Traveling the Red Road: The Life of a Menstruant

Nonfiction / Rachel Neve-Midbar

 

:: Traveling the Red Road: The Life of a Menstruant ::

I am bleed­ing the day he disappears. 

A wave of cramps hits me, mak­ing me nau­seous. This body, my body—my body that bleeds—how has it led me to this con­strict­ed place?  

~Ψ~

Thy soule foule beast is like a men­stru­al cloath,
Pol­lut­ed with unpar­don­able sinners.” 

—Barn­abe Barnes, The Devil’s Charter

~Ψ

Blood is mag­ic
Blood is holy
And whol­ly riv­et­ing of our attention.” 

—Judy Grahn, “All Blood is Men­stru­al Blood” 

~Ψ

All the kids on Brook­side Cir­cle play togeth­er. I am per­haps four years old. A. and I are kneel­ing at the edge of the road, draw­ing with chalk on the con­crete. A. tells me her moth­er pees blood. “No,” I tell her, “Mom­mies don’t pee blood.” She offers to show me and takes me into her house at the end of the block. We remove our shoes in the front hall and walk up the stairs. A. enters her mother’s bath­room first and then motions me to join her. We look togeth­er into the bowl of a beige toi­let where a bit of paper stained with the small­est whiff of blood floats in the water. “Will she die?” I ask. 

~Ψ

the flow­ers,” “the cours­es,” “the terms,” “the mis­ery,” “month­ly dis­ease,” “the time of her wont­ed grief,” “excre­ment,” “those evac­u­a­tions of the weak­er sex,” “the moon,” “weep­ing womb,” “pack­age of trou­bles,” “jam & bread,” “on the rag,” “too wet to plow,” “a snatch box dec­o­rat­ed with red ros­es,” “can’t go swim­ming,” “tide’s in,” “tide’s out,” “fly­ing bak­er” (a Navy sig­nal mean­ing “keep off”), “rid­ing the red tide,” “the red flag is up” 

—Houp­pert, The Curse 

~Ψ

When my sis­ter gets her first peri­od, she is per­fec­tion, light. In the guest bath­room: right across from the TV-room where my moth­er is always splayed in her orange easy chair. Just the right age for a good girl: thir­teen and a half. “Mom­my, Mom­my,” she calls, “I got my peri­od.” How my moth­er touch­es her, “Hon­ey I’m so proud,” smiles, takes her into her room to get belt and pad. Our father is equal­ly proud as he has her dress in Dan­skin, put up her hair. He then spends hours pho­tograph­ing her, over and over: pro­file, chin up, chin down. “Now take down your hair.”   

~Ψ

The word ‘taboo’ itself even comes from a Poly­ne­sian word that both means ‘sacred’ and ‘men­stru­a­tion’”  

Why Are Peri­ods Still a Taboo in 2018? 

~Ψ

I know it’s the time for bad girls when mine comes just two months lat­er. Only twelve, the age for sluts, for trash, for oth­er dirty things. In the upstairs kid’s bath­room.    

Maybe I wasn’t born for joy because just before I dis­cov­er the red stain I am joy­ful at a sixth-grade square dance. Do-si-do. Just once allow­ing myself to fly around the gym not wor­ry­ing how I look. And then this. “Don’t for­get,” my body whis­pers, “don’t for­get what you are.” 

So, I tell no one, stuff my under­wear full of toi­let paper, go on as usu­al, a secret between my legs. 

~Ψ

The duplic­i­ty of blood as both the source of life and the cause of cor­rup­tion was con­cen­trat­ed most in medieval and ear­ly mod­ern per­cep­tions of men­stru­al blood. Despite the men­stru­at­ing body’s func­tion as an exem­plary mod­el for nature’s expul­sive and self-reg­u­lat­ing pow­er, men­stru­al blood itself car­ried the period’s anx­i­eties about woman’s moral duplic­i­ty and bio­log­i­cal weak­ness. Men­stru­al blood and men­stru­at­ing woman were thought to be cor­rupt­ing: they could bring mad­ness, dis­ease, and death to those who touched or looked upon them….”

—John­son, Decamp, Blood Mat­ters 

~Ψ

I’m not real­ly sure what hap­pens to you if you swim while men­stru­at­ing. Prob­a­bly it’s lethal if my mother’s reac­tion is any indi­ca­tion. So, because of a swim invi­ta­tion, I final­ly tell my secret. 

