Ep.98 Menopause With a Fresh Perspective: Unwrapping the Humor in Life's Sweatiest Moments

Ever found yourself chuckling because you couldn't remember why you walked into a room or when trading war stories about hot flashes with your friends? Well, you're in for a treat! Join me as I sit down with the ever-delightful Brenda Bowen, who writes under the whimsical pen name Haut Flasch, to discuss her sweet take on menopause in "Goodnight Night Sweats." She partnered with the equally talented illustrator Jessie Hartland, aka Mina Pauze, to bring to life a parody of the favorite children's book, "Goodnight Moon," with a skillful blend of humor and artistry that turns the daunting world of menopause into something we can all giggle about. Brenda's candid storytelling and personal reflections offer both comfort and camaraderie, making this natural transition feel less like an ending and more like the beginning of a new, albeit sweatier, chapter.

Our conversation takes us on a safari through the menopausal experiences of the animal kingdom—yes, even orcas have hot flashes—and back to the human world where Brenda shares the top-reads currently on her nightstand. We don't stop there; we're talking about self-care routines that go beyond the typical spa day, highlighting why a good yoga session or a restorative walk can be just the ticket for clarity and managing stress. So, whether you're looking for a laugh, a good book, or some sage self-care advice, join us!

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Transcript

Michele Folan: 0:38

Thank you so much for a Friend. Published parody Goodnight Night Sweats. The illustrator. Her name is Mina Pauze, also known as Jessie Hartland, and she is an internationally known artist who's designed store window displays, cookie tins and oodles of other things. She's written and illustrated over 20 books for children and adults, including Bon Appetit, the Delicious Life of Julia Child, adults including Bon Appetit, the Delicious Life of Julia Child and Steve Jobs' Insanely Great. Jessie lives in New York City where her mood swings from the east side to the west side. I had to introduce her because I think that's so cute.

Michele Folan: 1:19

The author is Haut Flasch, also known as Brenda Bowen. She is the award-winning author of the novel for adults, enchanted August, is the award-winning author of the novel for adults, enchanted August, and over 40 books for children. She was formerly a children's book editor and children's publisher at SNS, Disney Book Group and Holt and is now a literary agent at the book group. She lives in New York City where she wakes every morning at 4.15 am with all the blankets on the floor, and boy does that sound familiar. Very true, welcome to Asking for a Friend, Brenda Bowen.

Brenda Bowen: 1:50

Thank you, michelle. I'm really really happy to be here.

Michele Folan: 1:52

Well, congratulations on your delightful book. Good Night Moon was a favorite here at our house and Good Night Night Sweats is just so well done and I think personal opinion it's a great gift for, say, a sister or a good friend who's going through perimenopause or menopause.

Brenda Bowen: 2:13

So kudos, absolutely. I'm so happy to hear you say that because this is for all the sisters out there, whether you are approaching menopause or in it or through it. I hope, tickle a funny bone.

Michele Folan: 2:26

Absolutely. I am kind of curious how you and Jessie joined forces to write Good Night Night Sweats. How do you know each other and what did that process look like?

Brenda Bowen: 2:36

Yeah, let me tell you about that. Well, I am a writer and Jessie's an artist, and so the two things happen separately. But then we collaborate once the ball is rolling. So my colleagues at work are all in the sort of 40s and approaching 50s stage, and I'm the elder stateswoman there and we sort of challenged ourselves to find books about menopause.

Brenda Bowen: 3:04

We're literary agents, so our job is to find good books and to get them to publishers, and I usually concentrate on children's books. And they said well, what are you going to do? And I started thinking well, I could do a good night moon parody, good night sweats. And then it was good night night sweats. So I wrote it. And then I thought wouldn't it be great to collaborate with Jessie, because I've worked with Jessie in other capacities. She's a wonderful artist. She has such a fanciful style but it's very thoughtful at the same time. She's got her own set of experiences with menopause, as did I, and we brought them all to bear on the book. And now we have something that we hope will be a great gift for all the women going through this.

Michele Folan: 3:49

The illustration is really cute and it pairs up so nicely with your writing and I don't want to gush too much, but I thought it was just really cute. I know you're like go ahead, go ahead, yeah, gush, gush, yeah, but I do want to know, kind of, what your thoughts were after you wrote it. What were you hoping that your readers would get out of the book?

