TheBanyanTree: Life Stories 226

[Tobie Shapiro]

June 22, 200007


Dear Standard Bearers,

	I can't seem to get myself moving.  This 
morning, I've yawned, big gaping, involuntary 
yawns, about 40 times.  I don't know what's 
gotten into me.  And listless?  A little 
depressed?  The feet just don't want to shuffle. 
I force myself to go through the motions. 
Instead of writing out Life Stories 226, I have 
actually folded laundry.  I have put my slippers 
on, then taken them off and put shoes on, then 
taken the shoes off and put the slippers back on. 
A little case of what the hell am I doing.  Once 
again, I am a mystery to me.  And I don't have 
much energy to try to figure it out.  This 
morning, Meyshe has a dental appointment at 
11:30.  That ought to supply some excitement. 
Fluoride rinse.  Okay, Meyshe, spit.  Don't eat 
anything for half an hour.


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Girl Talk


	The warnings and undocumented lore about, 
"starting your periods," increased in number, 
exponentially, the closer we girls in school all 
got to our expected first menstruation.  Most 
everyone I knew had started their monthly 
bleeding by the time they were twelve or 
thirteen.  They were like a secret society, with 
its own special handshake, rituals and language. 
They talked among themselves about sanitary 
napkins, and the elastic belts with alligator 
clips dangling down in front and back to latch 
onto either end of the sanitary padding.  They 
talked about bloating and cramps, breaking out, 
which day they were on.  They talked about 
periods being heavy, light, really heavy.  They 
talked about four and five napkin days, two 
napkin days.  They talked about being on and off 
their periods.  They called it, "the curse," "the 
hex," "my monthly," "being on the rag."  Some 
referred to it as, "coming sick."  It was, 
"woman's time, "Eve's punishment," "my damn 
period."  They borrowed napkins and tampons from 
each other, gave each other dimes and quarters to 
buy an emergency sanitary pad from the machine in 
the girls' bathroom.  They did trade in remedies 
for cramps, headaches, a case of the menstrual 
blues.  They laughed at each others' stories 
about explosive tempers, emotional break downs, 
sudden unexplainable downpours of tears.  They 
shared extreme tales, about the worst cramps, the 
worst pre-menstrual depressions, the longest 
lasting period, the most copious bleeding, the 
worst accidents with bleed throughs, soaked 
padding, being unprepared when they started their 
periods unexpectedly.  At this age, they were too 
young to exchange horror stories about missed or 
late periods.

	All of this was owned by the special, the 
initiated, the ones who had come of age.  I had 
not yet.    And no matter the logical, clinical 
instruction from my mother, no matter the "girls 
only" movie shown in the sixth grade, the 
evidence of healthy women and girls who had these 
monthly visits, no matter.  All it took was a 
little bit of phoney baloney, a piece of 
misinformation, to scare the hell out of me. 
Some smart classmate intimated that when you 
start your periods, you start suddenly, and you 
bleed like a stuck pig.  This I believed.  So 
from the time I was twelve until the time I 
started my bloody periods at nearly fifteen, I 
crept about, fearful, trying to be ready for the 
inevitable event.  Someday, when I least expected 
it, I would explode from the womb out, and become 
a fountain of blood.

	When I finally had my first period, it 
appeared as just a drizzle of dark gooey blood in 
my underwear.  It was after gym class.  I just 
went into the stall to pee before going to my 
next class, and there it was, like the residue on 
a used band aid.

	I fell apart.  I shook and cried, said, 
"Oh no," and, "Not me".  I wasn't happy to, 
"become a woman".  There was nothing I could see 
about being a woman that made the basic 
existential angst easier to bear.  It was all a 
negative.  I stuffed some paper towels in the 
crotch of my underwear, expecting the torrent of 
blood, and I got home after school as fast as I 
could.  My sister had a large box of sanitary 
napkins in her closet, and I swiped one, leaving 
no trace of my invasion, and safety pinned it to 
my underwear.  I contemplated this awful awful 
thing.  Then I stood in front of the bathroom 
mirror at home, staring into my new woman's face, 
allowing the tragedy of existence to sweep over 
me, carry me away.

	I had thought maybe I could stave this 
off, never have to ooze on over into womanhood. 
I was bleeding just a little bit, but I was 
bleeding, like all the other girls at school, 
like all the poor sorry women who had gone before 
me.  It meant that I would have to take my place 
among the other females, with hair-dos and 
make-up, and fetching new shoes, with their nails 
painted and their ears glued to the telephone 
talking about boys, about boys who never had to 
bleed once a month, who didn't have to pay any 
price for being male.  They just had their 
precious equipment hanging off of their bodies, 
vulnerable, could get bit off by an angry racoon 
at any moment.  The men arrived with their penile 
accoutrement, and gave fifteen seconds of their 
time, leaving an instinct addled female pregnant 
and glowing, fifteen seconds and he was done, 
given his contribution, no guilt, no attachment.

	I looked in the mirror and contemplated 
my death by hormones.  I feared the self delusion 
that would ensure that I wound up with someone 
like my father.  How would I be able to tell the 
true character of a man until it was too late? 
If my mother hadn't seen clearly enough to have 
run like hell when she met my father, what 
guarantee did I have that I would be more 
prescient, more objective, wiser?  Soon, the 
chemical balance in my body and soul would be out 
of my control.  Who knew what I would do when the 
woman sickness took over?  And if my father had 
come after me before this involuntary bleeding, 
think what was in store for me when all these 
amazing miracles transformed my sexless body into 
that of a curvy, seductive woman.

	Doom descended upon my pate.  I went into 
the medicine cabinet and brought out a bottle of 
some prescription medication.  I emptied all the 
pills into my open hand and had an argument with 
myself about swallowing them all.  Did I have the 
courage purposefully to remove myself from the 
world?  Or would I back down, too weak to do it? 
I loathed myself.  I'd had enough of me and my 
stupid dilemmas.  Just get rid of me.  There was 
an unfortunate and creepy romance to it.  Kill 
yourself.  You have started your menstrual 
cycles.  It's time to croak.  I looked for a sign 
to tell me what to do.

	Then my cat, Thai, walked silently into 
the room, wove herself in and out of my legs. 
She sat down next to my feet, closed her eyes, 
and began to purr.  No, I couldn't kill myself. 
I had to take care of my cat.  She needed me.  I 
had that purpose.  I shoveled the pills back into 
the bottle and gave in to my irksome 
acknowledgement of my goddamn will to live.

	I had defeated myself.

	Now what was I going to do?



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-- 




Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net