Men Have Called Her Crazy: A Memoir

by Anna Marie Tendler

Women with consumption during the nineteenth century were thought to be the epitome of beauty. They are described in books and depicted in paintings as being luminescent with their milk-white skin and red lips. This is how men saw them, anyway. The perfect woman—impossibly pale, impossibly thin, lips tinted red (from coughing

This isn’t to say I believe in nothing, however. I believe in a spirit world, populated by healing guides and ancestors. I believe that people can get stuck in the liminal space between life and death. I believe in reincarnation and feel wholeheartedly there are people I’ve encountered in this life who I’ve also met in others. In this sense, I suppose you could call me spiritual, but I even wear this label with discomfort.

I decide I will eat every dinner like this, a whole production with the fire going and all the candles lit. Even if I am wearing sweatpants and microwaving precooked food, I can make dinner feel like a special occasion, not something sad I have to do alone. There is comfort and happiness in beauty if I am willing to relish it.