With my pants around my ankles, I squatted low in the 3-stalled corporate office restroom. My butt cheeks just a few inches from the floor, I pressed my PC muscles down and pulled the tip of my menstrual cup. Because squatting shortens the vaginal canal, it was then easy to grab the base with my finger and thumb. And on this early morning, for whatever reason, instead of the delicate satisfying squish of the suction releasing and the cup coming out gently, slick blood met my fingers and I fumbled. The full overflowing cup did an acrobatics routine, jumping up out of my hand, twirling towards the floor, and, in a spectacular firework display, bedazzled the surroundings with a million blood sequins. 

“Noooo!” I whispered. “No, no, no, no, no, no!” I was frozen in my squat, mouth agape, not believing what had just happened. My blood was splattered on two stall walls, the base molding of the back wall, the smoke-gray floor tiles, the metal toilet paper dispenser, the base and outer bowl of the toilet, my shoes, the hem of my black pants, and the bottom edge of my work apron, which hung on the door. And my sweet menstrual cup, the power object of my moon cycle, the thing that was inside of me more than any other outside thing, had landed on the tiles where strangers, with their strange shoes stood and sat to pee and poop, and was slowly rolling side to side, seemingly exhausted from its acrobatic performance. 

I picked up my now weary cup, wiped my vulva with toilet paper, pulled my pants up with the hand that wasn’t covered in blood, elbowed the lock open, and poked my head out of the stall. It was a pre-dawn breakfast shift my team was setting up so there was no one in the office yet except for us caterers. I was alone in the bathroom but still felt sheepish and embarrassed. Even I, who feels strongly that every beach has nude-beach potential, desire some privacy and walls that meet the ground when changing my menstrual cup. I prayed that no one entered until after I’d cleaned up. I willed them with my psychic powers not to come in, these imaginary early birds with their urgent bladders. 

To keep my pants up I propped my belly against the sink. And with handfuls of watered-down industrial soap foam, I held my hands under the tepid eco-friendly trickle of water and tried to get a lather going. My plan had been to do what I normally do if I was out in public and had to change my cup: drink the blood and then slide it back inside. This left only a tiny bit of blood on one hand, an easily manageable thing. I washed my hands again and though I washed the cup many times, it never seemed clean enough. 

There were no paper towels in the bathroom, only hand driers. So I dried my hands on my pants, reinserted the cup, and then began removing every blood splatter from the scene. Blood dries fast so I needed moisture to clean it. The toilet paper ripped and disintegrated with any more friction than a single wipe. And moisture caused the toilet paper to become tiny ineffective wads that scooched over the surface ineffectually. It took mountains of it to clean up. As I cleaned I got a sense of the amount of time I’d been in the bathroom being way longer than the time it took to poop and hoped no one noticed my absence. 

Each off-site catering job was sent out with a bin full of necessities that may not be on location and, if missed by the team that packed the vans, would make the event very hard. This JIC bin contained extra linen napkins, tape, latex gloves, lighters, pens, paper towels, and actual soap among other useful things. I grabbed the soap and paper towels, washed my hands again, and took one more pass over the bathroom. Our catering team had arrived before the work day started to set up the appreciation breakfast in the small lunchroom on the 15th floor. We put black linens over tables and added flower arrangements and a breakfast buffet to the spiritless office palette. We set out real flatware and tucked the plastic forks and spoons into the cupboards below. Luckily our uniforms were all black so the blood splatter on my pants and shoes didn’t show. Once breakfast was underway, I smiled at the guests, projecting out to them that I definitely didn’t have blood on my pants, apron, and shoes, that everything was indeed just fine. 

To be able to make it through a work shift we who menstruate have tried to blend into the sanitized domesticated world and hide our blood of life with neutral colors. But no amount of beige will erase the fact that people with vulvas bleed and bleeding is messy sometimes. Because life is messy sometimes. And all of human life depends on this potential mess. This mess that contains within it the grace and wonder of life’s processes. We who menstruate have acclimated to the modern world, to the best of our ability, the world made by and for people who don’t menstruate. We are taught to hide the smell, our tools, our needs, our magic, and our reality of what it is to bleed-and-not-die from those who are at best squeamish about the process and, when it comes down to it, don’t know because they can’t know. To be clear, those who don’t menstruate have their own magics and processes that the rest of us don’t and can’t know. I’m not shaming any of us for not knowing what we can’t know, but inviting us to collectively reach towards and exalt balance, and the possibility of what could happen when each piece of the rich and delectable flourless chocolate cake of humanity is recognized and honored. That would be just, in a word, yummy.

Walk with me for a spell, won’t you, through an imaginary doorway? Part the sheets of temperate rainforest moss, draping evergreen branches, duck under the earthy-smelling beards of usnea, and arrive in a land so similar to our own but one that feels so very different. 

In the deep green of the forest, we come upon a temple that can only be found if we bleed or have bled. Before entering we offer some moon blood to the Earth shrine just outside, the delta of a massive ancient tree whose moss is covered in moss and whose protruding root arms are snuggled by ground orchids and spectacular rocks who receive the thousand offerings from the thousands who offered them. Once inside, minutes become eons as capitalism’s relentless stopwatch recedes into obsolescence. It’s cool and strong here, yet also warm and soft. We are greeted with a bowl of our favorite period snacks. Perhaps honey almond rose petal ice cream or those super crunchy puffed powdered cheese snacks from the chip aisle. And if perchance, you need those crunchy puffed powdered cheese snacks atop a bowl of ice cream then that you shall have, my love. We are not glutons but we also refuse deprivation as a badge of viability. We are supported into the natural inward-moving rest-cycle our bodies desire during our moon time. Here, any shame accumulated around menstruating or going deep within is composted into the earth. This is the Life Wisdom Temple afterall, not the suffering temple. Because we are able to soften and go deep when bleeding, in between bites, we are asked for our wisdom. Darling, what do you know right now because you’re bleeding? What is the knowledge in your bones and in your womb? What needs to be shared or felt with the clarity of sadness, silence, or rage? What within us craves darkness, stillness, and deep time? It is given to us by this space and we take it inside and let its healing energy metabolize and change us. 

For those of us at the gateway of menstruation ceasing, we are honored for the wisdom of this threshold. We did it. We completed a maiden to mother voyage and here we are, greeting this next phase of life, at the gateway of The Crone, wise one, preparing to enter the innermost sanctum. We give this sanctuary to ourselves and to each other. 

My invitation is for us to visit this Life Wisdom Temple often. Once a month, say, from our couches beneath our heating pads. We might paint the details together until we no longer have the need to hide. Let’s meet here and fill in the particulars together with the wisdom of our hearts and wombs until obscurity melts from us collectively and we laugh until we pee a little about the time we spilled blood all over a public bathroom during a work shift. I strongly feel we can remember how to do this when we stop thinking we’ve forgotten. 

Photo by Sven Huls on Unsplash

Lincoln is currently in training as a Bodysex Coach. 

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