transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] I'm watching a TV show I like, and then I'm a punchline in the TV show, and suddenly a comedian I like is making jokes about me, and him going, I watched this show, there's this girl, she's the ugliest little girl in the world, why are we watching this little fat girl? And being like, okay, there it is, like there it is. And I felt like my parents had given me this name with so much care and consideration, and there it was, and it was just a joke. And I had to find a way to be like, yes, my name is Lena Dunham, and that is okay.

Speaker 2:
[00:40] Monica! I'm so thrilled to welcome you to Reclaiming.

Speaker 1:
[00:45] Thank you.

Speaker 2:
[00:46] I was thinking, this feels like getting a box of Cease Candy, and you're like, what do I start with first?

Speaker 1:
[00:52] That is firstly, I love that reference. And when I first got to LA, I was like, Cease Candy is true. You as a native Los Angeles, you know, but when I first discovered it, but I just want to say, before I say anything else, that it's a real honor to be here with you. And you've, you know, meant something in my life for a very long time. And I love so much that you've created this space and that you've welcomed me into this space. And so I just want to say, it's very moving. This morning, you very kindly allowed us to switch up our time. And I said to my publicist, I said, right now, I'm not making enough words to talk to the Monica Lewinsky.

Speaker 2:
[01:26] Oh, my gosh. So please, I hope I don't disappoint you.

Speaker 1:
[01:30] But already not.

Speaker 2:
[01:31] Thank you.

Speaker 1:
[01:31] You walked in in that pink skirt and I went, we're done here. It's perfect.

Speaker 2:
[01:37] This was sort of a, this was one of those purchases when I was away, I was in Carmel, one of my best friends lives there. And we went to a store and I was like, I'm going to buy this skirt. And I actually would.

Speaker 1:
[01:47] I could be that woman. I could be that woman and you are.

Speaker 2:
[01:49] I am that woman.

Speaker 1:
[01:50] Yeah. And I love it. I love it.

Speaker 2:
[01:52] Wink, wink. Okay, I don't know if you remember, I think the first time we might have met in person was this, was it a Hollywood reporter?

Speaker 1:
[02:05] Like it was.

Speaker 2:
[02:05] Mentory thingy, breakfast. Okay.

Speaker 1:
[02:08] Yup. And we met briefly and I remember being so excited, nervous, thrilled. I mean, I, I obviously have followed so many parts of your life and your story and seeing, I mean, the name Reclaiming for your podcast. I thought about you a lot writing my book because you're the plantotonic ideal of a woman taking their experiences, whatever they may look like and turning them into their own really beautiful reality. And so you and your pink skirt are a testament to that.

Speaker 2:
[02:38] Thank you. I really take that in and that means a lot.

Speaker 1:
[02:43] Well, I mean it from the bottom of my heart.

Speaker 2:
[02:45] Thank you. I think it's actually a very interesting thing because I don't think there's a narrative yet in the world of, I think we're all creating it now around this idea of things that sort of knock someone down. I mean, I'm thinking about for me, like the fallen woman doesn't get up, right? But there are others who aren't just fallen women, but we go through these horrible things. And when you come to a place where you really can see that easing other people's suffering by sharing your own story, you know, it's really, I mean, yesterday I gave a talk and I said something I hadn't ever said before, which was like around resilience. And I said, I impressed myself.

Speaker 1:
[03:32] That's so beautiful.

Speaker 2:
[03:35] But I said sometimes just taking your next breath is resilience.

Speaker 1:
[03:40] It's everything. And that's such a beautiful thing. Firstly, what you said about there isn't a narrative yet. There isn't because for so long, being a woman, not just in the public eye, but whether it was, I think about my grandmother, who was a first-generation Jewish woman in Long Island who was really trying to sort of like fit into an ideal about what it meant to be like a good American woman. And there were so many experiences that she never told me about until she was 96 and dying because there was no space for imperfection. And now, of course, because there are so many eyes on everyone, whether they're a high school girl who sends a nude to someone who thinks has a crush on her or a woman in the public eye who gets her phone hacked or a woman in the public eye who goes through a really gnarly divorce or a mental health crisis. We see it now. And so we see people having to either kind of collapse or regather their life.

Speaker 2:
[04:45] Or both.

Speaker 1:
[04:46] Or both. And that's the thing is so much of it is both. But what you're saying about sort of just taking your next breath and kind of impressing yourself in that process, I mean, I really had to take in at certain times the idea that every hour in which you're kind of moving forward is a good one.

Speaker 2:
[05:04] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[05:05] And then one day you find yourself in a space where it's where you're not just going one minute or one hour at a time.

Speaker 2:
[05:11] Yeah. Let's also say that your new memoir is called Famesick.

Speaker 1:
[05:14] Oh, yes. It's called Famesick. And I'm so grateful that you're wanting to talk to me about it.

Speaker 2:
[05:20] I mean, I think you're very much, I think the book is you really reclaiming your story from in many ways, the media that owned your narrative. I mean, would you, does that feel?

Speaker 1:
[05:32] It feels absolutely right. And someone said to me, why did you write this book? Was it to sort of set the record straight? And I was like, I'm very resistant to that idea of set the record straight because A, I don't think, we're always in this kind of cyclical relationship with culture. And I think especially as women, it's almost impossible to set the record straight. The record will just continue to be set for you and your words will be clipped. And if you're lucky enough to have a story that meets people, it will be perceived and misperceived. But I wanted to tell it back to me. And I think to the person who got really confused between what my narrative was and what the narrative was.

Speaker 2:
[06:16] And well, wait, say that again, that's really interesting. The difference between what my narrative was and the narrative.

Speaker 1:
[06:23] And the narrative. And you know, it's interesting. You hear a lot of people say on reality shows, people will be like, I don't care what anyone thinks because I know who I am. But what it's a big refrain on say like Real Housewives. I know who I am and I know my heart. But what people don't say is that when other people, you start out having something that you love to do, like make TV or make movies. And for me personally, I know that people are much more kind of especially young people now are so kind of conscious of the fame machine and how to work it and how to do it. But I was just like, I love doing this. I can't think of any other job that I'd want to do. This is where I feel happy. And I guess this is the sort of inverse. As my father always say, you got to pay to play. There's no free lunch. But I stop people say, oh, I know who I am. I know where my heart is. I felt I was too susceptible and young to be able to do that. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[07:19] So this is sort of girls is coming out. You're 24. You're only 24.

Speaker 1:
[07:23] Yeah, I was 24. I mean, you and I both know how young that really is.

Speaker 2:
[07:28] You don't think the worst part about that age, like I think the 20 to 25 is you think you are a fucking adult. Like in the capital A.

