Menopause is teaching me to become more feral

I’ve been reread­ing some of Berry’s work and was struck by this line. I nev­er ful­ly under­stood it until menopause.

For decades, I have been busy mak­ing myself make sense. I have been agree­able, pro­duc­tive, accom­mo­dat­ing, and appro­pri­ate­ly sized for the rooms I occu­py. I learned to soft­en my opin­ions, smooth my edges, and man­age my appear­ance. I have spent extra­or­di­nary amounts of ener­gy being leg­i­ble to oth­er people. 

And then, my machin­ery start­ed to mal­func­tion. My hor­mones fluc­tu­at­ed, sleep became a mys­te­ri­ous nego­ti­a­tion, and my body devel­oped opin­ions I did not autho­rize. I found myself unwill­ing to tol­er­ate non­sense, less inter­est­ed in being liked by every­one, and sud­den­ly capa­ble of say­ing what I actu­al­ly think.

I first thought I was los­ing my mind. But now I know I am los­ing my pro­gram­ming.

Nature is full of things that behave in unruly, extrav­a­gant, and absolute­ly mag­nif­i­cent ways. A for­est does not apol­o­gize for drop­ping its leaves. A riv­er does not con­sid­er whether its mean­der­ing is pro­duc­tive. The weeds grow­ing through the cracks in the side­walk have no inter­est in a five-year plan.

And here I am in my own sea­son of strange weather.

I’ve decid­ed to stop treat­ing this as a prob­lem to solve and start treat­ing it as an invi­ta­tion to become more fer­al. I don’t mean fer­al as in aban­don­ing civ­i­liza­tion or refus­ing to bathe (although, hon­est­ly, there are days when I think the patri­archy has asked enough of me already).

I mean fer­al as in return­ing to my instincts. Remembering that I am an ani­mal before I am a wife, moth­er, busi­ness own­er, writer, or con­sumer. That I am a crea­ture with a ner­vous sys­tem and appetites, with a body that responds to sun­light and bird­song, with feet that would some­times rather walk through a creek than on a con­crete side­walk. Feral as in trust­ing the qui­et, often incon­ve­nient knowl­edge that ris­es from some­where beneath all the “shoulds.”

I don’t want to climb the next rung of the lad­der. I want to dance in the grass, learn the names of the mush­rooms in the woods, spend an entire after­noon watch­ing the light move across the hill­side. I want to wear what I want, let my bel­ly grow round, start say­ing no more often, stop attend­ing gath­er­ings where I have to make myself small­er to keep every­one comfortable.

The earth reminds me that life is not a pro­duc­tiv­i­ty con­test. Trees do not hus­tle toward spring. Owls do not mon­e­tize their gifts. The moon does not apol­o­gize for dis­ap­pear­ing and return­ing in her own time. The wild reminds me that rest belongs to the cycle, that decay is not fail­ure. That there are sea­sons when the old struc­tures must break down so that some­thing less pre­dictable can emerge.

And yet I live in a cul­ture deter­mined to make even my lib­er­a­tion anoth­er self-improve­ment project. I can buy sup­ple­ments to opti­mize my hor­mones, apps to track my sleep, pro­grams aimed at teach­ing me how to age grace­ful­ly. I could eas­i­ly turn my entire exis­tence into a series of met­rics, for­ev­er mon­i­tor­ing myself for signs that I am doing wom­an­hood correctly.

Of course, I must care for my body and reg­u­late my ner­vous sys­tem. These things help me inhab­it my life more ful­ly. But reg­u­la­tion is not the same as domes­ti­ca­tion. A reg­u­lat­ed ner­vous sys­tem should make it eas­i­er to meet the world, not eas­i­er to tol­er­ate a life that has grown too small for me.

I want to be a woman who knows how to sit qui­et­ly beneath a tree and raise hell when the occa­sion calls for it. A woman who can breathe through dis­com­fort with­out con­fus­ing accep­tance with sur­ren­der. A woman who can hold com­pas­sion for the world with­out agree­ing to car­ry its every burden.

Wendell Berry was, by all accounts, a cur­mud­geon, a man who loved words and the earth more than the opin­ions of oth­ers. His poem Manifesto cri­tiques our mod­ern obses­sion with effi­cien­cy, prof­it, and cal­cu­lat­ed outcomes.

So let me live by his advice: “every day, do some­thing that won’t com­pute.”

Let the younger women have the algo­rithms. Let the world keep its spread­sheets, its plans, its relent­less demand that every moment jus­ti­fy its existence. 

I have creeks to wade through, bread to bake, injus­tices to inter­rupt, songs to sing, books to read, friends to hug, and sun­sets to wit­ness. I will let my smiles run wide and my wrin­kles grow deep. 

I will stay inter­est­ed in the world, but I will no longer need its approval of my interests.