I arrange myself in the guest bath­room, call, “Mom­my, Mom­my.” She does ask me what the bloody wad of school paper tow­el is in the toi­let. “Noth­ing,” I mum­ble and push the flush­er. Then, yes, the belt. Yes, men­stru­al pad that cov­ers me from naval to back­bone: though those don’t last too long. It’s 1975. Tam­pons will be pos­si­ble. Swim­ming too. Even­tu­al­ly even for my mother. 

But, no. No Dan­skin. No Leica lens. Now in the moments my father gets close enough to me he lifts my arm and yanks on the new hairs grow­ing there. And laughs. If I fight him off, he takes a pinch of new­ly bud­ded breast. And laughs harder. 

~Ψ

I have peri­ods now, like nor­mal girls; I too am among the know­ing, I too can sit out vol­ley­ball games and go to the nurse’s for aspirin and wad­dle along the halls with a pad like a flat­tened rab­bit tail wadded between my legs, sop­ping with liv­er-col­ored blood.” 

—Mar­garet Atwood, Cat’s Eye 

 ~Ψ

The sum­mer after my sec­ond year at Sarah Lawrence I meet D. and start to keep kosher and Shab­bat. The paper­work is com­plete for my junior year abroad, and some­time that sum­mer I will leave for Israel. I tell myself I am look­ing for free­dom inside a sys­tem of law, but real­ly I am look­ing to run as fast as I can into some oth­er life.   

I fol­low D.’s fam­i­ly to a cot­tage on a lake in Penn­syl­va­nia. My oth­er­ness is always on dis­play. They don’t like the way I pro­nounce “Torah.” They don’t like my bare feet, and when I walk around the house in socks they say I dress like a mourn­er. His lit­tle sis­ter asks if I am a shik­sa.   

When I men­stru­ate I take a tam­pon from the box hid­den in my clos­et. I care­ful­ly wrap what is used in toi­let paper, set it in the bas­ket. One morn­ing his moth­er takes me by the arm and pulls me into the bath­room. She shows me a pile of old news­pa­per inside the bath­room cab­i­net. She is 5’10,” Euro­pean; upright and prop­er, her gir­dle always in place, even under her bathing suit. In her accent­ed Eng­lish she tells me I must wrap my used tam­pons in news­pa­per. No one can know. “No one needs to see that.” She is almost spitting. 

~Ψ

OED. taboo | tabu, adj. and n. 
Ety­mol­o­gy: < Ton­gan ˈtabu  
     The putting of a per­son or thing under pro­hi­bi­tion or interdict. 

~Ψ

Women’s reg­u­lar bleed­ing engen­ders phantoms.” 

—Paracel­sus 

~Ψ~

D. lat­er fol­lows me to Israel, asks me to mar­ry him. I want to say, “Wait.” I want to say, “I don’t know who I am.” But I see how much he needs me. 

I am 21 years old.  

~Ψ~ 

Leviti­cus 15:19 states: “A woman who has a flow of blood in her body shall be a ‘nid­dah’ for sev­en days, and all who touch her shall be rit­u­al­ly impure until sun­down.”  

Leviti­cus 18:19 states: “A woman in the rit­u­al­ly impure state of nid­dah, you shall not approach for sex­u­al relations.” 

The first verse refers to the laws of rit­u­al impu­ri­ty (tumah v’taharah), most of which are no longer applic­a­ble today. 

The sec­ond verse, how­ev­er, appears in the list of the most severe­ly for­bid­den sex­u­al rela­tion­ships, such as adul­tery and incest, which remain ful­ly rel­e­vant to this day. 

A woman ceas­es to be niddah—and returns to a state of rit­u­al puri­ty (taharah)—by con­firm­ing that bleed­ing has ceased (hef­sek taharah), count­ing sev­en blood-free days (shiv­ah neki’im), and immers­ing in a prop­er mikveh.” 

The Nid­dah Status

~Ψ~

C. is my kallah teacher. She has a face creased to smile and she smiles a lot. She is also a very strin­gent woman, care­ful in her prac­tice, and she pass­es that care­ful­ness on to me. In the weeks lead­ing up to my wed­ding I vis­it her twice a week. She teach­es me how to keep the laws of fam­i­ly puri­ty: how to under­stand the work­ings of my body, to come close to my rhythms and join togeth­er with them, to watch for stains, to exam­ine, to check, to pre­pare and final­ly, to immerse my body deep in liv­ing water and return each time to myself. 