Speaker 1:
[07:40] No one could tell me anything. Like an adult would say something to me and I'd be like, you don't get it. Like, and I, you truly think you're an adult with a capital A and you actually know nothing.

Speaker 2:
[07:51] You know shit. You know shit about squat. Squat about shit.

Speaker 1:
[07:55] Squat about shit. And I look back and there are certain people who've had, you know, if they've had a child at that age or they've had to grow up in these really profound ways, but I had not. Like I was living in my, when the girls came out, I still lived with my parents. That's, I didn't even have like, I didn't-

Speaker 2:
[08:08] I lived with my mom.

Speaker 1:
[08:10] Yeah, you lived with your mom. Like that was my reality. I didn't even, I'd never paid an electric bill. Like I didn't know how to be in the world.

Speaker 2:
[08:19] Yeah. So in 2020, I mean, because that's really, you had had success before, but I think 2012 in girls, like millions of others, that's when you sort of came on my radar. It was this, right? I mean, everybody knows, cultural juggernaut. And they've like the TikTokers now, right? The young people have been revisiting.

Speaker 1:
[08:37] Which is so sweet. People send me TikToks of like 15-year-olds, miming our lines, and it's the most tender thing in the world. But yes, it was 20. And I had made independent films before, but that's, I remember being like, oh, someone wrote a review of my movie where they said that actually it's like, you know, the cinematography was less good than other people. It was what felt like a front was nothing. It was the light stuff. You know, when you're in a small creative community, that's essentially supportive. And then once you're, you know, at that point, there's four things on HBO on Sunday night. People are watching them, whether they kind of like them or not.

Speaker 2:
[09:13] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[09:13] And then also you're getting...

Speaker 2:
[09:16] It was amazing. I mean, I was still in my dark decade when Girls started. And...

Speaker 1:
[09:21] Dark decade is such a great way of putting it. I mean, it's not great that it happened.

Speaker 2:
[09:25] No, no, but it's, you know, I think it's easy to understand, right? But I think for me, what was so interesting is around that time, a dear friend of mine who's since passed away had talked to me about, she saw what happened in 98 and the impeachment as the sort of ushering in of the age of transparency, which I thought was really interesting. And along, like when she was talking to me about this is when Girls started.

Speaker 1:
[09:58] Wow.

Speaker 2:
[09:58] And I felt like what you were doing with Girls was sort of ushering in this layer of authenticity. And I think that's what people, I know that's what I connected to in watching it at the time was like, oh, I'm seeing real unvarnished. It's not unscripted, which is actually not unscripted, not authentic, not real, not all those things. But that's what I felt, you're just such a keen observer. And so, you know.

Speaker 1:
[10:31] It's really interesting to think about 98 ushering in age of transparency because there's so much stuff, including our show, that could not and would not exist. If those conversations, you know, I remember what was happening. I was in fifth grade at Friends Seminary School.

Speaker 2:
[10:50] Sorry, I hope you knew about blowjobs before then.

Speaker 1:
[10:52] I sure did. My parents let me know everything early. They were like, we don't want you to hear this at school and get scared, so we're going to give it to you straight. They did a pretty, I have to say, I came home one day and was like, my friend says, I thought that the way babies were made was that your, I thought it made scientific sense, was that your arm went against your husband's arm. If you wanted a baby and then the sperm and the egg met through the pores of your skin, that was the story I created. And then a girl at school was like, no, your dad puts his penis in your mom's. And I was like, I'm going to jump off a building. Like this is the worst thing I've ever heard. And I went home and said, this could not be true. She told me this horrible, horrible lie. And I was in first grade and my parents like brought home a book and explained. And they were like, you can do it with your mouth, you can do it with your hands. So I did know. And I remember at the time, because my mom was really, thank God, a very vocal feminist.

Speaker 2:
[11:44] Both your parents are artists, right?

Speaker 1:
[11:45] They're both artists. They're both liberal. I mean, where I came from, like, no, you know, infidelity was the least of anybody's problems. And it was, and often encouraged. But although I think my parents seem like they held it down. That being said, my mom was very vocal about how what was happening was not right. And I feel lucky that I grew up in a house where the feedback was, this is not okay. This person is a child. You cannot speak about somebody this way. And I don't know if this is a funny, odd thing, but I was once at a dinner party that I didn't know a reporter was at sort of during.

Speaker 2:
[12:24] Oh, I've had that.

Speaker 1:
[12:25] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[12:26] My favorite is when it's a dinner party in someone's home.

Speaker 1:
[12:29] That's what this was.

Speaker 2:
[12:30] Yeah. And yeah, sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 1:
[12:32] It was a dinner party in someone's home and an adult, I was sort of like that they were treating me like the voice of millennial reason.

Speaker 2:
[12:38] Right.

Speaker 1:
[12:38] And they said, why do you think this election is going to go the way it is? And I was like, well, we understand that what happened to Monica Lewinsky is not okay. And so our trust in these people is extremely fractured, even if we ultimately think they might be the right people. And it was quoted in the New York Times. And I remember that I was sort of, there was a whole, the person who's home, it was wanted to get it taken down. And I was like, but what I said is right. So why would we take it? I mean, I didn't know a reporter was there. She maybe should have warned me, but I was like, I'm glad to be on record saying this. And I'm glad that I had a mother who said this. And I'm glad that we're starting to live in a world where people are engaging in, even as things get crazier, are engaging in critical thought. I remember the first time I experienced what felt like a really sort of intense, destabilizing public censure, whatever we want to call it. And the next few months were, I was in a fugue state and it sort of felt like I was, and I know you know this feeling better than anyone, sort of, I was in my family's house, basically feeling like we were all taking shelter. Like it was like, you know, Wizard of Oz, and we're going to board the house up, there's the hurricanes coming. And then I went to shoot an independent movie in Palm Springs, and I was staying in like, you know, Best Western Motel. And I just opened the window and I looked out at the landscape and I just thought, god, that's so beautiful. And I realized I had not looked at the world in that way, in such, it had been so long since I looked at something and it offered me pleasure or I was impressed with it. And I'll remember that moment for the rest of my life because I went, okay, I'm going to be okay. Because I just, I'm no longer living in this state of fight or flight, which we now know so much more about trauma. And we know that it's not, yes, it is a man who finds himself in a combat situation. Yes, it is someone who experiences domestic violence. And yes, it is also, whenever someone is pushed into a severe state of fight or flight defense for a long term period, it changes the topography of your brain.

Speaker 2:
[14:36] Yeah, yeah. No, it does. It does. It's interesting because we did go, like I say, we've, so my family and I went through that same thing, both when I was in LA staying with my dad and step mom and in DC with my mom. And just that like, I remember we crawled out on the balcony at night just to get fresh air.