Brenda Bowen: 4:11

Well, when I wrote it, even just about a year and a half ago when it started, there were even fewer books about menopause than there are now and there was nothing really lighthearted. There's so much now about pregnancy and girlfriend's guides and all different ways of approaching that, but there's still very little on menopause. So I thought it would be great to have something to give a release to all the difficult challenges of going through the stage of life and, with the help of my wonderful editors at Zando, the publisher, we elevated the ending of the sort of turning point of the book when the character begins to think well, you know what? There's some good things that go with getting older. There's wisdom, there's relief from childcare because your kids are growing up, there's the possibility of travel, there's maybe a spare room in the house. So we wanted to both acknowledge and celebrate what the stage of life is like for people, for women.

Michele Folan: 5:13

This is really more of a comment, but do you think that we need to have a bit of a sense of humor about menopause? It's like what else can they throw at us, right?

Brenda Bowen: 5:27

I know.

Michele Folan: 5:28

But just to have a little bit of humor about it, because you point some things out in the book about tweezers and other things that it's really not the best part of menopause, but we all go through it.

Brenda Bowen: 5:42

Yeah, I think we have to have both. We have to look at it square in the face, as it were. We have to have more knowledge about it and more research about it, and then we also have to bring some good humor to it, as we do to all aspects of being female, and there are a lot of things that get thrown at us all our whole lives.

Michele Folan: 6:03

Yeah, we all have that one friend that went through menopause totally unscathed, and then there's somewhere in the middle and then there are those people, those women, who really really took it on the chin and menopause, had a hard time even going to work, you know, really had some debilitating, you know, effects of menopause. I'm kind of curious what your menopause journey was like.

Brenda Bowen: 6:27

Well, it was not as eventful as those extremes. I was mostly in the gosh, it's hot in here category and a lot of body changes, you know, a lot of metabolism changes. I'm still experiencing all those things that you could do so easily, like even your joints moving and stuff like that. That changes. And I have red hair, so redheads tend to the gray doesn't show as much. So I went to my hair cutter one time and I said, well, I'm lucky not to have much gray or any gray. And he said, oh yeah, you've got a ton right under here.

Brenda Bowen: 7:05

So he lifts up my hair at my temples, yeah, and he says you've got a ton. So there's that. There's just the difficulty of your period stopping. And then I did have experiences of those giant flooding events with menstrual blood and that was pretty bad in public and you have to tie your jacket around your waist like you're back in eighth grade, ninth grade and yeah, and there's no saying to the room hey guys, I'm experiencing a hot flash, Although now we do. In fact, in the UK there's been a lot of talk about menopause lately and there's legislation that has been passed or is being passed about allowing time at work off and acknowledging it and saying things are going to change and this is the price you pay for having babies brought into the world. You've also got to acknowledge that women go through this stage of their lives too.

Michele Folan: 8:03

Well, and also this is our most experienced segment of the workforce. Why wouldn't we be accommodating to these women who bring so much wisdom and experience to the table? And I know what you're talking about. So I know in the UK they were even talking about offering special dispensations, such as fans at the desk workplace and those types of things, because I think it was some crazy statistic like 40% of women were thinking of quitting their jobs because their menopause symptoms were making it so difficult to work. And I know last week there was some legislation signed here in the US. I know it's something that Joe Biden had had been championing, but something. It was something last week. But I think when we look at, say, the Drew Barrymore's of the world and Oprah and this this week there's South by Southwest I know there's a whole section on women and menopause Amazing, yeah. So I think the word's getting out there and it's becoming a topic that people are just more comfortable talking about.

Brenda Bowen: 9:19

Yes, finally yes, and I think it's because the generation who's now perimenopausal and menopausal, they're the ones whose mothers were finally able to talk about getting their periods and what it's going to be like to get pregnant and like sexual activity before and during marriage. Those things are discussed now and when even I was I'm sort of 10 years out from when I started menopause my mother certainly didn't talk about that and I know she had a terrible time during menopause. But I only know that because I look back and I figure out the dates and I think, oh, that's when she was incredibly depressed and that's when she was reclusive and I didn't know. She's three daughters and none of us really picked up on it and she couldn't talk about it. But I do think that that's changing now. That's why it's in the conversation, that's why it's in the Congress and it's in the British Parliament and it will spread and spread the fact that we have to acknowledge this as just a natural and inevitable part of life. If you're still alive, you're going to go through it.