~Ψ

The night before my wed­ding, I walk to the mikveh with my moth­er and C. I take my time prepar­ing. I have nev­er before giv­en myself this permission—this con­cen­tra­tion. What can I tell you about this care­ful­ness, atten­tion to myself with no one to wit­ness, no one to watch, no one to ridicule? No one look­ing to see how deep and long I bow dur­ing shmona-esrei, no one to taste a good meal I’ve pre­pared so I can see the plea­sure in their eyes. Here in the mikveh bath­room there is only me. Does God care if I comb my eye­brows? I have no idea. I only know that in the warm liv­ing water His hands reach around me, cra­dle me as I loosen my fin­gers and half open my eyes so the water can touch every part of me at once. I bow my head, fold my hands across my breasts, “Blessed are you, God. Blessed.” 

~Ψ

My moth­er asks me after if I feel dif­fer­ent. “Yes,” I answer and she looks sur­prised. We don’t say any­thing else.  

~Ψ

The next morn­ing I rise ear­ly. I go to the apart­ment in Jerusalem that D. and I have rent­ed to make up our bed. I am fast­ing and it is sum­mer, so I take a taxi to the Kotel where I pray for hap­pi­ness, for peace. Yes, per­haps that would be enough. 

It would be enough to hang some dress­es in a clos­et. To open that clos­et in the morn­ing and choose what to wear. Final­ly to just be home. 

After a long Viduy at the Kotel, I make my way west and south to the Bay­it Veg­an neigh­bor­hood, to the Holy­land Hotel. There I will stand under the chup­pah.   

~Ψ

The Halakha details strict rules gov­ern­ing every aspect of the dai­ly lives of Jews, includ­ing the sex­u­al lives of mar­ried cou­ples. Jew­ish law express­ly for­bids any phys­i­cal con­tact between spous­es dur­ing the days of men­stru­a­tion and for a week there­after. Accord­ing to stip­u­lat­ed rit­u­al, an Ortho­dox Jew­ish wife is respon­si­ble for ensur­ing that she is no longer exhibit­ing vagi­nal bleed­ing by swab­bing her­self care­ful­ly with a linen cloth for each of the sev­en days fol­low­ing the overt ces­sa­tion of the men­stru­al flow. The sev­en clean days after men­stru­a­tion cul­mi­nate with the wife’s oblig­a­tion to immerse that night in the Mik­vah, the rit­u­al bath. It is only at the end of the Nid­dah inter­val, after the rit­u­al bath, that spous­es are per­mit­ted to phys­i­cal­ly touch one anoth­er. This ‘‘two weeks on/two weeks off’’ pat­tern of con­tact char­ac­ter­izes mar­i­tal life until menopause, with two notable time frame excep­tions: preg­nan­cy and nurs­ing (until post­par­tum men­stru­a­tion resumes), when unin­ter­rupt­ed con­tact is per­mit­ted. These ‘Laws of Fam­i­ly Puri­ty’ rep­re­sent an inte­gral aspect of iden­ti­ty as an Ortho­dox Jew.” 

—Guter­man, Archives of Sex­u­al Behav­ior  

~Ψ

The first mikveh night about a month after we are mar­ried, I come home to find fresh sheets on the bed, a spaghet­ti meal, a beau­ti­ful note of love and hope for our future fam­i­ly. D. is wear­ing my short, black-silk kimono. It makes his green-gray eyes shine. Wow, I think as I fall into his arms, I could get used to this mar­riage thing.   

That is the first and last time. I nev­er see this ver­sion of him again. 

~Ψ

I remem­ber the still­ness, the still­ness of thun­der left behind, the still­ness of knees held tight togeth­er, breath exhaled once, twice. 

Over time, each sec­ond, sweat on my palms. Bro­ken records stored in a clos­et, their shards gleam in the dark­ness, each groove a year of life. Moments on the floor, sur­round­ed by books writ­ten in a lan­guage no one even reads anymore. 

Don’t move or you’ll upset some­thing. Wait. Don’t speak. Some­one might think well of you. Hold your breath and time will stop, a sun held between my two palms, no big­ger than the space between my fin­gers.   

There is always that still­ness. Qui­et quakes in my chest, drips down my back. A chair flies across the room, hits me right on the tem­ple. For some rea­son I live. Make-up cov­ers the bruise, cov­ers every­thing. He hands me a glass of some­thing dark to drink. It changes from pur­ple to black, a sun drop­ping to the bot­tom of an ocean. 

Was it me who pushed back the entire wall of my house to become the doll inside?  

~Ψ

From the diary of Jane Sharp in 1671:  

some­times flow too soon, some­times too late, they are too many or too few, or are quite stopt that they flow not at all. Some­times they fall by drops, and again some­times they over­flow; some­times they cause pain, some­times they are void­ed not by the womb but some oth­er way; some­times strange things are sent forth by the womb.” 