Speaker 1:
[14:56] Yes, because you were basically, you were surrounded and having to find peace knowing that you were being circled. And that is, and it's interesting because you're obviously incredibly close with your family.

Speaker 2:
[15:11] As are you.

Speaker 1:
[15:12] Hugely. And my parents played a huge role in why I wanted to do this. And also whenever something would go wrong, my first thought would be, how will they feel about this? What will they think?

Speaker 2:
[15:23] Imagine a stand-up with the president. I was like, oh my god, my dad's an upstanding doctor. What's going to happen?

Speaker 1:
[15:31] But isn't it kind of amazing when you realize that even an upstanding doctor is like, above all, I love my daughter and I love her and I love her not despite her choices, but because of them, I love who she is. And I'm sure there were hard, really hard moments. I mean, I remember in my early 20s, I, like many women, got HPV. And I told my parents because I had to go back and get a colposcopy procedure.

Speaker 2:
[15:56] I don't even know what that is.

Speaker 1:
[15:57] It's like some kind of scraping of- Of course.

Speaker 2:
[16:00] Designed by a man, I'm sure.

Speaker 1:
[16:02] Designed by a man, incredibly painful scraping of your cervix that leaves you feeling absolutely seared. And I told my father and he said, does this mean that you've had sex? And it broke my heart. I was like, honey, honey. But that's, you know, I was still to hit, I was seeing like this little girl. And then so much of, I mean, you experience this. My parents had to sort of see me becoming this person who maybe they didn't recognize and in at least in other people's perception. And we really hunkered down. And we also felt, I think a lot of it was not the same as your situation, but we felt a lot of distrust. It was like our nuclear family was the only safe space. It took us a while to really be able to acknowledge that with each other and to be able to then kind of expand our lives again. But that crawling out on the balcony just to get fresh air at night is such a visceral image.

Speaker 2:
[16:58] Well, or seeing the image, you know, seeing the vista, right?

Speaker 1:
[17:02] Seeing the vista and going, all right, like I'm in the world again. It was like it knocked me back into my body. And I've noticed since that when, and you may find this, when you go through something that's really big and I had some big experiences in my career, I had some big experiences with my health, I had some big sort of kind of significant traumatic markers. What you find once you sort of work with that a bit, and then I'm wondering if this is true for you, is that then the next time something happens, you go, I'm actually so much more capable than I understood. Like my husband always jokes that when there's any kind of crisis, he sort of like turns into like a little girl who's seen a mouse, and I go into like mode, where suddenly I'm looking, you know, in my day to day life, I can be scattered, I can be goofy, and suddenly I'm looking 10,000 feet ahead and moving with meticulousness, and you learn these skills, these coping skills that are painful, but you also, you impress yourself.

Speaker 2:
[18:00] Yeah. Well, I think also too, I, you know, and it's something I just wish I could kind of inject into younger people, is the more time, first, it's like, I don't know that there's anybody who goes through life unscathed. I don't think there's anybody who goes through life where it's just one thing that goes wrong. But what you come to learn is every time you get through something, the next time there's like the file folder in your mind of, I can get through this, is fatter. And so, and that's the thing that is so, I think it's so much harder for young people to really grok, like in terms of, in their soul of like, this, you will get better, you will be okay.

Speaker 1:
[18:45] You know, writing a memoir can seem like a very, I don't know, it can seem like a very self-serving action. You're reflecting on your own experiences. And the thing I had to remind myself is, I'm doing this for a reason, and it's because I wish that when I was going through this, whether it was challenging experiences with how people perceived me or my body turning sort of against me at a very early age, I wanted that. I always turned to books and to art to try to explain my experiences to me. And so I had to remind myself that that is always my goal, is that you put this thing out in the world, like a message in a bottle, and you hope that it reaches the people that need it or would be helped by it. And I think for me, women like you, being honest about that, I know that I was really searching for those role models as I looked around and I saw, especially in Hollywood, so many women where it seemed like they get up at five in the morning to have their coffee and they work out and they engage in a perfect amount of self-reflective time before crushing their day. And I was like, I don't feel it.

Speaker 2:
[19:49] Cindy Crawford does do that. Sorry to interrupt. She was on the show and she told me about her morning routine and I was so jealous. I was like, oh, what I would give to be able to, I'm sorry to have interrupted.

Speaker 1:
[19:59] No, you didn't interrupt. By the way, my best friend Russell calls it, he says in Jewish families, it's called, not interrupting, it's called collaborative overlap. Oh, so I love it. Someone asked me recently, why do you think it is that we always hear in a sea of positive things, the negative thing is the loudest? I was like, well, that's human nature and I don't know. I mean, we are essentially walking around in a jungle afraid of a large prey animal and there it is and it might come in the form of an actual lion or it might come in the form of a bunch of Instagram comments but it has the same. I remember saying, I feel like I'm always about to be, like a bear has just scared me. And I feel that way all the time. And you're right, the thing that I always think about, when I was writing this book and I thought, is it self-indulgent to sort of reflect on fame and public perception, but you hear stories all the time about people who are defined by one moment and it might be in ninth grade and it might be in the worst night of their life when they drank the most in college.

Speaker 2:
[20:59] Or I don't know if you've read the New York Times piece or seen anything with Christine Cabot, who was at the Coldplay Concert. Yes. I mean, that's like a narrative that runs away from you.

Speaker 1:
[21:10] That story struck me profoundly because she was going through a really complicated moment in her marriage. She had separated, but not public about it. And she began this relationship that was meaningful to her. And before it could even become anything, before it could even, there was this moment that was turned on her, and she said, you know, my children are traumatized. My ex-husband is traumatized. We have received death threats. I can't go out of my house. And I think, and it's interesting because we live in this time that's very, where people are very free with their opinions, but they're also incredibly rigid and moralistic.

Speaker 2:
[21:51] That's interesting.

Speaker 1:
[21:52] Which you experienced deeply, which is people's judgment. And, you know, one of my grandmother's favorite things today was like, you can't see behind anyone's bedroom doors. Everybody feels, you think everyone's perfect, but, and so often people's judgment comes from the thing that they are most afraid that they are. Like any woman who's going to say to another woman, you stepped out of your marriage, you're an absolute whore, what's going on with you has some really complicated feelings about their own sexuality, their own place in the world. Cause I have a feeling you feel similarly like it would never occur to me to go on the internet and say anything to anyone. And I would never.

Speaker 2:
[22:33] No, I might be catty with my best friend. Of course. Right? And you know, but the idea, and to a stranger is just a.

