fourth on the theme of taking care. And that's the show that we're producing in collaboration with the amazing medical literary magazine, Bellevue Literary Review. Anyone who's been involved in the caregiving experience can pitch their story for that show. You don't have to be a doctor or a nurse. You could be a patient or a family caregiver or really anyone. So if you're interested in that opportunity, visit our website and remember that the deadline for pitches is the end of the month. So that's May 31st. And we're really looking forward to hearing some of your stories.
Now on to today's episode. Support for the Nocturnist comes from the California Medical Association.
At the Nocturinous, we are careful to ensure that all stories comply with healthcare privacy laws. Details may have been changed to ensure patient confidentiality. All views expressed are those of the person speaking and not their employer.
You're listening to the Nocturnous Conversations. I'm Emily Silverman. Today we'll be hearing from brilliant writer and philosophy professor Chloe Cooper Jones. Chloe lives with a rare congenital condition called sacral agenesis and recently wrote a memoir called Easy Beauty, in which she gives us a glimpse into what it's like to live in her body and takes us with her all around the world as she quests for an understanding of beauty. what it is, and how it can change our perspective on ourselves and each other. Chloe is a contributing writer for the New York Times magazine, a whiting creative nonfiction grant recipient, and in 2020 was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in feature writing. Easy Beauty was named a Best Book of 2022 by The New York Times, the LA Times, The Washington Post, and more.
And I can definitely see why, because this book completely changed the way I think about aesthetics, disability, and how those two things relate to each other. In my conversation with Chloe, we talk about the difference between easy beauty and difficult beauty, how those ideas apply to disability and assumptions about disability, the unexpected creative joys of motherhood, and so much more. I know you'll love the conversation just as much as I did, but first, here's Chloe reading an excerpt from Easy Beauty.
Days pass all the same. Trash and cans steam in August's humid heat and Petals from rotting blossoms fall from branches, and the wind sends them skittering like beetles across the avenues. September brings a sudden chill that strips the trees of their leaves. October's easy skies turn orange with the smoke from Canadian wildfires. The last of the leaves die, desiccate on the stem, New York City is loud, stays loud. A bar opens below our apartment and other people's drunken conversations filter through our bedroom window, distort and invade my dreams. I spend my weekdays at school. Teaching goes well, I'm happy and focused in the classroom when I'm with my students, but When I later sit in my office alone and grade papers, I lose all my concentration.
I am too anxious. Every line I try to read appears out of focus just slightly. I'm not quite awake it seems. There's a buzzing in my ears. I'm outside of my body. My awareness functions like a spotlight, selecting a tiny circle of reality. One day, early in November, I open my office window and look out at Harlem below. Truck wheels scream. I close the window. I find coiled strands of my hair on the office floor. My mind drifts out the window until a knock on my door startles me back into my body. It's the dean of my school. I'm in trouble. I'd lost time and missed the faculty meeting. At night in bed I hold my phone close enough to kiss it and pull up pictures of faraway places, mountain ranges, waterfalls, railways into cities, streams, beaches, the world reaches for me through the screen, I can't sleep.
I'd left Italy hopeful, so hopeful, but I returned to Brooklyn still myself and
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