What I Learned From My Menstruation Ceremony

In the meadow out back, in a stand of pine trees, I stood with my mother, in a compass of ribbons. Objects sat in each of the four corners, marking their respective directions. My heart clenched high in my chest, beating beating. Shame rose up, twisting invisibly inside me.

I was here for my mother — because she was my mother, because I was 11 and I didn’t know how to say no to her. I was here because of my period. It wasn’t even my first period. That was the lark of it. It was just the first period I could dare to tell her about. I was here because of my own big mouth.

I was in the fourth grade when I bled for the first time. I was already wrangling with the messy reality of breast buds, being noticed by grown men, and my uncomfortable, new relationship with the word “developing.” The blood in my underwear was like brownish icing on the cake of my corporeal disaster. I had been a fearless child — extroverted, drawn to the spotlight, strong in my body, one of the boys. Now there was no question I was different. It wasn’t the dresses, the sitting down to pee; it was this horrible secret that I was carrying around for months, alone.

Despite knowing exactly what my periods were and how to manage them — I had seen pads and menstrual blood thanks to my mother’s body positivity and open-door bathroom policy — I didn’t…