Speaker 1:
[22:42] I will definitely be catty with my best friend. I like to always say, I'm going to hell, but, and then insert thing I'm going to hell for. But the idea of going online, and I do think when I try to be empathic, maybe towards, which I've tried to put myself in the place of like, what is it that these people are experiencing? And I do think that people feel so powerless in their lives in so many different ways in the time we live in, in so much fear that there is a way that sometimes those kinds of comments create some illusion of control or power that they...

Speaker 2:
[23:20] It's interesting because I think that what social media really has done has mapped people's underlying beliefs.

Speaker 1:
[23:30] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[23:31] And so we see the best and the worst of people, and it's up to us to figure out what do we want to do with that. Yeah. You know? And I don't know that we're on the right path to doing that.

Speaker 1:
[23:52] I remember when I was in high school, I was not the coolest girl in high school. I went to a high school full of cool kids, and it was an independent and free thinking place, but still, high school will be high school, no matter where you are. And high school kids are always gonna have their kind of Lord of the Flies energy. And I remember there was a very popular boy, and we had all recently gotten cell phones, that's how old I am. We had new, like little-

Speaker 2:
[24:17] That's how young you are.

Speaker 1:
[24:18] We'd all gotten our first cell phones, and I'm like, you know, you give your number out at school. But it was still like, you didn't, it wasn't like I had everyone's number saved. And one night I got a voicemail, and it was someone through a vocoder had said, you're fat and you deserve to die. And I remember just like, I couldn't believe, I had never heard anything like that. I remember going upstairs, like shaking, playing it for my parents. Someone told me who it was. And I remember I went up to him at school and I said, you can't say something like that to me. And he said, I can say anything I want. And I remember that feeling of powerlessness and rage. And I could have maybe taken that and hurt people, hurt people. And then what was so interesting was that that felt like, at that point, like the pinnacle of shame. And then when I put the show out, it was that all day. I talk in the book about feeling like, there was a period where I went, my name doesn't even belong to me anymore. It's like a joke. I'm watching a TV show I like, and I'm a punchline in the TV show. And suddenly a comedian I like is making jokes about me. And him going, I watched this show. There's this girl, she's the ugliest little girl in the world. Why are we watching this little fat girl? And being like, okay, there it is. Like there it is. And getting, and I felt like my parents had given me this name with so much care and consideration and there it was. And it was just a joke. And I had to find a way to be like, yes, my name is Lena Dunham and that is okay. That's okay. So I love that you did that.

Speaker 2:
[25:51] Actually, there's, I have this, there's a great quote, let me find it, that I really liked and connected to. So you talk about how your name entered and you call it, I want to get it right, the spin cycle of mass media. And then you said that your name, quote, became a mark of excellence, then a signifier of a certain kind of millennial absurdity. And finally a punchline that felt more like a slur.

Speaker 1:
[26:16] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[26:17] And I just, it was really interesting to me because like my experience was the opposite, but having, there are not a lot of people who have both ends of the spectrum, you know?

Speaker 1:
[26:32] Well, it's interesting because now when someone says your name, it's like this morning when I was like, I've got to be able to make words for Queen Monica Lewinsky. Like, you are what you say on the cup. Like you are a signifier of reclamation, the thoughtfulness with which you have engaged. And what I'm so impressed by is you've not just engaged your own story or kind of reworked that, but also worked really hard to engage with other women who have been through things that may not be identical and also work with them to do the challenging and investigative kind of procedure that is involved with underst- and also, I think a huge amount of why we are revisiting, whether it's how we treated teenage girls, the paparazzi treated teenage girls in the early 2000s, or how we talked about people's bodies, or how we talked about people's sex lives, is because of the proactive work that you have done to change the narrative. You didn't wait for people to go, you know what, one of my least favorite things that people say is they go, we did you dirty. You didn't wait for people to go, we did Monica Lewinsky dirty, and you also didn't come out swinging. You came out with this deeply considered, very psychologically rich and complex story, and then wanted to help other women do the same. That's amazing.

Speaker 2:
[28:02] Well, I think many of us who are storytellers, who are also in the public eye, you are storyteller, capital S.

Speaker 1:
[28:12] You emerged as a storyteller after having your story told to you so many times.

Speaker 2:
[28:16] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[28:16] I think that's wild about being a young woman is you start out with all this hope and sense of your own promise and excitement, and a lot of times that is swiftly revoked. It's like, I always say the worst feeling is like when you're dancing joyfully, then you accidentally hit your head on something and you're so embarrassed. And that's what I feel like being a young woman is. It's like you're dancing joyfully and then you hit your head and you go, oh my god, this is insane. And being consumed and then having to rebuild yourself in the wake of that and be a person that you, and not just rebuild yourself, but rebuild yourself as a person that you can respect, which involves removing the voices, and I'm sure they still come back sometimes, of all of the people who, again, if we had reality TV cameras in their house, we might have a different situation. And I mean, I was just saying, I was just saying to my hair and makeup team, so saying how excited I was to talk to you. And I was like, if people knew who I was blowing when I was 21, do you know? I mean, it's so dark.

Speaker 2:
[29:22] Well, you talk about it in the book, right? I mean, I haven't finished, but I'm, I'm.

Speaker 1:
[29:27] Yes, you're in there.

Speaker 2:
[29:29] I'm in there.

Speaker 1:
[29:29] And when I refer to myself as a blowjob queen.

Speaker 2:
[29:32] Yes, I know. I was like, that's what I thought.

Speaker 1:
[29:38] A fellow blowjob queen and I never dreamed that I would meet the best.

Speaker 2:
[29:43] I'm really not. I'm not going to let my parents listen to this episode.

Speaker 1:
[29:46] The best and the brightest.

Speaker 2:
[29:47] I'm really not.

Speaker 1:
[29:48] But, and that's okay. But I think a big part of it for me was I was, when I finally became sexually active, I didn't have a straw. I mean, I'd come out of, you know, I had some traumatic experiences. I didn't feel beautiful. And I was sort of like, anyone who's interested, if you basically my defining quality was, do you seem vaguely attracted to me? That is enough. And it's really, I mean, I look back and I really think until I met my husband, when I was 35 years old, I actually did not know what it was like to be in a reciprocal dynamic of real affection. I thought that being criticized, being picked apart, I mean, I dated a guy I remember, I just remembered this, that when I was 25, he said, you're really cute, you should never show your knees. And I was like, he's trying to help me. He's trying to help me.

Speaker 2:
[30:38] Oh, yeah. I mean, I've had so many, I shouldn't like you because you're fat, but I find you attractive. Or I have to leave because I'm thinking in the middle of sex because I'm thinking about somebody else.

