Here’s a great FAQ from the Pituitary Network Association that serves as an excellent introduction to the subject.

Many people with this kind of tumor die of heart attack or hypothyroid disease. My mother almost died of hypothyroidism. It was discovered in time to save her and prolong her life, but the treatment was never fully successful – her condition kept getting worse despite the medication and other interventions. She spent the last ten years of her life in constant pain, discomfort, depression, malaise, and frustration with her inability to cope with everyday life. Her pituitary condition was discovered less than a year before she died of a heart attack. Everyone said she was better off – I don’t believe this is true but it illustrates how miserable she was with her condition. Her doctor for years was a heroic, do-it-all kind of woman with a full time career and a number of children, and her opinion of other people who couldn’t seem to get it all together and constantly complained of hard-to-pin-down symptoms was that they were most likely hypochondriacs. (She also failed to notice that my uncle was having a stroke – he is now paralyzed on his left side.)

When my mother finally switched to a different doctor, the first thing he did was to order a full range of blood tests and he immediately discovered that something was not right with her pituitary gland and that this was causing the worsening of her hypothyroid symptoms. He started her on new medication (and also discovered she had Lyme’s disease, which no one had noticed before.) After a few months she started to feel a bit better week by week. Alas, it was too late to save her. One night she received news that her brother had suffered a stroke and was not expected to live. A few hours later she died in her sleep.

A lot of women who have a pituitary condition or other hormonal imbalance get accused of being hypochondriacs – or lazy, or self-indulgent. Symptoms can be as “soft” as depression, lethargy, odd hair growth, headaches, and low/no libido. They can and often do end in death, to everyone’s surprise and regret. My mother dealt with undiagnosed pituitary trouble for twenty years. While no one ever directly said she was a hypochondriac (that I know of) she did get a lot of looks. People never understood why her house wasn’t perfect and some suggested she simply needed to eat and exercise better. While this would have helped, I’m sure, most women, realistically speaking, will choose to take care of their family instead of themselves if they only have the energy to do one or the other. This may be a foolish choice in the long run but sometimes family members need to give their suffering wives and mothers permission to be weak. Sometimes the mom needs to get taken care of by her family instead of the other way around.

Hormones affect both physical and psychological fitness and women who are struggling with a pituitary condition, although they often can’t name any obvious “big” life-threatening conditions, have an uphill struggle with every single thing they do, even washing dishes. The stress of living this way and feeling like a failure complicates everything, spiraling the hormonal imbalance even further, and early death is not an uncommon result. Of course this sort of thing happens to men, too, but for various lifestyle reasons it seems to be more of a challenge for women.

Endocrinology is an important branch of medicine that doesn’t get enough attention. Neuroendocrinology (the branch that deals with hormones and the brain) is very specialized and often a person’s family doctor or gynecologist won’t get around to noticing symptoms related to this branch of medicine and will never recommended this kind of care. Insurance companies are also less aware of the benefits of screening and prevention in this area than they ought to be.

A Poem In Memory Of My Mother

A truly first-world nation, Japan is incredibly prosperous, technologically advanced, and is a functioning democracy. It is however, ruled by a monarch. Japan is the closest US ally in East Asia and one of the world’s most powerful nations.

Read more…

When my husband’s mother put him in school, he underwent the usual testing. An IQ test revealed a result that impressed her in some way. We’ll never know exactly what that result was, because his mother decided that it would be better for Josh not to know his IQ. Later, Josh was diagnosed with ADHD and put on a Ritalin regimen. The effects of the medicine were terrible for him, causing him to become so withdrawn that at certain times of day he was literally incapable of expressing himself or interacting with others. His parents finally took him off the Ritalin, to his great relief and the chagrin of his teachers, and took him home permanently. Thus, their only experience with an exceptional diagnosis was negative. Of course, we now realize that since Josh was autistic, his diagnosis was incomplete and the medication was inappropriate for him. In addition, he received no behavioral therapy.

It’s obvious now that he must be highly intelligent but like me, my husband went through his youth careening between a guilty suspicion that he was far more intelligent than his peers, and a profound conviction that he was stupid, inept, hopeless, and incompetent.

Yes, that is the fate of the undiagnosed twice-exceptional. Both of our mothers were deeply interested in understanding each of their children, both of them invested immense time and effort into homeschooling us and our siblings when they found that school was a torturous experience for us. But both of them were affected by the vaguely democratic ideals floating around. Before she died my mother, who was quite bright herself and probably had undiagnosed ADHD,  had become quite comfortable with the idea of discussing my exceptional qualities with me and helping me to evaluate them and understand my past. But my husband’s parents still look away in silence if I mention that my own son is “different” or “gifted.”

