LIDIA YUKNAVITCH: EPISODE

THE BIG M: LINK

TRANSCRIPT:

Colleen: Welcome back, everybody. We are excited today to be talking to Lydia Yuknavitch on

the show. Welcome.

Lidia:  My pleasure to be here.

Colleen: We are so excited to talk to you about

the new book that you have coming out. The Big M, 13 writers, take back the story

of menopause. And, you know, I read through the book. And one thing, Bridgett and I

obviously do a lot of interviews with medical doctors who write books about

menopause. But these stories of women, they’re such interesting stories of a woman’s

journey that kind of weaves in menopause but isn’t the main topic. These stories

are not, I had a hot flash. I went to the doctor. I asked, these are how aging

and the menopause journey plays into their complete story. And I wonder,

number one, how’d you come up with the idea? And two, how did you pick

these great authors?

Lidia: Oh, great questions and very astute observation.

Colleen: Oh, thank you.

Lidia: I mean, I, in my own menopause experience,

I was struck by how limited the options were like, it felt like you figure out

something’s gone weird, and then you go to a doctor and ask them about it.

But what was missing in the whole journey for me was the shared storytelling of

what did it feel like to work? What did it feel like to be a mom? What did it

feel like to not be a mom? What did it feel like when you cry with your friend?

What was your husband doing if you had one? What does it feel like to be a

lesbian or trans per – like the real life heart and guts of menopause includes a

full circle of story experience around it and so that’s what I was interested in

gathering or culling and how I found these writers, I mean most of them I’ve crossed

their path as a writer and artists myself over the years. And so it was pretty

easy, you know, like calling your girlfriend.

So it had a little bit of that vibe going on, but I also, it was very important

to me personally, to get different kinds of women who do different kinds of things

and live in different parts of the world and have different kinds of, you know,

diversity than, you know, the mono story of a woman going through the change.

Bridgett: Yeah, you know, that really struck me, because I learned so much reading this

because you use such a diverse group of women. The backgrounds just have different

women from all across the world. I mean, a woman from Vietnam,

just the different messages. And a big message that was presented or that I got was

that a woman felt ashamed of what was going

on in her body. If she got her period, if anything happened, when she went through

menopause.  Did you find that to be a theme as well?

Lidia: Oh absolutely, gosh this this shame theme is so huge

and so prevalent and it takes so many nasty little gremlin forms in terms of the

lives of women and what we go through an experience yeah it was a big one and so

it’s sort of like the shame veil must be first described very fully and then

wrenched to the side so that we can ask each other what else we feel besides

shame.

Colleen: And it’s funny you mention that because the decision to put Cheryl Strad’s

essay first and the collection was precisely to put shame to the side a little bit,

even though it’s going to come up in other essays in the book. It comes up all

over the place. But Cheryl’s essay is so, she’s so damn happy to have her first

period and she’s so happy when menopause arrives in the essay anyway.

Lidia: Right.

And her life is not without serious difficulty, but it’s, it’s the opposite of that

shame narrative that begins the second you bleed, you know,

and probably before that, you know, in terms of the stories women receive about

their own bodies and experiences. So we were trying to, I guess, deconstruct shame

and shake it up and rearrange it so that that’s not the center of the story.

And I think we succeeded because shame comes up a lot, but we do different things

with it than just go crawl in a hole and die.

Colleen: Right. Definitely. And I think,

you know, you kind of have a rally cry, the blood is mine again. And at first I

had to stop and think about that. I’m like, the blood, oh, the blood is mine

again. Because you really, you know, it’s true. Your body is yours again.

Lidia: Yeah.

You’re no longer every month kind of in this cycle of emotional turmoil. Yes,

in perimenopause, you’re on a crazy cycle.

Colleen: But it’s true the blood is mine again I

think that’s a great rally cry and with Cheryl’s section it was so relatable as

she’s 14 doing  giving an oral report in class and all of a sudden it’s

like what girl has not had the sweatshirt wrapped around her waist hoping she can

make it to the bathroom, so you really started the book with a very relatable

experience and yeah and then at the end having to say well her mom wasn’t there

anymore to experience and give her and tell her about menopause. And I think so

many women can relate to that. And so many of the stories, what I found interesting

was the diversity of your stories all still carried a common theme of womanhood that

we could relate to. Did that become clear from the very beginning?

