This is My Body, This is My Blood

The Elephant in the Locker Room

When I was nine, I couldn't wait to be ten so I could cross the street without holding my older sister's hand. At ten, I longed for twelve, the age when Mom bought her daughters their first bra whether they needed it or not (I didn't). By the time I reached twelve, I wanted to fast-forward to fourteen, the age my dad would let me drive our Volkswagen Bus to church on Sundays while he crammed for his sermon. I'd no sooner backed out of the driveway when I started wishing for sixteen, so I could date boys.

The years that followed are a bit of a blur now, but somewhere around thirty, the desire to apply the brakes on time edged in, much like that first gray hair or crease at the corner of one's eyes. Like many other women my age,I joined the gym, in an effort to stay trim after having given birth to three children. I knew I couldn't slow down the aging process any more than I could speed it up as a child, but perhaps I could add a stroke or two of grace to time's hand. Besides, when you live where the winters are as long and cold as they are in Michigan, working out was a way to keep warm while keeping the winter fat at bay.

It was a typically gray, January morning in my West Michigan town when I finished a circuit training class I'd signed up for to keep the blood from freezing in my veins. I headed for the locker room where groups of women stood around in various stages of undress. As I rounded the second row of lockers, I caught sight of what looked like a tissue on the floor in front of the benches. The closer I got, the more apparent it became that it wasn't a Kleenex; but a tampon. An obviously used tampon, and it was right next to my locker.

I looked around the room to see if anyone else had noticed but everyone seemed to be very busy chatting, blow-drying, or putting on make-up before heading back tout in the cold. I surreptitiously padded over to my locker, removed my clean clothes, and sat down at the far end of the bench lest anyone think the bloody cotton was mine. As I untied my sneakers, the collective sense of shame and embarrassment was palpable.

And that's when our heroine, okay my heroine, rounded the corner. A stout woman with sculpted calves and wearing a baggy tee shirt over shorts rather than designer jog-bra and spandex; she marched into the locker room and immediately spied the object of our shame. She looked at it, then at all of us, before grabbing a paper towel from the wall dispenser and scooping the thing up and tossing it in the trash..

"For crying out loud, we all know what it is and where it came from, why are you all pretending it doesn't exist?"

Nobody said a word, just stared at the floor or at each other, awkwardly, until the woman shook her head and yanked open her locker, mumbling. She pulled off her sweaty clothes and walked buck naked--all 175 or so muscled pounds of her--to the showers. The other women eventually recovered and went back to their gossip or talking about their children or pot roast recipes, but I was stricken with a sudden realization that I no longer yearned to reach a certain age, but to arrive at a point in life when I could master that kind of honesty and lack of concern for what others might think of me. To act with courage instead of self-monitoring. To call attention to the elephants in our world with grace and conviction.

Nearly two decades later, I rounded the corner near my home and spotted a young man hitting his dog because it wouldn't pull him on his skateboard. Before I had time to think about the risk, I turned my car around and rolled down the window.

"You put another hand on that poor dog and I'm calling animal services! It's a pet, not your slave!"

The kid looked at me and shrugged. "Whatever," he said, before jumping on his board and pushing off. The little dog ran along at his side, forgiveness a foregone conclusion. It never occurred to me to consider what the kid or the neighbors might think of me for yelling out my window as I followed that bloody tampon for several blocks before turning off toward home.

Away From Her

The leaves of memory seemed to make a mournful rustling in the dark. ~~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The forgetting started a couple of years ago. Names, mostly, then words--common ones--and people I know I know but can't remember how or why. They shake my hand and I smile, finding new ways to acknowledge them without letting on that our familiarity's denominator has somehow taken leave. I wonder if they're onto me, if they see the narrowing of my eyes as I scurry backward into myself, ransacking gnarled limbs of memory, searching for their names?

I now wake each morning with two questions on my lips What day is it? Where do I have to be and when? This is because worry carries itself forward from recent clashes with time and place, the fallout of memory's lack. Like the look on my face when a client arrives and I'm not expecting them because I recorded the wrong date in my planner or worse, correctly recorded it but incorrectly looked at the wrong week when I started my day.

