DAY 1 of a daily practice inspired by @peterdray to write 250 words each day for 30 days… aren’t you lucky!
‘How is that even a word?’ I asked myself.
There’s no pause.
It’s menostop, menocease, menoverandone.
Menofin, menogedoen, menofermare.
The end of all meno.
At 4:42am I came to the conclusion no woman had defined it. So serene. Temporary. A gentle glide into standby. (Correction. No woman over 55.) Because she would know the rage, the thinning, the thickening, the drying, the mad-making of the end of her defining function in society.
At 6:57am I brought my sleeping husband coffee.
Bleary, he propped his head and began the slow rise into consciousness, unaware of the menolava broiling beside him on the satin pillowcase.
‘Why menoPAUSE?!’ I said to the ceiling (and him).
No on-ramp, no ‘good-morning’, no ‘hello’, followed swiftly by a rocket-fuelled launch into the stupidity of a word that was not fit for purpose. The idiocy of underscoring a woman’s only apparent contribution to global humanity. I paused.
He blinked.
Breathed in, then out.
Cleared his throat gently. Then with a slow gravelly morning voice that had not yet uttered a word said.
‘My dear. It’s not a definition.’
‘What?’
Another sip from the warm blue mug.
I waited.
‘Mmm. It’s a warning.’
I looked at him.
He stared ahead.
‘I don’t believe woman can hear it, but to the rest of us it sounds like : Men! Oooooooh ….P.A.U.S.E.’
I raised an eyebrow.
‘That word has saved lives darling.’ He smiled to himself.
‘It saved mine three times last month.’