Lidia: Oh, yeah. I knew

it. I mean, I knew it in my heart because I’ve spent my life inside literature in

art. So I’ve seen the world’s stories, and I’ve known forever that when a woman

begins to tell the story of herself, it’s not divided into the categories that

culture places us in. It moves around all over the place, and it’s messier,

and it’s like, your first period has everything to do with late -in -life experiences,

and being a mother has everything to do with what you do for work and how you go

to the bathroom and what groceries you buy. Like the story is messy and

multifaceted. And I knew if we got women together in a room talking,

it would become many voiced and different paths in the story and different ways of

understanding things because our bodies aren’t exactly the same. Yeah, it’s like a

polyphonic experience. It’s many bodied experience and it needs all of

the little side stories to create the larger story. Because when the story gets

distilled, that’s why I said mono story a second ago. When the story of menopause

gets distilled from the culture from the outside toward us it’s like we’re all

supposed to fit one story and this is bullshit!

Bridgett:  It’s so true it is

going to be so different for everybody. Everbody’s lives are different and you know

everybody’s background is different and one thing that stood out and it wasn’t in

every story but really stood out to me was the misogyny that so many of these

women faced, whether it was physical abuse or just,

you know, even like Roxanne Gay loved her. Her father seemed like actually one of

the best out of the whole bunch. She was, again, because of her size.

She was shamed because of her size. And that whole story just, that just broke my

heart. So I think for every one of these women, my heart broke.

Lidia:  But I think we’ve

all been through the heartbreak as well. It just in different ways. You can all

relate to it in some way shape or form. Yeah, but the misogyny really just killed

me.

Bridgett: Even the lady whose father went into the store with the clerk and was angry. Angry because

he felt that the (clerk) woman owed him something by her appearance.

Lidia: Yeah, these are these like,

I know, it’s so fascinating because there are these like little moments in time

where a man or the male attitude or perception around all different ages of women

is something you have to confront or it comes at you. And more often than not,

it’s this place of shame or negative, you know, like, why am I having to be made

to feel this way? I didn’t do anything. But,

you know, you’re coming up against that place in the story where you have to

decide, you know, how you’re going to carry this or not. And a lot of the time,

what many women end up doing is caring too much for too long until the day they

confront something that breaks them or they have a giant epiphany or they learn over

meters of experience. I don’t have to carry this story that you try to lay down on

top of me. And so I see in the essays those moments,

you know, they’re at a store counter or they’re at home at a kitchen table or

they’re in a bathroom somewhere or they’re standing up giving a report at 14 at

school. Those tiny moments really define us. And when we go back and we tell it,

we can take the story wherever we want to.

Bridgett:  And I think that sharing,

I think of it as permission, but we really don’t need

the permission, but we feel we have that permission now to say,

okay, this story, this happened to this woman, and I

don’t have to listen to what this outside world is telling me.

Lidia: Yeah, that’s a bit.

I love that you’re noticing that because I think sometimes when I look at these

essays, they’re like, there’s what happened to you. And then there are these chances

later in life where you can retell it. And you can tell the story differently than

the story that hurt you or made you feel stupid or small or whatever.

And as a writer, a fiction writer and a nonfiction writer, this is the beauty of

storytelling space that it carries that transformational possibility.

I don’t have to tell the story of a terrible thing that happened to me, the way

I’ve been carrying it. I can change how I tell the story. So when I read them,

they look like retellings, very important transformational retellings.

Colleen: It’s true.

And I think, you know, I was reading from Mental Pauses to Power Surges, which I

forget, which author wrote that, but there was a quote that I love that. She said,

“I’m old now. And with the wondrous mix of lexapro, testosterone, and who cares

anyway, I don’t cry much.” And that was so powerful because it’s not just that the

hormones make you cry, make you angry, make all that stuff. But when the silence

comes and the hormone surge is quiet, you can really hear yourself then.

Lidia: Yes. There’s a power that comes from that. You kind of have a more straightforward

way of thinking where you don’t immediately go to the emotional aspect.

Colleen: So in

retelling these stories, it’s almost like they can take a step back and look at it

from an outside perspective that when they were in the hormones, when they were in

the emotional state, they couldn’t look at it that way.

Lidia: That’s right. That’s right.

