w/riting with the river
menstrual merging with the Frome
To become-water is not to surrender in despair. It is to dissolve into relation. To learn that fixing is not the only mode of response. That maybe, when the world is burning, the most radical thing is not to organise against it, but to disappear differently. To unlearn the house. To become the unnamed thing that fire cannot touch.
Bayo Akomolafe, 2025
I’m a fountain of blood
In the shape of a girl.
Bachelorette, Björk, 2002
In October I started a strange, almost-courtship with a river.
Initially, this arrangement was one of necessity. I had to find a river to work with for a seminar series I was attending at NSOTA this past term. And, honestly, I wasn’t that thrilled about having an extra project - I just wanted to crack on with my own shit.
But over the last few months it’s become something more than just a ‘have to’ and I’m beginning to wonder if it might actually be the source of the research/creative project that I’m doing or, atleast, one of its tributaries.
I’m unclear on where this is all heading but I wanted to share some of my work-in-progress writing with you in an effort to get a little of it out of my head and into the world.1
The Frome is a small, 20 mile-ish river that runs through central Bristol. Its closest bank is but a mere quarter of a mile, if that, from my doorstep. Rising on the edge of the Cotswolds, it meanders through Bristol before joining with its bigger sister, the Avon.
I approached this body of water because it’s a river that, ever since I’ve lived here, I’ve always rejected or ignored; walking past it at least once a week for the last 18 years or so. I know from experience (hello luteal phase of my cycle) that the places we reject and try to ignore are sometimes concealing pockets of hidden wisdom, so it seemed promising to follow this line of inquiry.
I then learnt that, like other city dwelling rivers, the Frome was forced underground; a long section of its body runs under the city centre. Thousands of people walk over it without realising every single day.
My first thought when I realised this was how much that reminded me of all the menstruating bodies that we walk past every day. All these hiddne rhythms and flowing, leaky, porous bodies that we’ll never know about; that we never notice as we go about our daily lives. (When I write it now, this seems really obvious, but it was enough to pique my interest.)
I started my explorations by heading out to the Frome once a week - Friday, my day off - and noticing what happened when I was there. I began by walking to where the Frome runs through Eastville Park, a green and wooded piece of parkland full of dog walkers and parents with toddlers attempting to escape the bustle. But when time was short, which was nearly always, I would find myself observing the Frome at the point closest to my house: at the nexus of the Ikea car park, the M32 and Stapleton Road: where the Frome begins to course under the city and where the storm drain catches all the debris that pulses down the river.
You can see from the photo below that this place is pretty grim, but out of this combination of lack of time, limited energy - and, let’s be honest, knowing I had to work with a river for this seminar series - I kept forcing myself back there.
A lot of the time, I’d go down there and think ‘what the fuck am I doing here?’ but I kept it up… and an awkward relationship began with this site.
My ‘research’ so far always took the same shape: take out my little red memo book; record the date, record what day of my cycle I was in and then what happened when I was there; what did I notice, what did I hear, what did I feel, what conversation happened or were overheard? What was I feeling in my body/mind?
Some days I wrote right there on the bridge, other times I wrote as soon as I got home; other times I had to improvise and wrote from wherever else I was.
Below you’ll find a selection of entries taken straight from my memo books…
19/10/25 cycle day 4
Walking to Boots, we pass over the Frome.
“But what is ‘wet’? Tavi asks. “What is the sensation of ‘wet?’” We ponder these questions on our way there. Tavi wonders why we don’t like getting wet. “Is it because ‘wet’ is cold?”
“Tell me more.” She talks about steam, precipitation, how she wonders if ‘wet’ might be all around us.
‘So are actually talking about water?’ I ask.
We look over the bridge. The Frome is still. Yellow leaves pattern its surface. Swirls of oil coil amongst the detritus. In the distance, a foamy collection of bottles and cans gather in a creamy scum.
It looks pretty gross today, we agree. There is so little movement. Things feel stagnant. It reminds me of my own body. Slow and heavy. Unmoving.
27/10/25 cycle day 10? 12?
Thinking of the Frome.