Michele Folan: 10:29

Yeah, and I believe I knew when my mom was going through menopause she was just moody and there was all some of those typical symptoms that we're aware of now. I think it was more a hindsight type of thing, saying like what you were saying, you can kind of pinpoint the time when those behaviors started. So, and you know, I hope that my daughters I have two daughters I hope that they have what to expect when you're expecting. I hope, by the time they go through this, that there's some wonderful resource book that everybody gets you know when they start going through perimenopause.

Brenda Bowen: 11:10

Absolutely yeah.

Michele Folan: 11:12

You made a comment about having these horrible periods and I wanted to add this, because I've never really mentioned this on the show. I had that same issue and I told my doctor that I was having all these issues, and so I I went and had ablation done, which is, you know, they can do it in the office. Now, when I had it done, it was I had outpatient, but what a life changing experience that was for me. Yeah, so there are things that you can do for those things now that there weren't before.

Brenda Bowen: 11:47

But I just wanted to mention that, so you don't just have to wrap your jacket around your waist no, or just pray and never wear white pants ever again. Well, I'll say that's actually in the book White Pants.

Michele Folan: 11:58

We say hello to white pants in the book. That's right, I forgot about that, since the two of you had worked on this wonderful book. Good Night, night Sweats. Are you having more conversations with friends and family about menopause, just organically now?

Brenda Bowen: 12:13

I actually found myself having these conversations with the youngest cohort in our office, who are in their 20s and 30s, and former colleague of mine who was so eager for the information and so curious about what I had gone through, what others had gone through, and they were really cheering on this book because they really do want to be prepared and they want to know. So I think it has begun to open up conversations with people that I wouldn't normally be talking about menopause with at all, which is great. And I think that men will get out of this something too, because are a little bit like I don't want to know. I don't want to know. I think they're more like that when they're younger than when they get older and they've been around women for longer. But I just think that it's a good way in. If you're having trouble talking to your spouse or your partner about what you're going through, you can say well, look, this will take you not very long to read and study the words and the pictures, and then let's talk, honey.

Brenda Bowen: 13:15

There's nice big pictures, there's nice big pictures and there's only about 150 words, so I think you can manage this.

Michele Folan: 13:25

You know, I didn't even think about that when I was preparing for this podcast, but I see this as a really good resource for men.

Brenda Bowen: 13:33

I think it is. It's a quick read. They'll get all they need to know, and then they can ask any questions they want.

Michele Folan: 13:40

Stocking stuffer Christmas. Stocking stuffer christmas exactly your honey.

Brenda Bowen: 13:50

I love it. Would you want to read a few pages of the book? Sure I would love to. Okay, do you? Should I show it or should I just read it?

Michele Folan: 13:54

I'll just read it. I'm gonna post the actual picture of the book on my social media when I, when I do the podcast.

Brenda Bowen: 14:02

Okay, in the hot, hot room there was a creaky fan and a swinging mood and a picture of me when I was still in bloom and there were two flat boobs and three little lubes and bones like fine china and a dry vagina and a pair of tweezers and a sweet old geezer that's her partner and a neck and a dry vagina and a pair of tweezers and a sweet old geezer that's her partner and a neck and a tush and a thinning bush and a middle-aged lady who's yelling. If I wake up drenched in sweat again tonight, I swear to God I will kill someone. Yeah, but on the bright side, goodnight kids room there's a picture of her enjoying the spare room. Goodnight gloom. Goodnight me while still in bloom. Goodnight winged pads and my dear old womb.

Brenda Bowen: 14:56

Goodnight dying. The gray and bizarre lingerie. Goodnight cramps. Goodnight stained pants. Goodnight bones like fine china and really good night vagina. Good night IUD and choosing plan B. Good night period stress and PMS. Good night everybody and good night regrets. And good night to the hot in a good way. Lady calling Hi there day, hello fresh air, hello women everywhere.

Michele Folan: 15:27

Oh, I love it. Yes, thank you Thank you. Perfect little book. I have to ask this question because I think you all had a little nuances with the illustration. Did you guys hide something we did In the book that was meaningful? Can you explain what that was?

Brenda Bowen: 15:44

Yeah, we have a couple little Easter eggs in the book. One of them is that there's a picture, there's a painting on the wall of one of the rooms in the book of an orca. And the reason that we put in an orca is that it turns out that current scientific thought believes that only orcas and a couple other dolphin species go through menopause, as well as human beings. And what happens to everybody else? Do, you wonder, all the other animals in the animal kingdom? Well, once they can't breed anymore, they're considered extraneous and that becomes the end of their life. Oh my God, so only orcas and humans? I know, isn't that terrible, but it just shows how we've evolved into needing to be around in the world after menopause, after we don't breed anymore. We're still a very important part of the human race and other animals are not. We found that absolutely fascinating.

