There is something private about being in your car. Even with the windows down, I forget that I can be seen and heard, and so a friend happened upon me in what felt like a private moment this morning. We smiled and waved, his besmirched sort of expression confirming I had been caught in some sense. I was miles away, blaring Elliot Smith at nine am, at 37 years old, both too early and too late. I was very in my head and feelings because I finished Miranda July’s new book All Fours yesterday and cannot. stop. thinking about it.
She has echoed some feelings and thoughts I had not fully teased out, mainly the quintessential idea that menopause is a second teenagerdome. I’ve listened to multiple interviews for this book tour, and in almost all of them she has noted that adolescence is the ultimate muse. Materially speaking there is an endless supply of movies, songs, books about our coming of age… It made me think about why I find myself listening to artists like Elliot Smith and Fiona Apple on repeat now? Why do I have this seemingly sudden urge to find new music that fully embodies my potent emotions and waves of energy?
These cultural artifacts still hold weight in this second coming. Perhaps it is the same reason why me and my girlfriends have been getting together to rewatch high school movies of the early aughts-She’s All That, You Drive Me Crazy and the like. It feels like we are burrowing into the disorienting in-between we are in, or are about to be in. The nostalgia of adolescence is intoxicating, sitting in a gaggle laughing and picking apart the love interests, trying to find ourselves in the characters, the plot lines. Realistically, most of us don’t feel represented by any of them then nor do they represent us twenty years later (and praise be! Many of them have not aged well and are pretty problematic, but I digress). For me, this newly minted ritual feels like saying “hello again” and “bon voyage” to my young adult self. It’s erratic, it swings, it is sad and uncomfy but also holds promise, a newness. Maybe the reason I find myself going back to these songs and movies is because this is what we have to indulge in.
And yes, there is pleasure in reminiscing, but there is NOTHING to listen to or read set in this phase. Society shows us that peri/menopause is the end, culminating with us evaporating into thin air. Along with the apex of our estrogen levels (that do in fact crash like the most illegal, code-breaking rollercoaster ever dreamt), so does our relevance. Miranda July has taken this negative space and splayed out in all her humor and genius, a pied piper of innovation.
She beckons us to “seize the moment” in this particular phase–write your own second act, and then your third and your fourth because you fucking can and aging is not synonymous with the end. Menopause is a second beginning and the lack of representation can be an invitation to create the life you want to lead. Thanks to Miranda July we have something explicitly shedding light on this metamorphosis and I thank her for that.
For any of those curious, the music I now gravitate towards? Music that I fully lose myself in mentally or bodily. Universally, it always gives me the sense of belonging to a powerful coven. I leave you with the song Spinning by Julia Holter; I listened to it over and over during the eclipse this past April.
We are kindred spirits! I have been a fan of Miranda July for a long time and am loving the new book. I’ve encouraged all of my friends to read it too as I think this book has the ability to rock this generation of aging women. Hope you are well 🩷
I love this so much ♥️