MadgeMahoney in the morning

The cows were still moving

It had been a quiet couple of days. Some respite was needed after a prolonged period of picking over her past life and making decisions about what she would take forward and what she would leave for another day.

The loft had revealed many forgotten treasures and the general sense of clearing had been largely successful. She'd found 4 jumpers, carefully vacuum packed for storage some years ago and now feeling like a whole new winter wardrobe. She'd thrown out years of old bank statements and evidence of credit card excesses amongst the old love letters and endless cards.

She had undergone a pretty profound catharsis which she was definitely feeling the benefits of. A sense of emerging order and lightness which felt more suitable to the current times. Yet it had been a painful process of remembering and rediscovering and she was glad to have closed the loft door at last. She hadn't actually closed it herself because this was now beyond her own physical capacities and this was another of those moments of acceptance. It wasn't absolutely sorted but it would do for now. Sometimes, one has to be pragmatic and she had to acknowledge that she simply couldn't do any more for now.

What she also had to acknowledge was that she still didn't quite know what to do with the Cows. The porcelain cow collection that had continued to grow, even after her wife's death. She smiled at the memory of the first one arriving, 21 years ago.

She was the biggest of the collection, a heavily made up, glamorous looking cow who had been bought in Amsterdam from the Cow Parade shop. Her wife had brought it back on the same day the woman had been told that her school had passed its Ofsted inspection and it seemed a fitting addition to their home. It was before sickness and sorrow came to them in such abundance and Abimbola the Mother cow as she was named, still remained a beacon of of strength, even as the world seemed to be spinning off its axis.

Over the years, the cow collection grew. Some came as gifts from friends who joined the herd, others were bought on their travels. After her wife died, the cows continued to grow. Little ones, like Superhero Cow and Chocolate Cow and bigger ones like Fire-fighter Cow and Shopping Cow.

All made with tiny details and lots of love. Her late wife had loved them and though they took up lots of space and potentially could gather a lot of dust, they had been part of their home. A talking point. A collection for others to add to. To be a part of.

They had been on a dresser in the kitchen for years and then, when the cancer came, so too did more cows. This time via ebay. From bed. It was surreal and it was unsurprising. She had been a prolific shopper. They were all over the house by the time she died. A comforting herd of porcelain cows.

Again, the woman smiled at the memory of her incredible wife who even in sickness had managed to shop and find treasures. The last months had been full of packages arriving and though some of them seemed random, even by her own standards, they had given her the dopamine hit she needed as her life came to its end. Gladness and sadness forever entwined and yet again, the woman felt the privilege of her life.

Now, after weeks of clearing and sorting and essentially doing the spring clean in Winter, all of the Cows had been moved. Only Abimbola and Firefighter Cow were on display for the time being. All the others were now upstairs. Either in her study or in the loft, each awaiting the spring adventures. For a moment, like a child, she wondered what it would be like if they did come to life when no one was around, like in Toy story. It would be a bit mental of course. But it would be fun.

She smiled again. Mental. Just like she'd always said. The woman was ok with that.

The key is to be honest

The visit with her late wife's ex girlfriend had gone well and the woman was glad that she had asked whether she wanted the old photos and cards from a life 3 decades ago. When she had first come across the box of cards and letters and pictures from her wife's past, she hadn't been sure what to do with it all. She was already hovering on overwhelm and had been contemplating throwing everything out because somehow it seemed easier to forget it all. yet it didn't seem right to throw out the memories of someone else's life so she had done what one of the young people in her life and just asked. “do you want the pictures of your past life with my late wife?” As it was, she had and they had arranged a visit. Which had gone well.

It went well because the two women had a shared history spanning 30 years, crossing lines of friendship and connection across the lesbians of north London and because they had both loved the same woman. She looked at the other pile of letters and pictures belonging to an ex lover of her late wife. Again, the lesbian friendship thing had worked out and the ex lover had remained a friend and so it went on. Women loving women after the fire had gone.

She smiled. It was the lyric of a song that one woman had written for another when the love affair had ended and the friendship remained. “I'll still be loving you, after the fire's gone, after the fire's gone.” There was sadness in the smile. They had played the song at her funeral. Three women who had loved the same woman, gathered, dignified, to say goodbye. Many people had gathered. The woman had been much loved.