My father had a similar, if more verbal, reaction when I suggested that he himself might be “gifted,” given his ability to design and build buildings without training, without blueprints. “Everyone has gifts,” he said dismissively. My dad is the most literal-minded person I know and had great social difficulties until my mother came into his life and helped him to figure out how to behave around people. He spent most of his adult life doing work he hated and has only recently gotten into a new career of welding and steam-fitting. Pipes – plumbing and so forth – has always been an area of fascination for him, to the extent that he even used to get books out of the library to read about them just for fun. He was always the guy who could fix anything mechanical he could physically lay eyes on. Unlike my sisters, I’ve never minded sitting through his “lectures” on his favorite subjects, mainly because I find them interesting too, but also because I myself can lecture with the best of them. The sad thing is that now he is finally doing work he loves and in an area of his giftedness, he is struggling with the physical limitations of his age.

Average or normal people can get along quite comfortably under the assumption that everyone should be at the same level neurologically, mentally, and intellectually. It’s the sub-normal and the above-normal that suffer. The first, because they are pressured to live up to expectations beyond what the fulfillment of their own capacities would lead them to.  The second because they are left to perceive, with a profoundly deep capacity for feeling, their own personal failure and the waste of their own gifts.

Those of us who in some way combine both types are better off knowing what we’re dealing with than not.

Through water iridescent
fish whip.
Through darkness effervescent
stars slip.
Travelers incessant:
Some never see the spreading sky
Some go and go and never by.

II

Stone laid out in range on range
that stared up at the newborn sky
has stretched out here at last to lie
miles beneath the world gone strange.
Earth, the universal grave,
here lies entombed in wave on wave.

III

But a star is too far:
Long-kindled height;
Irrational sprite
of a body since dead;
Arrow of gold from an archer since fled;
Hovering spark
from fire gone dark;
Prick in the night;
Merry distant torches alight,
lining the roads of an upside-down park.

On better days I find I can mentally synthesize the events in my life, describe them with appropriate segues, and put out a nice essay. People enjoy this kind of writing from me more than anything else I do. But most of the time I can’t write about my experiences because I know that what people mean by “experiences” is external events and for me, most of my experiences seem to happen inside my mind, not “out there.”

Tonight my five-year-old son explained aggrievedly to me that “nothing that happens in our head is real.” Poor kid. On his worse days, he insists that the world itself is not real. On his normal days, he verbally demarcates between real and pretend, so he can keep it straight. His real Uncle Charlie is fun to play with, but when he isn’t here, Ian plays with “Pretend Charlie.” When Ian’s dad went away for military service, Ian sent all his pretend friends away, too. “I made them up, so I can send them back to their place,” he explained to me. He went on to tell me that Pretend Africa had gotten blown up when half the world was shattered by a meteor strike (he saw this in a photo-shopped picture once and he can’t keep straight whether it really happened or not, especially since it turned out that the earthquake in Japan last spring was real) so now Junjies and his parents, the former King and Queen of Pretend Africa, have built a new Pretend Africa in Pretend Outer Space where they have Baptist and Orthodox Churches and even the Baptist ones are colorful and have icons. Poor Junjies, he explained, is half Pretend-Baptist and half Pretend-Orthodox. He says bad words.

One recent adventure even included Pretend God, which brought up some interesting theological questions in my own mind. Where is the only place God is not? In unreality. So if we are imagining unreality, isn’t it honest to confess that God is not there? But if our unreality is meant to be a true picture of reality, shouldn’t there be an image of God there? Is that what “Pretend God” is? That one left my head spinning a bit.

I recall seeing a stage version of Cinderella when I was Ian’s age and I did believe then that I was seeing the real Cinderella. I think I embarrassed my parents and my relatives by verbally abusing the wicked stepsisters when the kids were given a chance to meet the characters after the show. (The whole point of the Ugly Stepsisters is that they’re ugly, right?) I used to get physically ill watching suspenseful movies. The first time I babysat, I had to call the neighbors because I was convinced there was a Roman Centurion lurking just out of my line of peripheral vision.

Nevertheless, I soon grasped the concept of pretend and liked to manipulate it. Most of my childhood was spent playing pretend, with Barbie-dolls (the only dolls I ever liked) with props, in outhouses and barns; as spies, cops and robbers, and, most famously, Nancy Drew. I remember the intense excitement I always felt during these plays, the stomach-churning sense that it was almost real. I could barely contain my wild agonizing pleasure in the game and my love for the people who played it with me.

When I was 14 I tried to “play house” with a friend (we were putting on an experiment to determine whether it was possible for teenagers to have fun the same way they had done two, three, or four years previously or whether there was actually some reason for it not to work.) I found I simply could not go through with the game although I’m not sure now whether it was because of my age or because “house” was too tame after turning out the lights, putting headscarves and pearl necklaces on, and creeping up and down the stairs of Moonstone Castle waiting for kidnappers, in the unlikely forms of our little brothers, to jump out at us! I never played domestic games in childhood – never liked dolls or even real babies.

These days I hate most games – board games, video games, etc. Games that are honest social games, such as Liebrary or Apples to Apples or CatchPhrase, are fun because they don’t pretend to be serious – they are explicitly there to give people something to laugh about with each other and sometimes to show off certain skills such as acting, guessing, memory, or writing. I do not understand or enjoy games such as sports or strategy games, because something very unreal is happening in them. People are pursuing an artificial object and having real feelings about it.