Last night I watched, "Away From Her," a film about a man coping with the institutionalization of his wife, who is diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease. Bridgette Bardot Julie Christie plays the patient, Fiona. See there? You see how it is, how twelve hours can flatten a name, turn it on its side, so all you recognize is the era from which it descended? That's what I'm talking about. That constant chipping of formerly sharp edges. I'm only 48. How can I be losing my memory so soon?

The movie was poignant and satisfying despite the dark topic. The characters were real, flawed people struggling to hold onto love while wishing they could forget the obstacles to that love. The wife can't remember a book her partner has read to her, but she remembers his youthful infidelities. The husband reminisces his young bride's "sweetness and irony" while in denial of her need to enter a care facility. Memory, it seems, is dampened by imagination and wishes.

When the movie ended, I immediately googled Alzheimer's and the ugly symptoms of the disease. I was relieved to discover I'm not senile, just suffering from yet another delightful side effect of menopause: forgetfulness. According to recent studies, it's not a memory issue so much as it's a problem storing (or failure to learn) new information. I want to believe the article, but some of the information I've lost isn't all that new. However, as the article points out, I am pulled in a lot more directions with a lot less capability of following them all than I was in my 20's and 30's so I can imagine my brain is a bit overloaded. Add to that the combined effect of all the other symptoms of menopause and it's no wonder my brain feels fuzzy. I have, in effect, what my friend, Sue Richards, calls "The Stupids".

It's pretty clear what needs to happen in order to make it easier for my brain to record and store information. Attending classes at our local college, for one. Getting better sleep, eating healthy foods, walking, and eliminating stress will undoubtedly help not just my brain, but my whole body function better. As I look over this list, I recognize the biggest culprit: exercise (or lack of it). So with you as my silent witness, I'm making a covenant with myself (and my dogs) to get back into a walking routine. Starting tomorrow today, we'll lace up those dusty sneakers and hit the pavement for at least 30 minutes of brisk walking. If I'm not back by sunset, somebody send a search team. I've either lost my way or, perhaps, found it again.

Aged Whine

The years teach much which the days never knew.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

is this how it starts--
this sliding away of brain cells
like change down the sofa cushions
hidden away in dusty recesses--unseen
but not unmissed?

Take this morning, for instance
reaching for massage oil
you pump liquid soap instead
an easy mistake, maybe
but later you're making a point
--or trying to--about famous people
in politics,when suddenly the name of that actor 
(you can see his face) turns to vapor
before reaching your tongue

you squint real hard as if
you might squeeze the name
from behind your eyelids
well, you know who I mean, you say

it's not just the memory, no
it's the body, this body
once lean and strong and sexy, my god
how it thrilled you to own it
before you began waking during the night
right arm aching, fingers numb
the wood floor like gravel
beneath your bare feet each morning

as you stumble to the kitchen
groaning--ow, ow, ow
no one hears you complain, though
because the bed is empty
no lover waiting for your return
no coffee delivered by gentle hands
no dent left by his body
in the crumpled sheets

and you're okay with it, really
measured it all very carefully
the weight of love against
this solitary life, their neediness
against your need to mold each day
with your own hands, hands that remind you
of your mother's now, folded
across your chest, listening to your own breath
as you wade through a hot flash t
hen bolt upright, eyes wide
Martin Sheen!
   
Technorati Tags: aging, growing older, memory loss,second half of life,aging, perimenopause, menopause, hot flashes, essay, blog, baby boomers, writing, writers, poetry, prose, women, hormones, massage,martin sheen,

Breast of Times

This post is in honor of my Breast Friend, Sue Richards, of Calendar Girl for all her dedicated work and hard-fought battles to promote breast health to men and women everywhere.  I made a vow as a Breast Ambassador to spread the gospel of breast health, so please click on over to her blog and buy a lovely Breast of Canada Calendar for as many people as you can think to endow with this gorgeous and informative gift. Thank you.

Up until my youngest brother pushed his way into our already-crowded house of six girls plus  two parents, I hadn't taken much notice of the difference between my chest and my mother's--or even my oldest sisters' developing bosoms.  In fact, at a mere five years of age I assumed the matching bulges that filled my mother's dresses were God's way of gifting warm pillows to sleepy heads as they nodded off on soft laps.