—Sara Read, Men­stru­a­tion and the Female Body in Ear­ly Mod­ern Eng­land 

~Ψ

Twice I have hem­or­rhaged, left bath­rooms look­ing like mur­der scenes.   

~Ψ

I will tell you about the sec­ond time first. It’s the eas­i­er sto­ry. It’s an after birth sto­ry, from the time right after my youngest son was born. My hor­mones mis-cal­i­brat­ing, my uterus six weeks after the C‑section, just start­ing to return to itself, sud­den­ly fill­ing with blood bal­loons like a wash­ing machine gyrat­ing too much soap. 

In my paper gown in the exam­i­na­tion room the Dr. tells me to take off my under­wear, sit on the chair that becomes a bed with stir­rups. How can I undress when I am gush­ing blood like a faucet? When I glance down, he says with so much kind­ness, “Don’t wor­ry. I have seen everything.” 

Lat­er when I walk into the oper­at­ing room for the D&C, the Dr. is wait­ing for me, capped and gowned all in white, his hands clasped in front of him­self, sway­ing slight­ly as if in prayer, he looks like a groom, com­plete­ly kit­tled, wait­ing for me under the chup­pah. What would my life be like if I had mar­ried instead this kind man?  

~Ψ

 

“we need a god who bleeds now 
a god whose wounds are not 
some small male vengeance”

—Ntoza­ke Shange, “We Need a God who Bleeds Now” 

~Ψ

red light,” “red let­ter day,” “my red­head­ed friend,” “cher­ry in the sher­ry,” “the red king,” “trav­el­ing the red road,” “the red sea’s out,” “the reds are in,” “bloody mary,” “the chick is a com­mu­nist,” “white cylin­der week,” “moth­er nature’s gift,” “it’s rain­ing down south,”  

—Houp­pert, The Curse

~Ψ

The first time I hem­or­rhage I am in my mother-in-law’s house. I am ten weeks preg­nant. My arms are already full with a two year old and a ten month old. I car­ry them up and down the steep stairs to the attic where we sleep. Some­thing hurts. I am exhaust­ed. I can’t do any­thing but sit all day, let­ting the girls play at my feet. Some­thing is wrong. Some­thing is wrong with this preg­nan­cy. A pull. It hurts. 

Final­ly it tears. Some­thing tears inside my abdomen. The pain is excru­ci­at­ing. I set the girls down, run to the bath­room. There is blood every­where. I clean up as best I can and go down­stairs to tell my moth­er-in-law that I think I am hav­ing a miscarriage. 

She looks at her watch, tells me we can’t go to the hos­pi­tal for a few more hours, until her hus­band comes home to watch my twelve-year-old sis­ter-in-law. I feed my girls din­ner, get them tucked in. 

On the dri­ve into Man­hat­tan sev­er­al hours lat­er she tells me “it’s all for the best.” But I know she is wrong. I am twen­ty-four years old, moth­er of two, and her son blames me for every bad thing that hap­pens to us. Every­thing. Both big and small: when he los­es his driver’s license from too many tick­ets. When he fights with some­one in shul. From our mon­ey prob­lems to his own desire for oth­er women, every­thing is my fault.  I can’t imag­ine what he will do to me if I lose this pregnancy. 

~Ψ

taboo: adj. (syn.) ille­gal, restrict­ed, unmen­tion­able, unacceptable 

~Ψ

The baby isn’t dead, though I won’t find this out until the next day. At NYU Med­ical, the bed they give me is bro­ken, the floor is cov­ered with blood. Not mine. I am no longer bleed­ing.   

The Dr. who exam­ines me tells me my cervix is still closed. Mat­ter-of-fact­ly she explains this means: 1. that the fetus was already expelled and my cervix then closed right back up after her like a slammed door. Or 2. that I have yet to expel the lit­tle life and that she will find her way out in the next few days. Or 3. that I am still preg­nant. “So why all the blood then?” I ask. She shrugs.  

No blood test, no ultra­sound, I ride back to Queens, absent­ly lis­ten­ing to my moth­er-in-law talk about the man in the bed next to mine who had slashed his foot on a can top when he stepped on his kitchen garbage. For­ev­er after, as long as I will know her, she will very care­ful­ly insert the top back into the emp­ty can before throw­ing it away. She will tell any­one who is will­ing to lis­ten that you can’t be too care­ful with the torn top of a can. 