So why do I like fiction? Why do I get emotional about Harry Potter’s parents or envious of Jim Qwilleran’s lifestyle or invested in Lord Peter’s plan to marry Harriet Vane?

I don’t know but I’m not about to quit. Mentally, in my head, I am doing the same thing Ian does out loud – demarcating between real and pretend but allowing myself to get the emotional high that comes from letting the one bleed over just slightly into the other. I don’t get normal little brain-highs from everyday activities like most people do so perhaps fiction is one way I stimulate myself. Singing is another. Until I became Orthodox I used to walk around singing constantly. It was a way of keeping my mind and body active at all times without alienating everyone around me (thanks, Disney) although they still looked at me funny. Because of the rhymed and metered structure of Protestant hymns I was able to quickly memorize all the verses of dozens of songs and have them available all the time, thus getting me through my daily chores without my going mad and providing me with a lot of pleasure, too.

Ian likes stories, too. His favorite stories are my childhood adventures because they tell him about a rural way of life for which he would be far more suited if only we could escape the suburban one we are trapped in now. But he likes any stories. He is also devoted to stuffed animals, something that never happened to me. During his first few months of life, he never showed any sign of attachment or personal feeling. I drew him out partly by using stuffed animals as puppets. Somehow he was able to understand affection when it was acted out by these cute fluffy animals whose actions were very clear, direct, and uncomplicated and who had no agendas or confusing purposes of their own. When he looked down and saw my hands moving the puppets his face was flooded with an expression of love for the first time.

The really deadliest area of life for reality and pretend to become confused is religion. Perhaps this explains my deep abiding wrath at anyone that’s ever led me astray in that area. This feeling may not be as noble and God-centered as I once imagined. It’s just my reaction to the cruelest joke anyone ever played on another person. Some people have gotten money out of me using false religion, others have gotten power-highs or organizational benefits such as free labor, and some have used me to fulfill their pathological need to force others to enact some ideological dream. I am not the sort of person to have enemies, mostly because I rarely realize it when people are being cruel. But religious abusers and charlatans are the only enemies I consider myself to have. The thing about religion is that it requires one to act on things one can’t see, and when one’s grasp on reality is shaky anyway, that leaves one at the mercy of anyone who is good with religious words.

Perhaps this is part of the explanation for my relief in Orthodoxy. So far it’s never made a fool out of me like evangelicalism constantly did (although one Orthodox charlatan has done so) and blessedly, it is a far more visual and ritualistic religion than the one I grew up in, which existed almost entirely in the form of concepts which were nearly all treated as debatable. It’s wonderful to know that, as Fr. Stephen often says, to be a good Orthodox Christian I just need to show up. If you belong to a church in which God makes the first move by making himself physically present, then you can reciprocate by being physically present, too, and somehow the love of God begins to shine in your heart little by little, you hardly know how.  It’s nice to get that help keeping straight which God is the real God and which is the pretend.

From left to right: Man Child, Young Curmudgeon, Pompous Young Ass, Lady Dumpling. My hair is not actually that great. I wish I had those boots.

]]> http://alanaroberts.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/meet-my-family-concept-cartoon/feed/ 5 AR Behildazord and Mate http://alanaroberts.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/excerpt-and-link/ http://alanaroberts.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/excerpt-and-link/#comments Sat, 07 Jan 2012 01:28:30 +0000 AR http://alanaroberts.wordpress.com/?p=2575 ]]> From Fr. Stephen a while back:

The life we are called to live as Christians is not one long argument with the voice of secularism. The voice of secularism is not the sound of our own doubt, but the voice of the evil one. He has always been a liar.

The essential question for us is clearly stated by St. John:

By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world. (1Jo 4:2-3)

It is the question of Christ’s incarnation – but, in turn, it is also the question: “Is the flesh capable of bearing the Spirit?” Do we live in a world that is capable of God? There are many, who have partaken of a semi-gnostic spirit within modern secularism, who are not comfortable with Spirit-bearing material. Christ is someone whom we have fenced off, demarcated as a unique event such that He alone bears Spirit. He is the God who became incarnate in a world that was, by nature, secular. His incarnation would thus be a sign that does not confirm the world in any way, but by its very coming condemns all flesh.

This, according to St. John, is the spirit of the Antichrist. It is as though the evil one had said, “Fine. Take the flesh of this child born of Mary, but everything else is mine, and tends towards nothing.”

The Incarnate Christ is not only God with us, but reveals the true reason for all creation. “Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory.” Nothing is merely anything. Everything bears the glory of God.

Thus my “spirituality” is to learn how to live in a material world that is everywhere more than I can see or know. For such a life I need a guide. Without a guide I am left to the devices of my own imagination. My parents were not raised in such a situation. They were not teachers in this matter. It is the life of the Church, the way of knowledge that is the lives of the saints that teaches me how to live. They help me eat (or not eat) in a manner that reveals God. They teach me to read, to honor icons, to forgive enemies, to hold creation in its proper, God-given place. I am an Orthodox Christian. Who else remembers how to live in the world, holding that Christ is come in the flesh?

