a quarter-of-an-inch of something

9:00 am Once Alice told me how the sculptor and painter Alberto Giacometti said that sometimes just to paint a head you have to give up the whole figure.

9:10 am I told her instead that to paint a leaf, you have to sacrifice the whole landscape and it might seem like you are limiting yourself at first, but after a while I realized that in having a quarter-of-an-inch of something I have a better chance of holding on to a certain feeling of the universe, than if I pretended to be doing the whole sky.

9:25 am She laughed and told me of a mother she didn’t know, but knew of, who believed that too.

9:33 am Only this mother did not choose a leaf or a head. She chose her lover, and to hold on to a certain feeling, she sacrificed the world.

9:45 am Then I remembered that my mother did not sacrifice her world but had saved it and watched her lover leave it.

9:46 am Now I am not sure who is right but I’ve come closer to understanding the sadness of [looking] like or unlike one’s parent.

~The Herstory of Love, as told by Nicole Krauss as told by Alice as told by me