In the South Park movie, Mr. Garrison admits his suspicions about women: “I don’t trust anything that bleeds for 5 days and doesn’t die.” Sometimes I also don’t trust this thing that insists on regularly bleeding and I wish I could escape it entirely! As yet another period approaches, and I face another series of sleepless nights, I began to reflect on the extreme discomfort that insists on visiting every month…Anita Diamant has written a novel called “The Red Tent.” This title refers to a red tent where women in nomadic tribes used to congregate. Once a month, the women set up this tent and refused to move. They were obviously all on the same cycle and they would sit in the tent, gossip, bleed and … who knows… Cry? Shout? Moan?
Periods are strange and dominating things in my life. Every month, I find my body is taken over by what I call “my period self.” For about three days before my period, and for a couple of days afterwards, an alter being moves in under my skin, creating strange electrical currents down my arms and legs and into my stomach. I can still feel my calmer, rational, happy person there inside, but the period self insists on taking control. I am convinced that this period self is a manic depressive on crack. She takes an overdose of amphetamines and then inserts herself into my body. My mind begins to work over time. I get over-stimulated by ideas, I start attempting to do (literally) ten things at once and I can’t sleep at night. This might seem like a good time to be hyper productive… but no. While my mind is jumping up and down and doing somersaults, my concentration levels also deplete and I become overwhelmingly exhausted. So, basically, I walk around like an over-caffeinated crack addict who hasn’t slept for a month. It’s not a great feeling… particularly when it’s coupled with sharply painful stomach cramps.
I used to despair whenever this period self took up residence. I thought my life was doomed and I would never recover. I now recognize her face, know that she is only passing through, and I try to focus on the fact that I only need to endure her for 10 days. The problem is… I’m only left with 20 days of (relative) sanity in every month.
Where’s my red tent???
3 comments:
And so men invented Mary, the woman who mothered the first man to redeem all his brothers, Issac sacrificed, a more universal Joseph, the shedding of sacred male blood (circumcision-cum-crucifixion), so that it need never be shed again. A grand illusion. A male confusion over maternal blood.
If female blood is needed to create human life, men argued, then male blood is needed to divinely redeem that human life.
Interesting comment middlexeast. Is this men just failing to understand female blood, or trying to "match" female blood through sacrifice? Is there any good writing on this topic?
Goodness, if men want to bleed that much, then let them have my period for me!! I certainly won't feel the need to cut myself in return...
"Goodness, if men want to bleed that much, then let them have my period for me!"
lol.
It is you, my fair lady Rebecca, that men fear most of all.
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