Let me guess – it’s my cloudy eyes and wrinkles and my tweedy hair? Or maybe you think anything would sound scarier told in a high scratchy voice like I been stuck with for something like 20 years now? Or maybe you’ve noticed that sometimes I limp and sometimes I don’t, right? Pretty odd?

Eh, that all helps but it’s not really the point. You know that I grew up in the Green Eggs and Ham Cult. And you figure, nothing that spooky has happened to anyone else of your acquaintance, so you come to me for your scary story.

Apple anyone? No? All right, sit down on the stoop or the lawn – hey, don’t touch my lawn chairs. That’s right. Here’s my story.

First of all, we never called ourselves the Green Eggs and Ham Cult. That’s what the news people called it when they all broke in on us that Sunday morning, scared us half to death, and found us all eating a communal meal and it happened t’ be green eggs and ham. Well, that was because Silly Sadie had been in charge of the food and she was crazy about Dr. Seuss. But actually, we just called ourselves the Bethel Brethren.

And now.

I am about tell you of the most frightening thing that ever happened to anyone I know. Me? Phhhbbb. No, if it happened to me I would be too embarrassed to tell you about it. It happened to my friend….Polly. Yep. Polly.

She had a limp, too, only it was all the time and it hurt pretty bad.

And because of that, and for some other reasons I won’t go into, none of the boys wanted to look at her.

When Polly was seventeen, on a night when the moon hid herself and darkness fell over the whole valley, Polly went out the back door of her mother’s house while her mother was half-drunk and listening to old records with her friends. Polly went out the back door and walked down the path that went right into the woods. She went right through the woods in the dark, and although she could hear the Sheep that Fly by Night rustling in the tops of the trees, none of them dropped on her head and she made it safely out the other side to her friend Belda’s house. Belda’s mother was giggling and tossing down cranberry wine in Polly’s house, crooning along with Bing Crosby and Polly’s mother.

“Evening Belda,” Polly said.

And Belda said, in a shaky voice, “Wisha washa wisha washa…”

And Polly said “Munga,” to show that she really was Polly, and knew the password.

Belda, leaning over the back fence of her mother’s garden, sighed loudly. ‘Whew. I heard you crashing through the woods and I thought for sure it was the Horned Hobelisk. Were you evading the Sheep that Fly By Night?”

“Classic zig-zag pattern,” Polly said. “Successful, as you see.”

“Come in,” Belda said.

They got into Belda’s mother’s cupboard and she had an open bottle of cranberry wine she hadn’t taken to Polly’s house, and they drank a spoonful each and settled down on a bench at the front of the house, in case any boys should walk by.

Pretty soon, a gaggle of three boys came up. Bill Willings had the point position at the front of the V, and he was clapping his hands in a pattern of three out of four. Bill was a natural born leader and he had curly bronze hair. When the girls called to them the boys stepped sideways in through the gate before looking at the girls, and then Bill stopped clapping and they all knew they were safe from the Meetin’ Gobbler.

Heh? Oh. Well, the Meetin’ Gobbler lurks around wherever men and women are in the same company, and he’ll gobble various parts of your body if you don’t observe the proper ceremonies.

I know quite well you don’t believe in The Meetin’ Gobbler! I’m telling the story how it happened, not how you believe it happened, so hush up or get off my lawn!

Well.

The boys said, “Who’s there, Belda?” because it was so dark they couldn’t see.

And Belda said, “Why don’t you come over and find out?”

Well, the boys came over, and Polly tried to disguise her voice but…er…she couldn’t. So pretty soon Bill said, “Oh, it’s Polly.” And then everyone was really quiet for a minute. And then Bill asked Belda to go for a walk but she wouldn’t because she didn’t want to step outside the boundary of her mother’s fence and risk the Meetin’ Gobbler getting her.

But Bill said, “Don’t worry, Belda. If the Meetin’ Gobbler comes up to us, I’ll knock him silly for ya’, just like Vannery did for Melaynee.”

Oh, that’s a good story. See, twelve year earlier, Vannery and Melaynee stepped out one evening, saying they didn’t believe in the Meetin’ Gobbler anyhow. Pure blasphemy. Well, Melaynee’s mother and father were frantic, and the whole valley heard the frightened parents hollerin and they all come running, the Rev Battsea, and the Council of Three and the families. But Vannery and Melaynee come back an hour later, all messy, and Vannery tells ‘em this story about how the Meetin’ Gobbler come up to ‘em and tousled up Melaynee’s clothes, trying to get his big ol’ gobber at her knees, you know. And Vannery come up behind and knocked the Gobbler silly before he could gobble anything, and that’s how they get away. All the kids crowded around, saying stuff like “Did you really see the Gobbler?” and “How bad was his breath?”