Speaker 1:
[30:52] Or, and I was always making excuses. What you're describing is, I mean, it's shocking me because you're, anyone would be lucky to be in your space. But I really accepted that. And it's interesting because I have an amazing relationship with my father. He really bigged me up. But I actually think that I went into the world expecting this kind of, my father is a, I mean, it was, he was the person who braided your hair before school. He was the person who took you to the doctor. My mom is a complete, like, she's a top. And I, and I, so I thought that everyone was going to be this, like, modern, evolved, feminist, thoughtful, engaged, and, like, open to dialogue. And that was not even the cool liberal arts boys I met were not that. And I put myself, and I talk about this in the book, in a lot of situations that were really damaging and involved complete dissociation to be able to get through them. And I also, I'm embarrassed by how much I invested in the idea that being close to a guy who was cool, smart, normatively attractive, that it inferred some kind of worth on me. Like, I remember when I had my public breakup thinking, this is going to affirm what everybody thinks, which is I'm unlovable and I'm unappealing. And I loved this person, but also being with them was a marker that I am okay. My boyfriend was successful and handsome and likeable. And it meant that I was all of those things too. And having to spend, I mean, I spent a good period, really, really, really profoundly single, like alone with your hairless dog all the time single. And that was huge because I had to build back my sense of myself as a viable person without that. And by the time that I met my husband, I was comfortable with the idea that maybe that wasn't going to be, I wasn't going to be in a traditional relationship and that that would be okay. And I'm sort of not in a traditional relationship. I'm in a relationship that has its own contours and things and works for the way I am. But I didn't even know that was possible.

Speaker 2:
[33:03] Yeah. You said, I'm going to find it because you said this really interesting thing with the announcement of Famesick on Instagram. And one of the things you said that you talk about the lessons, I no longer feel ashamed of having had to learn. Yeah. Does that fall into that category? Are there others? Like what felt?

Speaker 1:
[33:26] That falls into that category, not necessarily knowing how to be in an interview or speak. I looked around and I thought, all of these girls are so, I remember there was a year that I was going to award shows. The other girls I saw were amazing, talented. Emma Stone, Jennifer Lawrence, Brie Larson, and they seem to know how to be elegant and powerful. Of course, all of these women have their own. Jennifer Lawrence has spoken extensively about her own traumas around public life. But at the time, I thought, why am I this dummy who has to constantly be taught lessons on a public scale? Why can I not seem to keep my foot out of my mouth? The same part of me that didn't know how to be at a sleepover party doesn't know how to be here. And then there were the lessons that I learned about taking care of my body. Yes, I had health issues, but the relentlessness with which I worked, coupled with the way that I treated myself, whether it was with food or drugs or alcohol or sex, did not help. And so I felt like by the time I got into my 30s, I felt like I was 70. I was like, I have just, it's like a ship that it just crashed against the rocks and all that was left was like three boards. And I mean, I'm sure that you have your own version of this, which is having to, the lessons that you've had to learn, in some way they're universal and in some ways, they're deeply specific to you. And you don't, you know, when you were sitting with another group of women, they may not have all been presenting similar quandaries.

Speaker 2:
[34:55] But it's interesting because what comes up for me is one of your gifts is, and I might have already said this, is keen observation. Like I heard you say, I think it might have been on Armchair Expert maybe. But I heard you say this thing where you were like, hold on, it was first day of school outfit energy or something. And I was like, oh my God.

Speaker 1:
[35:22] We all know.

Speaker 2:
[35:23] But that's your gift. And so first of all, I'm sure you were great in those settings. But also, when you're observing and you're like pulling in and it's going through your Lena machine, you know, it's going to, you know, I think that you're going to be reflecting things that other people don't because you're observing in a way that most people don't. And that comes with feeling deeply too.

Speaker 1:
[35:54] It does. And I've realized a lot. Thank you for saying that. And something I've realized is part of the reason that I was so sort of obsessive. I always felt like an outsider, whether I was or whether I wasn't. I always felt like I was kind of watching the room from the ceiling and I, and also kind of recording things as I went. And so a lot of my writing has been just an effort to understand other people, to understand human behavior, to understand the things that are confusing to me in life. And that is very, I think that it's taken me a while to realize that part of sort of this obsessive cataloging actually comes from not necessarily feeling like, because if you're in the middle of the scene raging, all you have is like your great memories of dancing and champagne. But I was always, and you know, there's that Nora Ephron book, Wallflower at the Orgy. I always felt like the Wallflower at the Orgy. I was not the central participant in the Orgy.

Speaker 2:
[36:50] Same, same, which is part of why I think I was susceptible, not that I was manipulated, but susceptible to making decisions that were not great. Because I was like, the prom king is looking at me? What? I would have had, you know, I mean...

Speaker 1:
[37:10] I would have and did have the same reaction anytime someone who seemed like they had any authority looked at me, whether it was with romantic partners, whether it was professional, whether it was the doctors, anyone who seemed like they came in and knew what the fuck was going on. I went, okay, I'm with you. And I often found myself in situations that did not feel safe as a result.

Speaker 2:
[37:33] Right.

Speaker 1:
[37:33] And a huge part of adulthood, and I wonder if you feel has been trusting my own intuition and also not being so dissociate. Like often, it wasn't that I was going, I've got a bad feeling and I looking, writing the book, I thought, this is like the girl who goes into the basement in the horror movie and you go, don't go in there.

Speaker 2:
[37:50] Right.

Speaker 1:
[37:51] But she's a slut, she has to die. That's literally what it feels like. And some level of starting to actually, not just trust me and things, but actually tap into the part of myself that has them. There was a long time I thought, I just have bad intuition. Like I must not really have this thing that everyone else has. But I think sometimes we don't trust it, we don't trust ourselves. And then it takes a really long time to get that back. And I'm curious, I was thinking about you, because someone asked me recently, what's something people don't understand about you? And I was like, even though I made this show that was very sex forward and in conversation about it, I'm actually kind of shy and a little bit of a prude. And I was, and it's interesting when you're known for, people used to come up to me and be like, here are my sex stories. Or men would feel really comfortable talking to me in this kind of like body bordering on inappropriate way, because they thought she's cool, she can handle it. And actually, I have this part of me that's just like a nervous kid and is like, what, you want me to do what? And I wonder if you relate to that at all.

Speaker 2:
[38:55] I do. And I think-

Speaker 1:
[38:57] Not to say you're a prude.

Speaker 2:
[38:58] No, no, I mean, I am sometimes, but I have a really body sense of humor and that sometimes throws people because they'll sort of seem prudish or prim.

Speaker 1:
[39:06] And then I'm like, well, you're also very self-aware. And you're also very, what I love about the way you move in the public world is like, you're not afraid to make the joke to say, I always had the instinct. I want to say the thing before anybody else does. And, but you do it in a really elegant way.

