Menstrual Blood, Peanut Butter

Every time your vagina bleeds, it means that you won’t become a mother.  My mother hated getting her period.   I remember the sobbing, the wailing, and the devastated voice.  “I’m getting my period,” she'd call out through tears. 

At least once, I saw a toilet full of blood.

It looked a little bit like this.

What the Blood Looked Like

I was around four years old when I saw the toilet full of blood for the first time. The people who wrote the Vagina Monologues complained that they couldn’t find any positive images related to menstruation.  How is this possible?  Look at the beautiful blood in this toilet.  It is hardly original.

Usually in life, your dreams don’t come true.  When I was a little girl, I dreamed of becoming an excellent brain surgeon, or president of the United States, or a nun.  None of these things have happened.   Maybe it is not too late, but probably it is.  That’s okay.  Other dreams have come true. 

Or at least one did.

A couple of months ago, I had the dream of pouring all of the internal lining of my uterus and whatever else comes out of my vagina into a jar throughout an entire menstrual cycle.  Then I would have all of the blood in one place.  I could look at it, keep it in my fridge, maybe water the plants with it, or use it for arts and crafts. 

Friends, it wasn’t easy, but I persevered.  Everywhere I went, I toted along my peanut butter jar.  If you aspire to do this yourself, I recommend opening the jar before you pull out the diva cup.  Opening the jar with a full diva cup can be a little precarious.  Good thing I have such excellent dexterity. Be sure to firmly secure the jar’s lid in place.  One evening, I took the jar out of the fridge where I kept it at night and showed it to the Boatman.  “Look at all my blood so far,”I said, holding out my right hand.

He was rightly mesmerized. 

Then he said, “Babe. Is that blood on your hand?”

Oops.

After five to seven days, the blood stopped flowing and the jar was as full as it ever would be.  For one and a half weeks, it sat on this refrigerator shelf next to the jam and the peanut butter and the ketchup and the vegannaise.   Beside the ketchup, there are jars of salsa and pickled turnips. Somewhere around there, you will also see a banana.  One and a half bananas.



My jar of blood, amongst other jars of other things

I hate veganaise and regular mayonnaise.  I also hate cleaning my fridge.       

Now it is Mother’s Day and blood is flowing from my vagina once again.  The peanut butter menstrual blood jar has long ago been carried away by a recycling truck. 

These photos are the only proof it ever existed. Behold the red, and see how it makes you feel.   
 

Thank you to the Boatman for supporting me in my dreams and taking such revolutionary pictures. 

Thank you to my mother for supporting me in my dreams and giving up menstruation at least nine months in my honour.

Happy Mother’s Day to my mother and everyone’s.

The End.



Menstrual Blood, Peanut Butter
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