I have this recurring dream:
I am in a small cave wrapped in tangerine peels and sandalwood scents. A kettle is gently tittering on the fire. Someone is coming up behind me. I cannot see her. She is rubbing oils on my arms and whispering secrets into my hair. I cannot hear what she is saying.
***
When I was 12 years old I started my period. It arrived as two brown streaks on my underwear during an episode of Magnum PI. My Dad was sprawled out on the couch, one leg hiked up on the back like a very long fat cat and the other curled up like its lame cousin. This was my Dad's nightly ritual: Cocoa Cola, TV, couch, sucking his teeth. That, I could count on. Intermission to declare my passage from maidenhood to womanhood was definitely not an option. Since my mom was working late, I absconded to the bathroom to wedge a toilet paper roll between my legs and study the folded brochure in her tampon box.
The next night it was Falcon Crest and a passed note to my bleary eyed mother who was still in her work uniform. It read: I think I started my P. The news did not exactly bring with it fanfare, streamers, or presents wrapped in red paper with very mature ribbons. Instead she promised, through taut lips, to take me to the store in the morning - which would have been day three of my now full flowing period. (To be fair, I should mention here that we lived in a small farming village in Germany and a trip to the store was an hour and a half away. Also, I should clarify that there was only one English speaking channel called AFN, American Forces Network, in which shows like Magnum PI and Falcon Crest were favorites despite the fact that most people in the United States had seen these episodes seven years prior.) Once again, I found myself in the bathroom with my underwear around my ankles trying to figure out the right angle of tampon insertion - which at the time felt like an awakening to a secret women's torture ritual.
Day three of my period started with a long drive and then my mom pushing me out of the car, forcing me to navigate the sanitary napkin aisle solo. This was mortifying. Here I was in a military PX (post exchange), a 12 year old nubile, trying to read boxes and boxes of menstrual pads while a legion of jarheads lurked about. I grabbed a box and ran out the door. When I got home and unwrapped the old-lady-scented plastic package I realized that these pads were about the size and width of a mark (small German paper bill). I'd need about seven of these stuck on my underwear mosaic style to actually do anything. This time when I took my mom's tampon box into the bathroom, I was determined. I inserted one halfway up and walked around like a seasoned cowboy for three excruciating hours.
Day four and the bleeding slowed down. At school I got a pass to the bathroom every 30 minutes to check that I wasn't leaving a bloody trail. The toilet paper was government issue - did I mention I went to military school - which means dispensed in very small thin folded rectangles. To wipe on an ordinary day, one would have to pull about 75 of these things, one at a time. On extraordinary days, it was a 10 minute exercise in tedious repetition. Consequently, most of the girls in my school either walked around with personal rolls of toilet paper hidden in their book bags or suffered from carpal tunnel syndrome. By evening, the bleeding had reverted back to the brown streaks. This did not seem right. Had I injured myself by jabbing my innards with the tampon or pulling it out before it was ready? At the time, it seemed like it had caused serious internal bleeding. Was I dying? While my family watched MacGyver, I fiercely consulted the Merck manual (the source of my later developed hypochondriasis) for clues of my imminent death. I found something about kidney disease and frantically wrote a new note to my mother: I have brown streaks. Do I have a kidney disease? Renal failure? To this, my mother and her sliver mouth, flicked the paper aside and resumed her ironing and TV watching. We'll talk about it later. That's all she said.
My biological workings were as accurate as a Swiss made watch - every 28 days I started my period at 9 am. Only during daylight savings did I fail to bleed exactly on the hour. By the third month, I had secretly taken up tampon wearing. My best friend, Mary, finally showed me how easy a tool this was. On a non-period day, she pulled down her pants, swiftly plunged a tampon in, answered about 50 questions ranging from "can you poop with a tampon in," to, "are you sure you don't feel a thing?" and then with as much panache whisked it out and popped it into a used Coca Cola can. After Mary's demonstration, I stole tampons from my mom's medicine cabinet and only used the tiny stick-ons for back-up. About six months into my tampon use, I confessed to my mom that I had been using them. Her reaction was a merry-go-round of anger, disappointment, nonchalance, and back to anger. I don't exactly remember what she said, but I remember going away from that conversation feeling like the town whore for inserting something up my "body," the word my mother used for vagina.
Nevertheless, I continued my rebellious tampon using and bled happily for the next seven years. I was a non-complainer and never let a bloody day stop me from competitive running, swimming, or playing tennis and soccer (and German soccer is way more brutal than American soccer - even the scrappy soccer I played in Texas did not compare to the broken ribs, smashed fingers, and concussions I suffered at the feet of fussball). I bled like a guy with a bloody nose, no problem.
***
I am sitting on a soft nest of straw and silk hairs. I am having my period and there is no shame in this blood staining. Through a small opening in the cave, I see the even coolness of moonlight. I am laughing and the moon is laughing. I wake up from these dreams with a terror in my chest. I have been crying in my sleep and in the morning my eyes will be swollen. What was it she was telling me? A secret?
