The onset of menopause is shrouded in a blanket of doom, a grief for youth, an end to being noticed anymore. I stand at the supermarket checkout, my attempts at conversation falling on deaf ears, as the young checkout girl chats to her colleague, aimlessly throwing my products vaguely in my direction, without the merest glance. I have slipped into the invisible years, no longer being recognised as a part of society. I melt away in my mind as I am melting in my body, a heat that rises like a radiator being bled. Then, as the fog sets in, I forget the pin number for my card, because the world is now a series of tip of the tongue moments, as I grasp for the words as they float in front of my eyes then speed off into the wilderness of parts of my brain I can longer reach.
Yet sometimes I refuse to fall into these socially inflicted conventions and decide to explore this time of life as a time of reformation. A time when I finally feel that I don’t have to care what I say or what people think. I want to turn the tables of these assumptions that I so easily fall into. What else might menopause be, when we see it not as the end of fertility, but the beginning of invention and liberation? What might menopause look like if viewed through a creative art project? The artist collides with the clinician, art and science explored through storytelling, imagery and sound. How will these intersections open up new possibilities for understanding menopause?
