When I was little my sense of self was so great that when my sister told me I was a human being I stamped my foot and said I was not a human bean. I was a Polly. I knew in my marrow no matter how much she taunted me that spring day she was wrong.
We had climbed onto our front gate’s stone post to taste the honeysuckle. I picked the blossom and pinched its end, then pulled out the single stem with the gold head, pushing a tiny bead of clear nectar towards the narrow opening where I would catch it on my tongue. My sister and I nibbled away at a dozen or so flowers, comparing our harvest. I could tell the way the blossom resisted whether the drop would come out heavy and sweet or if the funnel end was too wide and the stalk would yield nothing.
I was in all of it, feeling the world with pleasure, as if all the world was alive for my enjoyment.
Earlier, I had gazed into bright daffodils, filling myself in their glow, the delicate brown paper covering the root of the bloom like a napkin. The sky was blue and the air was crisp and I was in all of it, feeling the world with pleasure, as if all the world was alive for my enjoyment. I was the master of the world, complete in my sense of belonging.
My sister was the fool, telling me I was a human bean, but she was older and I was used to believing her, believing that she might be right and I wrong. But in this case I knew she was mistaken. I was a Polly through and through and nothing could change that ever.
Or so I thought.
The world had become a frightful place
It wasn’t too long after this exchange, no more than a year or so that my sense of self was shattered, only I wouldn’t remember the details of why until I was in my fifties. I forgot who Polly was and chose instead to hide. The world had become a frightful place full of barking dogs and forests of bewildering density and scope, dark spaces full of decay and rot, logs full of insects and spiders, puddles coated with slime. I was expected to walk through these woods to get to school for first grade after my sister and brother showed me the way.
Something had happened. Something I wouldn’t remember until nearly fifty years later. My sense of Polly was shattered. It was best not to know myself, to hide a part of myself because I would die if I remembered. A dear family friend who wasn’t so dear after all. My fear had become great.
Afraid of life, I hid.