MenoPAUSE

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.’