And Melaynee just kept nodding and her eyes were all big and she couldn’t even talk. But Vannery said, “I know one thing. I’m the man to protect Melaynee for the rest of her life, so I think I’ll take her home with me, if you don’t mind.” The council stares at him for a while, but he stares ‘em all down, and Vannery and Melaynee was the first couple to get married since the Valley was settled by us.

Well, back to the night Polly went to visit Belda. Belda had refused to step out, saying Bill was too wimpy to fight off any Gobbler. And then Polly got up her nerve and said, “I disagree. I’m sure Bill could defend…any girl.”

And then it was all quiet again, till Bill said he had to go see Katie, who incidentally was Melaynee’s younger sister by ten years. So the boys left, and Belda sulked for a while, till she saw that Polly was crying.

“Right just now this minute,” Polly said, after a while, “I’d take a walk with just about any boy in the world. I’d step out with the Love-Talker himself.”

Then Belda had a fit of hysterics, because the Love-Talker was worse than the Sheep that Fly by night, and the Horned Hobelisk, and the Meetin’ Gobbler put together.

But Polly, said, “I would, I would,” over and over again until Belda shrieked at her to go home. So Polly went out the front path, taking the short road home. She didn’t care if her mother saw her coming back, she was so upset.

Well, she never should have said that about the Love-Talker because he comes, right? When he’s called.

However low Polly was feeling, she wasn’t quite ready to give up all her hopes. The next day she was wandering around down the main road and thinking, and she got a bit further than she thought. And there was the little track leading off toward Vannery and Melaynee’s house. So Polly decides to get some knowing talk, and she takes off down that little track.

She comes up and finds Melaynee, getting a little billowy around the hip bones, and two children playing with a dog, and two older children working in the kitchen garden with her, in front of their yellow house. Melaynee stands up and looks at Polly and says, “Well, Polly, this is what you have to look forward to should you end up wed and bed.”

So Polly says “Wed and bed?”

Melaynee gives a short little laugh and says, “Gosh, you girls are ignorant as ever, aren’t you?”

“That’s why I came,” Polly said.

And Melaynee gives the same laugh and says, “Expert advice, eh? What do you want to know?”

Polly says, “About the Love-Talker, please.”

Melaynee rubs her nose and looks off at the sky for a bit, and then she heaves a wheezy grunt and sits on a stump and says, “Set. I’ll tell you what I think is good for you to know.”

So Polly sits down on another stump and then Melaynee starts in.

“The thing you got t’realize, Polly, is that anything I say about the Love-Talker is more or less true about all men. The Love-Talker is the same as all men only what other fellows do by straining and pushing and arguing, he does it by pure magic. You follow?”

Polly doesn’t understand all that but she nods. Melaynee keeps talking.

“So here’s what you got to watch out for. First, the Love-Talker will tell you the nicest things you ever heard, all about how wondrous’ beautiful you are, and adorable beyond all measure. And the magic is, Polly, you believe him. He’s the only one who can tell you you’re as radiant as a star and you stand there looking at how noble and upright and clear-thinking he is and you start to feel, well if he thinks I’m beautiful, it must be true. I really am radiant as a star.”

A desperate feeling begins in Polly’s chest.

“And here’s the thing… maybe you’re not radiant as a star to anyone else. The reason he’s the Love-Talker is just because you are radiant, to him.”

“There’s something wrong with his seeing?”

“Or something magic, like I said. He says it, you’re pretty sure it’s got to be true. Maybe he makes it true. Anyhow, he touches you like it is – like the tip of your shoulder or the joining of your wrist or just your smallest finger is the world’s most priceless treasure and it’s his greatest honor just to adore you for it. “

Polly’s chest gets tighter, and the tightness rises up till she’s afraid tears might squeeze out of her head. Melaynee goes right on.

“And then when he’s made you feel so good and safe and proper you get weak in the backbone, he invites you, all courtly-like, to make yourself comfortable and recline with him. Now you don’t have to do that, and don’t let anyone tell you there’s no help for it. It’s up to you at that point.”

“So he gets you to lie down? Like on a bed?”

“Like on a bed. And then he touches you, Polly.”

“Touches? Like, holds your hands?”

“Hands, face, neck, waist… and then everything else. Eventually, Polly, he touches everything. That’s what you’re not prepared for, that’s what you got to ask yourself, is it worth it?”

“He touches…”

“Yep. Nethers and all.”

Polly is truly confused. “Why? That’s not the pretty part.”

Melayneed hoots. “The Love-Talker has his own ideas about that, Polly. Anyhow, that’s the price. Once you meet the Love-Talker – well, being his girl is the only thing makes you beautiful from then on. And sometimes, just one encounter with the Love-Talker can make everyone around see how beautiful you are. ”

Polly thinks for a while, and she watches Melaynee scoop up a little two-year old kid and tickle him and kiss his face and mess his hair up. She puts the kid down and he runs away, giggling, and Melaynee just smiles after him and then looks up at the sky again and gets her face blown on by the wind.

So Polly says, “Melaynee – is it really so awful, though?”

