You let me unfold you.

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.

There were so many things I wanted to teach her. That being a mother did not have to mean no longer being a woman. That she could continue to live outside the lines.

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.

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.

Because I knew, in my heart, that we would not last. And because every moment of it was extraordinary.

Lulit had bemoaned the fact that, despite the three Ivy League degrees between us, it still came down to the length of our skirts, but we’d stuck to our mantra—Go. Sell. Art. To rich white men—and sold out our entire booth at the fair.

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 is,” I said. “But we redefine ourselves. We evolve. That’s what people do.

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.

Fucking millennials. Fucking millennials.