THE EMPRESS

Share this post

Midlife is about more than menopause. (If only it came with the millinery!)

alisakennedyjones.substack.com

Discover more from THE EMPRESS

Exploring what it means to be a woman aging in the world while obsessively curating a less hellish peri/menopause... Between the mother & crone phases, there's a great deal of power in the messy middleβ€”a dynamism that's highly generative and creative.
Over 2,000 subscribers
Continue reading
Sign in

Midlife is about more than menopause. (If only it came with the millinery!)

Menopause for the Apocalypse? How to channel the Gilded Rage! A few thoughts on the Minimum Viable Utopia... πŸ˜‚

Alisa Kennedy Jones
Nov 4, 2023
12
Share this post

Midlife is about more than menopause. (If only it came with the millinery!)

alisakennedyjones.substack.com
5
Share
Please say the Minimum Viable Utopia involves terrifyingly aggressive hats?

To keep working, we depend on the financial support of our readers and sponsors. We know your resources are precious too. And so, we are ridiculously grateful to you for your help. From now until the end of the year, we are offering 30% off all subscription plans for up to one year. Now, more than ever, we could use your support.

Get 30% off for 1 year


Fellow Empresses, How the hell are you?

Greetings from the Polycrisis… yes, menopause is a huge part of what we deal with in midlife, and seems to usher in a tempestuous tea party of symptoms, indignities, transformations, and heroic journeys that impact nearly every aspect of our lives.

Little did we know, the earth AND our vaginas would be undergoing a simultaneous climate apocalypse.

Yet, menopause itself is technically only one day. The one-year anniversary since one’s last menses. Still, it impacts everything from career to sex to sleep to gut to hair to skin to bone density to brain to breasts to mood to money to creativity to connection to legacy to the big existential WHY. And how is it that we’re now expected to exist on a diet of aromatically infused foam? All of this might lead you to ask... Oh, sh*t! Have I become my own hobby?

And it also comes with a cavalcade of crackpot wellness ploys you never thought possible. From Kardashian-sponsored gummies to make you feel bad about the taste of your vag (when it already deserves a goddamn Michelin Star) to an Alexa-based AI coach for your bespoke menopausal change management strategy. Okay, maybe not just yet. But don’t think it’s not already in alpha somewhere. It is.

You probably never imagined you’d have to think so much about the prospect of coughing, peeing, and farting all in the same instance because our mothers never talked about this phenom. Maybe if we just took midlife one step, one product, one concern at a timeβ€”it could be made more manageable. As Mona Eltahawy noted in her brilliant essay The Menopause Multiverse, peri/menopause can feel exactly like the film Everything Everywhere All at Once. The point is we are ALL Michelle Yeoh in this scenario and we have the scientific, human, narrative, empathetic, and organizational resources to do better by midlife womenβ€”if we tackle things strategically.

So, one of the concerns that came up this past week in the various comments was where and how to live as we age.

Prompted by a Guardian piece I’d shared on an unlikely feminist utopia in London, a number of you brought up your fears and desires about this issue.

Here's what you said: (I’m leading with your desires because well… you had fabulous ones.)

β€œAiry, and light, but easy to heatβ€”with green energy.”

β€œADA accessible in case my mobility changes over time.”

β€œA kind of Momune, but without actual motherhood ever required.”

β€œPrivacy when you need it with community when you need it.”

β€œWalkable, close to groceries, the farmer’s market, coffee, books, and yoga.”

β€œPossibly a movie theater?”

β€œA park with walking trails you won’t bite the dust on.”

β€œNot too much hiking, lol.”

β€œMaybe near the sea?”

β€œGroceries where YOU pick out the β€œright” avocados and then they deliver them if things are too heavy... because Instacart always gets it wrong. They have no discernment when it comes to produce. Lol.”

β€œHealthcare, shots, and prescriptions that come to you when you need them, but not in a way that pesters you?”

β€œA community-first approach to ethicsβ€”do no harm, mutually aiding, environmentally friendly, disinterested from corporate developers.”

β€œFashion designers and other artists in residence who come to stay for a bit. Please have Emilia Wickstead come as I’d wear her dresses to the community potlucks!”

So, I’d gotten to thinking and stumbled upon this Substack...

