Because I've decided it's time to lay myself open. Because I've read what other women have to say and my perspective opposes theirs. Generally. And some do journalise it, their cycle, and how it impacts their moods, their creativity. I'm not about to do that; I couldn't anyway as those fruit-bearing years I think have passed, but that angle interests me.
I was surprised to discover in An Interrupted Life: The Diaries and Letters of Etty Hillesum 1941-43 her musings on her 'accursed insides of mine.' How it affected her moods, disturbed her work and impacted on her feelings for others. Why it made me pause I don't know...for after all she was twenty-seven-year old female and subject, like all women, to these changes in 'blood circulation', yet it occurred to me that in certain entries these events, where mentioned, were an influencer. Etty recognised that and chronicled it. She was aware of their inward effect on her outer person. This isn't unheard of or unknown of, but words aren't usually given over to it in quite the same manner. Unless I haven't stumbled across the right diaries or diarists.
Her openness also reignited in me my (stupid) requisite for privacy in anything relating to my internals. I don't even like it when my guts gurgle! And in my own journals (when I kept them) downstairs barely gets a mention. But also I'd forgotten. Because I'm not troubled by any of that any longer, and Etty brought it back.
Of course, Etty's diaries and letters during those years offer much more than that, but I like the fact that the appearance of these natural phases were erratically noted alongside her internal journey and the issues of her time: that of war and German occupation. In terms of reading, she's the older Anne Frank, and you might from her picture be mistaken in thinking it could be Anne, grown up. But Etty is her own person and, I would opine, more given to introspection. A few stages on in maturity. And experience.
Periods: ages and stages of development and ages of maturity comprise women. As they do men, but I can't speak of the male with any authority, other than that observed and then only poorly since I don't have any siblings and only one male cousin who I don't see. I'm not sure I can speak of women! Not on behalf of them, because whilst collectively we share these same stages (and the same anatomy) we all experience (and appreciate) them differently. Or don't share the same feelings about them. Some of us also skip some stages, pregnancy for example, or have a shorter procreative window.
A fertile woman is fertile in other ways, that seems to to be general view; that because you can create life you are also productive in moods and emotions, in art and ideas. An inner energy can manifest itself outwards, but it can also stay inside. A woman is neither one or the other on each occasion, or throughout i.e. intense or contemplative, it will vary. The mind will race or wander, the body may retreat to a quiet, safe corner, or dash about. Everything may instead seem and feel more leaden, or be heightened incredibly. And, of course there may be some physical discomfort, even debilitating pain. Tiredness, depression and rage, as well as leaps of joy.
None of that is false, but none of it is entirely true either. Yes, as women, biologically we're more susceptible to those peaks and troughs, and often governed by them, but none of that stops when this process comes to an end. Yes, menstruation can compound thoughts, feelings and ideas, but when that (blood) flow dries up we don't then identify less as female or feel unwomanly. Neither do we disappear, nor stop being creative. We still listen to our insides – try to make, to take something from the dissociated headaches, stomach and back aches, from the hormonal fluctuations.
Though I couldn't do it, could I? Talk about my own insides. In anything even closely resembling the detail I imagined.
Picture credit: Even Song, 1930, Agnes Lawrence Pelton, WikiArt
All posts published this year were penned during the last.
