The Blood Taboo

When I first got my period I was terrified at the spots of blood I found on my underwear. They were the Blue Tuesdays I would on Fridays to be a rebel. I tried to stop the bleeding. "Apply pressure," I remembered my Mom saying those times I cut myself accidentally.

The priests were always shuddered at the drops of blood I left in the dormitory halls on my way to the infirmary. Once I was sutured, they'd give me a bucket and cloth to clean up the mess I made. But since I usually cut myself while helping with dinner, cutting onions because I was the smallest and couldn't refuse, and my mom couldn't do it for me since she already had 6 other things she was supposed to do for the nuns.

But the onions made me cry, their fragrance hurt my eyes and it was just when the tears started to cloud my vision that the knife would slip. It was dull but went deep enough to draw out too much blood from a little girl. My body would weave from wanting what it had lost.

So this period thing was interesting to me, because once I'd stop trying to stop the bleeding with pressure, with bandaids, anything I could thing of, I stood up and wiped the tears from my face. I walked in a straight line. My heart didn't throb against where I was bleeding from, a dull ache at most. So this period thing was different.

I stuffed a handful of toilet paper in my Blue Tuesdays and went to tell my mom. She scared me at first. Eyes wide, hands fixed to her mouth, then she crouched down and held me close, hiding her own tears in my hair. Gold like hers.

"Baby, I'm so proud of you." She leaned back so she could look at me, her hands on my face. "You're a woman now." Then she taught me about the bleeding and products and all that. "But we mustn't tell the nuns. Or the priests."

"Why?"

"Because they're superstitious. They think menstruating is God's punishment on women. They think the blood is dangerous and they force women to go off and be by themselves when they're on their period."

"But it's not dangerous?"

"No Evelyn. It's a gift. A beautiful gift."

Eventually the nuns did find out and my mother was right. They didn't understand. There was a place they locked people in when it was time. And it was dark and dank and most of all, it lacked life.