Supernuclear
Case Study: FeΓΏtopia
I wrote this after spending a week at the Chateau du FeΓΏ & interviewing a few of the founding members of FeΓΏtopia. Date founded: spring 2020 Location: Villecien, France (~1.5 hours from Paris in the Burgundy region) Rented or owned: owned Space/amenities…
Read more
3 months ago Β· 28 likes Β· 10 comments Β· Gillian Morris

And while there are dying French, Spanish, and Italian villages that will practically give you a castle for free if you promise to rewire, replumb, and remodel it... THIS IS A BIG PROJECT for an oldster like myself. Not to mention, castles can be hella drafty in the winter and more than a stone’s throw from the requested amenities.

So, then I got to thinking about the designers and thinkers I love in this worldβ€”like Jony Ive, formerly head of design at Apple. Here’s what he’s been working on in the way of housing…

Aren’t they kind of gorgeous in their own simple way?

So, I thought maybe some land by a decent body of water and a number of these might be a thing to do for midlife women on their own, funded by a grant from Melinda French Gates’s Pivotal Ventures, or some other like-minded organization.

The idea would be that each woman's life and creative process should unfold in its own way, with its own particular wrinkles and lucky breaks and semi-devastating dipsβ€”which, in turn, helps them break away from the idea that there are any universal right and wrong directions for a creative, mission-driven life. A place to immerse oneself in one’s own unfolding without the stress of housing or community insecurity. Also a remedy for the epidemic of loneliness as women age.

If the Dutch, the Brits, and the French are managing it, surely we could figure something out. It probably sounds farfetched, but when you think about how there’s so much disused BLM land around the country, one begins to wonder… Thoughts?


In the meantime, another thing occurred to me. We’re always going on about the Empress Age and the Empress as an empowered archetype. I thought it might be wise to acquaint you with a few.

Meet Empress Matilda, 1102-1167, Empress of the Holy Roman Empire, daughter of King Henry I and mother of King Henry II. (Also, muse to Game of Thrones author, George R. R. Martin.)

Proof that women have always been powerful AND funny. Take that, Hitchens!

From a letter to Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury (credit: Daniel Lavery for this rare gem):

...I am writing to sow peace, not to tell you what I think of your ridiculous behavior.

I am sending archdeacon Lawrence to talk to you, because I don’t want to talk to you if you’re going to say outrageous or terrible things. Then he can tell me what you think about my son (who you may also remember is your king, along with everybody English, etc.) and what you might like me to say to my son the king about you.

One more thing: If you think you’re getting out of this without demonstrating a little abjection you have got another thing coming. Talk to Lawrence; I don’t think it’s appropriate for you to speak directly with royalty any longer, at least not until someone has been able to reassure me that you have learned how to do it properly.

Yours sincerely,

Matilda (Empress)

Don’t you just love that β€œYou have got another thing coming.” existed in usage by a woman toward a man (the archbishop of Canterbury, no less) back in the 12th century? That’s an empress for you.

Yours in Grandeur & Deep Sh*t,


THE EMPRESS is a reader-supported community. To receive exclusive bonus posts, join in VIP events, and support our policy work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

p.s. If you are so inclined, follow us on IG for flash content & upcoming giveaways. We’re at https://www.instagram.com/the.empress.age/ and we’d love to see you there!


Thank you for reading The Empress. This post is public so feel free to share it.

Share

12
Share this post

Midlife is about more than menopause. (If only it came with the millinery!)

alisakennedyjones.substack.com
5
Share
5 Comments
Share this discussion

Midlife is about more than menopause. (If only it came with the millinery!)

alisakennedyjones.substack.com
Good Humor by CK Steefel
Writes Good Humor
Nov 6Liked by Alisa Kennedy Jones

Earth and our vaginas...! Hehehe. So true. Our cycles were connected to the moon and in menopause we are connected to the arid, abused, temperamental earth!

Expand full comment
Reply
Share
Alicia Dara
Writes Womancake Magazine
Nov 5Liked by Alisa Kennedy Jones

May I just add one other thing to list of ideas for our elder female Utopia? Some kind of regular forum where members of the larger community can come and ask us for advice/counsel/feedback. Wisdom is a precious and powerful currency, and older women have tons of it. But like any muscle, it must be exercised to be viable, and I want to make sure that we can all get that chance!

Expand full comment
Reply
Share
3 replies by Alisa Kennedy Jones and others
3 more comments...
Top
New
Community

No posts

Ready for more?

Β© 2023 Alisa Jones
Privacy βˆ™ Terms βˆ™ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great writing