The Idea of You

by Robinne Lee

“The best artists, they are like this. You don’t shock just to shock. You create beauty, you create art. You don’t do it for attention.”

I think Diddy’s throwing a party.

This didn’t age well.

That you’ve never been to Coachella and the only thing you Instagram is art.”

This is mildly funny having seen the movie first.

He hadn’t a hat.

“You afraid?” he asked. I nodded. “So am I. But I’m all right with that. If I get hurt, I get hurt. It happens, right? Someone always gets hurt. But I don’t want to miss out on us because I was afraid.”

“But I’m not. On the outside anyway. And it’s like I have this shifting identity. I’m not who I used to be. And ten years from now I might be somebody else altogether. Even if I never become someone’s mom or change my career or move to Idaho. My identity is different because the world responds to my physical appearance differently. And their response inadvertently changes how I see myself. And that’s kind of … crazy.”

“It’s art. And it makes people happy. And that’s a very good thing. We have this problem in our culture. We take art that appeals to women—film, books, music—and we undervalue it. We assume it can’t be high art. Especially if it’s not dark and tortured and wailing. And it follows that much of that art is created by other women, and so we undervalue them as well. We wrap it up in a pretty pink package and resist calling it art.”

I laughed. “I was just making sure it was you, and not the idea of you.”

“C’est ça, l’amour, Solène. Ce n’est pas toujours parfait. Ni jamais exactement comme tu le souhaites. Mais, quand ça te tombe dessus, ça ne se contrôle pas.”

Love, she said, was not always perfect, and not exactly how you expected it to be. But when it descended upon you, there was no controlling it.