This all changed the day my grandmother stood over our kitchen table sprinkling starch-water on white sheets and pillow cases while my mom rocked D in her arms. To my utter amazement, she unbuttoned her blouse and  pulled the swaddled lump that was my baby brother against her bare chest. I watched in awe as D  latched onto her nipple like a Kindergarten painting onto a fridge door and suckled for all his 13-pound worth (yes, that was his birth weight!).  My mother and grandmother continued chatting as if neither considered the fat-cheeked new person gumming my mother's breast to his heart's content, was worthy of wide-eyed staring.

Dumbfounded by the extraordinary event taking place in our kitchen, I moved closer to my mother in an attempt to get a better look, but the edge of her blouse concealed both her boob and my brother's face. Undaunted, I planted myself in the adjacent chair, then matter-of-factly reclined until my head was in my mother's lap, under the arm that supported the slurping baby where I had a dead-on view of this most curious happening.  Sure as Sunday, D was sucking on the end of my mother's breast, and as if that weren't impressive enough, my mother suddenly pulled the nipple out of his mouth and flopped him over her shoulder, leaving the pendulous pillow dangling above my face where I-shit-you-not warm, bluish-white fluid sprayed my face.

I jumped to my feet and wiped my cheek with my sleeve as my grandmother cackled in the memorable way that is forever etched into my bones.

"Whatsa matter, Ellie? You want some?"

I shook my head furiously.

"Sure you do. Give her a taste, Aussie." That laugh again.

I felt a warm heat travel up my neck and over my face. In a moment more surreal than I'd yet to experience, my mother pulled me closer and placed my small hand on her bare breast.

"There's milk inside. It's how D gets his food. Same way you and all your sisters were fed."

Still recovering from the blasphemy of bodily fluids that had just coated my face, I was now completely blown away by all this new information, along with the sensory input of my mother's breast under my palm.

As if sensing my thoughts, my mother smiled. "Go ahead," she said. "Squeeze."

I looked down at the hand that no longer registered as part of my own body and curled my fingers around her flesh. Milk bubbled out from the big brown nipple and onto my mother's aproned knee. I remember thinking this was the warmest, softest thing I'd ever touched in my life.

My brother belted a burp that broke the suspended silence.

"Atta boy!" my grandmother said. "Let that air go, it ain't payin' rent."

My mother tucked her breast back into her blouse and dropped the other before shifting my brother to the opposite side while her mother moved a basket of damp linens to the mangle in the corner of the kitchen. I left a room filled with hissing and suckling and my mother's low hum changed by the extraordinary events I'd just witnessed. As I climbed the stairs to my bedroom, I carried with me a new understanding of how much my mother loved us, and her mother, her.

That night I lay in bed with my hand on my smooth chest not yet knowing the magic I would experience upon nursing my own three children, nor the words a lover would one day whisper upon first caress of my nubile young breasts.

These are the warmest, softest things I've ever touched in my life...

Technorati Tags: aging, perimenopause, menopause, breastfeeding, nursing, mothers, Breast of Canada, Calendar Girl, essay, blog, breasts, breast health, writing, writers, mothering, daughters, women, massage

Photo by Lauren Cruickshank for 2007 Breast of Canada Calendar
 

Says Who?

And here comes never again, again
Once more I'll let you back in
And just like it's always been
I'll say never again, again

Lee Ann Womack, Never, Never Again

It's not my habit to follow memes, but I stole this from Karl then altered it just a bit to fit menopausal women for a second list:

Ten 15 Things You'll Never Hear me Say

1. I haven't checked my email/sitemeter in days.
2. Sure you can come in the bathroom while I'm pooping.
3. Oh goody! I get to go to the dentist today!
4. I wish straight legs would come back. I love the way they accentuate my thighs and hips.
5. I can't stand to be touched/massaged/futzed.
6. Could you stand a little closer so I can get the full effect of your cigarette smoke?
7. Of course my massage includes a h@ndjob you silly man!
8. Sigh. You're not going to stop at that garage sale are you?
9. Bad teeth and big trucks really make me wet.
10. I don't need to write it down. I'm keeping a mental list.
11. I'm positive that way is east.
12. No, I'd much rather talk about you.
13. I think I'll wear beige today.
14. I'd rather take a quick shower than a luxurious soak in my bathtub.
15. Could you please thin my hair out a little?

