stealing kotex and other rites of passage
by liz donnelly

I learned the facts of life one afternoon in a treehouse in 1964. Five of us hid out under that leafy canopy discussing the film we’d seen at school that afternoon. You know the one: Okay, girls, it’s time to put away childish things and enter the defining and confining world of “The Curse". I had watched the film in total disbelief – there was absolutely no way I was going to do that.

In the safety of the darkened cafeteria, black-out curtains drawn to prevent the boys from learning our secrets, I watched the faces of the girls around me as much as the film itself. A few looked as shell-shocked as I felt, but others nodded knowingly. They patted their handbags in a way that indicated they already knew this stuff, even had the equipment. Some of them wore a smug look meant to inform the ignorant that they were already doing it. I made a mental list of which girls to avoid so I wouldn’t catch it.

I wasn’t supposed to see the film anyway. The permission slips sent home to be signed by our mothers very clearly stated that the film was for 5th and 6th grade girls. From the whispers of the other girls in my 4th grade class, I knew we had been handed something forbidden. And, as the daughter of a fundamentalist minister, forbidden was my fruit of choice.

Menstruation. The word almost vibrated there on the third line of the form. I had no idea what it meant. When I tried to ask some of the other girls, they shushed me and nodded toward the boys with a keep-your-voice-down look. My best friend whispered that it was when women bleed. I acted like I understood, but my confusion continued. Didn’t men bleed also? When my little brother slammed the door on his hand and severed the end of his index finger, it bled all over the porch.

I looked the word up in the dictionary, but that just added the mystery of more new words: uterus, menses, fertilized eggs, womb, and pregnant. Oh dear, there was that “p” word. We were not allowed to say that in our house. My brother had his mouth washed out for that one. If the matter had to be discussed at all, the only acceptable term was “expecting.”

At home that night, I re-read the form dozens of times, holding the paper up to my face and inhaling the intoxicating scent of mimeograph ink. That smell and the titillation of sin became inseparable in my adolescent mind. For years, passing out test papers gave me a thrill I could not explain.

I knew my mother would never give her permission – and that was only one of my problems. The real obstacle was that I couldn’t even ask her to sign it. We did not speak of bodily functions in our house. To insure that silence, these functions did not even have names. For years I believed my parents never had any use for a bathroom; they just didn’t do those things we kids did.

There was only one way around this. I got out the ballpoint pen stolen from my father’s desk and forged my mother’s signature for the very first time. It looked like the real thing. This was going to be easier than I’d thought.

The next day, my teacher looked at my permission slip skeptically, shrugged, and waved me out with the other girls whose mothers had actually signed their forms. I’d done it!

We made our way into the cafeteria where the tables had been replaced with rows of folding chairs. I found a seat right down front, ready for anything. From the back of the room came the clicking whir of a movie projector. My life was about to change forever.

* * * * *

At 10, I was the youngest girl up that tree. The others were 12 or 13, except for one 14-year-old who’d be going to high school next year – her word was gospel. Normally I wasn’t allowed up in the big girls’ tree, but since I’d seen the film, they were making an exception. Besides, everyone in the neighborhood knew my mother didn’t talk about “such things.” In hindsight, the other mothers probably insisted someone set me straight.

That afternoon, I sat open-mouthed as I learned two of my friends had already “gotten their periods.” They had, in fact, been suffering from The Curse for months. Each spoke openly of her experiences with “cramps” and “accidents.” Every girl except myself could argue the superiority of Kotex versus Modess pads. Even the two who had not yet “started” already had a belt and a box of pads waiting in their closets. I had no idea what a pad even looked like; the film had mentioned them casually, as though everyone knew what the narrator meant. Everyone, that is, except me.

They chatted on into the fading light of sunset and I stayed right there, speechless. The film had listed “signs” of the impending event: enlarging breasts, underarm and pubic hair, shaving one’s legs. All the girls in the tree admitted they had hair; three of them definitely had breasts, now that I was looking for them. The 14-year-old had even been kissed and possibly even “felt up.” She wasn’t quite sure. I was clueless.