Speaker 2:
[39:23] Oh, thank you. It's interesting, because what's coming up for me, and I wonder about, I know you've talked about having had sexual violations younger, and in your, even though you're almost 40, not quite.

Speaker 1:
[39:46] I'm a couple months away, so I can still cash in those 39 chips.

Speaker 2:
[39:50] Yeah, so still a baby. So much younger than me, I'm 52. But generationally, we didn't have, like, the kids growing up now, there's language for everything. There's observation. And so I think that we sort of came up in a time where we did just associate. And so it's just very interesting to me to watch women, this sort of like Gen X millennial women, grappling with these things that defined our lives, and older generations too, but they don't even look at it. They're like...

Speaker 1:
[40:29] We didn't, around your kind of first brush with public, so we didn't have any words for kind of complicated power dynamics.

Speaker 2:
[40:38] No, slut shaming, fat shaming, none of it.

Speaker 1:
[40:41] None of it. It was all free. And then, you know, I am always so thrilled when I meet younger women who have all of this language to define. And not that it makes being a young woman easier, but at least means we have a way to actually communicate our experiences. And, you know, my parents were as, as I said, they were, they really told me. But I thought sexual assault was someone bops you over the head and drags you into an alley. And of course, it can be that. But I didn't understand. I mean, I talked in my first book about my experience of being raped in college and how that was an experience I didn't even have a name for because I knew the person and because I had chosen to drink and I had chosen to drink after I took a weird pill that my friend had. And so I thought everything that's happened, I have brought upon myself. And I remember the feeling of like sitting in the bathtub from midnight to noon the next day, just like staring ahead. And it took a friend, me recounting the experience and her giving me words for it. And even then, when I wrote about it in my book in 2014, it was still a period of time where it was okay to debate whether what was being described was a, my biggest fear was that people would go, this actually isn't what she says it is, she brought it upon herself. And then those were exactly the conversations. I mean, I was asked those kinds of questions. I would remember going on a radio show in Boston, someone going, do you feel though, because you were drinking, that you can't? And now I'm so glad that there are words for it. There are hard words, but there's words.

Speaker 2:
[42:21] Yeah. I mean, I'm very curious to see, sort of with these younger generations, like what does their trauma, I mean, they'll have trauma from COVID, like being in high school during COVID. But what does their trauma look like because it had names? And so did they sort of dissociate less? I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[42:40] Could they identify things in the moment? Could they, did they have words to say, no, I don't want that, no, I don't like that? Because for me, an issue was just, and I wasn't even in my body enough to be able to say, I mean, I remember, I remember in that incident, saying the word no and thinking it was a really big deal. I had never really had an experience in my life where I said no and someone didn't listen. And how, what, it was the physical version of I can say whatever I want to you. And realizing that I didn't have that power that maybe I felt that I had. And it was very early in my, I was a late, very late bloomer. How old were you again, if you don't mind me asking? No, of course I was 20. But I had lost my opportunity maybe four months earlier. It was so new to me. I was still like someone who had just gotten their learner's permit. And so it defined everything that came after because I didn't have any positive memories to look back on. I had like awkwardly losing my virginity in a dorm room and then that. And those are, so that's not enough to have like, as you said, files, memories of positive sexual experiences. And so after that, I didn't really know that it was supposed, I knew, okay, some people seem to think this feels good. Some people seem to like it. Maybe if I practice enough, I can get there. But I sort of thought about sex like, okay, you hold your nose and you jump on in. And it took me a really long time. And it's interesting to look back on girls because I realize all of the sex, even though there's lots of it and many iterations, is awkward, embarrassing, bordering on terrifying. There's not a lot of depictions of sexual pleasure there, because I didn't really know.

Speaker 2:
[44:28] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[44:29] I didn't really know.

Speaker 2:
[44:30] Do you think, like, it's interesting because you're sort of painting this picture of a young woman who, from emotional reaction, is with a lot of different people for different, you know, sort of the, you're interested, okay, let's go.

Speaker 1:
[44:47] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[44:48] And also sort of the kind of the prudish. And so, and having had this experience, does it feel to you like you were almost choosing these things so you were in control in a way?

Speaker 1:
[45:02] I do think that. And I think something that I've connected with other women about is the idea that if you have a really traumatic experience and then you sort of reify it by kind of choosing it in different ways that somehow you've erased the one that came before. Like you can, you can change the past by saying, but I made all of these choices and that was one of them. And I think as a woman, as anyone, realizing your own powerlessness and that other people can make choices that you reject and they can do, that you can say no and someone can do it anyway, is a real turning point in life was for me. And also, you know, I was lucky that I didn't come from a family where people were abusive to each other. I didn't come from a family where I was hit or where I was screamed at. And so I came from a family that was pretty emotionally engaged and gentle. And so it really, and I wasn't, I wasn't someone who had like witnessed violence in any way. And so it was really, and that's late 20 to kind of figure out that that's what the world looks like. But it felt like at the time, it felt like there was the time before and there was the time after. And I know that you know that feeling, which is like three days ago, my life was normal. And now it's not.

Speaker 2:
[46:22] And it'll never be the same again.

Speaker 1:
[46:24] Yeah. And there's a lot of grief in that.

Speaker 2:
[46:27] Yeah. And I think one of the things that's really interesting about some of the public conversations we seem to be having, or at least Instagram memes I get, is like around the sort of fullness of grief that we're in the same way that PTSD sort of was only for a veteran, you know, someone who had seen war, who was in a tsunami or, you know what? And now we understand the many layers. I think we're seeing that about grief. It's not just death. And we're never taught. I think that's a thing too. We were not taught how to grief.

Speaker 1:
[47:02] Well, we also live in a culture that's so avoidant about, I mean, if you think about it, all we want to do is look young, stay fit, and avoid the inevitable thing. I think having illness in my life at a young age has actually been a very amazing teacher in that I had to get comfortable with the idea that our bodies are always in some way moving. I mean, we have our youth and we grow, and then we're kind of decaying as we live, and it's actually okay. And I think some of the healthiest cultures have a relationship. It's very Western to pretend that death isn't happening. And a lot of the cultures where there is kind of the most full spiritual practice are actually looking at that all the time. There's terms for what it is to kind of look at death or look at change, and then rejoice in what you have. And but we aren't taught to grieve, and we're also taught this kind of kind of polyannish positivity. And then we, and I don't know about you, but like there are things that I feel sometimes that I've dealt with. And then I'll be like, you know, I was out of New York for a lot of years in London, and then I came back for work, and I was like standing on a street corner, it was like just the way the wind blew, and there was a smell in the air, and it was a time of year. And suddenly I was like, I'm crying, because it just reminded me of a time in my life that, where things changed rapidly. And you can be really happy in your life, and also accept that there are certain things that you lost that may be like, there's so many things in all of our lives that just aren't fair, and that are hard to assign reason to, and that we might feel, we might feel intermittent grief about that for ever.

