Being a member of the cast of Not Your Mother’s Monologues was a magical kind of thing. I hadn’t performed in the theatre since I was Clark in my elementary school’s production of Lewis and Clark, the musical. Yes, it essentially was Kids Bop: Hamilton the Musical, except unabashedly historically inaccurate and two members of the play nearly passed out from heat stroke since they were wearing full fur coats. Not Your Mother’s Monologue was nothing like that. Cate Rosen, Tatjana Jovanovic, and Liana Baker did that. They have been planning the monologues since the fall and the performances would not have existed without the tremendous amount of dedication and love from these three powerful womyn had.
These monologues voiced the multiplicity of womyn individualities in the St. Lawrence community and beyond. We have range. We can be hard and soft, dynamic or deliberately self-assured. We can think and ask questions that transcend the monotony of complacent assurances that “everything is fine”.
Post monologues and Teal Week, I think it is necessary to reflect. Although I would feel incredibly narcissistic and self-righteous contemplating this in a column instead of in pages of a journal tucked carefully under my pillow, the monologues have compelled me to find worth in my reflections of my own experiences. Doing so can instigate conversation and allow for the ebb and flow of opinions by sparking necessary recognition of similarities and differences simultaneously. The monologues helped remind us of the importance of openness: open mouths, open ears, open hearts, and open and consenting legs. We reluctantly admit to our own emotions and experiences. We are embarrassed by love, lust, and our pursuits. We treat words like vagina, labia, unacceptable, hurt, lube, like they are obscenities. Instead, we stumble and blush through wordless intimate interactions. We know that people have historically fought, died, and sacrificed for love and lust, but we’re unwilling to linger and articulate its names. We lack the will to exercise our vocabulary and we lack the mental and societal spaces in which we can talk or think about it directly.
Everybody’s voices need to be heard. We need to give love and sex words, and not try to mimic or express the voices of others but rather, we need to bolster them. These words, feelings, and uncertainties shouldn’t be confined to monologues planned and projected under theatrical lighting (even though every time I think about the monologues I laugh and cry). We have these stories, so let the brave womyn who performed at NYMM inspire you to express yours! These conversations need to happen in car rides, on walks to class, over quesadillas, and nestled in those retro, comfy chairs. We shouldn’t be afraid to express what we want or lament over what we feel. So ask, if your vagina could talk, what would it say? Would it wear lip gloss? Do your clitoris and your heart beat to the same rhythm? How do you feel about love? When do you feel like you became a woman? What the hell is snowballing? What do you want? And you? You too!