The talk turned to tampons, something the film had said were for married women only. I ventured out of my silence to ask why. The others blushed and snickered uncomfortably as the oldest explained that unmarried women could not use tampons because they might lose their virginity. I asked for a definition of virginity. They told me it was time for me to go home.

At supper that night, I could not look my parents in the face. I was sure they’d know I had done something wrong, something sinful. Had anybody told them these things? Did my mother bleed? Were there Kotex in our house? I excused myself from the table with the excuse of an upset stomach.

Lying across my bed, I planned my strategy. The next time my mother went outside to hang the laundry, I would search for belts and pads. If it was true that every woman did this, then the evidence had to be somewhere in the house. If those things were to be found, I would find them.

Nothing. I found nothing. And I looked everywhere. I told my next door neighbor (one of the girls from the tree) that there must be exceptions to the “every” woman rule. If there were no pads in our house, then it meant my mother did not bleed. And since I had no hair anywhere except on my head and absolutely no signs of impending breasts, it meant I had inherited a bloodless future also. I was actually quite relieved to learn that the women in my family were different.

But my relief was short-lived. My friend, once she stopped laughing, informed me that everyone knew my mother did not bleed because she’s had all her insides removed after my youngest brother was born. She didn’t bleed anymore because all her “stuff down there” was gone. It had been cut out of her. I went home to stare at my mother.

* * * * *

For the next two years, I waited. Waited for hair, waited for breasts – gave thanks every morning I woke up without them. I grew taller, thinner, kept my place as the only girl in the neighborhood allowed to be “one of the guys.” All my friends wore bras and Cover Girl tinted acne cream. Their armpits smelled sweetly of Secret or Arrid; mine reeked of sweat. They giggled about their developing figures; I bragged about my developing curve ball.

Then, while walking home from school with my friend, Charlene, I noticed her underarms sported a lining of soft downy hair. I teased her mercilessly. She turned and slugged me right in the gut. While I sat there in the middle of the street, struggling to catch my breath, she grabbed my arm and raised it above my head. With her other hand, she pulled out a hank of my own underarm hair and waved it in my face before she stomped off toward home.

When had that happened? I could not believe so much hair could grow unnoticed. I almost died of shame as I realized I was probably the only one who had not noticed. It had been hot enough for no sleeves for weeks. Everybody knew. That night I snuck into my parent’s bathroom and used my father’s razor to shave my armpits. Afterwards I sprayed them liberally with his Mennon deodorant. The pain as it seared into my razor nicks was as good a reason as any to cry myself to sleep that night.

* * * * *

Later that summer I was playing The Game of Life with a group of neighborhood girls. Suddenly one of the girls reached over and pulled my Smokey the Bear t-shirt tight against my chest, asking when I was going to start wearing a bra. Another echoed the question, adding that it was embarrassing to have my nipples show like that.

Nipples? I had nipples? I look down at my chest and, sure enough, there appeared to be breasts growing there. Crossing my arms in front of me, I stood up and kicked the game board across the room. Their laughter followed me all the way home.

After supper, four neighbor women came to see my mother. I kept my ear pressed against the living room door, but couldn’t quite make out what they were saying. They spoke in those hushed voices women used when men and children were not supposed to hear. I did make out the word “bra” several times and wondered where they got the nerve to say that out loud in my mother’s presence. “Bra” was another word not spoken in our house before that night.

Saturday morning my mother drove us to the local department store and deposited me with a salesclerk in the underwear department. She whispered a few words to the woman and then left me there, surrounded by limbless plaster women wearing the latest unmentionables from Playtex. The woman stared at my mother’s retreating back, then looked at me like some poor, stray dog. She whispered something to the woman behind the register and guided me back behind the curtains to a fitting room.

I stood there alone with a stranger and suffered through having someone I did not know measure my traitorous chest. Just stood there, humiliated, as she brought me a variety of bras to try on, turning my half-naked body around and around as she checked their fit. She chose three without asking my opinion and told me to get dressed.

My mother re-appeared from somewhere and paid the clerk. She left just as quickly, leaving me standing there. The saleslady handed me the shopping bag with the bras and patted my head. I followed my mother to the car. She never said a word. Neither did I.

