Menopause Mind

and considering a menopause manifesto...

They say its fog and its true I’ve missed things that have mattered, I’ve cried over what is lost - a sense of linear thought, remembering dates and times, understanding complex instructions that used to seem a breeze, but also perhaps the fog shrouds things that bore me, that no longer matter, my mind occupied with the change in some underworld way.

I can’t help that the bird song distracts me, I can hear what they are saying like never before. I can’t help that the turning surface of the stream calls to me, I will stare at it for eons - trance slips over me so easily now. I strive to invite it as a blanket of remembering. Yes that’s it, I’m not forgetting, I’m remembering, all the grandmothers tugging at my machine woven sleeve, with stories of yarn made of real spinning, cloths made of focussed weaving. Some say that there are no stories for menopause because so few passed through this phase, yet we have witches and crones, dark figures who will trick you, trap you, suck the life out of you. We have fairy godmothers waving magic wands for wishes and women who help young women with their tasks of spinning and weaving, helping them gain their desired husbands. Perhaps the tales that spoke of the process have mostly been forgotten, but where do stories come from anyway? Our bodies, our souls, the land - they’re still there, we only have to reach back and receive the remembering.

So leave me here entranced by bird song, watching the water moving, an invisible grandmother at my side whispering words of guidance in my ear.