Tripping the light fantastic.

My father was an auto mechanic. He was complex in character but simple in palette. His favorite meal was a plate of shrimp, extra delight if served three ways: fried, grilled and scampied. I’m using this as an analogy to describe something I haven’t referenced in a while but if you’ve followed me over the years, the mention of menopause shouldn’t induce unrest (unless you’re square in it, then it’s all unrest). So here’s a heaping serving of my menopausal experience, three ways: bodily, spatially, a measure of time. Order up!

I’m observing my post-menopausal body with part confusion, mostly awe. Obvious adjectives fit like sweaty, smelly, hairy but truer is the experience: wild, strong, sinewy, not unlike an adolescent. Until I catch a flap of my arm in my periphery, only then am I reminded that my experience of my body most likely isn’t how I’m perceived. And the blessed difference is the absence of adolescent concern. (I blissfully don’t care!)

Spatially, I feel like I’m returning to nature. My body feels most leveled when I’ve got my fingers in dirt, swapping oxygen with trees. The exaggerated sigh it produces in me is not unlike the scenes of flora taking over fabricated, like signs of the apocalypse in Station 11, a beautiful unclenching. I’m always geographically ambitious (just returned from hiking and lazy-river-ing in a state part) but really, my backyard offers a humble paradise. I’m letting the tendrils wrap round me. The blessed difference is that I’m still very much alive but retreating somewhere, somewhere like home.

When did this start? Was it in 2014 or before I got sober? Did it start five Easters ago when my daughter cracked a cascarón on my head and I cried? They say it’s like childbirth, you forget, forget, I’ve forgotten. My neighbor whose backyard meets with mine is slowly losing her mental stability and she paces, paces, not unlike a caged coyote, like she’s keeping time for the both of us. We’re both wild in our own ways but the blessed difference is my sentient freedom. She doesn’t see her door is open too.

I thought post-menopausal would be the end of something but it’s still growing, growing like a fungus. And I’ve never felt more vital, essential, intimately webbed into my surroundings. If we begin decaying the minute we’re born, I’ve never felt it so acutely. And at the edge of 53, it feels fantastic.

So, tell me the story of your fantastic decay. I’ve got all day. xo