Ten Things You'll Never Hear Me Say (again)

1. Miss, would you bring me a size 6? I'm swimming in these size 8 jeans.
2. Somebody turn up the heat. It's freezing in here!
3. Damn I look hot in this leather skirt and boots.
4. Hmmm. Maybe I'll have another baby. Whoops! I'm pregnant.
5. Hey, I/you should move in so we can be together all the time!
6. I'll have a(nother) sloe gin fizz.
7. No worries, I can hold my bladder until the we get home.
8. Let's make love in bright sunlight instead of by candlelight next time.
9. I hauled out a can of whup-ass on the racquetball court today. Won all 3 sets.
10. Let's camp out in a tent instead of staying in a motel this time.

I'm normally one of those "never say never" kind of people, but there comes a time when the Anvil of Truth lands on your head and your realize some things in life have an exasperation date.  Today that thing just happens to be putting other people's needs before my own. In honor of this epiphany, I'm laughing at the spilled milk. Someone else can clean it up this time for cripes sake.

Technorati Tags: aging, perimenopause, menopause, getting older, never again, women, changing body, that outfit i wore to the airport, body image

Clash Reunion

Memories, they can't be boughten.
They can't be won at carnivals for free.
Well it took me years to get those souvenirs,
And i don't know how they slipped away from me.
~~John Prine

Sunday morning John Prine was singing in the next room when I caught sight of my shadow as she danced a little jig, sang along with the music while I cracked eggs on a cast iron griddle. I almost bumped into her when she twirled past me in the kitchen, the creases in her smile lines like tiny bird tracks on a morning beach. I saw her again later in the day as she tip-toed barefoot across stepping stones, holding her skirt, laughing at the water skimmers skiing across the surface of the pond we dug in the back yard. Just before bed I glimpsed her between sleepy breaths as my eyes fell upon a photograph of her lost in a sensual kiss, swirling in limerance. She disappeared with the lamplight, left me counting the turns of fan blades as they quietly passed over the woman who used to sing and dance and laugh and love like they were all stolen.

Has it ever happened to you? Have you ever reached for a fragmented memory of joy, only to have it fade before you can trace the outline of a captured smile? It's not a sudden thing, this losing oneself layer by layer until all that's left are ragged footprints. It happens gradually, like the slow recession of water at low tide, until you've forgotten the lush lapping at your ankles and the gulls calling over your head. You walk on, your pockets heavy with pinkswirl shells, toward an island that doesn't recognize the shape of your bones or know the fullness of your cupped hands.

Then one day you pull a jacket from behind the door and as you're moving through the paces of a lackluster afternoon your hand rests on something familiar, a crusted curl of beauty carved by the past. You hold the shell in your hand, finger each fine feature of its delicate history, spit-shine it to embellish the iridescence of perfected imperfection. Closing your eyes, you hear the squeak of your feet against wet sand, feel the rhythm of unseen waves against your chest, taste the pungent exhale of your own salty breath. The ocean rises to lick your knees, hug your waist, touch your shoulders until she finally washes over you, reuniting your soul with her lost body, becoming the water itself.

Technorati Tags: aging, perimenopause, menopause, hot flashes, saliva test, relationships, body image, depression,  essay, blog, self image, baby boomers, writing, writers, poetry, prose, women, hormones, massage

Can You Hear Me Now?

I don't know if it's menopause-related or if all the those Bible verses I was forced to memorize as a child finally caused a cerebral back-up as I was attempting to etch another telephone number into my memory, but I seem to have sprung a leak. Literally.

It started last Fall as I was driving downtown. The AC in my van hasn't worked for years so when the inevitable hot flash occurs, rolling down the window is my only reprieve from the instant sauna that is my life. Normally the wind is a welcome rush of fresh air, but on this particular day things got a little weird. First, I'm one of those people who has never liked the tongue-in-ear thing (just ask the men  I've dropped who refused to accept this statement as fact) so when I suddenly got that wet willie feeling in my left ear, I immediately freaked, thinking someone just delivered a drive-by spitting.  I can't imagine what people in the other cars were thinking as they passed the swerving driver with her finger in her ear. Wait. Yes I can. I imagine they were thinking I should roll up my window if I don't enjoy the sounds of traffic. Or turn down my damn radio if it's too loud. Or maybe they just thought I was an idiot. But I'd bet a whole box of Q-Tips nobody thought, hmm, her ear must be leaking--I hate when that happens.

