"I have learned to listen to what the silence around my abortions has been telling me and I have muted the shame. To be tender, and not severe, with my younger selves, I had to disrupt the silence around my abortions by flooding it with subversion. Because the most subversive thing a woman can do is to talk about her life as if it matters. Because it does."
Because life these days is careening from heartbreak to heartbreak, I'm just now catching up to your essay about abortion, the day after the latest mass shooting atrocity. What you wrote, especially the excerpt, is beautiful and true. It makes me furious and so sad that our voices and our stories are still so subversive.
Thank you for all your essays.
P.S.: have you seen "Portrait of A Lady On Fire"? The film has an abortion subplot, directly inspired by Annie Ernaux. It's also a beautifully told and filmed story about love, sisterhood, and equality, however fleeting.
Essay: Abortion Lies, Secrets, and Silence
"I have learned to listen to what the silence around my abortions has been telling me and I have muted the shame. To be tender, and not severe, with my younger selves, I had to disrupt the silence around my abortions by flooding it with subversion. Because the most subversive thing a woman can do is to talk about her life as if it matters. Because it does."
Because life these days is careening from heartbreak to heartbreak, I'm just now catching up to your essay about abortion, the day after the latest mass shooting atrocity. What you wrote, especially the excerpt, is beautiful and true. It makes me furious and so sad that our voices and our stories are still so subversive.
Thank you for all your essays.
P.S.: have you seen "Portrait of A Lady On Fire"? The film has an abortion subplot, directly inspired by Annie Ernaux. It's also a beautifully told and filmed story about love, sisterhood, and equality, however fleeting.