* * * * *

It was the summer of 1966. I was twelve years old and wearing my first bras. In a neighborhood constantly re-populating itself, that made me eligible to babysit. For fifty cents an hour, I gladly sat in other people’s houses and watched the television shows I was forbidden to watch at home. There was also access to popular music, something not heard in our house. And, best of all, there was snooping.

Once the kids were asleep, I would start. No closet, no cabinet, no drawer was left unopened. Oh, the things I discovered on those delicious scavenger hunts. But my searches had a single purpose – I was looking for Kotex. And I found them.

Then I stole them: one or two Kotex or Modess pads from every house, each time I babysat. They were easy to sneak out: just spread them across my belly, tucked under the waistband of my shorts. At home, I would hide my latest acquisition in a shoebox at the back of my closet shelf. By the time Eve’s curse caught up with me on the day before my 13th birthday, I had four and a half boxes filled with pads of all descriptions, along with a brand-new sanitary belt shoplifted from the local drugstore.

My mother had still not said a word about any of it.

* * * * *

I started to bleed in the middle of my 7th grade social studies class. My belly had been hurting all morning, and as I sat there listening to my teacher drone on and on about something or other, I felt an unfamiliar wetness between my legs. For almost 10 minutes, I couldn’t move, couldn’t believe it was really happening. Finally I raised my hand and asked to go see the nurse. There was a sweeping murmur from the girls around me and a couple of boys with older sisters snickered. Once again, everyone knew.

The school nurse was kind enough, I suppose. Did I want her to call my mother? No! She led me into the darkened sick room across from the office and handed me a small cardboard box. In the bathroom, I opened it to find a folded pad and two safety pins. Walking was awkward with the unfamiliar bulk of the pad between my legs. The nurse brought me a hot water bottle and two aspirins, then left me alone.

I lay on the small cot, curled around that artificial warmth, and marveled at the fact that I could now give birth. Really. That was my only thought – not that my days as “one of the guys” were over, nothing about how I would hide this from my mother. As soon as the first drops of blood proved the existence of my womb, all I could think about was that I could have a baby. Alone in that tiny room, I comforted myself with the knowledge that I now possessed the ability to end my own loneliness.

Of course, I never said a word about any of this to my mother.

* * * * *

Almost ten years later I gave birth to a daughter of my own. I had hoped for a son – boys seemed so uncomplicated. But there she was, dangerously quiet, with a scowl that made her look like Winston Churchill. And I didn’t feel any less lonely – only terrified. I still didn’t know all the things other women knew, especially how to be someone’s mother.

I was determined she would not grow up in the dark ignorance of my childhood, so in this new family, we named names. Before she was three, my daughter had correctly assimilated all the facts presented in the book Where Did I Come From? Unfortunately, she was unaware there were still certain taboos outside our home. At a family reunion that year, she patiently tugged on her grandfather’s pants leg until she got his full attention, then asked him loudly, “Granddaddy, do you have a penis or a puhgina?” There was a communal gasp from my extended family, but no one said anything.

As she approached adolescence, the sequel book What’s Happening to Me? was added to her library. By the time The Film was shown to her 5th grade class, she was already the one in the know. In our bathroom closet sat a pretty pink introduction kit from a major manufacturer of feminine hygiene products, complete with samples and another little booklet of The Facts.

We talked often in her early years about what would happen to her body. In the openness of our household, she had full access and knowledge of my own monthly rituals. I read a parenting article about how our society was sorely lacking in rites of passage for its children. My daughter and I decided that we would celebrate her foray into womanhood with a special dinner out in a fancy restaurant – just the two of us.

The next few years passed with my feeling pretty smug, sure I had done a perfect job of preparing my daughter for her great transition. After all, we had such an open relationship. She told me everything. This would be so easy, emotionally painless. When she decided she wanted to start wearing a bra, we went to the store together and had a blast trying on every possible fit. She modeled them proudly, strutting around the fitting room shamelessly. That afternoon she confidently told my aunt the news, “I’m wearing a bra now, you know.” More silence from my mother’s sister.