The next day I drink a half a gal­lon of water and trav­el alone back into Man­hat­tan for an ultra­sound to see my daugh­ter. No, she is not lying qui­et­ly inside me. She is not suck­ing her lit­tle thumb. On the screen my daugh­ter is upright and break-danc­ing just above a pla­cen­tal tear. 

~Ψ

Many medieval Jew­ish mys­tics saw men­stru­a­tion dif­fer­ent­ly. Accord­ing to a sec­tion of the Zohar, the most pop­u­lar work of medieval Kab­bal­ah, the menstruant’s title of nid­dah tells us that ‘God flees from her.’ God aban­dons men­stru­ants because God can­not suf­fer impu­ri­ty. The nid­dah repels the forces of the holy, and her spir­i­tu­al vac­u­um is imme­di­ate­ly filled by the forces of evil and impurity.” 

Zohar, 3:226a (RM

~Ψ

There is always some­thing we woman can’t do, some­where we can’t go, some­thing we can’t touch because we men­stru­ate. We are not allowed to touch the Torah, even when it’s “dressed,” mean­ing there is a bound­ary between the holy vel­lum and our taint­ed fin­gers. We can­not dance with the holy scroll on the hol­i­day of Sim­chat Torah, even if we have gone to the mikveh and are as rit­u­al­ly clean as our hus­bands. Why? Because then “peo­ple will see” who is in nid­dah among the women and who is not and that is “immod­est.”   

My hus­band loves the idea of my immod­esty and when­ev­er he wants to ridicule me and set me in my place he brings it up. My immod­est dress, my immod­est speech, my immod­est behav­ior. When I wear san­dals that “show my toes” or a dress in a shade of red, when I stick my tongue out at him in the street, when I use the word “putz” at a fam­i­ly party—any of these and many more are rea­sons to pun­ish me. 

He trav­els often, leav­ing us alone for weeks at a time. He nev­er needs to be home for any rea­son because I am always there.  My men­stru­a­tion gives my hus­band com­plete con­trol over me, it ren­ders me weak, dirty, dif­fer­ent. This is the tool of his pow­er.   

~Ψ

And when I am “immod­est”? Yes, there are pun­ish­ments. Some­times it is the set of his jaw, a cold stare. Some­times it is a chilly silence that can last for days or weeks. It might be the hav­dalah wine thrown in my face in front of the chil­dren when I sing too loud­ly or my cred­it cards cut to pieces if I buy some­thing with­out per­mis­sion. Or it might be a back­hand to the face or being thrown to the base­ment floor, his hands around my neck if I smile too warm­ly with the dish­wash­er repairman. 

~Ψ

How often does he show me his back on mikveh nights? After all the effort of bathing and the dress­ing, the undress­ing, the dunk­ing, the dress­ing once again only to find him already asleep, turned away from me. 

~Ψ~

“Come you spirits  
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, 
And fill me from crown to the toe, top-full 
Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood, 
Stop up th’access and passage to remorse, 
That no compunctious visitings of nature 
Shake my fell purpose, not keep peace between 
Th’effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts, 
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers” 

—Shake­speare, Mac­beth, (1.5.41–49)

~Ψ

Con­tact with [men­stru­al blood] turns new wine sour, crops touched by it become bar­ren, grafts die, seed in gar­dens are dried up, the fruit of trees fall off, the edge of steel and the gleam of ivory are dulled, hives of bees die, even bronze and iron are at once seized by rust, and a hor­ri­ble smell fills the air; to taste it dri­ves dogs mad and infects their bites with an incur­able poi­son.”  

—Pliny the Elder, Nat­ur­al His­to­ry: A Selec­tion 

~Ψ

I just want him to stop being so angry. I pray for this every week when I light my Shab­bat can­dles and again when I burn a small piece of chal­lah dough. In the mikveh I dunk sev­en times instead of the reg­u­lar three and pray final­ly, final­ly, for peace. 

~Ψ

And then comes the day he dis­ap­pears. He does call—once. I ask him where he is, but he won’t tell me. Instead he tele­phones our daugh­ters, tells them he is in Hawaii.  

Usu­al­ly he tele­phones con­stant­ly, but he doesn’t call again. I wait. Every day. I am ice inside, walk­ing ice as I pack the kids’ lunch­es, as I fold laun­dry, as I take care of the com­pa­ny bank­ing, watch the trad­ing accounts. I know he can’t be alone; he always needs some­one to talk to. 

But he doesn’t call. Not Tues­day, not Thurs­day. Not before Shab­bat to wish his chil­dren a good week.  