And I notice over and over again, well, I notice this in my own life that,

so I’m 62, there is this incredible clarity that I’ve never felt in my entire life

that has come from this quieted, calmer space of being able to look back and not

be reactionary all the time and berserk with all the everything going on in your

body, because I’m on the other side of it now. And I, that’s why my essay at the

end is so exuberant. It’s like, I want to throw everyone initiation parties.

Yeah, yeah, this part sucks. It’s hard right now. But this thing on the other side

is incredible. And it’s like the ocean of yourself just opens up and you know no

we need more people telling that story.  I would think you would agree with that.

Bridgett: oh we’ve heard that too! We’ve heard that from so many women that say oh my gosh

it’s like they hit 60 and this magical thing happens.

Colleen:  huge it’s like this wisdom

door opens up. We were talking to Carla Hall a few weeks ago. And she was like,

“you expect me to get all of this wisdom through my life and then sit on a couch.”

That’s not the way it’s supposed to go. And whether you’re sharing it with the next

generation, if they’ll listen, or you’re just being able to sit with it and be

like, oh, I’m looking at this through different eyes because I don’t have kind of

that glassy hormonal haze that a lot of people don’t realize that that exists.

When you’re looking at things through your hormones, it’s very different than when we

kind of like put our, it’s like putting your glasses back on.

Lidia: Yeah.

And I actually, so I’m left with just there’s the warning about it.

But I actually think, you know, if women who, uh, punch through menopause,

And actually, I think of us as a possible cultural revolution, the day that enough

of us together globally decide to stand up and,

you know, retell the story as this place of arrival, not departure.

Colleen: Love that. Different societies we come from try to talk you into the idea, okay,

you’re done. Your usefulness is done. So go retire and go on walks and take nothing

wrong with a good walk. But the truth of our experience is we have arrived

somewhere and there’s very important work to do.

Lidia: And so that’s why I think of it

as a culturally revolutionary moment too, especially right this moment.

Bridgett: Oh,

yeah. Oh, my goodness. And I mean, I love the, and I’m looking at my notes, it

was the she dandy. Oh, my gosh. I see the She Dandies out there. And it’s so nice to see this.

I love the description, the braid on top of her hair. You know, letting the hair

go gray and rocking it, you know and it does it makes me think

okay i mean i have a few She Dandies in my life now and it’s awesome and I

think you also brought up too I don’t I can’t remember it was you for it was um

another one of the authors about not even knowing the age of the people.

yeah that it goes to a point where I don’t even have to know their age.

Was it was you that was, I can’t remember if it was you that had like one of

your friends that was in their 70s or it might have been another book I was

reading of yours that you, I think it was another book of yours.

Lidia: It’s another book

of my, yes, yes. I’m very interested in the agelessness of aging in women.

It constantly fascinates me in what we’re coached to be attracted to or what we’re

coached to recognize as the as feminine power or feminine empowerment I find it in

very different places at very different ages of women and I’m just on this endless

pursuit to open the story telling space up and let stories because that’s part of

the problem we are right there with you.

Colleen:  yeah, Bridgett has said many many many

times that she if she knew what a great part of life this was she wouldn’t have

feared it that this is one of the best times of her life. We always say

it’s the best kept secret nobody talks about it that when you get through your

menopause journey and you kind of reach this next stage of “I don’t care.” It’s a freeing feeling. But it can open up so many doors.

And I think your book really, I mean, especially in the third section, I think that

really resonates a lot with us. And the one thing that I was kind of like, I

forget who said it, but they said postmenopause, like it or not, death is the next

big thing.

Lidia: I think Pam said that.

Colleen: I don’t know if I agree with that, because, you know, a lot of times, like,

I got postmenopause and then I became a grandmother last year. And I would have

said that is the next big thing.

Lidia: I hear you. I hear you. So I was like, yeah,

I get that statement that is in Pam’s essay. I totally understand that. And I think

it’s cool to imagine that there are like 10 more chapters and stages.

I was listening to somebody the other day say even that archetype of maiden, mother,

crone between maiden and crone there should be queen.

Bridgett: I think that Stacey London said that I think yeah.

Lidia: Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah. But moves like that, I mean, the fact that we can hear more than one woman’s

version of the story like okay so Pam said there’s menopause and then the next step

is death and this other one says no there’s all these others, like any conversation

and story is good compared to don’t talk about it don’t say anything don’t share it.