So I was not prepared when I took my daughters to the pediatrician for pre-school check-ups and heard my oldest confide to the doctor – not me – that she had armpit and public hair. My heart sank. Then the final blow: when asked, she defiantly stated that she had been having periods for several months now. The doctor asked me if I knew this and I just shook my head dumbly. “Well,” she said, looking me with pity, “it’s really better for everyone if these things are openly discussed between mothers and daughters. It’s a natural process, you know, nothing to be ashamed of.”

And just like that, with no warning, the angst of my own dysfunctional adolescence engulfed me: the old embarrassments, the feeling of being “different,” the discomfort of my own changing body. I felt an old familiar hollowness in my belly that came dangerously close to shame.

Although I was still glad that my daughter knew the “facts” of life, I realized I had not provided her with a positive emotional view of the experience. Instead, she’d assimilated my shame, made it her own. Nothing had really changed in all these years. In the car on the way home, no one said a word.

We finally had our fancy girls’ only dinner, but something was missing. The openness was gone, replaced by a secrecy between us that reflected a loss of intimacy. The ritual was a sham. Neither of us experienced any rite of passage – we just stayed where we were, stuck in our silence.

* * * * *

By the time my younger daughter reached puberty, I was done with the whole premise. Like her sister, she knew the facts and had the equipment. Unlike her sister, she was now the child of divorced parents, living alone with her father. I was miles away, not involved in the daily evolution of her journey. A co-worker of her father took her to buy her first bras. I heard about it in a phone call.

Summer, 1993: the custody wars were in hiatus and my youngest child, now 13, was allowed to stay most of the summer with me. We spent the entire time camping in the mountains, living like wild women. We cooked over an open fire, went to bed with the sun, and hiked the soles off our boots.

One afternoon, we came down out of the hills to visit a friend who lived in a log cabin in Deep Gap. By evening several women had gathered spontaneously and we prepared a large communal feast, seasoned with gossip and laughter. Afterward, we sprawled out on the porch as the sun dropped behind the treeline. One of the women began drumming softly, and we chanted and sang into the darkness.

My daughter leaned against the knees of one of the older women who began braiding her hair. Suddenly, the woman’s fingers stilled, and she asked my daughter if she’d gotten her moontime yet. Moontime – such a long way from the Curse. My daughter said no, and the woman resumed braiding, nodding her head, and predicting that another moon would not pass without blood.

We were all quiet then – not silent – humming softly to the heartbeat of the drum. My daughter was grinning, her excitement electrifying the cool air. Softly, one of the women began telling the story of her first time, how it was at once beautiful and awful. She shared how thrilled she was at becoming a woman, how alone she felt that her mother could not share her joy. In the face of that 50-year-old woman, the eyes of a child reflected an ancient pain.

She finished her story and walked over to my daughter. Removing her necklace, she placed it around my daughter’s neck. In the darkness, another woman told her story, then tied a feather in my daughter’s hair. One after another, around the circle, the women of a generation shared the wonder and the pain they had carried for years. Each in turn added to my daughter’s ritual dressing – a scarf, a ring, more necklaces and feathers.

As the last story ended, all of us stood, as one, and encircled my daughter. The beat of the drum took on the rhythm and intensity of dance. We danced for my daughter, called the moon down to her youthful womb, and filled the night with our songs. We laughed out loud in the darkness, even as the tears of our released pain scarred our faces in the moonlight. We were women in celebration, done with silence.

* * * * *

A few days later, my daughter stumbled from our tent into the early morning mists on her way to the campground’s bathhouse. I curled further down into the warmth of my sleeping bag, hoping for a few more minutes of sleep while she was gone. But I was startled into full consciousness by the sound of my daughter’s voice ringing through the hush of a new day from about fifty feet away. “Well, I hope you’re satisfied. I just got my moontime.”

The joy in her exasperated adolescent voice was unmistakable. The grin on my own face was shameless. From the campsites around us came laughter, applause, and even a hearty war-whoop. My daughter was a woman, with no need for silence.

* * * * *

Liz Donnelly, having survived both puberty and menopause, is now a writer of romance novels and Southern gothic short stories. She currently lives in Asheville, NC and continues to embrace life’s ongoing passages with a bit of trepidation and a lifetime of curiosity. [write2be@charter.net]