on beauty.

so last friday at the strand when i couldn’t find any of the books i was looking for, i happened upon a copy of on beauty, which while researching new books to read on amazon, i had come across the reviews for. all of the reviews i read on the book were amazing, although senior year of high school i had tried to read her other book, white teeth and got no where fast.

i’m glad i decided to give zadie smith another shot. everything that’s written about how amazing she is? fully deserved. the book is amazing and heartbreaking without necessarily being about anything in particular – it follows a family and as one review put it “one hell of a mid-life crisis.” the plot is secondary to her descriptions of these characters interacting with each other.

like every other page there was an amazing description of someone or something, which you hadn’t thought about that way before but is absolutely true, often with such unforgiving truth you wince. there is plenty about beauty of course, but there’s also a lot about love.

my favorite line, hands down bar none, and one that has stuck with me since reading it:

time is how you spend your love.

one of those things i’ve always felt to be true, but seemed incapable of fully expressing or articulating. something i tried at length to explain to one of my ex-boyfriends, and several friends who are bad about returning phone calls or emails.

the best way to express love is through time. it’s an attitude and approach i learned from my mother, to be honest. who every once in a while will as she says “just calling all the people i love.” this list is short and has included since i can remember, my father (though since he’s normally home it’s not much of a phone call) me, my brothers, her sister, and her parents. it’s the same mother who also always calls me when she is pumping gas at kroger’s because for some reason she always thinks of me there. she also sent me a card a day my freshman year of college, and a healthy amount the rest of the time. clearly there are degrees, and not everyone you love or care about has to receive that much of your time. but in the end time is how you spend your love.