“Hell on earth!” Melaynee says, and she grins right into Polly’s face. “Any other fellow, it would be, anyhow. The Love-Talker, though – that might be different. Might be.”

Polly stood and swayed a bit. “But I’m supposed to avoid the Love-Talker?”

“Supposed to,” says Melaynee, still grinning right at her. “Just remember, you got t’pay.”

“Pay?”

And Melaynee gestured around in a wide circle at the house and the children.

“And is that the awful part then?”

And Melaynee says, “Pretty awful some days.” But she keeps grinning, so Polly isn’t sure.

Polly was walking home that day when she met up with Bill and the other boys, just straying along. They came around a bend and happened right on each other, and there was no time to get in a V formation or observe ceremonies so they just stood there and stared at each other.

Polly stared at Bill and saw how there was something just a bit hateful about the way his nose met his eybrows and tapered off into his squinty eyes. And she laughed. She said, “Well you’re no Love-Talker, that’s for sure!” And she skipped off, just leaving them standing there.

Well, how could she know that would make him so mad?

That night Polly’s mother came into Polly’s room and grabbed Polly’s candle and rushed out. And Polly rushed out after her and when they got to the front porch they saw a parade of boys going by. Bill was in front and pretty much all the boys in the valley, even some eleven-year-olds, were marching along, holding candles in bottles.

“What are you boys doing?” Polly’s mother hollered.

They stopped and Bill turned toward the house and then they all did. “Going up to Heaven’s Hill t’ take a vow,” Bill said.

“Rev Battsea know about this?” Polly’s mother said.

“Naw,” Bill said. “It’s just something us boys are doing on our own. Nothing to do with church. We’re just taking a solemn oath never to marry anyone that limps.”

“Anyone that what?” Polly’s mother says, checking.

“Limps!” Bill shouts.

Well Polly’s mother sits down hard in a chair, but Polly stood there, not moving at all, and let the knowledge of this hatred fill her up. They watched the parade go by a bit, but then Polly’s mother saw her duty and dragged Polly back into the house and said, “Vicious prunes, Polly. But Bill Willing’s got nothing to say to the older boys – not Handley or Bob or Vester.”

Polly said nothing and she was staring at the ground, so her mother touched Polly’s hip. “Does it hurt?” she whispered. Polly didn’t answer so her mother pressed harder, and then Polly yelped, she couldn’t help it.

“Sorry, dear,” her mother said. She gave Polly her candle back and they went to bed. Polly had limped for four years, ever since she jumped out of a hayloft and landed wrong. Not enough hay in the spot and Polly hadn’t realized she was getting so long in the leg.

Well. About three weeks after the parade of boys, Polly strayed off a bit and found herself in this secluded little meadow. There were trees on all sides, and under the trees, around the whole border of the meadow, raspberry bushes were cascading inward. And there was this little hill, just off the center of the meadow, and a spring bubbled up from it and ran down away out under the trees through a gap in the raspberries and out of the meadow and out of the Valley.

Now Polly was really hungry. She mostly hadn’t eaten in the last three weeks, and from being a little plump she’d got so she could see her hip bones. She’d been moping on her bed most of the time, and staying where the boys couldn’t see her. Finally that morning she felt a little more wakeful, so she’d gotten up and bathed and put some nice-smelling stuff on, and wandered off to be by herself and think about the Love Talker and how he was probably the only man would ever look at her. And she found this meadow.

The raspberries looked so good she started to eat them and then she couldn’t stop. So here she was in the meadow, just eating and eating. Her lips got all red, and she was wearing her best nut-brown dress, with the sash tied very tightly to stave off hunger pains. And she had dyed her hair dark brown with some tree bark soak her mother made for her, and she was trying her a new way to arrange her hair.

And then all of a sudden, here comes a man, jumping over the little stream through the gap in the raspberries, and into the meadow, and into the Valley. Polly stared at him, and he stared at Polly. She stood very still so he wouldn’t find out about her limp. He had sloe-black eyes, and coal-black hair like a storm-cloud about his ears, and instead of lighting, tiny earings that shot light off ‘em. Even his skin was black, his face and his hands and the bottom of his legs that showed out under his half-length red pants.

Polly had only seen one other black-colored person in her whole life, and that was Witch Hetty, who lived on the other side of the Valley. And even Witch Hetty was only a sort of grayish-brownish black. So Polly figured, if Witch Hetty got so magic by being grayish-brownish-black, this really truly black-all-over man must be pure magic, right through. Which is why she wasn’t afraid of the Meetin’ Gobbler getting them. So she threw caution to the four corners, and held out her hands to the black-all-over man, who was walking toward her.

She didn’t say anything. But the black fellow’s face broke into such a beautiful smile and he held out his hands and said hello, like he knew just what she wanted to say. He was so beautiful she started to be afraid.

“Hello,” she said back, and then her face felt all heavy and warm and she found herself staring at the ground, she couldn’t help it.

“I’ve come to see Hetty,” the man said in a beautiful voice. He had a funny lilt to his voice, like he really owned it and knew just what to do with it, but he chose to do it different than other folks.

