Why Read Zadie Smith

By Sadie De Arruda

I am a person terrified of change. And I’m at a point in my life where everything I know is changing and I have no control. High school is ending, my childhood is over, and all the people I’ve come to rely on to get through the day are scattering across the country. Even Brin, the amazing person who somehow has gotten me this far during our seventeen-year friendship is going to be hours away. Yet Zadie Smith writes almost as if directly to me, telling me that I’m going to be all right and that it’s okay to be nervous.

Peonies, the American Exception, and Smith Family Christmas alone have kept me propped up long enough to make it through the past few weeks. Whether she’s talking about her need for control to keep out change, or the comfortable nature of longing for the past, Smith just understands what’s up. Throughout each of these essays she explores change, what it looks like, how it feels, and why it’s so difficult to face. Smith’s use of anecdotes and metaphors not only makes her extremely relatable to her audience but also allows her to unite her readers by letting them know they’re not alone in their feelings. And while she wasn’t literally there to hold my hand over the past few weeks, her words have been propelling me forward. Now if she could only write to tell me that everyone is also afraid of getting their flu shot (but have just been hiding it really well all this time) I would be fully prepared to face life.

Peonies

A few weeks ago I had a ‘fit of passion’ (this is what I have been calling my mental breakdown over leaving my family at the end of August, where I spontaneously burst into tears every few minutes for 24 hours when family members leave the room.) My poor mother who just wanted to shower and wash off all my dried tears from the past 12 hours, was horrified to exit the bathroom to find me sitting on the couch pretending to be crying at an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond instead of admitting the truth: that I missed my mommy. Having read Peonies a whopping four times, I feel confident saying that Smith would understand. The line, “Oh I was very well defended. But this was a sneak attack… by horticulture. Tulips. Springing up in a little city garden, from a triangle of soil where three roads met” perfectly captures the unexpected nature of life’s revelations. Smith talks about how she would guard herself, but something as small as a few spring flowers dismantles her whole line of defense. She shows her audience that your perspective can shift so quickly and because of forces outside of your own control.

And while I completely relate to the notion of needing to allow space for your feelings (this of course comes after you can no longer bottle it up and you get caught crying at the end of your history exam), I disagree with her notions at the end of the piece where she talks about needing so desperately to maintain some form of control that she has transformed these tulips into peonies. At the end of the piece Smith says, “They were tulips. I wanted them to be peonies. In my story, they are, they will be, they were and will forever be peonies- for, when I am writing, space and time will bend to my will!” I know they’re beautiful flowers but the woman needs to take a breath. Peonies are all the little things we feel we can control in this world. She suggests that we should hold on for dear life in an attempt to maintain control over our lives; however, I feel this further creates a fear of change. Either way, we’ll all have to deal with it, so why go kicking and screaming, terrified, when you can use these fleeting moments to mentally prepare for what’s to come? So even though I’ve been in a constant cycle of panic, sadness, joy, anger, and every other emotion in between, I think Smith is wrong. We need to allow change into our lives.

Even Smith admits that change is unavoidable at the end of her piece when she says, “and once in a while a vulgar strain of spring flower will circumvent a long-trained and self-consciously strict downtown aesthetic.” She talks about perfectly curating a “strict downtown aesthetic” and how a peony would better fit her lifestyle. But life threw her a curveball, and she was left standing in front of tulips. Smith, just like all of us, has to face reality. We’re all vulnerable to life. Not a single person can perfectly predict where they’ll end up in five years. If you would have asked me at the beginning of high school where I would be in five years, I would have told you that I would be doing grade 13 because logically and financially it made the most sense, and my parents have always wanted that for me. But guess what? I’m graduating this year, moving across the province to a university I hadn’t heard of until last year, and I’m terrified. But I feel a great sense of passion and pride when I tell people my new plans. The same passion I felt when I realized this change meant saying goodbye to my family. Passion looks different for everyone, but I believe passion comes from allowing change, and opening ourselves up to new experiences.

The American Exception

Now I am aware that suggesting we just open ourselves up to change makes me a major hypocrite. Especially after these past weeks. But I’ve learned a lot about the comfort the past can provide. Two weeks ago I turned 18. It was a great day, I ate too much cake (not literally, for obviously, one can never eat too much cake, I’m just trying to paint a picture), pretended not to see the $20 bill fall out of the card from my tia, and got to see lots of friends and family. But the weeks leading up to my birthday were less jovial. I felt that I was saying goodbye to my childhood. So just like Zadie Smith in The American Exception, I turned to the past. “I wish we could have our old life back” this sentence that Smith said, “found its bleating echo in myself” had the same effect on me. She, of course, is talking about a speech given by Donald Trump (for any unfamiliar with him, he’s the cheese flavoured former president, currently facing criminal charges) during the COVID-19 lockdown. Smith goes on to talk about death within the US and how it was always there, but Americans had never been forced to face it as much as they did during the pandemic. She also goes on to talk about being so desperate to escape her current reality that she was sucked in by the warm and familiar comfort of the past… clearly we have that much in common.

Smith looks at the romanticization of the past to cope with the realities of the present. “‘The old life’ had a comforting sound, if only rhetorically, like ‘once upon a time’ or ‘but I love him!’ The second clause brought me back to my senses. Snake oil, snake oil, snake oil. The devil is consistent, if nothing else.” Zadie Smith talks about “the old life,” and how we love to look back and think about how happy we were, and how we had no stress compared to now. But that is a fallacy, a fantasy. I had a hard time reminding myself of this fallacy. When I looked back on my childhood I thought of playing with friends, mid-summer swims, and Christmas mornings. I refused to remember the hours spent in tears because my ‘friends’ spoke or acted without kindness, or my fear of swimming after almost drowning, or the silences of Christmas dinner after the passing of my vavó and vovó. I know I’m not the only one guilty of this romanticization. By explaining how blind Americans everywhere were to death before COVID-19, Smith has shown me how powerful the motivation of memory can be.

