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Liz Forbes's avatar

A year or so later, when I was eleven, I got the “curse.” I was

horrified at the blood on my pajamas and between my legs. I

remembered my mother’s blood. She had tried to tell me about

menstruation, but I had blocked her words, and now I had it. She

fitted me with a fold of clean cloth in my underwear, secured it

with two safety pins, and told me to go to school. I didn’t want

to go.

“You’ll just have to get used to it,” she had said.

At school, I avoided my friends because I knew that everyone

could see the blood and this thing between my legs. I felt distant

from everyone. The girls were giggling and silly. They didn’t have

the curse. I hated them.

When I had developed breasts, she had made me a bra. It was

a beautiful creation made of pink satin with delicate embroidered

roses on the cups.

“A French bra,” she had said proudly as she gave it to me.

an excerpt from my memoir Growing Up Weird: A memoir of an Oak Bay childhood from the chapter titled The Curse.. this would have been around 1950. I am doing a second printing of my book and it will be available by mid March. cheers, Liz Forbes lizmax@shaw.ca

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ronna's avatar

Hi Kathryn,

I'm a new subscriber and first, thanks! I like what you wrote on the first page about your new book and the period stories. And you know, I love that maxi-pad cover.

Here's a poem you might like.

Ronna

to my last period

  by Lucille Clifton

well, girl, goodbye,

after thirty-eight years.

thirty-eight years and you

never arrived

splendid in your red dress

without trouble for me

somewhere, somehow.

now it is done,

and i feel just like

the grandmothers who,

after the hussy has gone,

sit holding her photograph

and sighing, wasn’t she

beautiful? wasn’t she beautiful?

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