ok so let's discuss the benefits of perimenopause
nope. got nothing. genuinely sat here for a full minute trying to think of one
but i posted that exact question on socials, half joking, fully expecting nothing back but crying-laughing emojis
& the responses kinda shocked me tbh kween, ‘cause they, well, gave me a wee bit of hope
a good chunk of them said some version of the same kinda thing:
it comes with wisdom. it comes with an entire new idgaf era
& i'll tell you what, there's a kween in my new collection who fits that description perfectly, kinda unsettlingly so actually
Nina Simone
"7777"
kweenie original feminist pop art portrait featuring Nina Simone
the wee girl who wasn't supposed to make it (but absofckinglutely did)
so picture it a wee girl in North Carolina
playing piano before her feet can even reach the pedals
dreaming of being the first black woman to play classical piano at Carnegie Hall
she trains for it, auditions for the Curtis Institute, gets rejected
guess why?
nope not cause she wasn’t good enough
it was the colour of her skin - shocker!
so she pivots, changes her name plays piano in nightclubs, & gets so good the "jazz singer" label doesn't even fit her - she’s different
Mississippi Goddam: when rage becomes a fcking protest anthem
September 1963, four black girls killed in a church bombing in Birmingham
civil rights activist Medgar Evers shot dead in his own driveway weeks earlier
Nina, by her own account, looked into how to make a gun. her husband talked her down
so instead she sat at the piano & in under an hour wrote "Mississippi Goddam"
an HOUR, kween!
grief turned into one of the most important protest songs of all time (imo) - wtaf!
& in less time than it takes me to pick a paint colour (yep i procrastinate like fck even about paint!)
it got banned across the southern states
promo singles sent back to the label in pieces, venues refused to book her
she did not give AF
she sang it at the end of the Selma March
on a stage built out of empty coffin crates, to ten thousand people
she kept rewriting the lyrics over time
swapping in whatever city had just made the news (for all the wrong reasons)
like the song was a living thing that kinda kept having to grow new wounds
she didn't write one protest song & move on
nope she made it her job, for over a decade, while the industry punished her for it the whole fcking time
no filter. no apology. that's just who she was, from the start
it wasn't all 2 fingers up & triumph though
(& i'm defo not pretending it was) here's the wee bit that doesn't make the pinterest inspirational quote shit
Nina spent years exhausted & in genuine pain
& nobody around her had the right words for what was happening in her mind
she left the US in the 70s, burnt out, watching the movement lose momentum
eventually landing in Paris in a really dark place, playing small clubs again (for shitty money)
it wasn't until her late fifties, in the Netherlands, that a friend finally got her in front of a doctor
& she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder
decades of being called difficult, a diva, too much, when she was actually suffering undiagnosed
carrying something nobody bothered to properly look at
‘cause god forbid anyone take a woman's (more than that a woman of colour’s) mental health seriously back then (does it even happen now?)
i'm not telling you this to flatten her into a wee tragedy
i'm telling you ‘cause the "she fucked off & lived her best life" version going round online is only half the story
& the real one's messier, but it makes what came after mean way more, not less
perimenopause is defo puberty's evil twin
ok so back to the brain fog of today, you knew it was coming right?
i’ve decided that perimenopause is basically puberty's evil twin
except this time you get wrinkles AND the fcking spots
how TF is that fair?
13 year old me thought a spot appearing on your coupin the night of the youthy disco was the worst thing that could happen – like EVER!
now its even worse
but here's the thing about those replies on my post on socials
every single kween mentioned wisdom & idgaf in the same breath
like they're a package deal
like you don't get one without the other
& looking at Nina, i think they're onto something
the painting, the angel number & the idgaf era explained
so let's talk about the idgaf era properly
once Nina was finally stabilised & settled for her last years in the south of France
she gave interviews that were sharp, funny & full of her pure idgaf nature again
& that's "7777", Nina’s face in profile
golden sun rising behind her
the cloud is lifting, her crown cutting through it
like the fog finally got the memo & is clearing TF off!
didn't plan that when i started the collection tbh
(or maybe i did, who knows where the painting brain ends & the spirit stuff begins, ‘cause you know i loves my woo woo, lol)
Nina is the kween of the idgaf era
she got there loud, the same way she did everything
no filter on the way in, none on the way out either
just decades of hard-won proof stacked up behind her
which is exactly what 7777 means too (angel number 7777 that is, of course!)
it's not a lucky break, not a fresh start handed to you for nowt
7 alone is inner wisdom, intuition
& four of them stacked together is the universe basically saying
"you've done the work, properly, repeatedly, here's your clean slate, now what are you gonna build with it"
wisdom & idgaf, package deal. just like my social media post replies said
& here's how you actually get there
you don't get there by waiting "nicely" (ooft hate that fcking word btw) for the fog to lift on its own either
you could get there the way Nina did, maybe loud, maybe messy but always completely on your own fcking terms
but you can give yourself a mahoosive advantage by rewiring your brain kween
like I’ve said before your brain believes what you keep feeding her
so feed her positivity
erm cheese alert – sorry but a picture's worth a thousand words
so surrounding yourself with the right images reminding you who TF you are on the daily can only be a good thing
& listen if Nina can come out the other side still composing
still scathing & still completely herself
so can you
so can i
so can every woman lying awake at 3am wondering where TF she went
she didn't go anywhere kween
& apparently, on the other side of the clouds, there's wisdom & a brand new
"i could NOT give a fcking rats ass"
era waiting too
come meet "7777"
& if you haven't already why not catch up on Audrey & the woman underneath the Tiffany's fantasy & Marilyn & what the blonde bombshell was really building
love you, bye
kx
PS what Nina & the brave AF women leading the perimenopause charge taught me:
1. an hour of rage at a piano changed actual history. imagine what your worst day could do if you let it?
2. you loose something in perimenopause - i reckon it's your filter...
3. maybe the idgaf era isn't becoming someone new, maybe it's just finally running TF out of energy to pretend you're someone else!
4. wisdom AND zero fucks left to give? turns out they're not the booby prize, they're the whole fcking point kween
x
