STUNNING. In tears. Thank you for writing this and the beauty of it ALL. I will now go hug and thank my mum and every other wonderful wise hag in my life.
Alissa, I won't pretend to relate to menopause. Period (pun intended).
But I love to relate to you and your writing. These two passages made me smile - for different reasons:
"Like most self-involved people, I oftentimes become acutely aware of injustice only when it spills itself all over my shirt." - So vulnerable. So honest. So real for most. And such a pithy and unique description.
"And to my mom, for all the advice and feedback, chatting with me on the phone as I distractedly shuttled a child to a sleepover, and then the next day as I sat in a hotel bar waiting for another child at a birthday party, where strangely the wall behind me was mirrored glass with Mrs. Dalloway’s opening pages etched into it; opening pages in which she alludes to menopause, without explicitly naming it, and a book that ends with a moment of utter joy as 52-year-old Clarissa looks across the street and into the window at an older woman wrapping up her day." - So poignant. So real. So honoring of your mother.
A double comment from you today! Thank you for always reading, James. Every one of your essays and comments feel like a gift, and I'm so grateful for you.
I love this pic of your Mom, she is beautiful in every sense, always & forever. I always admired her beauty (inner and outer) and your grandmother's too. Aging/menopause is not for the faint of heart. We endure it because we have to but embrace it (eventually) because, well because...! There is something to the saying about growing old gracefully.... Huge hugs to mom and you!
For about a month, I stop everything I'm doing to read your essays when I see the notification in my inbox. I've been reading the copy of "A Room of One's Own" you gave us two years ago, around the same time you asked how I can be writing old letters at seventeen. Lately, I've found myself mourning my youth in its very midst. "There’s a loneliness to each superpower as there’s a loneliness to the superheroes that wield them." Your writing has the ability to transcend the mourning, the questioning, the age and time and wrinkles – the loneliness, itself. My best friend's mother said she has felt like the same person since she was sixteen. Loneliness, in that way, doesn't age. Or does it?
STUNNING. In tears. Thank you for writing this and the beauty of it ALL. I will now go hug and thank my mum and every other wonderful wise hag in my life.
If I can contribute to more hugging, I'll call this a success. I'm so glad you liked it, Meryl. Big smile on my face.
Alissa, I won't pretend to relate to menopause. Period (pun intended).
But I love to relate to you and your writing. These two passages made me smile - for different reasons:
"Like most self-involved people, I oftentimes become acutely aware of injustice only when it spills itself all over my shirt." - So vulnerable. So honest. So real for most. And such a pithy and unique description.
"And to my mom, for all the advice and feedback, chatting with me on the phone as I distractedly shuttled a child to a sleepover, and then the next day as I sat in a hotel bar waiting for another child at a birthday party, where strangely the wall behind me was mirrored glass with Mrs. Dalloway’s opening pages etched into it; opening pages in which she alludes to menopause, without explicitly naming it, and a book that ends with a moment of utter joy as 52-year-old Clarissa looks across the street and into the window at an older woman wrapping up her day." - So poignant. So real. So honoring of your mother.
A double comment from you today! Thank you for always reading, James. Every one of your essays and comments feel like a gift, and I'm so grateful for you.
I love this pic of your Mom, she is beautiful in every sense, always & forever. I always admired her beauty (inner and outer) and your grandmother's too. Aging/menopause is not for the faint of heart. We endure it because we have to but embrace it (eventually) because, well because...! There is something to the saying about growing old gracefully.... Huge hugs to mom and you!
Let's get the peri- and post-menopausal gang back together!❤️
YES, I would love that immensely!
Yes!!! We will fly! Beautiful piece
Always and forever, with you.
Beautiful! Important! Thank you for writing and sharing Alissa ❤️
Thank you, Aurora. I really appreciate this and you.
I loved this Alissa, absolutely beautiful.
Thank you, Neena!❤️
This is exquisite. Thank you.
So grateful for you sharing it, Rebecca 🫶🏼
For about a month, I stop everything I'm doing to read your essays when I see the notification in my inbox. I've been reading the copy of "A Room of One's Own" you gave us two years ago, around the same time you asked how I can be writing old letters at seventeen. Lately, I've found myself mourning my youth in its very midst. "There’s a loneliness to each superpower as there’s a loneliness to the superheroes that wield them." Your writing has the ability to transcend the mourning, the questioning, the age and time and wrinkles – the loneliness, itself. My best friend's mother said she has felt like the same person since she was sixteen. Loneliness, in that way, doesn't age. Or does it?
I miss you, your writing, your weirdly wise and new statements. When can we have coffee and talk about loneliness? And everything else?
Sign me up for the Flying Hags Club! This was so well done
Thank you, thank you for your help this week-- it was so key to getting the ending right 🧙🏼♀️