Menopause – Juanita Collins

April 15, 2015April 15, 2015

Menopause and Marketing

Now that I am a woman of a “certain” age, I’m starting to notice a few things. Like how little notice menopause is given in our society. Like how little notice post-menopausal women are given in society.

A Dove campaign interviewed over 1,700 women between the ages of 18 and 64 recently about beauty and how they think of themselves and about the importance of being “real.”

Well, we know the Dove beauty campaign is all about selling us stuff. I mean, hel-lo….they’ve got shareholders.

Apparently they’ve been so successful that it isn’t enough to be a size zero any more. Now we have to embrace our freckles and our size 4 thighs and we have to be real. We do that by buying soap. Unless you are over 65.

If you’re over 65 I guess you don’t need soap anymore.

I know that 18-64 is a marketing demographic, but it’s more than that at the same time. It’s about how society views youth and beauty (or age and the lack of it).

Maybe it’s because we don’t talk about menopause amongst ourselves very much. Oh sure, we joke about hot flashes and night sweats. And losing the ability to string two thoughts together and forgetting just why we came into the kitchen just now and bemoaning our newly acquired pot bellies. Funny stuff. Jokey stuff.

What about…am I still pretty? Am I still desirable? Do I have a voice? (And no, I’m not fishing for compliments). What about menopausal depression and debilitating mood swings. What about vaginal atrophy. Have you heard about that one? ( It’s what Premerin is for, in case you were wondering.)

Females are young. And fertile. One day you’re a child. The next day – the next second – you’re a woman. I remember thinking the day I got my first period, “I’m a woman now. I can have babies!” So it seems only natural to ask the reverse question when you stop having your monthly flow. After menopause, who are we? We’re female, but are we still women? Yes, of course we are, don’t be silly.

Many post menopausal women will say that we’re more than women. We’re women with huzzah! We’re women who don’t need soap!

Right?

I’m not so sure. Okay, okay…I hear you. I don’t particularly want to be targeted in a mass-market beauty products campaign either.

But it would be nice to be noticed.

I do have something to say. My voice is important (or should be, anyway.) Maybe I don’t want the kind of soap Dove is trying to sell my younger sisters, but I buy soap, too.

I know there’s a point in here somewhere, but I’ve forgotten where I put it…

I’m participating in the Blogging From A-Z challenge. One blog post for each letter of the alphabet, each day of April (except Sunday).

September 7, 2014September 7, 2014

Vintage Adjust-O-Matic Dress Form and a Healthy Body Image

Have you ever seen one of these?

Made in the mid-1960s and costing only $6.95: “with your Adjust-o-Matic dress form you see in advance just how attractive and becoming your dress, skirt, coat or blouse will look!”

Inside the box was a bewildering assortment of pieces. I have to admit, as a person who kind of sucks at puzzles, this put a bit of fear into my heart.

Thank goodness there was also an instruction booklet! And let me say right now, that all instruction writers in the world should read this instruction booklet and take notes. Seriously! This was so easy to put together! I was amazed!

I spread the pieces out on the kitchen floor and proceeded to fit tab A into slot A and on and on until I was finished about an hour later.

The Incredible Adjust-o-Matic is a miracle of modern engineering. Honestly.

The form was built in three sections: first the hips, then the torso, then attach the neck piece and close the shoulders. When I built the hips section, I held it in my two hands and thought that surely there must be some mistake. These hips are too small. My hips are much larger than this. So I double checked the measurements. And yes…these are my hips.

I suddenly felt a little teary-eyed! So here’s something about me that you may or may not know. Several years ago I lost a great deal of weight. Yes. Yes, I did. You can read all about it here. At some point after that I suffered an illness. My brain chemicals and hormones went out of balance, brought on by a combination of stressful life events and menopause, and I was diagnosed with acute depression. It took me a couple of years, but thanks to a lot of very hard work and the love and support of my husband and a couple of close friends, I recovered. Unfortunately, however, I am left with a 20 pound weight gain. I can’t begin to tell you how I have beat myself up over re-gaining those pounds! The vicious, terrible things I say to myself! Horrible, just horrible.

