Evergreen Tea

Poem for World Menopause Day

Salena Godden

Oct 18, 2024

Transcript

Evergreen Tea

12 flashes from a menopause diary

Hang on. What is this? I am different … but the same? What is this thing? This monster? And what is this obstacle and this block, what is this uncertain path, because well, it seems to me just as we know ourselves, yes, just as we know our bodies, just as we found our circle and learned our way through, the woods suddenly grow cold and strange, darkest evergreen. For decades we know our cycle, we know our own sex and bodies, and we say, yes, I know these woods, I trust myself here, but now, suddenly, see how the forest is changed and now all deep pools and thick brambles and nettles, and we are told to drink nettle tea and so we drink the tea, evergreen tea, and sip the truth of it and we drink sage tea too, yes tea, love tea, all the tea, and the truth of it, the truth is in the tea, but what really is this … change?

I keep forgetting peoples names. I forget people I have known for years. I stand there blinking and lost even though I know this is you and this is me and please can you be patient for a moment because I'm so hot right now and this night is long and loud, with heat and sweat and this deep red water and this flash flood and this blood and then no blood and then ache and then the ghost blood and the trick of a one day show and then no show for months and then a flooding and the bed is waves of it and waves of it and what is happening to me? I don't leave the house without a bag stuffed with tampons and pads and clean pants and a mask and gloves and diving equipment and goggles and tissues and waders and armbands just in case just in case of what? Oh the shame of it, I am afraid of the shame, what is this new fear and tears and more tears, as I write this I am crying again and I am roaring my eyes out, Chaka Kahn is on the radio, she is singing I'm every woman and the song feels so different today and poignant and yes Chaka, I can hear you, I'm every woman, it is true: I'm every woman, I’m every woman, I’m every woman…

OK. HOT. Slow down for one hot minute hot minute HOT because hot HOT because it's HOT so I open the fridge and stick my head in it, because it is cool like the longing for an evergreen forest, and what is this strange behaviour? Why is it so hot? I am boiling in my own blood? I am a boiled ham. I am in a bubbling pot of feelings. So tell me now what is this? This thing we cannot get any answers for and this thing that is happening to me and in spite of me? Does anyone care? No. Not really. Nope. Ok so we must cope and we must manage and we must struggle on our own and we whisper a new secret word we read: PERIMENOPAUSE. It is easy to remember because it is the bit before menopause but with peri-peri pepper sauce and so that explains the heat.

So, finally, tonight you share your burden at full moon with a bottle of rum in the kitchen with your best friends and you say, sister, are you going through this too? Yes! She says, yes, yes, oh thank fuck, I thought it was just me, so what the fuck is this? This rising power, this mighty rage, and that is this intolerable heat? It is a hot flush. A HOT FLUSH? They call it a hot flush? Well, I’m on fire. I feel like I ate a volcano. I'm bubbling lava and my head is all flames, I am a walking burning witch. But we must carry on as normal and say excuse me, darlings, can you smell smoke? Please don't mind this wildfire inside me. We don't talk about it. Sister is wise, she tells me to boil herbs, fresh parsley, sage and thyme and use old magic. Drink more water. I cleanse and I clear a path inside myself but inside I feel prickly. There are tigers in my blood, so we simmer a leaf and drink the tea, anxieties thriving in the weeds and undergrowth. I steep herbs, drink the tea, and how does it taste? Honestly? Ok it is a bit like drinking a hot salad, hot wet grass juice, but I'll try anything at this point, because I cannot get an appointment and I cannot get any help. I'm a raging maniac insomniac and I'm a volcano and bubbling in my own geiser and I want all the things: I want ice and I want you to touch me and I say don't touch me and I don't know what I mean or what I want? I want to jump out of the window into the cold night air, hmmm, the wet rainy cold pavement looks inviting. I want to sleep and curl up into a ball like a cool and slimy snail. I want to be held. I want to be alone. I want to hide in a cave and eat cold rocks, delicious chunky crunchy icy rocks and I want to stick smooth rocks down my pants and I want to fill myself with smooth ice and cold rocks and then just walk into Antartica to feel my feet in the snow and sink under icy water and die and live like a happy cool-skinned seal, skidding on the ice on my flabby belly into the darkest deepest blue. I want all of this now and all at the same time. Such violent flashing death thoughts and desperate itchy feelings and too many feelings, feeling all the feelings, die die die, and all the day long, hot hot hot, feeling all the feelings, and all night long, and all the feelings and so what is this? More feeling feelings and more crying. I’ll give you something to cry about. Thanks.