My clean days come and I don’t check; my mikveh night arrives and I don’t go. When he final­ly comes home I am still in nid­dah. I tell him this when he reach­es his arm out to bring me close and says, “Babe, come to bed.” 

Lat­er that day he reveals that he wasn’t in Hawaii alone, that he is in love with some­one else, has been for the past eigh­teen months. It turns out she is the con­sul­tant he hired to help us locate gold mine deals in Neva­da. It turns out there are no deals in Neva­da. It turns out I have been pay­ing $5,000 a month, about $40,000 total of com­pa­ny mon­ey, to his mis­tress, and that it was me who put through and signed the wire trans­fer orders. 

I ask him to leave. 

~Ψ

we need a god who bleeds 
spreads her lunar vul­va & show­ers us in shades of scar­let 
thick & warm like the breath of her” 

—Ntoza­ke Shange, “We Need a God Who Bleeds Now” 

~Ψ

In the dream we are as we are now, aged, lay­ered, yet our pas­sion grows as it always did, our appetite for each oth­er in my cries that still echo thir­ty years lat­er down from the long cor­ri­dor of a col­lege dorm, our desire takes root, intact and as you reach your hand between the part­ed branch­es of my legs there flows a Nia­gara of blood—the blood that so repelled you shoots forth, an artery opened, pushed out of me with each heart­beat, a riv­er that moves the water-wheel that cir­cles between the secrets of life and death, and remains in that pun­gent place between, that place I am in now where my breasts hang, two tears upon my chest and my face is an aban­doned land. 

~Ψ

I am men­stru­at­ing the day we go to the Rab­bin­ut for the ghett. And I am acute­ly aware of it as the three rab­bis have me stand side­ways in front of their dais and hold my hands up to receive the fold­ed vel­lum doc­u­ment. “High­er,” they say, “high­er.” I stretch my hands over my head. I can feel their eyes mov­ing up and down my body.   

~Ψ

OED: taˈ­booness  n. the state or con­di­tion of being taboo. 

1974   Ver­ba­tim I. i. 4/1   The tabooness of fuck

~Ψ

Then come the years alone. My men­stru­a­tion starts to change, my peri­ods get­ting longer, stronger, last­ing for weeks with days when I can’t leave the house because I need to change my pad/tampon com­bo every hour.   

~Ψ

The moon ris­es full, over­whelm­ing the dark sky and all of us on the deck of this boat in Yafo port tonight. We are all women, pray­ing and med­i­tat­ing togeth­er. M., sit­ting next to me, tells me her sto­ry: how she left her par­ents’ reli­gious home for col­lege and nev­er went back. How after grad­u­a­tion she got a job on the sea and, for the next twen­ty years moved from job to job, from port to port, from ocean to ocean. “I have nev­er slept with a man who wouldn’t go down on me when I had my peri­od,” she tells me.

Incred­u­lous, I ask, “Not one?” 

~Ψ

My girls are get­ting old­er. They are young women. They reject the pill; spend long weeks hik­ing in the desert, work­ing on kib­butz, trav­el­ing the world with back­packs. They ask me to order them men­stru­al cups from Ama­zon. Small rub­ber bowls to be insert­ed inside: health­i­er and bet­ter for the envi­ron­ment. They tell me their blood will be used to water some organ­ic gar­den. I won­der, can they taste them­selves in each toma­to bite? 

~Ψ

I buy a pair of hik­ing boots, look at myself in the mir­ror. There are no lines on my face. 

~Ψ

I google “Tel Aviv clubs for the old­er set”; I google “Best online dat­ing sites in Israel.” A cat­a­logue of faces. What many of these guys are into, I learn, is mutu­al mas­tur­ba­tion via Skype. So many of them are wear­ing base­ball caps and shades—incognito and hold­ing their com­put­ers.   

One guy keeps nudg­ing me to meet in per­son. His face stands out, sculpt­ed and strong. F. writes in Eng­lish, already a relief. 

I haven’t dat­ed any­one except my hus­band since I was nine­teen. I slip into a filmy red blouse, spread Jo Mal­one Lime Blos­som along my neck and wrists and head to Tel Aviv. 