So holding those hips in my hands made me cry. Because I saw that they aren’t gigantic ugly hips at all! Yes, they are 3 inches wider than they were 3 years ago. That is a fact.My body-image is so out of whack, it’s scarey!

I will get back to a healthier weight again. It’s just taking longer this time. My body is different than it was when I lost the weight before. I’m post-menopausal now. I’m not teaching 5 dance classes every week. But I go for long walks every day with Samson, and I’m making an effort to get back into my yoga practice. I still go through phases of being very mindful of what I eat and then binging on ice cream (hard not to do on these hot summer days!). Over all I feel like I live a very balanced life. So the weight will probably be much slower in coming off this time around. And you know what? That’s okay. Besides, the incredible Adjust-o-Matic will reduce right along with me as I re-loose those inches. She’ll help keep things real.

She doesn’t actually belong to me. She is on loan from a friend. It belongs to my friend Jean’s mother.

Jean’s mother is in a nursing home now, and the dress form was taken apart and packed away into Jean’s basement some time ago.

I still think she looks smaller than me. But every time I check the measurements again, hers and mine remain the same.

049

She sits in my sewing room and I look at her every day. She reminds me to be kind to myself.

January 1, 2014

Cheers for a Playful 2014!

Hello and Happy New Year!

Have you ever chosen a word
just one single word
to guide you through the year?

For the last couple of years I’ve held the word balance close to my heart. It was the word that helped me to navigate a very busy life: teaching up to 5 dance classes per week, directing a dance troupe, choreographing and producing shows while managing to have a family life and working a 9-5 day job (phew!)

Balance was the word that got me through to the other side of menopausal depression. I was out of balance physically, emotionally and hormonally. Searching for and maintaining balance was the lifeline that I clung to and the rope I hauled myself up by. It kept me secure during the heartache of deciding to let go of my dance troupe and students. I kept it in the front of my mind during my weight loss journey (65 pounds!). It was the word that taught me to put health and happiness above productivity.

Balance guided me through the waters of deciding to retire relatively young; to move to a new town and seek out new adventures.

Balance: what a beautiful word!

But now it’s time for a new word to live by. It’s time to get out of the box and…

PLAY!

This year I am going to play in my kitchen and learn to bake a cake from scratch. Specifically, some of the Chatelaine cakes. Yum!

…and I will experiment creating delicious meals from all over the globe: India, Japan, Italy, Thailand…! No fear in the kitchen will be my new motto – play with those spices, Nita! Try it out!

In my Creativity room I will play in the sewing nook, on the yoga mat, in-front-of the dance mirror and with words at my laptop.

My body will become stronger as I play outdoors, exploring local walking and hiking trails with Kelly and Sammy. We’ll take our bikes out and explore some of the country roads.

I will play in the garden, discovering all the wonders of living in a zone 5 gardening region.

I vow to put myself “out there” and be open to meeting new friends, getting involved in the community somehow (music? theater? dance?)

My friend Melissa at 100 Billion Stars puts it brilliantly (you can read her entire blog post here):

Play is a way of making room for our potential. It isn’t about pretending to be something we hope to be one day. It isn’t about presenting a different face to the world, trying on masks and personae. It’s about being authentic and true to ourselves in an atmosphere without judgment or rules. It’s from this place that growth begins, releasing the possibilities that have been lying dormant all our lives.

So here I am this morning, wishing you all a wonderful year of play and a hell of a good time doing it!

No fear! Have fun!

PLAY!

(these wonderful family photos were taken by Heather Jones of hpj photography at our Fox Lake cabin last September. We had so much fun!)

September 27, 2013

Nine More Fridays

On the ninth Friday from today I will walk into my office, sit down at my desk and turn on my computer for the last time. Holy Crap! It doesn’t get much more real than that, eh?

excuse me while I remove my sweater…the sudden surge of adrenaline and happy dancing has brought on a mega-watt hot flash…

And in other news:

Looks like fall is arriving in Salmon Arm, too. 🙂

September 6, 2013

Bellydance after Retirement: the beginnings of a plan!

I have been pondering my upcoming retirement and what I want it to look like. Who do I want to be? What do I want to do?

Ironically, it was my illness that gave me the opportunity to examine these questions. It was a devastating time for me.