Now, almost a decade later, the loft was finally being emptied of its pasts and it was time to look to the future. The kids needed help. depressed, suicidal, anxious. The women had spent an hour or so drinking tea and reflecting on all that had changed since the pandemic. The changes had come much earlier obviously and they sat, still in some degree of wonderment and considered how it was that the country they had known all their lives had become what it had.

It was because the social contract had been broken by governments is what they had agreed. There was no longer the social security of their own younger lives and although they themselves were comfortable enough, they were aware of how many people were struggling. Both were concerned with the effect of the pandemic on the young people and the long term implications for having a population who were so traumatised by life and whose main source of eduction seemed increasingly to come from TIKtok.

They agreed that the first thing needed was acknowledgement. At least let's be honest about what they've all gone through instead of expecting them all to just get on with it and then be surpassed they can't cope with the madness. Let's be honest about it all and then maybe we can move on and make things better.

They were left wing liberals with bleeding hearts in many ways and she smiled at just how cliched life can become as we get older. What did those descriptions even mean any more? She thought about the gender identity struggles that had cropped up in recent years and the debates and debacles around pronouns and misgendering and the opposition and possibility of cancellation that came with getting it wrong.

It seemed easier when they were younger, perhaps because that's what time does. it takes the edge off the pain off the present. It seemed the mental health of today's youth was a common discussion point and she thought back to her own identity explorations . She could remember having crushes on boys and on girls and she thought back to a childhood holiday in Butlins at Bognor Regis. She'd met a girl and for some reason decided to pretend to be a boy. She wasn't sure if the girl had believed her but she could remember the frisson of excitement at the pretence.

It had come to nothing of course and she had spent her teenage years being a girl who liked boys and also liked girls. No biggie beyond the usual teenage angst but it had occurred to her in recent years as debates about gender id become heated and at times hateful, that she might well have been tempted to 'transition' for a short period when she was simply exploring.

Hmm, that's way too big for first thing in the morning she thought. She decided to get into the bath her now not so new lover had run. She smiled. Love is love is love. She was grateful to have grown and was ready for another day in the loft. There was still a lot of love up there and she needed to get it down and get it out into the world because that's what was needed most. More love.

Really?

Back in the stride of her usual rhythm, the woman got out of bed at six with some sense of relief. it had been nice to have a weekend of laying in and she had hoped that it had marked an improvement in her overall sleep pattern. It hadn't. Instead, it had been a blissful blip in her long established pattern of night sweats, toilet trips and 3am anxiety about the modern world mixed in with strange dreams of her past. it had been that way for a long while but once the menopause had hit, sleep had become a whole new entity.

Before her own embodied experience of a female body having a massive transformation whilst having to go along being normal, she had no clue what women had been talking about when they spoke of the 'change'. She'd half listened and if she was honest, mainly dismissed the older women who spoke of their various ailments and aggravations. Now, she was that women and it felt, amongst all the other feelings, just really weird. She would look for signs of disinterest in the young.

It was weird to go to bed feeling ok and then without warning, be completely overheated in the top half of your body. it was weird to wake up from a seemingly normal sleep and be drenched in sweat and have to change ones clothes. It was weird to feel so utterly disinterested in the troubles of the young people when she had always been such an advocate for them. The change definitely changes you she thought. A change so dramatic and so under recognised, it felt strange not to make more of it.

Her body had softened and was starting to spread. just a little because she was still too controlling to entirely let rip with the appetite that could potentially eat its body weight in rich tea biscuits. Her hair was different. No longer a glossy crowning glory, it was leaning towards being a dry, scratchy looking nest that didn't hold the shape that her hairdresser still optimistically aimed for. She was glad she'd starting wearing a hat whilst it still looked cool. now the hat could cover the hair and she could still, with a bit of effort, look as if all was well. which it generally was but the nights were definitely taking their toll.

Why don't we celebrate the menopause more she thought? Is it because what is really taking place feels so uncomfortable that we lose sight of the magic of it along the way? Was there magic in getting older, fatter, balder, less tolerant? she smiled as she thought about asking all of her grumpy friends. Is there magic in menopause?

Perhaps she'd ask her friend who was coming today to collect some of the photos that had been discovered in the loft. She was actually her later wife's previous lover, but because lesbians seem to manage to maintain friendships, they had all managed over the years, to still get on and mix occasionally in the same circles.

Clearing the loft, she had found letters and photos from a life before hers. Pictures of her lover when she was with her previous love. Young, beautiful, carefree.