Bridgett: right, I mean you know I go back to the beginning part the threshold part And

I just keep thinking about how she had no idea what was happening to her. Her cousin tells her

to run inside. Yeah. She was pretty young. Yeah. Like I was really surprised at how

young she was.

Lidia: Is that the unsilencing? That was. Yes, it was. The balancing,

yes.

Bridgett:  I just felt for her, I felt for the other girl that,

the lady, the woman, I think she didn’t know either. I remember the woman that was pregnant, that

got pregnant when she was young and made to feel so dirty.

Lidia: Unclean, yeah. Yes. I mean, you must run into this in other episodes you’ve

done where what we inherited or whatever it is,

our mothers did or didn’t (tell us).

Bridgett: Yeah, the narrative, Oh, that poor girl, you know, going in, gets an abortion,

and the doctor makes her feel horrible too.

Lidia: Just God awful.

Yes. Yeah, just. And then, yeah, yeah, it was just unbelievable like you said, it’s not necessarily what happened to our parents is

going to happen.

Bridgett: And I mean, Colleen and I both of our backgrounds, even though we’re

the same age, but they’re very different. You know,

my mother, I’m one of 12. So my mother was 40 when I was born, and she was,

she was a nurse. She was a great person, but I had all these older sisters, too,

but no one had the talk with me about what was going to happen. I heard it from

my friends at slumber parties. And I mean, Colleen, it sounds like you had

like big celebrations or something.

Lidia: For getting your period or ending your period?

Colleen: Well, well, no,

Bridgett: I gave you your trophy.

Colleen: I was a, yeah, actually, Bridgett gave me a

trophy when I went a full year with no periods.

Bridgett: That was Karen Duffy’s idea.

Colleen:  You know, I’m for it. You know, it’s just, it’s

looking at it as a celebration of any stage of life. You know,

I have two girls and I say to them, you know, you’re looking at it

from the perspective of a 20 -something or you’re looking at it from a perspective

of a now 30 -something. But when you look back at this, you’re going to realize, I

put a lot more emphasis on it than I probably needed to do. But that’s just a

part of your life journey. And menopause is no different.

Lidia: Yeah. And I agree with

that. That’s so important what you just said. That was another thing that was

important to me about the collection was to get the range of emotions around it,

which is why. So Joey Soloway’s is the one that has power surge in it.

Bridgett: That is really funny.

Colleen:  Yeah and Nana-Ama Danquah’s essay is pretty sad. Yeah. And Gina Frangello’s essay is harrowing.

Yeah. I mean. And you mentioned Nguyen’s essay. And Reyna’s is like,

you know, some of them are oh my god and then you know mine is fairy tale

and playful and you know but that range of emotion reminds us, yes this is part

of all living. Your life not one stop at a train station where something bad

happens. What you’re referencing, it becomes part of your

story.

Bridgett: But you can’t judge it. Like to go back to a certain stage of life, why

did I do that? Why? It was just part of your story.

Lidia: That’s right. And I think

even now, women are afraid to embrace that there are chapters to your story. And

it’s okay if one of those chapters was not the greatest chapter. It’s still part of

your story. And so I think that really resonated in the book as well.

Colleen: I’m curious, when you ask these 13 authors or writers to write about it,

the perspectives are so different. But did anyone have a hesitancy and say,

I’m not sure I want to talk about this or not.

Lidia:  There was an author who

I won’t name because she doesn’t want me to,

who wasn’t sure she had anything to add to the topic,

you know? You know, like, I don’t think I have anything interesting to say about

this. And then after she wrote it, she learned something. I mean, of course, of

course she learned something about herself. She wasn’t aware she was carrying.

And so only one author had an experience like that. But no, the rest,

all the rest had something they really wanted to say because they felt like no one

had ever asked them.

Colleen: That’s so interesting. And then even with the Gina’s ride,

no, I did not expect BDSM to be like the first sentence in that one. That was

like, I was like, oh, here we go. Okay. I was like, this could be good.

But I thought it was interesting the way she kind of, I don’t even know if she

meant this in the strength way of her storytelling, but that she kind of went from

submissive to stronger. And then she was like, wait a second, why am I being

submissive here? I can just as easily be dominant. They found a way to kind of

play with that. So it’s always, I guess my point is it’s always new life doesn’t

have to become this stagnant, this is the way we do things.

