Trying...to weather being a woman
Women and the weather that flows through us
In my new job presenting the Today programme I have to read a few weather reports - something I’ve never done before.
One example from last week: “Today will start with some sunshine in the north and far east, but it will soon cloud over with spells of rain pushing north-eastwards across the UK, heavy for some in the north in the afternoon.”
Regardless of the words sent over by the BBC weather centre to form our shorter forecast scripts (the longer ones are presented by our lovely weather team) I am always struck by how civilised it sounds. A bit like the cricket on the radio in the height of the summer.
Even though sometimes it is forecasting all sorts of extremities that can make life very difficult indeed - the weather and the tone we humans have adopted for it still sounds so pleasant and harmless. There is enough drama in the world you could argue without needing to adopt a foreboding tone when an actual storm is brewing.
Let the weather forecasts be you can easily argue. The actual weather will do the talking and some.
Why this talk of weather on here then? Especially when it’s a known fact in my family how much I loathe discussing weather or travel logistics.
It’s because I can’t believe the weather flowing through some women’s bodies and minds. How women all around me are fielding such extremities and I thought of it with a wry smile as I read the phrase in this week’s forecast: “rain pushing north-eastwards across the UK, heavy for some in the north in the afternoon.” Quite. Can you imagine a daily forecast of your personal weather? Except we can’t predict.
The weather in my body is regularly stormy with endometriosis and adenomyosis pain. It crackles with it - physically and emotionally. Lightening bolts of the stuff. You can’t see it and a sunny disposition on the outside is not always possible - but regardless, the pain rages inside. Each day I await how it will be and what equipment I will need. Heat bag, pain relief, hot baths. Whether the brain fog will come in body north and icy temperatures body south across the feet - one doesn’t know. And on those rare days of calm, you catch your breath and try quickly to enjoy the weather you’ve waited all year for - determined not to waste it.
A well woman I know (without my or any particular conditions) recently stunned me by telling me that every month, a few days before her period, she gyms even harder, trying to outrun her mental and physical demons that come on before she bleeds. During this window, she is battered by mental storms upending her life. She thinks her husband is cheating; the world is shit and nothing is ok. And then the bleed and the storm passes. For now.
Or how about the woman I met who told me of the two days she can’t properly move because of the blood downpour and the other few random days a month, where the brain fog comes in thick and fast - and she has to try and find a way through - blindly groping her way to sense. This woman has no illnesses other than to be a woman. And all that can bring.
This week on the programme - I interviewed the velvet-voiced broadcasting legend Kirsty Young about pain. She lives with stuff chronically caused by her fibromyalgia. She bravely shared that she has been hollowed out by the storms raging through her and was effectively forced out of a job she loved (Desert Island Discs) and to change so many ways she lived her life. Understandably we have had a huge response to her kind candour.
Storms. Pain. Wind coming in. Batten down the hatches until it passes. But when will that be?
And how will it pass through?
I am watching Trying (of course I am) on Apple TV about a couple who can’t get naturally pregnant, for whom IVF failed and are now going through the adoption process. It’s actually very funny and tender. But in the latest episode for me, two women who don’t get along suddenly find themselves bonding over the bashing up of a broken down shed in another dead woman’s garden. They grab brooms and beat it down while shouting their frustrations aloud. A sort of low-cost organic rage room.
That’s one way of processing but sadly it’s not that practical. We must and do find the other work-arounds.
Of course men have storms and face chronic pain.
But women’s weather can be something else.
I can’t forecast any of it and neither can the BBC weather centre. But I wanted to acknowledge it exists.
Oh Emma, I relate to this in multiple ways... although I am quietly obsessed with the weather. As an air traffic controller for 20 years, the weather defined my days. I had actually applied to be a weather forecaster for the BBC prior to air traffic control but didn't get through the screen test!!
As for the weather of womanhood... I listened to your talk with Kirsty, and it was simultaneously inspiring whilst making my heart ache. I also have fibro and a constellation of other symptoms, and I find your weather analogy so very apt. Some days are sunny and there is a fair wind. Some days there is hail, peppering my aching bones and skin with sharp pain and relentless intrusion. Some days it is a slow and constant rain, one that I can bear but not quite ignore, and then there are the days of the storms. Days like today, where the thunder clouds feel insurmountable, but I know, they too, will pass.
Brilliant piece, thank you x
So so true. As someone dealing with constant low level discomfort which can build into excruciating pain I am completely inspired by you. Go! I’m on your team. And yes those wonderful moments or days when it recedes absolutely no longer takes up so much life… bliss, grabbed with both hands.