The taboo against discussing menstruation is long-standing, and I've been pondering the wisdom of writing this particular memoir of my growing-up years in an extended women-clan. My heart won out over my head, and here is the story.

My mother prepared me and my sister well for what was to happen to our bodies, minds, and psyches as we grew. Growing up in this web of women, I could only feel impatient joy about becoming a real woman at last. My cousin Maxine and I talked about it endlessly.

One hot, sticky day in July, 1961 I woke up with the definite signs that yes, I was on my way to female maturity. It was also the day that my sister Judie was due to have her tonsils out and our mother was going to stay in the hospital with her.

The plan was for me to spend the day with my beloved maternal grandmother. When Pittsburgh had a heat wave, my grandmother always opened her windows, pulled down the blinds, and set all her fans on "high." She cooked and ate very little, living high up in a tiny apartment in the Morrowfield Apartments on Murray Avenue. So when I walked in I was greeted with a pleasant wave of cool air; I told my grandmother about the important event of the morning.

But she knew about it already. My mother had alerted her. She asked me how I felt and I told her that I had a bad pain in my lower back.

"Listen, love," she said. "When you're having your monthlies and you get a backache, you lie down on the floor, on your back. That takes the pain away."
I did what I was told. I lay down on the floor and my grandmother sat down at her small telephone table. She called all the women we were related to and said: "My Leslie fell off the roof today." This was said with pride and satisfaction.

I had never heard of the phrase "fall off the roof." It was obvious, though, what it meant. So I lay there at my grandmother's feet and listened to her spread the news. And the pain in my back went away. This was the end of the mind/body split! I had taken no medicine, I just did what my grandmother told me to do.

Of course I called Maxine and told her the news and she was full of happiness for me. When my father came to get me at the end of his work day, he kindly took me over to Maxine's house so that she could see me. We held this belief that once this physical change took place, we would somehow look different. This proved to be untrue.

That night my mother stayed overnight in the hospital with Judie, so my aunt Esther came over to check on me. She just wanted to make sure that I was OK. I felt thoroughly watched over and cared for that night. My father was in the background during all of this and I sensed that he wanted to say something to me--congratulations, I love you, you're going to be a lovely woman. How do I know this? Because when I went to bed that night he stood in the doorway of my room, hesitated, then came over to me and patted my shoulder. He didn't have to say anything after that.