joy unburdened by womanhood
GHUFRAN
photography by Mariam AlMuheiri (@myblackipad)
I was still a girl when I got my period at my father’s first wife’s house. I remember being mostly confused by that brown spot on my underwear, but I also felt a rush of excitement that I now have this divine permission to not pray. You see, the first time I learned about female menstruation was while attempting to wake my mother for fajir prayer. I remember the dark room in my uncle’s house in Dammam, even my mother’s sleep-heavy sluggish voice. She told me not to wake my eldest sister because “عليها الدورة”; she had her period. She followed that by a one-sentence explanation: a period is a monthly duration of time when a girl bleeds and therefore does not have to pray. This piece of information came as a pleasant surprise, since a few years before, I had been caught skipping prayers and was punished for it, naturally.
Squatting in the bathroom, I was lightly thrilled that I, too, will get to sleep in for a few CONSECUTIVE days every month, although I was still confused about the rest of what the experience entails. Once I saw a materialized, touchable implication of having a period, I realized there must be more to it than just a halal prayer break. Few months later, I would learn that not having to pray is a tiny compensation for all the religious baggage that comes with menstruating.
For She’aa Muslims, the religious laws of prayer, fasting, and hijab are required of girls when they either turn nine years old or when they get their period, whichever is earlier. For me, it was the former, but the official talk that contained the part where my mother announced that I am no longer a girl and rather a woman came a couple of months after I started menstruating. I remember the black a’abayat katif (that rests on the shoulder) that I was wearing. It had butterfly wings lined with golden glitter ribbon fabric, and I felt so subtly fashionable in it (like in a halal way). I was wearing it while out with a friend. We went to the dollar store equivalent, shopping for hair accessories. The store was part of the only shopping strip in our town and therefore the only public entertainment available for us girls.
While heading back afterwards, I remember feeling—for the first time—the calm that I now know to be my lust for life quenched. I was a 12-year-old butterfly with golden-lined wings savoring the wind. I was walking down my side of the street after Ramlah had crossed to her house on the other side. Our houses were only separated by three others. I was out on this endeavor for what was determined later to be too long (I vaguely remember it was two hours), because when I got home, my mother was the one who opened the house front door for me, which immediately meant I was in trouble. Still, I didn’t anticipate the slap across the face that followed. I was then sternly told to wait for her in her room: another sign I had crossed a line.
Between the streams of tears on my face and the loud sobs, she declared the two dire sins I had committed. The first is being out for too long; the second is wearing a’baya katif instead of a'abayat ras (one that rests on the head). She also highlighted the probable bad influence of the girl I was out with, who also was “only” wearing a’bayat katif. I had to accept the first reason and promise to never dare to attempt it again. I still expressed my confusion about the recent villainization of a’bayat el-katif, since up until that moment I wasn't told off wearing it. My confusion was cleared by a common truth that was unbeknownst to me: since I got my period I am now a woman, and therefore should only wear a’abayat ras.
After that incident, I became a woman. I kept that butterfly golden-lined a’abayat hanging in the closet for weeks afterwards. Maybe I wanted to hold on to the sudden loss I was mourning alone. In the place of what I lost, a non-native seed was planted in me. One that would grow to cast a gloomy shadow on many of my instincts. When my mom berated me for talking to our male hotel staff in Iran and when she slapped my hand in a gold shop for trying the pieces unchastely in front of the seller, she watered the seed that grew to become my internalized male gaze. Entangled in and inseparable from it will my perception of my womanhood emerge. For the first decade after puberty, I will come to perceive my womanhood as the fruit to my mother’s seed assigned under my protection, and failing to protect it would hurt my family and can cost me my life. The beauty and desirability of my feminine body was celebrated through only one lens: my future husband’s. Compliments were often directed to my mother (the maker) and insinuating my future husband’s luck. I was always merely the keeper, never the owner.
Although by now I have had the privilege of witnessing the joys of femininity and womanhood, it was tragic spending my adolescence years resenting my body and yearning for a world I only saw through my face covering, a tragedy I am still mourning and healing from. Now when I see little girls going through puberty or hear of one getting her period, I feel a wave of sadness and pity wash over my heart. I project onto them the loss I was never warned of, the loss of the right to a joy unburdened by womanhood.
Ghufran is an Arab who vibrates on many frequencies: She is a poet who writes about healing and community, daydreams of becoming an educator, and is perusing a PhD on Mechanical Engineering. At the moment, her heart oscillates between California and Saudi Arabia.