Speaker 2:
[48:52] Or two things at once. I mean, I think what comes up for me is a memory of there's like this block of highway going to Pasadena. And in my dark decade, I would drive that stretch of highway a lot.

Speaker 1:
[49:10] Just to be by yourself.

Speaker 2:
[49:12] Well, more just to take up time of the day, because I had no purpose. And so it was like, okay, what am I going to do to get through today? I, all right, so I belong to a gym out there. I would go to the movies out there because at least that would take 45 minutes, you know, at least each way. And I had this experience of being back on the highway. And exactly as you're talking about, the sort of the, there was something, I hadn't been on it in a long time. I used to be on it so much. And the moment of holding both the gratitude for how much things had changed, but the sorrow for like, what, that life, that period.

Speaker 1:
[49:55] That life and also that huge chunk of your life, which like this beautiful, capable person felt like, I just need to take up 45 minutes so I can... I mean, did you have that sort of feeling where you're like, okay, I guess that I just want to get through the day so I can get back in bed?

Speaker 2:
[50:09] Yeah. I mean, my depression has always... My depression and my trauma, however they mix, has... I don't know why, I've just... Maybe I could count five times that I couldn't get out of bed. Wow. That's amazing. Maybe it's because being in bed would be with myself too much.

Speaker 1:
[50:31] So actually being in the world and trying to fill that time...

Speaker 2:
[50:34] Was distracting, was healthier for me.

Speaker 1:
[50:37] Of course. And what's interesting is, what you're describing, I'm driving, I'm going to the gym, I'm going to the movies, sounds like a very full life. But for you, it actually wasn't because... I'm sure you've talked about this publicly, but was there a moment where you had your dark decade and was there... Can you point to a specific kind of turning point where you were like, this is... Or did you just look out at the Vista one day and go, this has changed?

Speaker 2:
[51:01] Well, I think that there was a period that... I don't know that there was one moment. I think there were a number of things that sort of lined up in a period of doing this work on myself and my dark decade. And I had to... I think probably the biggest lesson aside from forgiving myself, all the other, you know, the stuff we all hear, was having to reconcile, I was not going to be able to get rid of public Monica Lewinsky and my history. And I had to integrate her and I had to accept her. And so that was sort of the deep work, you know, the kind of... then the resonance consciousness work of like trying to heal my field energetically from what had happened.

Speaker 1:
[51:50] Heal your nervous system, heal the space around you.

Speaker 2:
[51:53] Exactly.

Speaker 1:
[51:54] What's so beautiful though is in sort of like swallowing up the public Monica Lewinsky and going, I'm going to make her a part of my life, you freed a lot of space for other people. Everyone is dealing with a moment. Someone asked me, because I describe a moment of very deep shame in the book and how hard it was for me to even look at it. And they said like, do you feel like you've forgiven yourself? And I was like, what I wanted to express wasn't even have I forgiven myself or not, but that it's okay to have something that you wish had never happened. You feel either, but you betrayed yourself, you betrayed your values, you betrayed someone you love. And also acknowledge that, connect to it, and still believe that you are a person who is worthy of happiness and worthy of a big full life.

Speaker 2:
[52:41] Right. What was the moment?

Speaker 1:
[52:43] The moment was one moment when I said something publicly. Most of the time when people responded to things I said publicly, it was like, I look back and I'm like, that is the silliest thing I've ever heard. Like it was just like a girl saying girl stuff. But there was one thing that really did affect other people and that, and I sort of only hinted it in the book because I feel like I want to also respect their privacy, but it was a moment where I said something because I was, for so many different reasons, I was so disconnected from my own center, that I said something that actually really didn't connect to who I am and what I, which is human, which we all do.

Speaker 2:
[53:22] It's just not always recorded.

Speaker 1:
[53:24] It happens and it was recorded and it was just a moment where I didn't fully live my own values and in the process hurt other people. It's funny when I wrote about it in the book because they didn't name it, my father was like, you're making it sound like you murdered somebody. And I was like, I didn't, but I did something that was really thoughtless, careless and regrettable. But I also had to get to, I think we have these two modes as people, which is you either want to be defensive and excuse something or we want to pulverize ourselves for the rest of time, like someone flogging their back to serve God.

Speaker 2:
[54:05] Put on the hair shirt, the designer hair shirt.

Speaker 1:
[54:07] Exactly, all of it. And it's like you can know that there are moments that you aired in a human way and try to make amends for them in the best way you know how. And also not punish yourself because, you know, punish, there's actually something, I think, when you're young and you make a mistake and you want to punish yourself and punish yourself and relook, relitigate it and relook at yourself and you don't realize you're like actually wasting my own precious time on this planet. Sometimes we can't control it, but wasting my own time. Like that is not going to give anyone back anything.

Speaker 2:
[54:47] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[54:47] And we all will be best if we all like move towards our happiness. And I think for a long time, I thought, well, if I experience joy or if my life is too good, that I'm not properly expressing.

Speaker 2:
[55:00] Oh, that's interesting.

Speaker 1:
[55:01] Like that, you know, and maybe I just didn't feel, for a long time, I just, and this is something that I'm still examining. Why did I not feel worthy of it? And why did I sort of reaffirm that in so many different ways? And the thing you said about, that it's been about sort of making peace with this public self.

Speaker 2:
[55:22] What do you feel like in today's world, sort of, what is woman in today's world? Like, how do we understand feminism right now? I know those are like really big questions.

Speaker 1:
[55:37] They're like the questions, because it's interesting. And I came from a household where the kind of feminism was sort of in the fabric of what it was. My mom was part of this group called WAC, Women's Action Coalition, which was a downtown group of like cool artists ladies who would go and hold hands around abortion clinics and help usher people in or protest in, you know, I was like protesting things in DC when I was a little kid. And I did not know what I was protesting. I was just there with a button. I have a shirt that's like, like, you know, says Women's Action Coalition with like a Barbara Kruger image of women being hauled to jail, like in the suffragette women being hauled to jail. Like it was a big conversation, but also we now know how limited that conversation was, because even an image of suffragettes is like, those are women who were really fighting hard for the rights of very specific kind of women, while they were not fighting for women of color's right to vote. So we know that even this, this sort of second wave feminism that was so, felt like such a defining characteristic of my youth, was not, as we now know the word, intersectional, was not touching on those ideas. And then when I was doing Girls, feminism kind of became this like poppy, commodified, like there was a period of time where every week I was getting sent like underpants that said feminist, a sweater that said, I feel like all I had in my closet for like six years were like free things that said like, I am a feminist, the future is female, right? And then like any poppy moment or it started to feel like a trend, and it all starts to feel I think very hollow for people. And also, you know, the Me Too movement was such a complicated moment where women were not only confronting men, but also confronting each other in the way that they had failed each other. And then we moved past that. And what's interesting now is these conversations about now we have more conversations than ever about what gender is, but also this sort of to use a very internet word, gatekeeping of what being female is, which is this kind of, you know, we know the word turf, like what it is to kind of say if you haven't been female in this extremely specific way that involves biology, then you are not welcome at this party.