An isolated event, you think. Not so, my friend. Over the course of the next several months the ear thing went from a sudden dampness to a regular spigot.  I cannot begin to describe how distrubing it is to experience a sudden warm trickle out one's ear, jamming your finger as far as it will go and still not being able to relieve the accompanying tickle. After several weeks of drainage, I finally dragged myself to the local health clinic where I joined the ranks of other uninsured souls only to be told (three hours later) my eardrums look fine, no infection, not even a tiny bit red.

As it turns out, following 47 years of languishing in the joy of bathtubs, my ears have suddenly decided to take on water, save it for just the right moment, then, gurgle, gurgle, drip, drip. As if hot flashes, declining libido, occasional incontinence, memory lapse, lubrication issues, sagging everything, hair loss, foggy thinking, depression, low energy, and night sweats weren't enough, now my damn ears are leaking. Plus, the one thing that's helped me make it through these godawful assaults on the body-- my beloved claw foot bathtub--has suddenly become an instrument of evil-doing.

Surely this cruel joke called menopause has an eventual punch line where we share a collectivel laugh before going back to the business of being kick-ass women in an ass-kicking world. I, for one, have had enough of the tribulations on the pathway to the golden fucking pond. What's that you say? It gets purse before it gets letter?  Sorry, I can't hear you with these soggy wads of cotton in my ears.

Technorati Tags: aging, perimenopause, menopause, hot flashes, getting older, libido, body image, depression, essay, blog, self image, baby boomers, writing, writers, poetry, prose, women, hormones, incontinence

You're In Trouble

I refuse to think of them as chin hairs.  I think of them as stray eyebrows. Janette Barber

I can't recall how we got on the subject of incontinence, but as I was giving a massage treatment to my octogenarian client yesterday, she relayed a girlhood story of how she and her mother were out for a walk one evening when they came upon an older woman wearing a long black skirt. The woman, who happened to be peeing on her shoes, pointed at the sky and said, "Isn't it a lovely sunset?" My client's mother later explained that in an attempt to cover her embarrassment, the woman was trying to divert their attention away from the puddle at her feet. From that day on when my client or her mother needed to use the restroom, they simply said, "Isn't it a lovely sunset?"

As I massaged E's back, I suddenly flashed on the day my mother stood in front of an our old O'Keefe and Merit stove, stirring a pan of tomato soup while 3 cheese sandwiches fried on a cast iron griddle. My sisters and I had walked home from school for lunch, and I was in the midst of telling a funny story when my mother suddenly clutched her belly, laughing in that way that sounded like hollow bells. "Stop!" she said. And then to our complete horror, she pissed herself, a yellow puddle forming on the linoleum as we looked on in disbelief.

As with most benchmarks of the aging process, I never expected it would happen to me. The first time I peed myself, I was facilitating a dance workshop ala Gabrielle Roth with a group of about eight women on a warm Sunday afternoon. When we reached the "lyrical" section of the five rhythms, I went into faerie mode, skipping my way across the wooden floor to the accompaniment of a Lord of the Dance CD. Mid-song, I leapt rather effortlessly, before landing on my bare feet in the center of several ecstatic women. In that moment I suddenly became profoundly aware of a lowering of my bladder, not at all unlike the end of pregnancy when one's baby drops and settles into the pelvic girdle. Before I could stop myself, I leapt again and this time felt the full weight of the last swallow of morning coffee as it escaped its leaky container.

Deeply grateful for the choice of black tights under my long skirt, I side-stepped my way toward the bathroom with as much grace as anyone who just wet their pants could possibly muster.  Mortified by my sudden loss of urinary faculties, I rinsed my tights in the sink before hiding them in my purse. I was only forty-two years old. Surely this couldn't already be the beginning of my feminine decline into crone-hood. Could it? The horrified face in the mirror said yes, it probably could. What did you expect after giving birth to three children--the last of whom weighed in at ten pounds?

