Speak

I’ve been binge-audio listening to Lena Dunham’s recent memoir “Famesick” this week. I’ll begin by saying I had heard of her, but was completely unaware of any of her struggles or controversies and had never watched her hit-series “Girls”. And I decided to read her book mostly because of an interview I listened to; I was touched by her courage to talk about her challenges. You know, the kind of stuff haters love to hate…the poor little rich girl crying all the way to the bank kind of statements.

So what?

Pain is pain.

Struggle is struggle.

Why can’t we take some of our judginess and pour into compassion? I mean, what’s the harm?

Dunham writes extensively about her close relationship with her parents, and as a parent of adult children, I found myself reading this book with compassion both for Dunham and for her parents, who have been with her every step of the way. The quote that stopped me in my tracks, right at the intersection of Rothschild and Maze, was a statement Dunham made about her parents: As imperfect as they were, they would defend my right to imperfection to the death.

Wow.

In an age where anxiety is rising in our road to the nowheres-ville of perfection, and FOMO, and body dysmorphia, and don’t even get me started on AI because who even knows if the Spotify playlist you are listening to is real human voices, we have become quite good at hiding our imperfections. At “framing” our failures and spinning stories so that horrible thing that happened is actually what we wanted in the first place. Because to say, “ya, I’m hurt because so-and-so ghosted me” sounds a little…pathetic???

I think it sounds human.

This not a book review nor an assessment of anything in Dunham’s book; rather it’s a thank you sister to a woman who had the courage to share from her heart and risk ridicule. Which, reminds me of one of my favorite Audre Lorde poems:

“A Litany for Survival”

by Audre Lorde

For those of us who live at the shorelinestanding upon the constant edges of decisioncrucial and alonefor those of us who cannot indulgethe passing dreams of choicewho love in doorways coming and goingin the hours between dawnslooking inward and outwardat once before and afterseeking a now that can breedfutureslike bread in our children's mouthsso their dreams will not reflectthe death of ours:For those of uswho were imprinted with fearlike a faint line in the center of our foreheadslearning to be afraid with our mother's milkfor by this weaponthis illusion of some safety to be foundthe heavy-footed hoped to silence usFor all of usthis instant and this triumphWe were never meant to survive.And when the sun rises we are afraidit might not remainwhen the sun sets we are afraidit might not rise in the morningwhen our stomachs are full we are afraidof indigestionwhen our stomachs are empty we are afraidwe may never eat againwhen we are loved we are afraidlove will vanishwhen we are alone we are afraidlove will never returnand when we speak we are afraidour words will not be heardnor welcomedbut when we are silentwe are still afraidSo it is better to speakrememberingwe were never meant to survive

So speak. Speak. Speak.

And listen.