There’s a before and after, right? There’s your ankle before you broke it, and then the after, and the after feels worse and it makes things feel harder. “I was born with this disability and I was born into this body. “I’ve never lived a life without this level of discomfort or pain,” she explained. I related this story to philosophy professor, journalist, and Pulitzer-finalist Chloe Cooper Jones, whose recently released memoir Easy Beauty chronicles her lifetime of disabled travel, and I asked where she finds the wherewithal to push through the pain and hardship.

My travels have been strained by chronic pain ever since, and they probably always will be. Once there I could barely get around the place, for with each step my ankle rattled and shifted like a sack of marbles.

After it happened, rather than waiting some wise duration to properly heal, I skittered off on yet another bout of travel (apparently you can get itchy feet even if one of those feet is dangling at the end of a trimalleolar fracture) and limped with a too-heavy backpack to Bangkok. (Apr.A few years back I suffered a silly accident that had decidedly unsilly consequences in the form of a severely broken ankle. This makes a brilliant case for the beauty of complexity. Framing her physical appearance within the context of British philosopher Bernard Bosanquet’s theory of “easy beauty”-which describes the “plain straightforward pleasure” brought by the “apparent and unchallenging”-she makes a thrilling defense of “difficult beauty,” where “one often encounters intricacy, tension, and width.” As Jones explores this paradigm, she experiences the “blunt, triumphant beauty” of Beyoncé at a concert in Milan and the “energy of the aggrieved” of Bernini’s Proserpine, while a Cambodian massage moves her to consider her own complicity in the “fixed distance” she seeks to dismantle. disorder threatened beauty.” But just as she defied doctors’ claims that she’d never walk or stand on her own (even getting the “classic college experience” and, later, having a child), she challenges society’s rules of attraction with razor-sharp wit and intellect. “My body did not fit into any narrative of order, proportion, plan. “Measure and proportion are everywhere identified with beauty and virtue,” Jones writes. Born with a rare congenital condition that left her with a curved spine and “mismatched hips,” Jones became accustomed early on to “triggering pity” and stares from others around her. Jones, a 2020 Pulitzer Prize finalist for feature writing, takes aim at beauty standards in her dazzling debut.

Chloe cooper jones easy beauty review