~Ψ

I have no idea where I am—a dark room, a night­light switch­ing from red to blue to the back­beat of what sounds like old dis­co. He touch­es me, kiss­es me, undress­es me. His arms are long, reach around me. The sand­pa­per of his hands moves over every part of my body. My eyes adjust and I see him, long lines of satin skin, taut and strong. And his cock. Thick, so heavy it doesn’t stand away from his body, beau­ti­ful­ly pro­por­tioned. He is talk­ing to me. Whis­per­ing that he doesn’t do well with con­doms, that he will lose his erec­tion. I am on my back on his bed; he is stand­ing over me. I think, “I want this.” I want this more than I have want­ed any­thing in my life. Acronyms like STDs and AIDS flit through my mind. Six chil­dren, all mine. Tomor­row. I will deal with the con­se­quences tomor­row. Tonight I just want the gift on this bare cock in me. “Yes,” I say, and as he slips inside, a fore­arm under each of my knees, he car­ries me through a door and into the life of my own desire. 

~Ψ

It’s like this every time we see each oth­er. Elec­tric. No con­ver­sa­tion, very lit­tle sleep. I would hap­pi­ly see F. every night, but he tells me he “has church.” Mon­day night church, Thurs­day night church. Lots of church. Really? 

We aver­age twice a week and I become a stretched cord of desire. I walk around the house wait­ing for him to call and when he does, I fly to the car, speed all the way to his lips, his hands, his penis. That beau­ti­ful cock that soon becomes a divin­ing rod to my uncer­tain men­stru­a­tion. Our sex calls my body to bleed. More time apart. But not like D. Not Ortho­dox apart. No, F. will still get his: in my hands, my mouth, against my ass. 

~Ψ

I fell off the roof,” “I’ve got my flow­ers,” “I’ve got my friend,” “I’ve got the grannies,” “lady in the red dress,” “Grandma’s here,” “Aunt Rosa is com­ing from Amer­i­ca,” My red­head­ed Aunt from Red Bank.” 

—Houp­pert, The Curse 

~Ψ

Final­ly the day comes when he calls and, as I get ready for a show­er, I see a small stain of blood in my panties. And I’m done. Done. It is, after all, the small­est stain and what is this? It’s not some God thing. No, it’s a most human thing. My thing. My body. And I am done with let­ting it stop me.   

I tell him nothing—shower and dri­ve to Tel Aviv. We are togeth­er for hours in his pitch-dark room, fall asleep in each other’s arms. The next morn­ing I leave very ear­ly to get home to my children. 

~Ψ

For the next five weeks I don’t hear from F. He doesn’t call and when I tele­phone him the phone rings and rings. When he final­ly invites me to Tel Aviv it’s to show me the stained sheets. Sheets he nev­er threw away, that have sat all this time in the cor­ner of his room. He holds up the cloth and informs me he wants no part of my “bad-lady juju.” 

~Ψ

Ntoza­ke Shange, we need a “God who bleeds.” Is she here? 

~Ψ

This is my blood. 

A lit­tle his­to­ry of the rules, of those who have them and of those who make them. 

The men­stru­al rev­o­lu­tion, in any case, is in progress. And it will prob­a­bly be the first in the world to be both bloody and peaceful.” 

—Élise Thiebaut, “The Men­stru­al Revolution” 

~Ψ

“The name—of it—is ‘Autumn’— 
The hue—of it—is Blood— 
An Artery—upon the Hill— 
A Vein—along the Road— 
 
Great Globules—in the Alleys— 
And Oh, the Shower of Stain— 
When Winds—upset the Basin— 
And spill the Scarlet Rain— 
 
It sprinkles Bonnets—far below— 
It gathers ruddy Pools— 
Then—eddies like a Rose—away— 
Upon Vermilion Wheels—” 

—Emi­ly Dick­in­son (J 656)

~Ψ

At last a man steps out of the cat­a­logue of faces, a man who sees me, who lets me know that I am seen. This is plea­sure of a whole new kind, a deep plea­sure. I am hand­ed drinks before I know I am thirsty. Noth­ing I do or say ever upsets him.   

He touch­es me, mas­sages me, loves me—everywhere: between my toes, the base of my hair­line, the place at where my back meets my but­tocks, which he calls “nabakoo.” It might mean “dim­ple” or “space”; he nev­er says. He does tell me, his voice thick with pas­sion, that noth­ing is more beau­ti­ful. He sees me beau­ti­ful and this makes me beau­ti­ful. His hands are huge, but they nev­er touch me with any­thing but gen­tle­ness. And they nev­er stop touch­ing me. In the street, in shops, every­where. And, wher­ev­er we go, peo­ple stop to look at our grey-haired hap­pi­ness.   