Michele Folan: 16:47

Well, let's think about this If you go back where women were only living to be 30, 35 years old, they never had an opportunity to go through menopause.

Brenda Bowen: 17:01

Yeah, so many people did.

Michele Folan: 17:03

This is relatively a new phenomena, say of the last 150 years, that women are actually experiencing.

Brenda Bowen: 17:12

Well, with so many women living longer now, absolutely, that's absolutely true.

Michele Folan: 17:17

So, speaking of books, I would love to know what you have on your nightstand currently, because I always think authors always have an inside track to really good books.

Brenda Bowen: 17:27

Okay, great, thank you. I just finished a book called the Guncle which is by Stephen Rowley, and it is about a gay uncle of a niece and a nephew who suddenly and unexpectedly has to take care of them for the summer, and it is both funny and hilarious and charming and moving, so I recommend that one. I am just about to and I'm in the middle of a book called Horse by Geraldine Brooks which is about a racehorse who was sort of the king of all racehorses just before the Civil War and it jumps back between the Civil War, current day, different voices. It's a complicated and really interesting book and I'm looking forward next to reading so Late in the Day by Claire Keegan.

Brenda Bowen: 18:14

She's an Irish writer. So Late in the Day by Claire Keegan it's an Irish, she's an Irish writer. She writes very sort of compressed, jewel-like stories about people in contemporary Ireland, situations between men and women. So I'm pretty much of a fiction reader. I know Jessie is a big nonfiction reader and she reads a lot about women in the arts and women in history and I think she really brings it to bear in the illustrations, just sort of the intelligence behind the illustrations. You can see how she thinks in those.

Michele Folan: 18:45

Well, I have book club tonight, and we're getting close to that time when we have to start picking books for our next season, and so I'll make sure that I I'll suggest a couple of those. Horse was one that was an option for this past round of books.

Brenda Bowen: 19:01

There's a lot to talk about.

Michele Folan: 19:03

Yeah, but Guncle's one. I'm going to put that one down.

Brenda Bowen: 19:05

That's a lot of fun.

Michele Folan: 19:08

I would also like to know what is one of your important pillars of self-care. I ask every guest this.

Brenda Bowen: 19:16

Well, I actually, just before this interview, I was at PT because I'm finding that my knee is having issues, so I try to make sure I go and then I do the exercises that they tell me to do. I like to do yoga. It feels very good for my body and very calming for my mind, and I like to get a good night's sleep. That's really important to me, and so I'm a sort of seven to eight hour a night kind of person. And I asked Jessie this question myself, the illustrator and she said she goes for very long walks every day, and that's true. I often try to reach her and she's out walking when I'm trying to call her, but she talks while she's on the phone too, but actually she likes to spend a lot of time just looking around, so she keeps the conversation short and just concentrates on her surroundings.

Michele Folan: 20:12

Yeah, I think that's kind of a nice thing to do. Just it keeps you very observant of your environment and then you actually see things that maybe you hadn't noticed before.

Brenda Bowen: 20:24

Exactly.

Michele Folan: 20:25

That's nice. When it comes to the sleep and the stress reduction with the yoga, I think that's something all women need to probably focus on. We have the higher levels of cortisol which is related to some of that midsection weight gain that we get. But yeah, I think that's probably one of the biggest challenges is trying to manage some of that anxiety and stress, and sometimes it just comes from nowhere and somewhat unexplained. So thank you.

Michele Folan: 20:51

Thank you for sharing that Sure. And then, where can people find you and the book I'd love for you to share?

Brenda Bowen: 21:00

Well, you can find the book, starting on March 26th, anywhere you buy books and we believe in quite a few gift stores too, because we see this as a gift book and you can go to ZandoProjectscom to find out more about Jesse and my real lives, even though we're called Haut Flasch and Mina Pauze on the book, so I think that's the best place to go.

Michele Folan: 21:26

All right, brenda Bowen, I really appreciate you being on the show today.

Brenda Bowen: 21:31

Thank you so much, Michelle. I had a great time talking about Goodn ight Night Sweats and about menopause. Thank you.

Michele Folan: 21:42

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