14
Be the Mermaid with a Megaphone
The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.
—Coco Chanel
I was in World Market last week, and I was drawn to this display of journals. The one that immediately caught my eye has a mermaid on the cover. She has her right hand on her hip and her left hand is holding a megaphone up to her mouth. She’s cutting her eyes toward you as you hold the journal, and she looks generally like she’s about to kick butt in her powder blue eyeshadow and pink and blue tail.
I love her. And at the risk of sounding like a total narcissist, the longer I look at her, the more I think she kind of looks like me. Or I look like her. I can see my eyes in her eyes. I can see my nose in her nose. I can see my lips in her lips.
I can see the brazen me in her, and something about her is daring me.
Graffiti artwork surrounds her. In fact, she’s composed entirely of mixed media graffiti, and I notice that on her neck—maybe where her voice box is located—there’s a small circle with an X in it. As if to say, “Right here. X marks the spot.”
Tumbling out of her megaphone are the following words of Anaïs Nin:
I have no
FEAR
of depths
and a
GREAT
FEAR of
SHALLOW
living.
My daughter Lane has been an especially beautiful toddler and little girl, and I have often had people, strangers, stop and tell me so. When she was four, we were playing at the park and two men approached her, wanting to take her picture. I was immediately uncomfortable with what they were doing. I could feel inside me that they were crossing a boundary. But I could also feel an immediate dis-ease with speaking up.
One of the men was telling her to pose. One of the men was laughing in a way that felt lewd to me.
I froze. A swell of indignation rose up in me, but I choked on the words I intuitively wanted to say. Instead, I heard in my head:
Don’t cause a scene. It’s just a picture. It’s not that big of a deal.
Still, all I wanted to do was scream.
For all the little girls who no one stood up for. For all the lewdness and filth that is in this world. For the objectification. And, probably, for a young Leeana who was screaming from inside me somewhere, asking to be protected, begging for rescue.
Then somehow, the voice inside me that is stronger and more primal than the pleaser climbed up and out of my throat and from some primordial place inside my soul I roared, “NO!”
Maybe it was the voice of God, pushing against the core of my being, reminding me that I am a strong mother, I am a soulful mother. Even with my heart pounding and my hands sweating, I can spread my wings and protect, and it does not matter what the predators of this world think of me. Not for one second.
“NO. NO. NO. You cannot take a picture of her. NO. Please leave. Get away from her. NO. NO. NO.” I flung my arms into the air, shooing the wolves from my baby bird.
And they looked at me with such disgust. Such annoyance. Like I was nothing. Like I had no right to tell them NO. They smirked, looking me up and down, as if I were the biggest joke. And then they finally left.
I wanted to sob. Not because of how they looked at me—though it still makes me want to claw their eyes out—but because I almost didn’t say anything. How many times in my life have I chosen to stay quiet? Chosen to appear nonthreatening? Chosen to keep the peace? Chosen to placate and please and pretend none of it bothered me instead of saying, “NO. NO you cannot. NO I will not. NO it’s not OK”?
You can’t tiptoe into your voice. Whether you’re whispering or you’re shouting, you use it or you don’t. Kinda like a megaphone. Once in a while we have to turn some tables on behalf of those God has put in our hands. Not to make a spectacle for the sake of a spectacle but because one of our spiritual obligations in this world is to be a voice for the voiceless, even if the voiceless is the little girl locked inside us.
Remember, we have been given dominion, charge, and if we are hedging and shrinking we will not be practicing dominion in the ways God has called us to. Reclaiming our voice is about letting the freedom crawl up and out of us in a way that is congruent with our becoming.
It’s a tragedy, an unmitigated tragedy, that some of us didn’t have anyone who picked up the megaphone on our behalf. And we still don’t. The only thing I know to do is to start telling the truth, and start becoming that strong voice we wish we would have had when we were young. I am raising three young children, two of whom are girls, and I consider it one of my greatest honors to walk beside them as they find their one-of-a-kind wild in this world. What’s insanely true, however, is that for me to help them know their voices, I must know mine.
Hiding can look like a thousand different postures and performances, but one of the most egregious is swallowing down our own God-breathed strength.
Reflection & Expression
What are three lies you’re currently telling yourself and others? What are three truths you’d like to be sharing with the people in your world? Your sentences might start this way:
I will no longer . . .
I will begin to . . .
Reflect on a time when you needed someone to stand up for you and they didn’t.
For Your Brazen Board
Find an image of someone using their voice.