{"id":2056,"date":"2016-06-15T06:00:16","date_gmt":"2016-06-15T10:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/?p=2056"},"modified":"2016-06-10T17:14:25","modified_gmt":"2016-06-10T21:14:25","slug":"all-praise-the-women-of-menopause-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2016\/06\/all-praise-the-women-of-menopause-2.html","title":{"rendered":"All Praise the Women of Menopause"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Sharon Mesmer<\/em><\/p>\n

(Article first appeared in the NYTimes online on 2\/11\/16, and in the Sunday Review print edition 2\/14\/16: http:\/\/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com\/2016\/02\/11\/all-praise-the-women-of-menopause\/?_r=0<\/a>)<\/p>\n

For some women, menopause is no big deal. Some say they barely notice it. My mother, long ago, described her menopause this way: \u201cMy periods just started gettin\u2019 lighter and lighter, and my hormones<\/em> settled down, and then one day \u2026 pffft! It was over.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not me. Not only did menopause change my life, it changed me.<\/p>\n

Before I was laid low by hot flashes and panic-inducing adrenaline rushes, the constant oscillation between morbid sadness and killer rage, I\u2019d prided myself on being fearless. I\u2019d kicked undercover cops in the groin, screamed obscenities at the masochistic nuns at my Catholic school, threw a chair at my abusive fianc\u00e9\u2019s head while Allen Ginsberg read poetry in a room below.<\/p>\n

And suddenly, I was a person to whom sitting quietly with hands folded, ideally in a dark room with the shades drawn and maybe \u201cThe Lawrence Welk Show\u201d playing low on an old TV, seemed like the best plan ever.<\/p>\n

I wish I\u2019d been better prepared. I wish I\u2019d properly celebrated the last time I\u2019d canceled plans to spend all morning soaking in a lavender-scented bathtub with a bottle of Advil. I wish I\u2019d noted down the date when I\u2019d dug that last extra tampon out of the bottom of my purse and thrown it away. I should have marked the event in some way, maybe even performed a personal rite-of-passage ritual: taken that tampon out to the woods, placed it upon an altar that I\u2019d fashioned out of ancient, glacial rocks, and set it ablaze while I chanted an invocation to whoever the crone-goddess of menopause is.<\/p>\n

I am now well-acquainted with that crone-godddess.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible that I have the World\u2019s Worst Menopause. But how to quantify with hard data hot flashes that make me feel like I\u2019m staring into the mouth of an active volcano or the engine of a coal-burning locomotive on the hottest day in history? To what previous record could I compare panic-inducing adrenaline rushes that occur every hour on the hour and, while I\u2019m teaching, inspire concerned students to ask if I\u2019m having a heart attack? When I hear women use cutesy nicknames like \u201cpower surges\u201d I want to rip their throats out.<\/p>\n

If you are one of those women for whom the transition from periods to no periods was like the transition from walking to sitting down \u2014 congratulations. Everybody else \u2014 you are my tribe. And I\u2019ve come to believe that our tribe needs a ritual.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve heard menopause described as a second puberty. There are plenty of rite-of-passage rituals for girls as they begin and complete puberty. There\u2019s the bat mitzvah, the quincea\u00f1era and the Sweet 16. I\u2019ve read about a beautiful Apache ceremony called Na\u2019ii\u2019ees, which takes place the summer after a girl has her first period, at sunrise, and commemorates the story of Esdzanadehe, the First Woman. As it was originally performed, a girl, covered with a golden mixture of cornmeal and clay, becomes imbued with the power of the First Woman, and receives the ability to heal and bring blessings to her community.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t have a Sweet 16 or a bat mitzvah. But I did have a First Holy Communion, which supposedly marked my ascent to the age of reason, as a seven-year-old. As rituals go, it was a good one.<\/p>\n

First, there was the buying of the white dress, white fake fur jacket and white shoes. I clearly recall my mother and I marching up and down Ashland Avenue, the main shopping street in our south side Chicago neighborhood, in search of something that I would actually deign to wear. It couldn\u2019t be too ornate, according to Sister Eleanor, the principal of St. John of God grammar school, but according to me it had to be really, really pretty. (Twelve years ago I actually found the dress as I was cleaning out my mom\u2019s house, and it really was pretty: sateen with sheer puffy sleeves and seed pearls all over the bodice.) As we shopped around, we\u2019d run into other girls and their mothers doing the same thing. Seeing them and comparing notes \u2014 \u201cGoldblatts ain\u2019t got nothin\u2019 good no more\u201d \u201cI heard they\u2019re gougin\u2019 everybody over by 63rd\u201d \u2014 heightened the feeling of the ceremony\u2019s importance.<\/p>\n