I feel it is important to note that only looking back is just refusing to look forward. It’s unreasonable to believe that we can hide from the future in the past. Smith shows us this as she concludes The American Exception, saying, “Death has come to America. It was always here, albeit obscured and denied, but now everyone can see it.” The time will always come when we’re forced to face the music, and no amount of plugging our ears and shouting about the past will make it go away. By the time my birthday came around, I had realized how much I was going to miss this very moment. So I faced forward and had a fantastic night. And that’s not to say that I haven’t looked back since then, because I absolutely have. But on that day I stopped running away, I sat down with the people I love (namely Brin who I was previously freaking out about not getting enough time with before we both leave) and enjoyed that moment, because I would never get that moment back. And I don’t feel the need to look back as much, not when I do my best to live everyday as if this is the very moment I will want to look back on years from now.

Smith Family Christmas

Every Saturday morning my dad would put my sister and me in the car, and the three of us would drive around town running errands, and usually there would be a treat involved (although all evidence of said treat would disappear before coming home to my mother). Every Saturday like clockwork we piled into that car. And over the past year, my sister has preferred to meet up with friends or sleep in instead of going out, but my dad and I have continued the unspoken tradition. But at the end of August, I will live in a different city than my dad. Three hours away. Saturday mornings will take on a new look, one to be determined later, but the effortless relationship I have with my father will also take on a new look. It will require more effort. In Smith Family Christmas, Zadie Smith talks about the transition of her family's Christmas traditions as she became an adult. She talks about the backlash faced when she came home expecting their traditions to have evolved saying, “[it] hit the house like a grenade, and everyone yelled a lot and walked out and I spent Christmas Eve sleeping in my friend Adam’s bath.” Smith once again shows that no matter how old you or your children get– change is never easy. And while I may be a monster for saying it, I do feel a sense of relief knowing my father will be upset by the change in our Saturday morning plans as well.

Smith says earlier on in the essay that “no one wants to be the Grinch who steals these things, but you leave the door open hoping he might come in and relieve you of your heavy stuff.” It can be hard to admit when you need a change, especially when there are others involved. For example, I know that right now when I promise to call home every single day, I genuinely mean it. But I haven’t actually experienced change yet. As of right now, I have no other life that I belong to. There are no new friends who want to have weekly family dinners, no romantic poetry class with ridiculous amounts of reading that will take over my Sundays, or late-night practice schedules that tire me out to the point I’m sleep walking back to my dorm. But some day those things may exist, and I’ll forget to call home. And while that one slip-up will likely lead me to overcorrect for a few weeks and become obsessive about keeping in touch, it will only be the first of many days where my new life will consume me. Smith tells me that is okay. Because as Smith says, sometimes you want the Grinch to steal your heavy things away, and spending time with the people you love shouldn’t be heavy. So if you find yourself feeling a little crushed (hopefully not literally as this metaphor will be of no help to you if that’s the case), it’s all right to leave the door open, “to change disguised in a Santy Claus hat and a coat"

So I know now that my world is ever-changing, and that’s good. Scary, but good. Smith has taught me that moving forward will sometimes mean leaving parts of the past behind me. “So you damaged the photo of Christmas past - well, let’s try it again; Christmas present, Christmas future,” this line perfectly encapsulates the spirit of change and growth. We still take the image of Christmas past with us as we move forward, but we understand that it’s the past, and we’re not the same people that we were when that image was taken. Relationships will change, opinions will change, the place we call home will change. Change is healthy, but it’s also hard. I know that the first Saturday morning will likely look like me lying in bed eating ice cream and watching Flash Dance (a movie my father loves so much he tears up just trying to describe the plot to people), and telling my roommate that my crying is just because Jeanie fell not once but twice during her big break. And it is in no way because of an overwhelming bout of homesickness. But after that, I will realize that I really want to stay in contact with my dad, and he wants the same thing, so we’ll figure it out together. Who knows? Maybe we’ll become the next big figure skating duo.

I am still a person who is afraid of change. But from my readings of Peonies, The American Exception, and Smith Family Christmas, I’ve come to understand that although scary, and beautiful, and emotionally draining, change is also necessary. And this is not to say that just because I’ve read Zadie Smith I’m never going to be afraid of change, it doesn’t even mean I’m comfortable with change. But I’ve come to understand its importance. I will move through the world with a greater appreciation of what I have now, knowing that it’s not promised forever. And I’ll try not romanticizing the past so much, because that will only leave me blind. And I’ll remember that traditions, while nice, are about spending time together, and therefore should not feel like some sort of hostage situation, and more like quality time with the people you love.

So I return to the question why read Zadie Smith? Or rather why you shouldn’t. You shouldn’t read Zadie Smith just because you’re afraid of change, and because she lets you know you’re not alone in that fear. You shouldn’t read Zadie Smith because you’ve been stuck hiding in the past, trying to pretend yours was any more perfect than your current reality. And you certainly shouldn’t read Zadie Smith because you’re afraid of what happens when you accept change in your life, and she will show you how much harder you are making things for yourself by standing still instead of moving forward. As you can see it would be very unwise to turn to Zadie Smith in a time of major change in your life, seeing as all she will provide is the comfort that you’re not alone, advice that the past can not hide you from the future, and the reassurance that change is positive and will help you in the long run. And who would want that in such a time of distress?