Groups of friends in their youth who were now middle aged, menopausal and working in all kinds of places and spaces when really, they should all be sitting around together, laughing at the madness of it all and perhaps drinking cocktails whilst the young ones did the leg work. She knew it was a fantasy but she wasn't sure what else there was. The world was too harsh to live without dreams.

She hadn't been sure what to do with the mementoes of a life she had no part of so had been glad to bump into the woman just before Christmas as she was doing a charity shop run with the miscellaneous extras she had found.

They had exchanged pleasantries, updated one another on the essentials of life and it had been a pleasant exchange at the end of a trying year. It had been weird to ask if she wanted the pictures but the ex girlfriend had always been what was described as 'a good woman.' they had agreed that she would come over and today was that day.

The woman looked around her and resolved to finish the loft clearing this week. It was the usual procrastination but it was time for another push through. What else can we do but push on she thought. A tiny voice replied, “well, you could just drink tea and eat cake.” She decided it was just a little too early for that.

The Cows

She looked for the umpteenth time at the cows and wondered what to do with them. Party cow, Nurse cow, Meditating cow, Shopping cow, Clown cow and countless other collectible cows, collected over many years by her late lover. She'd loved them.

Late was a funny way to describe a dead person she thought, not for the first time. It had been almost a decade and the grief wasn't the burning scar that it had been for the first years. Instead, it had settled, like a new layer of invisibility, only truly seen by herself. Others could see it of course, especially if they too had nursed a loved one through the most appalling of endings but she was glad to be able to move through life without the burning any more and she knew others were glad too.

The burning grief of the recently widowed can be a lot to handle and so she found herself feeling gratitude for the timing of her late lover's death. It had been before the world was thrown into the chaos of covid and so there had been bandwidth for people to grieve in a normal, collective way. Funerals had been big affairs back then, not the selected handful allowed to gather whist everyone else watch on zoom.

She couldn't imagine what it must have been like for people facing cancer in those times. She herself had been able to go back and forth, in and out of the hospital, settling in at the chemo suite for the three day treatments that ultimately didn't stop her wife from dying but perhaps had given her some time.

Time. The ultimate moments of time. She found herself often looking back over time and wondered if this sometimes prevented her from moving forward and yet, if you didn't know where you'd been, how could you know where you were going?

She sighed. She sighed a lot these days she'd come to realise. it seemed the only response to so much of what had happened in the years since the world had been locked down and then reopened in what often felt like an entirely different form.

She looked again at the cows. 8 of them sitting on a bench, waiting to be moved as part of the great loft emptying. It had taken years to let go of the things her lover had loved so much. The usual things like clothes and bags and shoes had been hard enough but readily accepted by charity shops and occasional sales on eBay.

Not so straightforward were the collections. She'd been a great one for collecting. She'd always put it down to her traveller roots and had proudly picked up treasures from around the world on the holidays that had made working so hard worthwhile. She'd apparently had teapots in the 1980s but the woman hadn't seen those.

For 20 years they had done life together and now, as she looked at the cows and thought of all the ones down stairs, in the kitchen and even in boxes in the loft, she felt she really had to make some decisions. Getting rid of them didn't feel right. Having them all over the house felt too scattered. A bit like the people of her life who over the years of the pandemic had become scattered, separated, and some even became late.

She had the sense that she'd like to gather people together again. Bring the herd back together. A metaphorical call to remember ourselves. It was the only way to go forward she thought. You have to put the past behind and look to the future whilst staying precisely in the present. It was a big ask and she wondered, as she had very many times, what her late wife would have made of the new world order.

Looking at her life now, living happily as she did with another love, she was amazed at the human capacity to adapt and grow and keep loving, even when in agony and fear and grief. It was amazing really.

Her room was a mess and the loft had been tipped everywhere but she could feel an emerging sense of order. She'd thrown out endless cards, letters, even photos. Old art projects were gone, an abandoned dolls house was given to a neighbours child. All of it could be moved on. Except the cows. the endless cows, collected, gifted, displayed, boxed up and now, ready to roam again.

She was going to get them all out, clean them up and put them together on a shelf, waiting for the right day to return them to full display. Clearing up a life after death seemed an endless process of rediscovery and though she wasn't quite sure if her friends would be able to ever gather again in the same way as they used to, she was satisfied that at least an intention could be put out into the cosmos using the cows as proxys for people.

She smiled to herself. Her wife had always said she was a swami nutter. She was ok with that.