I didn’t go on Friday and won’t be there this Friday either.
Every body of water makes me think of her (strange to feel that ‘her’ emerge).
On Seneca Lake, passing Tomahawk. Each small, contained pool leads me back to the dirty Frome; her surface shifting with debris, kaleidoscopes of rainbow oil.
These oily rites I find myself rippling with. Her effluvia. Mine.
This morning I read an article in the G2covering the new research into menstrual blood. Good to see the elevation of its status - according to the scientists, the blood is a ‘real treasure’ - but, equally, I notice a whiff of extraction and commodification in some of this work. I think of the river again and all the ways that she has served the city and its people.
Sidenotes… Frome rhymes with womb (and tomb)
flood noun a large amount of water covering an area that is usually dry:
flood verb to cause to fill or become covered with water, especially in a way that causes problems
Flood verb menstrual bleeding, medically known as menorrhagia,
flow verb (especially of liquids, gases, or electricity) to move in one direction, especially continuously and easily:
menstrual flow noun the amount of menstrual fluid lost during a period, typically ranging from 30–60 ml (about 2–4 tablespoons) per cycle, though the flow is heaviest in the first two days.
10/11/25 cycle day 23
Ash, Buddleia, Bramble leaves drift slowly on your surface.
Heras fencing and barbed wire.
A trolley in your yellowed depths.
Today I feel magnetic. Like anything could happen.
Sirens. Magpies. The continual hum of the M32.
The wind picks up.
And you’re still here quietly beckoning to me.
‘Listen.’
05/12/25 cycle day 20something
Is it just me or has something stirred you up; dredged up your silt; made you murky? You’re frothing today. So am I. The wind blows tufts of cotton-woolesque scum off your bubbling surface at the storm drain.
When does this become a ritual, these meetings??
How do you and I cross each other - one rhythm and another? One body of water and another.
I’m hungry for answers, but though you might rushhhh you never hurry.
19/12/25 New Moon | Cycle day 8
Steeped in flu, I’ve spent the last week fraught and restless; unable to fully rest (thanks unending internalised capitalism) yet unable to ‘do’ anything other than lie down. In my worst moments when it all felt too much I’d imagine myself as a rock, sitting on the bed of the Frome.
Deep down in her luteal waters I would let myself me smoothed by her continual flow. Sometimes I was a stone and sometimes I was just the muddy floor; silt and dirt dispersing onwards and outwards. This weird annihilation would often finally send me into sleep.
Today - things feel slightly brighter - I sat in the bath and a plan started to hatch…
Today this dark moon feels like a new phase in time/energy/something?? that wants to be worked with. So I’m going to go to the Frome as I usually would (it is a Friday after all) and make a new petition to her and see what will happen.
A daily practice of writing. Paying attention to my body; whilst held in the ecotone of us both.
And as I can’t be there physically everyday, I’m taking a stone from my altar (a gift? a symbol?? a facet of me??) - smeared in my juices - that I’ll drop into her.
Who knows what - if anything - this strange w/rite will bring?
Ahhhh, I’m wincing with the vulnerability of posting this! It’s new to me to share words in such a raw form. It feels terrifying and kinda exhilarating too.
As I said earlier, this is definitely a work-in-progress - so thank you for spending some time with it in this nascent phase.
Your comments, queries, questions… and encouragements are all very welcome.
More soon…
Lottie
Certainly one thing it is doing is mutating and eroding my sense of what I ‘do’, particularly within the world of menstrual cycle awareness. Or perhaps it’s clarifying that I never really fit into this space - try as I might for the last fifteen years. I’m still fascinated by this rhythm, but from a wider, stranger, queerer lens. But more about this, maybe, on another day.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/ng-interactive/2025/oct/27/menstrual-period-blood-testing-womens-health
beautiful read <33
This was a truly compelling read -- love the raw, the gritty, and the unloved aspects of our industrial heritage/ selves, the things we look away from and try to dissociate from. This is honest, genuine, and really, a worthy ten minutes of my life spent reading it. Thank you for adding depth to the shallows of the internet!