Eventually I gathered what was left of my pride and rejoined the other dancers, making some silly comment about those tights being too constricting and hot. Five years later I can retell the story without blushing every shade of a lovely sunset. 

(You gotta admit this was one of my best--or worst--titles of all time. I kill myself sometimes. Heh heh.)

Technorati Tags: aging, perimenopause, menopause, hot flashes, saliva test, dance, body image, dancing, gabrielle roth, essay, blog, self image, baby boomers, writing, writers, poetry, prose, women, hormones, incontinence

Scent of a Woman

 

"The past is the only dead thing that smells sweet." Cyril Connolly, quoted in "Journals and Memoirs" by David Price-Jones.

Our weekly alternative newspaper runs a quick poll of people on the street for a column they call "Street Talk". It's usually an inane question and the answers are often even dumber than the questions.  A few months after I moved to SLO, a New Times reporter nailed me as I was leaving a downtown spa and asked if I'd answer a question for the column. At first I said no, because they always take your picture and I had that greasy post-massage hair thing going on. He promised me it wouldn't show up in black and white so I said okay.

The question was, "What one piece of advice would you give people if you could?" Blissed out from my treatment, I blurted out the first thing that came to my mind: Get a massage! Although it was fine advice, as soon the words were out of my mouth, it sounded contrite . I begged to change my answer, but the guy snapped my picture and took down my name and occupation without giving me a second chance. The photo turned out fine but I was embarrassed by what appeared opportunistic in print. Of course the silly massage therapist is going to recommend massage. How about some real advice like never pick your nose while driving over railroad tracks or white pants make your ass look bigger?

This week's poll asked, "Which of your senses could you live without?" Most everyone  answered smell.  I would have said, "common" because I don't have much anyway. heh heh. Okay not on the spot I wouldn't have but now that I've had time to ponder, I know I couldn't have chosen any of my tactile senses. That's like asking which of your kids you could live without. See?  Stupid, stupid question.

The idiocy of the question didn't stop me from imagining life without smell, however. Although it'd cut down on impulse eating after snorting the aroma of my neighbor's grilled steaks, as one who sniffs her way through the world I can't imagine life without smemories. You know what I mean, right? Those times you get a whiff of something and it brings with it a wave of memories attached to the scent. For example, sheets dried on the line bring back wonderful smemories of helping my mom bring the laundry in from the back yard and later, falling asleep to the cottony fragrance of come-summer. The smell of mail sends me back to the tiny post office in the town where I grew up. I loved reaching into the little box to retrieve the pile of hand-addressed envelopes that carried the scent of faraway places.

Recently I paid six dollars for an old, half-empty bottle of Musterole on eBay. I bought it purely for the smemory of my mother rubbing that stuff on my chest before wrapping me in torn strips of flannel. I don't remember being sick, just feeling very loved and nurtured. So much so that when the bottle arrived, I carefully removed the lid from the familiar green jar, closed my eyes, and breathed my way back through forty years. I might not be able to talk to my mom on Mother's Day anymore, but thanks to the gift of smell, she still talks to me.

Technorati Tags: aging, perimenopause, menopause, relationships, Mother's Day, mothers, childhood, essay, blog, self image, baby boomers, writing, writers, Musterole, prose, women, smell memory, eBay

An Ode to Gauchos (with apologies to e.e. cummings)

i like my body when it is with your body
of stretchy rayon knit blend. It is so quite a new
and flesh forgiving thing. wide waistband better
and legroom more. i like your body of flowing
fabric. i like what it does to hips hiding, i like its
hows of hanging.  i like not feeling the spine
of non-expanding denim and its zipper,
and the trembling of unseemly seams despite
dare defining toe of camel. no, I like my body
with your body of sweet smoothness  which
i will again and again and again wear, i like moving
behind this and that of you, slowly stroking
the unfurling pills of your nappy nitpickling,
and what-is-it expands over white thighs . . . .and
possibly i like the thrill of under me you
quite so new and loose and free.

Technorati Tags: menopause, body image, aging,dieting, ee cummings