Fullness: On Menstruation (not for boys)

Menstruation can be perhaps the oddest phenomenon of a woman's life. I remember the first time it happened, in 7th grade gym class, I thought something had gone seriously wrong. I hid and pretended nothing was wrong and went home. My mother nearly exploded with happiness and while she called everyone in the family to tell them her baby was a woman, I hid in the bathroom, simultaneously screaming at her to stop, and crying.

Though I'd had "the talk" for years, there is just something terrifying about the first few times.

I remember the pioneer drama Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, where the daughter gets her period and she goes around thinking she's dying for a week before her aunty or grandma or someone figures out and tells her.

"Actually, darlin, this is going to happen quite often, and you rarely die from it..."

But, let's face it, sometimes I wish I was dying instead. In highschool, there would be moments so horrible, I would have my mom pick me up from school because I could barely walk from death cramps.

She'd drop me off at home and chuck some tylenol at me, and I would literally crawl up the stairs... sometimes she'd come home from work to find me sleeping on the steps where I couldn't even make it all the way up to my bed.

As I grew older, things became more manageable and I think, as a rule, women either develop compassion or disdain for their bodies under the influence of hormones...

Even now, I swear I can feel myself ovulating and I can sense a particular loveliness about myself before...

I see my stomach rounding out and think to myself, "It must be soon, either that, or I have to take a big shit..." which probably wouldn't be too far off since I eat copious amounts of anything around for a few days before, and then suddenly the hunger fades away and a thirst is replaced. I don't want to eat anything... my stomach is already full... or my abdomen, I should say, and this lovely solidness seems to encompass me. The mystery of women and their bodies during menstruation and pregnancy is utterly amazing.

I often think of, what I fondly call "hoover-week", the time period where I'm ravenously stuffing my face before my period, as a time when little tiny ant like creatures are moving between my stomach and my uterus, building a mighty fortress there. I often tell them to quit, that no tenants will take up residency, and as a passer through comes along, the little ants have short-lived patience, and they tear down their own creation a few days later.

Trust me, they hire out my hormones to enlist renters... really, sometimes they're so desperate, they'd take anyone they could get.

But I've talked them out of it on more than one occasion.

So much, nowadays, I hear women talk about "body maintenance"... trimming and dieting and buffing and coloring and managing all that a woman is into something socially acceptable, keeping her body tidy and intact for work and leisure.

But how often do we just enjoy our bodies, relishing in the silly little things it does? Melting into the fullness I feel, feeling the hormones flow through my veins, fluttering slowly around my heart, adding a blush to my cheek and a gorgeous perfume to my flushed skin.

I feed her the coffee she craves, the spinach, the salt and the chocolate, in tiny morsels she can appreciate. She begs for more, but, full of my own sense of exhaustion, I put her to bed, tired to the point of motionlessness, but still restless in my mind (it's the coffee... it's always that she wants coffee... lol). She brings mad ideas to my mind, and easily inspires tears. She brings up sad memories and has a bit of a temper, I must admit.

By now my hormones don't need to be managed, but, rather, are my old friends, coming over to play when I least feel like it, cheering me up and tearing me down simultaneously.

Nothing seems as glorious, as sensitive, as fitful and as tender as the body of a woman, inside and out. I hope rather than scorn her, I honor her, even in her moments of weakness, more and more, and highlight her glory, not in being managed, but in the natural magnificence she draws out of me.