Without Glamour, Do I Exist?
with an appreciative nod to bell hooks
A reminder: REASONS FOR LIVING with Esmé Weijun Wang is a newsletter that comes out every other week, and is free, featuring a guest essay, poem, piece of visual art, and journal prompt. These things all hang together in their own singular edition. On the days when REASONS FOR LIVING is not sharing those things, I share a paywalled personal essay. This is for a number of reasons: some of my personal essays are very personal, and I like the idea of a bit of protection; also, it was promised near the beginning of the year that paying subscribers would receive a paywalled personal essay every other week, and I am trying to keep that promise. Paying members also get to participate in my monthly Fireside Chats, which explore some aspect of creativity and life.
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I recently came across this quote from bell hooks that stopped me in my tracks:
"I am a girl who dreams of leisure, always have. Reverie has always been necessary to my existence. I have needed long hours where I am stretched out, wearing silks, satins, and cashmeres, just alone with myself, embraced by the beauty around me. I have always been a girl for fibers, for textiles, and for the feel of comforting cloth against my skin. When I have adorned myself just so, I am ready for the awesome task of just lingering, spending uninterrupted time with my thoughts, dreams, and intense yearnings, often the kind that, like unrequited love, go unfulfilled. Lately, in the midst of that solitude, I find myself writing, spinning words together in my head so as not to lose or forget the insights, the sharp moments of clarity that come during this quiet time, that surface amid the luxurious smells of expensive French lemon verbena soap and fruity perfume, a book in my hand." (Visual Politics, bell hooks)
This passage is so exquisitely specific, so confident in its determination to convey the ability of a Black woman to enjoy and seek aesthetic luxury, that it makes my breath catch. I think of the phrase weaponized glamour, a phrase that I used in The Collected Schizophrenias from Cuban American curator and writer Chaédria LaBouvier; on press rounds, I often had to interrupt the interviewer who would mistakenly attribute this phrase to me. I wish I’d come up with it because it is so simply perfect—I had asked Chaédria while writing the book if I could use her phrase with attribution, and she very generously agreed. It fit in with my then-narrative of wielding glamour in order to defy expectations of what a person with the schizophrenias looks like: not disheveled, not babbling incoherently and unwashed, but over-the-top in their extravagance. (There are, of course, a million problems with this way of thinking. Still: it was a primary concern of mine at the time.)
I am less concerned with weaponized glamour these days, not because I’ve lost my interest in glamour, but because my public-facing reputation puts my mental health issues foremost most of the time and secondary to my writing if I’m lucky. I no longer have to count the days in a new friendship or acquaintanceship to the moment I reveal, pulling the misshapen rabbit from the hat, that I have such-and-such diagnoses; my reputation, such that it is, usually precedes me, and that’s fine. Being unburdened of having to unveil a stigmatized mental illness over and over again has given me an easier time of it.
Instead, I play with glamour because I love glamour. My experiences with makeup have tended to be minimal—but these days, usually spent at home, I watch YouTube makeup tutorials over and over, sometimes screen-recording my favorite ones to learn their techniques. Now, I contour. Now, I use a finishing powder over my foundation. Now, I draw a perfect bow with a tiny brush coated in the perfect red.
I also wear a fair share of wigs. Today, I have black finger waves adorned with rhinestones, something I’d never be able to achieve with my natural hair. My husband hates it, preferring my naked face and disheveled, unstyled mop. “That’s my Es,” he says when I remove all the fakery. He prefers me unadorned, but he knows I enjoy the process and the finished look. Never before have I understood the phrase “to put on one’s face” as much as I do nowadays, when most of my chronically ill life is spent slouching about my home in the same few ink-stained silk dresses, make-up-less and without any discernable hairstyle. When I am like this, I feel disembodied, like a ghost haunting my own flat. I don’t exist. The edges of my body vanish.
“I have needed long hours where I am stretched out, wearing silks, satins, and cashmere, just alone with myself, embraced by the beauty around me.” During my autism assessment, I spent a good amount of time explaining to Dr. P that I’d pared my wardrobe down to mostly silk and velvet. (Has anything ever sounded more bourgeosie?) My physical discomfort in other fabrics seems to have escalated in the past decade. Gone are the days when I’d wear slips beneath tiny 1930s dresses with metal zippers, having to suck in my stomach to accommodate the tight waist. Now I have sleeveless silk dresses; I have silk-satin kimono-style robes. That makes an outfit. I also have silk velvet trousers the color of golden koi gleaming in the sun; a tight, slightly cropped tank top; shoes that feel like slippers; a few pearl-collared dresses. Like bell hooks, adornment brings out what feels like my true self—the one that floats in “thoughts, dreams, and intense yearning,” leading to “writing, spinning words together in my head so as not to lose or forget the insights, the sharp moments of clarity that come during this quiet time.” bell hooks’s access to luxury, however hard-earned, is a portal to thought and then a portal to writing.