“I know,” Polly said.

“You do?” the man said. At first he was surprised, but then he laughed and said, “I suppose it’s obvious. I mean, how many African Americans can there be in this valley?”

“None that I know of,” Polly said, getting a little courage, “but we learned about Africa in our school.”

The man stared at her and shook his head, but then he smiled again and said, “I suppose you’re a favorite with the local boys, aren’t you.”

Polly shook her head no. It wasn’t exactly the same as being told you were radiant as a star, but it was a beginning, Polly felt.

They stood there and looked around the meadow for a while. Then the man said, “I tried to take a shortcut but I’m a bit lost. Can you tell me how to get to Hetty’s?”

So Polly took his hand and started to lead him down the meadow. “Or take me there,” the man laughed. “Just fine, just fine.”

So they went down the meadow and across some fields and then they stopped when they got to the road. The man looked at her and said, “Does your leg hurt?”

“Yes, because I’m walking,” Polly said.

So the man stopped and told her to walk around in a circle, and she showed him how it was with her limp.

“How long have you been like that?” he asked.

So Polly told him the whole story, even about the boys.

He nodded and nodded and looked a little angry. He said, “Are those boys blind? Can’t they see past a limp? Well, I think I can help you, Miss Polly. Here’s a nice dry spot. Why don’t you lie down next to the track here, on this patch of grass. Straight as you can, and maybe I can do a little magic for you. With any luck, the boys will look at you differently after this.”

Polly looked at him for a while, and sort of put things together in her mind while he waited. Then finally she said, “I know you have your own ideas about these things, but – don’t you think you could at least kiss me first? I’ve never been kissed.”

So the man stares at her a minute. And then he sits down right next to the road and puts his hand over his face and they just wait there for a while.

“I really think it’s the least you might do,” she said gently.

So the man gets up after a while and comes up real soft and kisses her forehead. She stopped being afraid right that minute.

“Thank you,” she said, looking straight at him, and he looked sad.

Then she lay down in the road and got her limbs all straight, and sure enough he starts in touching the lower regions of her body, saying nothing at all, and still looking a little sad, but very business-like – he knows what he’s doing. First he feels her lower back, then he presses on her hip and she yelps. Then he bends both her legs and has her try different positions. Then finally he leans over her, pushes on her hip with his stomach and something goes, crack!

Polly cried out but he just turned her right over and started feeling her back again and then he did this and that and fiddled with her and a few times he straightened out her legs again and then gave her a tiny punch in the back with his knuckles. Then he made her go crack a few more times, and then he did more with his knuckles. And a heavenly feeling of relief started to flood through Polly, relief about so many, many things and especially about the Love-Talker and about her leg, which was feeling sore but not wrong like it had for so long.

Finally the man let her get up and walk around. And it really was magic, because her limp was clean gone.

“A little sore, Polly?” the man asked.

And she said, “Yes, but it feels right again.”

“Good,” he said. “After I see Hetty I want to talk to your mother. You should be seen regularly for a good long while.”

“Seen?” she said.

And he sighed again. “I mean that I need to do this to you, adjust you, every week for a long time so that it will stick. Otherwise you’ll go back to limping.”

Magic worked that way all right, and Polly never expected anything different. She nodded.

“And don’t tell anyone about the kiss, all right Polly?”

“Course not,” she said, and then they started walking toward Hetty’s again.

Soon after that, they got to the main road. They passed Belda’s little sister first, and that was Anna. Anna said, “Who’s that, Polly?”

“The Love-Talker,” Polly said, all nonchalant. The man looked at Polly pretty wildly when he heard that, but he didn’t say anything. Anna ran ahead of them and they heard her talking to people, and when they went around the bend, there was a bunch of the boys from the parade. They stood off to the side and stared, and Polly went right through them with her head held high, not limping at all, holding the Love-Talker’s hand. It was the best moment in her life. They passed a lot of people on the way to Hetty’s, even Bill Willing.

And when she passed him Polly looked right at him again and said the same as last time, “No Love-Talker, that’s for sure!” But this time Bill was too flabbered to be mad. He just stood there with his eyes all big, watching.

When they finally got to Hetty’s house, the man ducked inside with a big sigh. “I never want to do that again,” he said to Hetty. And the two black people looked at each other, and then they laughed and the man said, “Hetty, you old fraud, how are you!”

And Witch Hetty said, “Shush, you’ve got one of my patients with you!”

“One of my patients now!” the man said, and he made Polly walk around and show how she wasn’t limping.

Hetty shook her head. “You gotta show me that trick,” she said.

“They’d kick me out of – everything,” the man said, but then they started discussing displaced limbs and subluxations and Polly suddenly fell asleep.

When she woke up it was dark and the man was saying, “You’ve had a good sleep, Polly, but I’ve got to get you home.”

“Have some soup first,” Hetty said, so Polly ate soup and buns while the man fretted and walked about looking at charms and things. And then they walked home.

