#23 - Topic: Menstruation, with Astrid and Hanna from Goodnight Greatness

Here is an episode about menstruation from the perspective of being a musician. I talk with Astrid Larsson and Hanna Åkerström from the Stockholm-based band called Goodnight Greatness, who earlier this year released a song called 'Six Days'.

00:00 Introduction

01:00 'Six Days'

03:47 Interview with Astrid Larsson and Hanna Åkerström

24:17 Ragnhild's account of being a menstruating musician (text below)

Goodnight Greatness on Spotify

Podcast soundtrack by Mohamed Amer.

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I usually get up early every morning, eager to start a new day. I spend the first hour in the living room with yoga and meditation, I have a shower and eat breakfast, make a pot of tea and read a little before getting started on the things that are related to building a freelance musician career. My energy lasts throughout the whole day, I feel like cycling and walking, being active and productive. I want to see friends and make things happen.

But during some days every month this all changes a little, but enough to affect my state of mind, how my body feels, and what I have the energy for. This happens in varying degrees for so many of us, yet there is not a lot of talk about it outside of the dedicated platforms for such earth mother hippie stuff.

I'm the only female in my band, and I notice that every time I'm menstruating when we're rehearsing, I really want to get things done as quickly as possible so that I can go home as quickly as possible. This has nothing to do with my band members, who I love to hang out with in general. It's just that my mind is not at all keen on socialising on those particular days.

I'd rather clean my kitchen very slowly and thoroughly, or lie on the sofa and watch YouTube videos. A cancellation is always a relief. The effortless motivation I usually have for cello-playing is much less present. And I can fight it by picking up the cello anyway, to feel like a professional who can rise above the temptation to do what feels right, or I can be present in the peculiar state of mind that I have, to see what's actually there before my period is over once more and I'm back to my usual energy.

The Norwegian artist Jenny Hval has an album called 'Blood Bitch'. Whenever I listen to this album I feel like she was so present in her menstruating energy that she produced this whole album from it. I don't know how the album came about, but it's nevertheless inspiring to me, and an example of making the most of all my energies. Playing the cello during my period feels different, though not in a predictable way. If I'm in pain, playing can make me feel sick and completely out of balance. But when I'm not in pain, I can at times tap into an intense presence, as if reality goes a little deeper than usual. It can be hard to produce a carefree atmosphere in a major key, and much easier to connect to the countless shades of minor.

The activities and goals that govern my days can suddenly lose some of the importance I usually impose on them and which I chase blindly without question. Who cares what I do for a living; who cares about the intonation I can produce in a performance of a Bach suite; who cares if I'm a mess today; who cares if there's a new episode of this podcast next Thursday. Just stop and stand still for a moment. I'm a being in this world, during my time of being self-conscious on a big rock that is orbiting a star. Maybe I'll just relax in that thought for some time tonight instead of cramming in a last hour of something potentially useful.

I once attended a menstruation workshop in Amsterdam. We were given paper and pencils and we drew the things that we associated with the four phases of the menstrual cycle while the instructor was reading aloud the characteristics of those phases. The Spring phase is the week after bleeding, when the energy is on its way up and there's a feeling of being a young girl again. I drew a cat. The Summer phase is when ovulation takes place, the immune defense system is at its strongest, and there's a feeling of being an adult woman, responsible and rational. The Autumn phase is the Practise More Self-care week, or PMS for short, where there's more explosivity and vulnerability, a feeling of being a woman in her menopause, self-criticism can be more prevalent. And at the Winter phase, the week of menstruation, I'm an old, wise woman. I drew a sea turtle.

Of course, this is a generalisation. We're all different. But it has been good for me to have a framework like this to relate to, and to let myself be a part of the world through the associations to the seasons, the stages of life, and to other beings on this planet, instead of feeling detached from the world with an angry uterus, voluntarily home alone on the sofa. I don't have to be a heavy, bloated, lazy version of the perceived more attractive me; just for some time, I can be a sea turtle. A whale. A tree. The ocean.

My musician's journey isn't completely separate from this cycle of hormonal changes. I have to go against what I want to do sometimes, to take a painkiller and deliver a good cello lesson, or contribute during band rehearsal. But when I have the time to go with how I'm feeling, I can feel grateful for this nudge to step back and to give myself a break from the otherwise linear direction of the days and weeks. Maybe it's totally ok to let go of the accelerator and halt to a stop, and to welcome all the ways of experiencing existence.