~Ψ

Two weeks after we start dat­ing, I am accept­ed as a PhD can­di­date at a uni­ver­si­ty in Cal­i­for­nia and from that time our rela­tion­ship forms itself around the knowl­edge that I am leav­ing. Four days before I am due to fly, my suit­cas­es most­ly packed, I begin to stain. I ask him if he has made love to a woman who is bleed­ing? He tells me he has not. Then he kneels in front of me, takes my hands in his. His face car­ries years, years of trav­el, of hard­ship, of life, but his eyes hold mine. “We are one body,” he says. “When you bleed, I am also bleed­ing.”  

He makes love to me then, holds noth­ing back, touch­es me every­where. If his penis is cov­ered with blood after, he doesn’t bur­den me with it, just steps away to wash and comes back to bed where he wraps his arms around me, braids his legs with mine into twist­ed roots.   

~Ψ

“thirty-eight years and you 
never arrived 
splendid in your red dress 
without trouble for me” 

—Lucille Clifton, “to my last peri­od”  

~Ψ

Our bod­ies shape-shift and writhe” 

—Darcey Steinke, Flash Count Diary

~Ψ

Noth­ing can pre­pare you for this.” 

—Mary Reu­fle, “Pause” 

~Ψ

I am new­ly arrived in L.A. for grad­u­ate school, stay­ing in a North Hol­ly­wood McMan­sion with friends, when the bleed­ing becomes full. The bed in the gue­stroom is mas­sive­ly pil­lowed, the sheets pris­tine. Luck­i­ly I brought a tow­el from home to tuck under me at night. Despite this, I still wake in the murky light before dawn, a fresh gush slip­ping from me. 

In the bath­room I reach down to remove my tam­pon and look at the full pad attached to my under­wear, the streaks of brown and pur­ple and maroon there, run a fin­ger over this sun­set of col­or. Some­times, when it was espe­cial­ly bad with D., I would lock myself in the bath­room, sit on the toi­let and lay my head down on my knees. The smell of me in those moments, the scent of how life and death could coin­cide inside me would bring me com­fort. Now, see­ing a streak of blood caught on my thumb, I touch it to my tongue before wip­ing it away, taste the salt and rust of me.   

Forty-three years of month­ly peri­ods. At fifty-five I am fac­ing the change. The first signs of per­i­menopause have start­ed to creep in, the heat and fog­gy brain, the exhaus­tion. But haven’t I always been chang­ing? Or has my month­ly flow kept me in rhythm, pro­vid­ed a back-beat to my life? And in this next iter­a­tion, who will this new woman, this new being be? Will I know her, rec­og­nize her bet­ter than I saw myself at 21? Or accept her as I nev­er did that girl of 12, a girl who iden­ti­fied inside a dime sized, rusty stain the rep­re­sen­ta­tion of every mis­un­der­stand­ing, every mis­take, every embar­rass­ment of her young life? And the biggest ques­tion: will I ever find it in me to for­give her? 

~Ψ

 

 

 

 

From the writer

:: Account ::

My jour­ney into this piece began in the first semes­ter of my PhD at the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia. I took a class in Shake­speare where­in we ana­lyzed each play via one word from the text. In addi­tion, we each need­ed to choose one word for our own semes­ter research. In an irrev­er­ent moment, on the day we need­ed to announce our per­son­al words, I chose the word “men­stru­a­tion,” not com­pre­hend­ing in that moment that I was com­plete­ly chang­ing the direc­tion of my research and my life. It didn’t take long to real­ize that I had inad­ver­tent­ly put my fin­ger on the very pulse of the most ancient and per­va­sive way a patri­ar­chal soci­ety has abused women. My answer could only be to tell my own sto­ry not only as an Ortho­dox Jew­ish wife but as a woman in mod­ern soci­ety. How do we undo misog­y­ny? We learned from #MeToo to share our sto­ries and find pow­er in solidarity. 

 

Rachel Neve-Mid­bar’s col­lec­tion Salaam of Birds won the 2018 Patri­cia Bib­by First Book Award and was pub­lished by Tebot Bach in Jan­u­ary 2020. She is also the author of the chap­book What the Light Reveals (Tebot Bach, 2014), win­ner of The Clock­work Prize. Rachel’s work has appeared in Black­bird, Prairie Schooner, Grist, and The Geor­gia Review as well as oth­er pub­li­ca­tions and antholo­gies. Her awards include the Crab Orchard Review Richard Peter­son Prize, the Pas­sen­ger Poet­ry Prize, and nom­i­na­tions for The Push­cart Prize. Rachel is cur­rent­ly edit­ing the AuntFlo2020 Project, an anthol­o­gy of writ­ing about men­stru­a­tion, and she is cur­rent­ly a PhD can­di­date at the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia. More at rachelnevemidbar.com