These days, in the last few months of 2024, my focus turns primarily to the book I’m revising now. I’ve been working on it for—perhaps around the time the last book came out in 2019. Like my first book, it’s a novel, and it’s the hardest book I’ve yet tasked myself with writing. I also want it to be the best book that I’ve written so far. Isn’t that what we always hope—that each book will be better than the last? But you don’t need to hear my moaning about a book that won’t be seen for an indeterminable amount of time. Another letter will turn to that.
I put on my silk velvet ribbons, my 1930s smoking jacket with the tattered lining, and I go into the world so that I may come back, scrub my face, put on the stained dress, and get to work. I don’t have a verbena soap to hold in my hand, but I do have a crystal that is supposed to ward off nightmares. My desk is unimpressively decorated—the interior cubbies are filled with papers and ephemera—but the rest of the office is fun. Glamour surrounds me, and I open my Pages document to begin.
My relationship with glamour is a habit, a way of being. A hope. A duck and cover, or even a creation. It’s a 1700s Scottish word that meant magic or enchantment; in modern-day witchy circles, it’s used to describe a spell cast to change how one is perceived. Nothing actually changes about you; it’s everyone else who hallucinates the difference. It’s everyone else who has the false sensory perception of the schizophrenic woman who desperately hides her false sensory perceptions. Who, then, is the crazy one now?
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Are you at the stage where you’d like to be writing a book proposal, but are not particularly sure what one is or how to write one? (Before I get any further: a book proposal is for nonfiction writers who want to be traditionally published. You’ll want to have a book proposal ready to send to agents, who will then usually help you polish it and then send it to publishers. A book deal is then made based on the proposal. If you’re a fiction writer or a poet, you won’t need a book proposal. If you’re going to self-publish, you also don’t need a book proposal. All right—now that that’s cleared up, we shall sally on.)
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❤️ Angela Carter and the "So Fucking What?" Approach to Writing (
) — Lincoln Michel, as far as I can tell, never misses, and he certainly doesn’t with this short & sweet piece about Angela Carter and her over-the-top (as considered by some) collection, The Bloody Chamber.❤️ When Upmarket Fiction Doesn't Work (For Me) (
) — John focuses here on Lessons in Chemistry, but I liked this piece because it talks about the difference between “commercial fiction,” “literary fiction,” and a new term to me, “upmarket fiction,” which helped me to suss out why certain books just feel a certain way that I don’t quite like. Recommended.❤️ Suffering and Writing (the fun stuff!) (
) — Let’s all welcome Meghan to Substack (welcome, fellow, to this bordello). In this piece, she talks about the relationship between suffering and writing, as well as a bit of poetry analysis (Louise Glück). Mostly, I’m putting this here so that you’ll subscribe to her newsletter.❤️ Soft Magic: Rituals For Healing (
) — I came across this in my Notes feed and was intrigued by the title. The material in this post is from Margeaux’s forthcoming book, Touch Me, I’m Sick (are you, like me, of a certain age and can remember where that title is from?), a memoir-in-essays.❤️ The Curator: gothic tales of hauntings and lovers (
) — Have a yearning for a grand Gothic yarn? I’ve read many of the books here, but it’s always grand to have them all in one place (and don’t forget to check out my own Immigrant Gothic novel, The Border of Paradise). Chef’s kiss.
One paid subscriber will be randomly drawn to receive this small friend.
If my writing has ever resonated with you or brought you any amount of comfort or clarity, I invite you to consider becoming a paid subscriber to REASONS FOR LIVING. Your support directly fuels my work and life.
As a paid subscriber, you’ll receive two exclusive, paywalled essays from me each month—essays like the one you’re reading now. You'll also gain access to our curated resource library, filled with tools designed to help you navigate your creative journey. You’ll also be welcomed into our monthly Fireside Chats, which are little gatherings where we explore creativity, learning, and expansion together.
And, because we like to celebrate beauty, every subscriber has the chance to win one of the Birds of the Day—a little watercolor or pen-and-ink treasure by me to brighten your space and remind you that we’re all a part of something greater.
Disclaimer: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission if you make a purchase through them—at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting my work!
This essay....I feel seen. I, too, struggle with numerous mental health issues. Currently having quite an especially rough go of it. And yet....and YET, I, too love picking out what I will wear each day, using the naked canvas of my washed face to slowly put on potions and lotions and powders, define my brows, lips, high cheek bones. I am 60 and this still gives me such pleasure, it's impossible to describe. So you did it for me, Esme. As our beautiful and missed, bell, did, too. I have actually told my husband that when I stop doing THAT, that is when he'll know I've given up. At my age, is it still vanity? Some, yes, it is. But it's also about this deep, private pleasure that I still feel each morning in front of my mirror. And, yes, the magnification of the mirror has increased with my age. But I am truly grateful for this pleasure. It's mine, all mine. At the tips of my fingers. And to read this this morning? I couldn't have woken up to read anything better. Huge love to you and your beloved, Esme...xo
I can’t quite put into words how much I love this. It helps me reframe some things about my gender expression as a gender queer person. And I’m really excited to start trying some new things. Ah, I really love this.