The ceremony, on a May morning in 1968, bordered on the pagan: all 60 kids marched slowly, piously, in a procession toward the church, led by the pastor and assistant priests, with altar boys shouldering a large statue of the Virgin Mary on a wooden pallet, her head wreathed in white roses. The streets, blocked by police barricades, were packed with our parents, grandparents, godparents, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles and neighbors, all snapping photos. We were told by the nuns not to talk to, or even look at, anyone, just keep our eyes focused on the kid directly in front of us, our hands folded in prayer. And yet at almost every step someone was yelling my name \u2014 \u201cIt\u2019s Uncle Bob, honey! I wanna take your picture!\u201d \u201cSharon! Look at your mother!\u201d<\/p>\n

As we turned a corner, I could, for the first time, hear the booming sounds of the church organ and the choir. I remember thinking right then that that was a magic moment: all of us walking toward the thunderous organ playing just for us while the choir of adults sang us in to the tune of a hymn called \u201cThis Is My Body.\u201d<\/p>\n

A group of teenage boys stood with their arms folded, watching us; a young mother crouched down, put her arm around her little boy, and pointed; an old man doffed his cap. As we walked up the steps of the church, the nuns, like security at a rock concert, waved back the mothers with flowers and dads with cameras. It felt like we were the Beatles.<\/p>\n

Now I wonder: why is that we\u2019re lauded and celebrated when we\u2019ve only just embarked on the journey? Why do we stop marking, ritually, the accomplishments along the way? The hurdles that women routinely overcome?<\/p>\n

I think all of us who are going through menopause should gather together, and then two-by-two make a pious procession through streets clogged with our living loved ones and long-dead parents and grandparents (resurrected just for us and calling our names). Whoever we are, whether svelte and wafting Chanel, or pouchy with pendulous breasts, I want us to be made much of, cheered, lauded, recognized. I want our procession to be led by a bunch of men our age with beer guts pushing their shirt buttons apart, shouldering a statue of whoever our appropriate goddess is \u2014 possibly Tonantzin, the Aztec Earth Mother, or maybe Hillary Clinton.<\/p>\n

I want us to be sung to by a choir as we march into a secular temple, possibly some combination of the old Fillmore and the Society for Ethical Culture. Once inside, we gather in a circle around a huge ring of fire and, at an appropriate moment, accompanied by chanting, we toss into the flames that unused old tampon that we\u2019ve been carrying around for five years. As we do, the fire changes from red to pure white, tongues of it leap into our hearts, and we receive the ability to heal and bring blessings to our community.<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s a party afterward that lasts four days, with enough ice-cold drinks, Ativan, and L\u2019Occitane Verbena Refreshing Towelettes (chilling in hundreds of tiny personal refrigerators), for us all.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As a result of this article in the <\/em>New York Times,\u00a0<\/em>I was invited to create\u00a0an Empowerment Queen’s Crowning Ceremony at The Ethical Culture Society. The event also features Anne Klaeyson, Leader of The Ethical Culture Society, Sharon Mesmer, Poet and Lori Hefner, Healer. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Becoming the Queen of Your Self<\/strong><\/p>\n

June 30, from 6:30 – 9:30 pm.
\nThe Ethical Culture Society
\n2 West 64th Street,\u00a0NYC
\nInfo:(212) 874-5210<\/p>\n

xxQMD<\/p>\n

* ***
\nDonna Henes is the author of The Queen of My Self: Stepping into Sovereignty in Midlife<\/em>.<\/a> She offers counseling and upbeat, practical and ceremonial guidance for individual women and groups who want to enjoy the fruits of an enriching, influential, purposeful, passionate, and powerful maturity. Consult the MIDLIFE MIDWIFE\u2122<\/a><\/p>\n

The Queen welcomes questions concerning all issues of interest to women in their mature years. Send your inquiries to thequeenofmyself@aol.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

# # #<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Sharon Mesmer (Article first appeared in the NYTimes online on 2\/11\/16, and in the Sunday Review print edition 2\/14\/16: http:\/\/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com\/2016\/02\/11\/all-praise-the-women-of-menopause\/?_r=0) For some women, menopause is no big deal. Some say they barely notice it. 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