Perhaps it is a bit like puberty but in reverse. That's what this is, just like puberty, but going in the other direction, you are growing away from being fertile and useful to men to being useless and invisible. Ah well now, haha, when you look at it like that, it makes so much sense, that’s why they didn’t tell us, that’s why they don’t warn us, nobody told us, nobody told me. It don’t matter. Of course! Hormones go haywire, I feel exactly like a suicidal 15 year old again, feels familiar, here are those old dark thoughts, here the death wishes, here the crying and why am I crying this time? Maybe because the song was sad or because someone was kind or I cried because I was hungry or I cried watching Attenborough and I cried because the world is mad or because my love made me a really nice cheese toastie and I cried because it rained because the rain was sad and I cried like the rain and I cried because Chaka Khan is so beautiful and I love Chaka Khan and I love that song: I'm every woman. I’m laughing and roaring with tears all at the same time and looking at the rain being rainy. Furious weather inside me, a tirade of emotion. I am taking everything very personally, all weather is me, wave after wave after wave, smashing me against myself

And breathe. Then here we are. Today there is this calm bit and this very grounded feeling and it is a most gentle breath, and well this is strange and new too, so now what is this? I am wearing new white knickers with no fear of stains, why so much fear of a little blood, I dunno, decades of shame and guilt, but yes, look, see, yes, the bleeding has stopped forever. You will never bleed again. Wow ok I think I get it now! So yeah, so no more periods. EVER again. Wow getting older is amazing and being a big sister, to be an elder, it is an honour. Why was I afraid of this? Is this what's happening now? Some acceptance perhaps? It is a privilege to get older. Say it again. Yeah, ok I think I understand now, I am lucky to get to this age at all. Hallelujah, oh wisdom, oh clever one, oh look at me now, look how I got so wise and jolly and plump and how I am so zen and wise, I accept it all, and oh it must be over and done with now and this is what finding balance feels like? I feel like I am allowed to enter the evergreen forest.

I am a machine, my system is rebooting, it brings with it this pain and these aching limbs and back and knees and these growing pains and bloated belly and these swollen tits and this forgetful head … right now … wait … am I at Waterloo or London Bridge? Shit! I was writing this in my diary and I totally forgot where I am and all I know is I am standing in a London train station and for a good two minutes I blink and stare into space and I don't remember which station this is and I wonder who to ask and if someone can tell me where I am now. Is this brain fog? I am falling off the world. Falling into fog, thick blue fog. I cannot even see my own hands. Is this London Bridge or Waterloo? I have been here a million times but suddenly I don't recognise the train station. I am lost in my own city. I am lost in my own body. I am lost.

Oh great, so I’m just about to go on stage in front of hundreds of people and I am backstage and whooosh blurrrp there’s a sporadic random flood, and well yeah, I ruin those new white knickers. Ha! We all know white knickers are a dare, like literally begging the period demon for a random flood of blood from nowhere and with no warning and of course it’s a full moon and now stuff toilet paper down your pants and walk on stage and do a gig like a fucking boss because you are a fucking boss and you have done bloody gigs bleeding bloody blood like this a thousand bloody times, look at you now, oozing in your pants, bleeding on stage, cramps and aches and STILL smashing it and nobody even knows, and nobody even cares. Hey everyone, you should see what I made red - not an analogy! Not fair though, and such bad timing, hey blood goddess, period demons, we need to talk, we are meant to be on the same team, you are supposed to be my uterus and not my enemy.

