Cycles and Fallow Times at Mid-Life

Have you noticed that even after your monthly cycle has stopped you still feel like you have a cycle?

You can't call it PMS anymore, but there are moody times, ups and downs, cranky irritable days and out of sorts days, as well as Happy Happy Happy as Pharell Williams days.

When I hit a cranky out of sorts day, I usually forget that what I really need is some down time - the other day, Easter Monday, my husband came home early from work. We were both overtired from three Easter brunches or suppers, too much of a good thing (wine, especially affects me). Just can't party like we used to!

So he went to play solitaire on the computer in the home office, and I escaped to my daughter's empty room (yes, we are empty nesters) to curl up in a red velvet chair and read a book. Then I lay down for half an hour before cooking supper. When I woke up, I felt much better.

Sometimes, it's a walk outdoors that revives me, like this morning, after Zumba class, a mixture of pilates, yoga and salsa dancing with weights, my dog needed to go outside, and since the weather is gorgeous, and sunny, after 24 hours of rain, I leapt at the chance to pull on my sneakers and walk.

I am not very active, physically, so all this exercise is new for me. My favourite is still yoga, but since my muscle mass is disappearing (at age 59), I have to keep up with it.

So exercise and sleep are two things that get me back on track when I'm cycling low. I know my estrogen is low because I have a touch of vaginal atrophy and am taking a supplement for that. And I've been treated for adrenal fatigue in the last year, so I know that feeling tired, although it affects me less and less, needs to be taken care of.

Can you learn your new post-menopausal cycle? Pay attention to your need for rest, good nutrition, and exercise - especially outdoors in this good weather. Your body, our women's bodies, may not bounce back as quickly as they used to, and may need more upkeep and maintenance - don't let your chassis fall apart. Get regular checkups and oil changes! Sunny days are here again.....

that's my spring advice for you post-menopausal babes!
Musemother

April is Poetry Month

In honour of the Laurentians, where spring melt is glorious, and comes a few weeks later.

Spring melt

Everywhere a fine mist

a million drops rising

into spring air.

Freezing rain iced the roads last night,

layered trees in thin lace.

Now, morning sun tilts the snowwoman,

       head tilts onto ground

arms stuck in the leaning boulders.

Melting snow reveals a rock.

Geese wing northward
in small gaggles.

Spring runoff

from the roof races

my pulse erratic.

last night’s dream moving

up and up

a staircase

looking for You.

I wrote this poem back when the kids were little, and I had broken my leg skiing, so confined to the chalet while they hit the hills. I loved the sunroom in the chalet we rented then, near Ste-Adele and my alone time, writing, reading, lying in the sun stretching the wounded leg, healing and hanging out with the dog.

I later rewrote it, shortened it, took the Samurai Sword and it became:

Spring melt

Geese wing northward
in small gaggles.

Everywhere a fine mist

rises, million drops

lift into air.

Through the windows,

light erratic,

roof runoff spills

from the gutters.

Last night’s dream

moving up & up

a mobile staircase

looking for      

                    You.

and was published in For the Birds, my last collection of poems.

Happy spring all

Musemother

light a candle for spring returning

How might your life have been different, if, through the years, there had been a place where you could go?...a place of women, away from the ordinary busy-ness of life...a place of women who knew the cycles of life, the ebb and flow of nature, who knew of times of work and times of quiet...who understood your tiredness and need for rest.

A place of women who could help you to accept your fatigue and trust your limitations, and to know, in the dark of winter, that your energy would return, as surely as the spring.

Women who could help you learn to light a candle and to wait...

How might your life be different?

Judith Duerk, Circle of Stones