Lidia: and it goes back to that great thing you both talked about which is that

the essays in the collection they’re about living a life and how menopause weaves

into the rest of living. It’s not, each essay shall pound a nail in the menopause

topic right,

Colleen:   and I just learned so much too, just from each one so

like what was going on in their lives during their menopause time and

it was the Finding Meno, the Little Clowns.

Bridgett:  was that Monica’s

Essay?

Lidia:  yeah yes

Bridgett:  was she the one that her husband got was very violent or is

that another? And she went through a divorce?

Lidia: That’s right. That was all happening

at the same time.

Bridgett: My goodness. But I do feel that when you read something like

this, there’s got to be so many other women that have experienced something similar.

Lidia:Legions.

Bridgett: Just the way the court system treated her, just everything having to start

over again. But I feel like hen a woman reads a story and they find that another

woman has gone through this, it just helps them. Even, you know, they feel this

kinship and they see some hope.

Lidia: That’s right. I mean, if three women read this book

and feel less invisible and alone, then it’s worth it.

Colleen: Absolutely. Oh, a lot more

than three women. Yeah, but I know what you’re saying. But that’s your hope

like if even feel seen and heard.

Lidia:  that’s right that’s right and Monica’s essay is

just so badass because um a couple of the essays do this but Monica’s does it

beautifully where she goes into the social structure of how women are treated yes

with the court system,

Colleen:  as you mentioned by a female judge

Lidia: Yes. And reminds us that the misogyny you spoke of earlier and how women are treated,

it’s embedded or threaded through all systems of our social structure. So it’s good

to pause and reflect on that and decide where we want to stand in terms of

resisting that in a kind of sociopolitical way. Some readers will see that and

think, yeah, I’m one of those people who wants to work on that.

Bridgett:  Right. Yeah. I

mean, and when I was reading that, I think I was reading something where it just

really struck something in me. And I’m very fortunate that I have not experienced

that kind of domestic violence that has happened to so many women. And there’s a

woman that is collecting data on women who are killed by their partner just

currently, right now, because there wasn’t really a collection of data to put out

there, that this many women are being murdered by their partner, or a man in

their life. And yeah, and it is so prevalent. And I don’t think I ever realize

that until this time of life. I don’t know if it’s more available on the news or

I don’t know if I’m seeing it more. I have a thirty- year old daughter that I

want to be on the lookout for. And so that really struck me just reading

just the different stories like that.

Lidia: Yeah, yeah. I think it dovetails. I don’t know

if you guys agree with this, but I bet you do.

It feels like maybe every time period has a version of this, that’s probably true.

But it feels like an awakening moment where a whole bunch more women are waking up

to what has always been true, but we’re looking at it differently. And I said this

moment, but it occurs to me that there are these awakening periods in all epics,

you know, where things come to a sort of terribly oppressive or violent or dangerous

place, but something breaks open, and more awareness occurs if I was speaking kind of

philosophically. And I think we’re in one of those moments. I think we are. I

hope we are. That’s for sure.

Colleen: Knowledge is power and the more we can get out there

and share and have these conversations. One of the purposes of this podcast was to

have these conversations so women felt seen and felt heard and know, they’re not alone.

And, you know, yes, we’re living longer. And yes, we talk about health and living a

healthy life, but that’s also part of your mental health. It’s not just physical.

Lidia: God, yes, yes.

Colleen: So a lot of these stories are going to resonate with women. And she

ends her section with being very powerful and very grateful for her life,

which I think is a great way to showcase that you go through struggles, sometimes

horrendous struggles yet you can find your journey gets better. You know,

you go on that upswing again. So I really like that she kind of finished it with

being strong. Yeah, I like that too. And I like how there are so many different

versions of how we’ve all survived and thrived.  Like they sound

different, they feel different, they look different, but it helps you remember there’s

no one way to do it. There’s hundreds of thousands of ways to do it.

Lidia: Absolutely.

And yeah, and even like you said earlier, the mistakes along the way, that’s just

your chapter, just like you said.

