“Angels are Overrated
I don’t want to make love to an Angel.
I don’t want someone who’s perfect beyond belief. Unblemished in any way. Idealized within an inch of his life.
I know that’s what love songs and the television shows and the movies and the romance novels tell me to want. They sell perfection. They tout variations of an airbrushed, asexual ideal as the sexiest thing on earth.
God, that’s boring. [...]”
Extract from The Nature of Fire
Mes Cheris, please join me in welcoming another women who found and embraced her inner French-ness. Though actually a New Yorker through and through, Stacy China epitomizes the very qualities we hold dear and define as intrinsically and exquisitely French. What qualities are those you wonder? Well let me tell you a few words about this special woman before we turn to her and listen to what she has to say.
Stacy started out her career as a newswriter – nothing is taboo from politics to sports but it is what she does in her spare time that really distinguishes Stacy. A sensualist by choice and action she is an autodidact in all matters relating to coffee, tea, chocolate and fine lingerie. She has travelled the world, is an avid reader… and writer. She is the author of some romantic and some very “osé” essays in The Nature of Fire … so let’s hear from Stacy herself:
SIF: What do you do and how did you end up doing it?
I bring different experiences to people. Sometimes this occurs through my writing, sometimes through my speaking. Sometimes it happens when I stop speaking and just participate silently. As a child, I wanted to be a newspaper columnist — Jimmy Breslin at the New York Daily News was my role model. I liked him best because when you finished reading one of his columns, you felt something. Anger, sadness, a sense of justice being (or not being) served…but you felt something. I knew it was different from a straight news story. Unwittingly, I’ve brought this desire into my professional and personal life, it seems. Although I can write them very well, I don’t do well as the straight news story. I’m the one who wants to make you feel.
SIF: Where do you get your inspiration?
From books, art, architecture, music, fine foods (coffee, tea, and chocolate being my favorites), football, travel, film, and haute couture. And really interesting people.
SIF: What does your typical week look like?
Lots of yoga (at least six classes per week), lots of reading, taking time to sample a new coffee or pastry at a place I’ve never been to before, an inordinate amount of thinking (probably to make up for all the time I can’t think during yoga), some writing.
SIF: What (or who) would you like to be/do when you “grow up”?
I’m starting to realize that I’m already grown up — shocking! So all I can strive for is to be a clearer, more distilled version of myself. Think espresso.
SIF: Do you have something new in store for us?
Yes…but I can’t talk about it yet. It’ll be wily and feminine, though. And lots of fun.
SIF: Is there something else you would like to tell the SIF readers?
Yes, lovelies — be yourselves! ALL of yourselves. Don’t bother to categorize and compartmentalize your physical self from your cerebral self from your emotional self from your spiritual self…it’s all connected. It’s all you. Encourage them to all get along. Listen when one of them objects to whatever you’re doing — she’s likely doing so for a good reason. The boldest thing we can do is live as holistic creatures. Be bold.
Chers Frenchies – I invite you to read Stacy’s book, The Nature of Fire, a series of 19 essays that delve into issues of “sacred satisfaction”… I hope that aroused your interest already…
A bientot mes cheris, enjoy vos grandes vacances.
~ Shéhérazade