Speaker 2:
[57:47] I had Dylan Milvaney on recently. And, you know, it's an amazing, her story is amazing. And I think what she's...

Speaker 1:
[57:56] She's incredible. And what she experienced...

Speaker 2:
[57:59] Also publicly.

Speaker 1:
[57:59] Publicly. And she did it so elegantly.

Speaker 2:
[58:02] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[58:03] And as someone who had...

Speaker 2:
[58:03] But not without a cost.

Speaker 1:
[58:05] Not without a cost. And, you know, as someone who has, you know, I have multiple nuclear trans family members. It's a big, it's been a big education for me to see, to be around that. I think, you know, I got to go speak at Trans Day of Visibility in DC last year with this amazing group called the Christopher Street Project. And the thing I expressed was just how having a trans sibling, having trans people in my life has really opened up in this most expansive way. It's like, I feel like I see in 4D now about the possibilities of what all of us hold, this incredibly complicated. Each of us have our own specific gender that has to do with our experiences, that has to do with how we felt as little kids, that has to do with how we see ourselves, how we see other people, how we want to interact. And so I think it's interesting right now, feminism has never been more multifaceted and nuanced and expansive, but it's also deeply under threat. And we're having these conversations yet can't seem to dictate actual laws that affect our bodies. And so it's a really, really, it's always a complicated time to be a woman. But it's a very, I think, a very complicated, but has a real rich vein of possibility, at least for dialogue. I'm curious how you feel.

Speaker 2:
[59:29] I think terrified in some ways, because it feels to me as if I think, you know, rolling back row felt like to me, oh, this is the first time we've actually really gone backward.

Speaker 1:
[59:42] I had the exact same feeling.

Speaker 2:
[59:43] And so I think that for Gen X, it was like, well, it just keeps, you know, we just keep getting more and more and we're all working towards having more and more. And I had seen such complicated angles of feminism. Of course.

Speaker 1:
[59:59] And you'd seen people who considered themselves feminists turn on you. You had people who were ubiquitous, sort of powerful women, like not honor your story.

Speaker 2:
[60:11] Right. And so I think that there's, it feels terrifying in that way. And I guess I sometimes worry about, I feel like with women, it's almost the same as Democrats, like we just eat our own and we just get in our own way so often. But I also feel, you know, that we are going to have to find a way forward. I just don't.

Speaker 1:
[60:37] To find a way forward. And you know, a friend of mine recently said, she's like, I think women do so much shaming of each other. You know how there's so much I see with my friends who are moms, the amount of judgment people feel comfortable placing on each other's parenting. And not in these big, you know, I thought judgment on parenting was like, don't slap your kid in public. Yeah, but it's like, are you breastfeeding? How did you hold your child? Where did they sleep?

Speaker 2:
[61:02] What kind of birth did you have?

Speaker 1:
[61:04] All of it. And it's like, we want to just like flay each other for these choices that are super personal. Women who live a certain kind of life are judgmental of women they consider to be trad wives and women they consider, and our inability to sort of like link arms and like look at each other. And also, I think there was a real moment that was really important, which is when people started kind of calling out the idea of like white feminism or exclusive feminism and how defensive people got. And I always felt like if somebody had something to say about the limitations of my worldview, I was really interested to hear it because part of being human is wanting to expand and expand and expand, not contract. And so when I see people become so defensive and unable to hear other women, it makes me, I just think they're missing out on something that's really positive.

Speaker 2:
[61:56] I think one of the things that I had not understood until the last few years, till some of these conversations was, I think I naively thought of the patriarchy of just being men, you know, just being men sort of ruling and controlling and all of those things. And the reality is that it's so much more layered that women play a part in keeping the patriarchy going. So I, you know, I think that change is going to have to be enormous. I think, I don't know what the right strategy is, I don't know. I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[62:37] I don't think anyone has the road map. I think it involves collaboration and collaboration is hard.

Speaker 2:
[62:42] Yeah, yeah. So the last question I ask everybody is in, you know, we use a very elastic definition here at Reclaiming, but is there anything you are currently, I mean, it feels silly because your memoir is that, but anything that you are currently working on Reclaiming, and it could be a thing, an emotion, a hobby, anything.

Speaker 1:
[63:04] That's such a great question. I think recently I've been working really hard on Reclaiming. You know, I worked really hard to get back my sense of joy in my work and my sense of freedom in my art. And lately I've really been Reclaiming like who I was when I was a little kid. Like that feeling of just feeling like you could sit in your room forever, dreaming, thinking. You know, I have a lot, I have pet pigs and rabbits. I love to paint. I love to dance. And these things that sort of go away when you enter the adult world and you start to take on other people's definitions of achievement. You take on other people's definitions of what it is to be an appropriate adult. And that part of me, I had so much fun just being with myself and my own mind. And you know, if I'm lucky enough to be a parent, that is what the thing I would want to hold on to most in my children. I just think it's why I love having friends with kids is just to be with that imagination. And I think that has been a sort of recent approaching 40 joyful reclamation that is ongoing. And I hear that voice in my head that's like, what should you be doing right now? It should be more efficient. You should be, you know, what you should be behaving X, Y, or Z way. And just really leaning into that, that playful, happy confidence that we have before it sort of gets grabbed from us.

Speaker 2:
[64:34] Yeah. Well, you can feel freedom on you.

Speaker 1:
[64:37] That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me. That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me.

Speaker 2:
[64:43] I'm excited to finish reading Famesick. Thank you for even starting. This was so great.

Speaker 1:
[64:47] I love talking to you. And I just want to say, I deeply admire you. If I was the queen, you would be a dame. You would have a big pin and you'd be a dame. And you'd have, and I just am so happy. I can smell freedom on you. And I love that you are so, you're so present and you're so warm. And so many people would take those experiences and calcify and shut down. And like, thank you for this space and for who you are.

Speaker 2:
[65:17] Thanks Lena.

Speaker 1:
[65:18] Thank you, Monica.

Speaker 2:
[65:19] Now, now I get to give you your crystal out there too.

Speaker 1:
[65:21] Oh my god, I get a crystal. Yes, love crystals.