The first is from Paula Cooper, the pioneering gallery owner. She’s describing a snapshot of her sitting in a wicker chair on a porch: “My husband Jack and I spend weekends in Bellport. He owns heirloom turkeys with Isabella Rossellini, who has an incredible farm raising local produce and rare animals.”
“He owns heirloom turkeys with Isabella Rossellini.” I mean: Don’t we all? But enough of my eye-rolling! Cooper is a heroine.
The second is from Simone de Beauvoir, in an essay by Emily Witt. Beauvoir was for many years an avid (in the sense of “mad”) solo hiker. She went on epic hikes in her singular fashion, wearing espadrilles and carrying bananas in a picnic basket. She wrote about her “particular brand of optimism”: “instead of adapting my schemes to reality I pursued them in the teeth of circumstances, regarding hard facts as something merely peripheral.”
I’m skittish these days about the idea of living without facts, but I admire the underlying bravery of her position. And I love her espadrilles.