For a while, I couldn’t even go to work, and I had to give up every single thing in my life in order to concentrate on simply getting up in the morning and getting through the day.

Dance felt like a raggedly amputated limb, and it hurt so much to lose it that I actually packed up my gear and put it away where I didn’t have to see the dust raining down on it like tears.

Gradually, though, creativity began to clamor for an outlet and I began to quilt and knit and write and explore avenues of creative expression that I hadn’t had time for when I was dancing.

Fortunately, part of my wellness journey has been re-learning to pay attention and listen to my body and to my heart. And, happily, what my heart is telling me is that the dance is still there, just not in the same way as before.

I’ve discovered that I love quilting. I love knitting. I love baking and hiking and gardening, and I no longer want to pursue dance to the exclusion of all else. In future, dance will be only one of many ways to express myself instead of the only way.

On another happy note, I have been thinking lately that I would like to teach when we get to Salmon Arm. Did you see that coming? I didn’t.

Ideally, I’d like to focus on teaching women my own age. Middle-aged women who have “been there and done that” and have women’s bodies; luscious or lean with bellies full of life experience and stories to share simply because they have lived half their lives or more already.

Maybe I can eventually direct a little troupe of 4 or 5 women, dancing with the assaya, baskets or zills… dancing joyful, dancing our stories in the old way. A small student dance troupe like the Allspice dancers of Arabesque Academy: “dancers who celebrate the female spirit at its most glorious time in life… a group of Bellydancers who have lived a bit and revel in their wisdom, uninhibited sensuality and zest for life.”

I could also hire out to work with other troupes… teach a choreography or perhaps come into the studio and rehearse them in preparation for performance. I could do that on a charge-by-the-hour, workshop style basis.

I am very good at troupe direction, if you don’t mind my saying so. My dance troupe Saba and all the accolades we received over the years is proof of that. I’m tough but fair (and a helluva lot of fun). Just ask these gals, lol!

As far as teaching goes, my preference is to work with intermediate and advanced students. Because I don’t want to tie up my time year-round, I envision teaching occasional themed master-classes and workshops instead of on-going classes. I’d like to revive the Special Topics classes that I had started to develop before I was interrupted by illness.

It can be a tricky thing to carve out a niche in a new dance community, but I’m not a political person, and I’m generally easy-going. I’d really like to be a positive-minded contributing member of Salmon Arm’s dance community, if they want me.

I’ve also come to understand that while I will always be a student, I have also stepped out onto that first rung as a master instructor. Yes, I dare to say that out loud. My peers and my community have designated me as such, and it is time for me to acknowledge it. I am still an affiliate instructor with Arabesque International, and that means something.

As for my personal performance practice, I have come to understand that my dancing heart lies right in the roots – the very guts – of Egyptian dance. In the baladi. My mentor, Yasmina Ramzy, saw it in me when she called me “little mama baladi” and urged me to pursue that direction several years ago.

I look forward to finding myself back in the bubble of joy that always overtakes me when I am truly dancing without care.

This is Baladi. This is the rich flavor that sets my artistic taste buds on fire.

This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.

July 15, 2013

Dottering Middle Age

I wore my purple dress, purple shoes and crochet shrug to work this morning. Half-way through the morning I noticed that I was no longer wearing the shrug. Feeling a wee bit chilly, I felt around behind me on the back of my chair, looking with my hands to slip the sweater back on. No shrug. Huh? I got up and looked around my desk. No shrug. Not on the floor. Not in the drawer (why would it be in there anyway?). Not anywhere in the office! How strange! I walked down the hall to the file cabinet. No shrug. I walked to the ladies room and looked in my usual stall. No shrug. No shrug on the hook behind the door (who knows…). No shrug beside the sinks. I did wear it this morning, didn’t I? I am sure I was wearing it…

Then I remembered walking to the student residence building earlier in the morning, and so I retraced my steps. Out of my office and out of the side doors I go, across the parking lot, and there! in the middle of the parking lot! in a pathetic little heap of abandoned linen crochet, is my shrug!

Now tell me please, how does one’s sweater just happen to fall off of one’s body without one noticing?

Maybe I need to visit the doctor for a mental acuity test.

On another note, does anyone remember which episode this picture belongs to?

I don’t either.