When they arrived, Polly’s mother was very glad to see them.

“I’ve been hearing the strangest stories all day,” she said, and she looked a little white to be sure.

“Mama, you could have come to Hetty’s and checked us out,” Polly said.

“My grown up daughter? Nonsense,” Polly’s mother said breathlessly. “I was certain you could handle it, whatever it was.”

Polly showed her mother how she could walk right again and then her mother used the excuse to sit right down and have a very hard cry. As soon as he could get her to stop, the man told Polly’s mother that Polly needed to see a chiropractor every week for a while. “Can you afford that?” the man said, so Polly’s mother told him they didn’t live this way because of being poor.

“When Polly’s father died, we used the life insurance money to get a simpler life for ourselves,” she said.

“That’s all well and good,” the man said, “But I think things have gotten unnecessarily complicated for Polly.”

And Polly wanted to tell about the kiss so badly but she didn’t.

Her mother said softly, “I know that full well. We’ll come see you as soon as I can arrange it.” So the man nodded, and then he took Polly’s hand and bent over it and kissed it, softly again, and winked at her, and then we went out of the house. Polly saw him the next day from a distance, walking away from Hetty’s house with his overnight bag and heading for a different path out of the valley. They waved at each other, and that was it.

Bill came up to her and showed her a place on his arm. “Polly,” he said humbly, “look. I scratched out the vow. I shoulda’ never done that to you, Polly. You’re the prettiest girl in the valley.”

Polly looked at the place where a line had been scratched in his arm with the Sacred Scrivener, to represent the vow he’d made to never marry a person that limped. And then the second line, scratching it out. Polly sniffed.

“You didn’t need to do that on my account,” she said. “I don’t limp anymore anyways.”

She started to walk away, but he followed her a good ways, trying to talk to her. She didn’t say much back, but a lot of people saw them. That night one of the older boys, Vester, who was twenty, came by the house and sat on the porch with her. While he was there other fellows went by, two of them with the ridiculous cross-hatch scars, and tried to lean over the fence and talk to her. If they had scars she ignored them. If they didn’t she talked and laughed and brushed up against them with her shoulder.

That night when she went inside her mother looked at her and smiled a sad tired smile.

“That’s fine, Polly, that’s wonderful. I’m so glad for you,” she said. “And yet – I do wonder if any of those boys…”

“You mean would I be willing to pay for it?” Polly said, and her mother looked at her curiously.

“Like Melaynee,” Polly said, and her mother smiled. “They aren’t the Love-Talker, Mama, not any of them.”

It was Saturday night. The next morning they had their communal meal at church and right in the middle of Polly talking to Vester, past Bill’s wobegone face, some people in odd clothing rushed in and started setting up machines that turned out to be moving film cameras. The whole community was shocked and no one wanted to talk to the news people except Polly’s mother. But they rushed around filming the breakfast that no one was eating anymore and asking people how many wives they had. (No one had more than one, and the visitors seemed to find this quite disappointing.)

That day changed things for the Bretheren a lot, but Polly wasn’t around to see it. The people had gotten into the valley on motorcycles and sidecars, because the roads weren’t made for automobiles. So Polly’s mother paid one of them some money, and that night they came back with the sidecars empty, and Polly and her mother and their best things rode out of the valley, after Polly’s mother sold the house and furnishings to the next door neighbor.

After that Polly saw the black man every week, but he never kissed her again. And it turned out that – well, he was only a sort of practice Love-Talker, not really a Love-Talker at all.

The real Love-Talker, Polly’s own Love-Talker, showed up about three years later and Polly paid for it and never hesitated. And it wasn’t awful at all.

What’s that? You don’t think my story was very scary? That’s only because you weren’t there!

My Love is mine in autumn hours
when scarlet befriends eternity
My Love will be the hall of mirrors
where Beauty consents at last to me
My Love has been the stalwart house
lit up with gifts, to which I fled
when gray corruption seized and gave
my childhood to the pursuing dead.

Inside are prayers in small brown bags
and lamps of sacred memory
the faces on the walls are kind -
my new more ancient family.
Around the windows a palace stands
that I will never full explore
bewilderment like galaxies -
but My Love calls me at the door.

***

In secret minutes we made ascent
between our tedium, accounts and tears,
we came together to The Mount
but I went cloaked in pallorous fears.

The altar of God, I knew of old,
stands watched by towering cherubim,
licked by fearsome flames of gold
that once burned the love I gave to him.

I cannot bear the cherub’s joy,
but higher than he leans a milder height:
her invisible veil enwraps the world
and gives me one single, humble sight -

The altar of the One True God
dressed in the festal flowers she brings
and seas of sacrificial saints
who found in the altar the joy of things.

I approach and find there my newer love
laughing and dancing within the pyre.
With our God and his mother we share the meal,
My Love and I, and our brave desire.

It is too long this time, my dear,
to suffer much sustained suspense:
My laugh will ring, my eye be clear,
my gladness be our bond’s defense;
and courage each day distill within
the selfsame cup my tea steeps in.