Hello doctor? I know you are busy but I think I want to die a bit. Can you tell me what is happening to me Doctor? And the doctor says, all women are different, and I say, hang on, please do not just shrug and tell me all women are different. I think I am bleeding to death, my period won’t stop, and doctor I have a job and a life, and it's been miles of turmoil and anxiety and doctor I want to die or sleep, and right now, I am not fussy, whichever comes first, the death or the sleep, and the doctor just says, all women are different, and the doctor offers anti-depressants, and I say no thank you, and the doctor says, menopause can last ten years! Ten! Years! So bizarre, ok iron deficiency, eat iron tablets, eat bags of spinach, will I live like this for a decade? Every time I ask for help the doctor offers anti-depressants. Every time I ask for help the doctor sighs and says, all women are different, the doctor smiles and says this again and again, all women are different, the doctor sings, over and over again, all women are different, all women are different, but doctor, I’m every woman.

Doctor, I want to say, I’m every woman. Doctor, do you even know what this feels like? Did you skip this class? I am seeking balance and I am on a journey. I am returning to the land before blood and it hurts. One day I am going to be free in the forest and reconnect with who I am, who I was, who we all were before expectations, before we were useful, Doctor. I am going to be free, I look forward to my freedoms, Doctor. I honour this biology and chemistry that is naturally happening inside my body and brain. I understand I am changing, we are changing, and we won’t resist it or fight it, because we are going to a different life, one without draining our life force and all our energy into a bloody pair of pants every month. A life without servitude to shame. We will be free! And if we are lucky, perhaps now people will stop asking us about weddings and babies, finally, what a fucking relief. Maybe people will ask about our brains and dreams, our books and art and how nice that will be, and we can talk about other things like travels and adventures and philosophies and passions. We’ll be so wise, we are going to return to wonder, and go forward and go back at the same time, back to our original settings and to who we were before we were made useful to society, before we were forced to grow up too quick, before we had to grow sass and defences and fears and before sex and fags and rum and scars and armour, that is what this is, the menopause is exhausting, but it is also an empowerment. This is the ultimate super-power of reinvention and that is what is feared. This is rebirth. This is what nobody told me, this is what they didn’t tell us, this is what they are not showing us. So this awakening, this is why they burnt witches, powerful older women who knew herbs and maps and stars and time, this is what they don’t tell you, that you are magic, and it is in your bones and veins and roots and ancestry and one day if you are lucky, you too will know to find the forest.

Freedom from fear is empowerment. Magic is a freedom from shame. Fear is a cage. Shame is a prison. So now we return to a place without shame and fear, to the girl who believed in her power and wonder. We hold hands with ourselves, the kid who flew in her dreams. We will know ourselves well, the whole of a soul, and how we were before the world stuck its fingers in and said shame and dug out expectations and said shame, before they walked into your jammed open mouth and said shame and tattooed the tongue with shame and sit up straight and shame and smear the lipstick shame and cross your legs and shame and wait your turn and shame and that dress is too short and shame and keep your mouth shut and shame and keep our little secret shame and speak when you are spoken to and shame and I’ll give you something to cry about and shame you are just a girl and shame and shame and what a shame you are just a girl. Shame. Shame. Shame. Oh, what a sham is shame.

Now see how your wings grow stronger every day. To be whole again, feel whole, and see how you may learn to fly. We are all the water and sky and earth and flame, and fierce and soft at once. Sunlight filtering through jade and leaf. Silver hares darting between the trees. Silver hairs. Hello. I am new here. I grow accustomed to changes, explore this new era, this wise excellence, this dark and verdant forest, come and meet me here, please don’t be afraid, it is so cool and lush. This is a good place, this age is emerald, viridescent, I sip on the truth of being, becoming evergreen.

‘Evergreen Tea’ published in ‘With Love, Grief and Fury’ out now in hardback and audiobook. published by Canongate Books.

Happy Full Moon, Happy World Menopause Day —

Sharing this piece with love and solidarity.

You can read a short personal essay and guest post about the writing of this piece on

Liv Little

‘The Feels’ — https://substack.com/@livlittle

Thanks again to you Liv for the opportunity to share these words and feelings. Shout out to all who came before us, giving us courage to write this. I hope some of you read this writing and don’t feel quite so alone in this wild journey we are on, this adventure into the other side. Meet me here. Don’t be afraid, change is constant, you are growing, blossoming and blooming into you.