(14) periods, cycles and persona
what does menstruation have anything to do with how I create? also, a new section <3
Keeping up with my recounting of tears: I’ve been feeling like crying a lot, I actually cried on one of my recent dreams. Fuck PMS and period cramps. Today that’s what I am writing about, kind of. I also have an announcement to make, it’s about a new section! Go on, read me.
01
I’ve had my period for 15 years more or less. Bleeding out of my vagina, having random gruellingly painful cramps every now and then and being annoyed by the fact that I have to go through this regularly month after month is something that I’m used to by now. What I’m mostly discovering at this point is that whatever I do creatively is affected by this biological phenomenon. It’s nothing new (I actually have a tab open with an article that talks about the connection between our menstrual flow and creative flow) but it’s an observation on myself that I’ve been having recently.
Oh.
Wait.
I want to quote every single paragraph in the article, it’s pretty much everything I wanted to say and I’m reading it while I’m in the middle of writing this.
Anyways, I’m going to put out there the changes I feel in myself whenever I have my period and please, please, please, read the article.
02
This is where I am trying to go and can’t find a way of saying it straight: I feel like a different person every single week and I make and remake my routines and projects based on that.
I’ve found out that the week before my period I become this vulnerable, sensitive woman who wants to feel everything and uses her senses very lively to find the most in every detail. When the blood starts flowing I’m still very receptive yet, normally, I tend to get easily bored and start swimming in my thoughts. Next week is all about planning and arranging these thoughts, I tend to feel as if I have to plan my whole life again. Seven days after, I’m a whole different person, all about action (something very unlike me, I tend to see myself as very passive), ticking out my to-do list and creating non-stop until I cannot think of anything else to put out there.
I blame this not only on my menstrual cycle and being a woman but also on… astrology! Of course, I identify with the fact that Virgo is a mutable sign. Mutable signs are always on the look for change. Change in routine, change in environment, change in ideas. “Yo me transformo”, as la Rosalía would say.
I could classify my different characters in this monthly cycle as:
Sensitive
Intellectual
Practical
Experimental
And I dare to say that I am all of them.
03
Sometimes I feel like I cannot be one or another, that I have to be just one. But, you know what? Quick thought. A week ago I was watching the new Elvis movie and I thought of that power that any perfomer has of creating a persona. Elvis, David Bowie, Andy Warhol, Lana del Rey, Lady Gaga,… Their imagination and creativity took them to manufacture this version of themselves that we “ordinary” people get to fall in love with or cringe at. I think it’s amazing how someone can be so different and unique, something so special that no one can be like them. But the act is as much part of them as they want.
There’s many things I have read and listened to about it that quite makes me understand how they do this.
Like this excerpt from The War of Art by Steven Pressfield:
Or Mina Le’s amazing video essay on persona:
04
My take on it is that the easiest way to put on an act on a daily basis is through clothes. That’s what I love about fashion: one day you’re all about looking like your most magical fairy version of yourself with a ruffled skirt and mesh top and the next day you become an anti-fashion icon wearing a norm-core all-black attire.
I know I made I big jump here but sometimes I don’t feel like I need too many words to go straight into any thought I have about fashion. It’s a subject that I have been very passionate about since my early years of self-discovery and I can talk about it at the very least provocation.
This is whyyyyy I’m announcing here that I created a new section in my newsletter!
I called it Species of Style.
Heavily inspired by Georges Perec’s observations on the “infra-ordinary”, Species of Style is a collection of thoughts and classifications I tend to do of my own day-to-day personal style and fashion subjects.
This section is going to be a continuation of the almost daily documentation I do of my outfits on TikTok, some styling ideas and any thought that comes to mind when learning anything about fashion. I’ll try to experiment with my writing as well, taking inspiration from one of my favorite authors, Georges Perec, who tends to classify and write down every single detail and specification he encounters in the mundane stuff through lists and wordplay.
So stay tuned for the first post coming up soon and share with anyone who can be interested in Virgos Don’t Cry with its sections: Random Ratings and Species of Style.
I love this space, I really love it here.