The sun has felt so blissful on my skin. Its been so long sing I let him kiss me, for so long its been that I ached for delicately fair and powdery skin, hiding behind sweaters and underneath tree shade. But now for the first time, perhaps because the weather has grown so sweltering hot and because the bike rides have been so strenuous for my unexcercised muscles that if I wore anymore than mere modesty I would drown in sweat and agony, have I face the sun's rays with honesty, however squintingly.

Oh Vitamin D! My oldest friend and compadre! My husband declares I'm glowing; the fine baby hairs on my arms have turned a startling blonde, the acne scars that once riddled my cheeks and back are now all but invisible, something I've spent a little less than a small fortune to achieve. My family has been urging me to step out into the sun for some years now. “A little sunshine wont hurt you!” Didn't they know I was changing my gene's and melanin? So its no surprise to me that I bear many of the symptoms of a person suffering from a Vitamin D deficiency, or so it should seem based on all the internet research I've done. Add onto that my Glutin intolerance (for those who don't know, a glutin allergy means that I'm allergic to that thing that happens when water and flour mix together. What THAT means is that anytime I eat flour foods, they go into my body and swell up the lining of my nose and throat, make it hard to breathe, and tear down the lining of my small intestine, making it harder and harder till it becomes impossible for me to absorb vitamins or protein) and I'm in a bad way. However, I brightened at sight of the tan that now graced my skin, almost as if I could feel the D Vitamin sink down into my flesh and make everything glowing and bright.

Having retrieved the necessary items for tortilla soup (sans tortillas) and bouncing about in our Uncle Fred's truck, coming home, I looked down to my arm and exclaimed “Look at my white patch! I haven't seen it in years!” For now is the first time the surrounding skin was dark enough to notice a difference. My mom proceeded to attempt to remember what the particular condition was called, when one looses pigment in their skin. Silly me, I thought it was an odd birthmark all these years. According to more internet research, it turns out its a condition called Vitiligo, and is technically an autoimmune disease. My mom tells me not to panic, my husband brings me a stack of natural cure books, none of which have Vitiligo in their index. “If its an autoimmune disease its the lightest one you can get” and while my mom is right, I feel sort of arrested as I go to bed tonight, as if my arms is tingling and swelling with autoimmune germs. Just think, had I stuck to my old ways and kept to mottled sunlight through tree tops, I might never have known.