Bridgett: And I think a lot of women don’t forgive

themselves for something. Everybody makes mistakes and I do think to that shame

Lidia: tha shame yes they go back to that shame

Bridgett:  but reading these essays and finding out

what people go through that they’re like you’re still here, you’re still hear

there’s still hope and things can work out for you.

Lidia:  yeah I’m on record when I

did a big Ted Talk on The idea that fear and failure and even shame could be

understood as portals, you move through toward an expansive understanding of things.

It’s very hard to understand them as portals. I’m not saying it’s easy and it

doesn’t have ouch on it. But if I understand my failures as portals,

I don’t have to embrace the shame piece. I can move through an opening to some

form of change or learning or expansion. And I hang on to that idea pretty hard.

Colleen: Yeah, absolutely. Because I don’t, I don’t know if you agree with this, but I learn

from failure. When I screw up, that’s where I learn when I do something well,

I don’t learn very much.

Try telling that to a 25 -year -old.

Lidia:  It’s true. Some of

the biggest lessons in life come from failing at things.

Colleen:  And Bridgett and I have

talked to a lot of guests that agree with us when we say, and I don’t know if

you’re going to agree with this, but like failure is really not that big of a

deal. You know, it’s like. It gets loaded. It’s a lesson learned.

And maybe because we, you know, I’m never going to survive this. And if you do it

enough times, you realize, wait a second, I am surviving all these things. So maybe

they’re not as big as I thought they would be. And again, my 25 -year -old self

would probably not agree with me. But you do kind of reach this point where you’re

like, if it works, it works. If it doesn’t, it’s not a failure. It’s just we tried

and we move on.

Lidia: Yeah, they’re not the boogeymen that we thought were there.

I think I started messing up young enough that I got it. I got it early.

Like, this is nothing. I grew up many times in my life. Yeah.

Yeah.

Colleenz: And I mean, I’ve, you know, we’ve seen women in all walks of life that

messed up early, messed up in the middle, messed up messed up during menopause

because it’s the human default to mess up sure but then you do learn and you move

on and you have that support system that says “oh i did that too,

you’re not such a bad person because everybody does this”

and I think that  all goes back to that shame and I’ve been thinking about them a lot lately. Bridgett: And I know we’ve tried to

keep religion out of stuff. But I always go back to like, heck, if the

first book of the Bible doesn’t start with shaming women.

Lidia: It’s like an origin story of shame.

Bridgett: Yeah. I mean,

she convinced him to eat it an apple. How can you convince anybody to eat something? I

couldn’t convince my kids to eat anything.

Lidia: But I havevery strong opinions about that

particular origin story. So I’ll stay quiet. But yes, I will say. It starts with

shame. I will just say it starts.

Colleen:  So the book’s coming out soon. And what is your

hope for? Are you going to do a book tour or you’re going to have some of the

other authors join you maybe?

Lidia: The other Authors and I are doing things here and

there like podcasts or online things. There won’t be a big in -person book tour for

a bunch of reasons, mostly money, and there’s a lot of us, so, you know, that

would be hard to arrange. But my hope for the book is kind of what we’ve been

talking about, that women will share it hand to hand and story to story and you

know over happy hour or breakfast or between boob feeding a baby or good book club

in their regular lives that it can be a book you share hand to hand and

heart to heart just to say look here’s some stories what are your stories? Let’s

share them that’s the entire reason to do it that and a cultural revolution

Bridgett: right

but that is what is needed

and you know, if they are sharing these with each other, the therapeutic

effect that can happen. The conversations that can start. It just can.

mean just reading them, I thought, was therapeutic for me. Even though, you know,

even though some of them were so heartbreaking.

But it was therapeutic just to hear all these women share their stories and learn

so much from that.

Lidia: Yeah. And I think you guys would agree. Like, heartbreaking is a

space of transformation for all of us. And if you’re led through a story space of

heartbreak by someone who has skill and deep emotion and storytelling ability,

it helps you realize we’re not alone in any of our heartbreaks.

And so that’s the reason to include it next to the one that makes you laugh. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. Like Cheryl’s or, you know, it makes you kind of argue with it.

Colleen: Yeah. Makes you think. Either way, it makes you think. So that’s always a good

thing and see yourself in so many of the stories. But Lidia, thank you so much for

coming on. We will have the link in the show notes for the book. We will make

sure to tell all of our friends to share the book as well.

Lidia: Bless you. Bless you

both.