Allergy Test

In less than two weeks, I will get a first-ever allergy test in my life. I’m actually VERY excited about it. In fact, I can hardly wait.

I had thought about it before, but I didn’t have any allergy symptom bad enough to get my lazy butt up to actually do it. Then a while ago, one of my friends found out that she was ferociously allergic to a kind of red die. It is commonly used in many foods, drinks, and cosmetics etc. She has a severe case of chronic fatigue syndrome, and had been tested for everything under the sun. But doctors had no idea what was causing her to get sick until now. It is inconvenient to be allergic to something, but if red die is what’s making her sick, it’s good news. She might feel significantly better by avoiding red dies. If that didn’t cure her condition completely, at least it should help a lot. The prospect made me very happy.

I thought allergy symptoms were like itchiness, sneezing, stomachache, wheezing, difficulty breathing and stuff like that. But my host sister told me drowsiness could be a symptom of allergy, too. She used to have the hardest time staying awake at work after eating lentil soup for lunch. She had no idea why, but she found out that she was allergic to lentil. It wasn’t such a good thing, because she was a vegetarian at the time and she often relied on lentil for her protein source. She also lived in India for a while and a lot of their dishes had lentil, too. So the whole time she was there she felt really tired. But she just attributed that to the heat or something. (It sure is hot there, too, though.)

What I’m hoping for myself is to find out things that I might be allergic to, and by avoiding them I will get much more energy and feel amazingly better. Vitamin really helped me to not get sick so often, but I still feel pretty groggy a lot of the time. I’ll probably be disappointed by the result of the test, but let me dream for just a while…

Pineapple

I got a sudden and strong craving for pineapple a couple nights ago. So I stopped at Bush’s with a friend of mine who happened to be in the car with me at the time.

As we were browsing through the produce section in search of pineapple, we came across a salad mix called “Mache”. I’ve never had that before; it sort of looked like baby spinach. On the label it said “Mild, sweet and nutty”. Huh. That sounds interesting. I wanted to pick up some salad mix for lunch anyway, and it was on sale. Then my friend mentioned that she had had it in Germany while she was studying over there. That’s really neat. I was definitely getting it at that point.

The work next day turns out to be atrocious. I had an ungodly amount of work to do, most of which I didn’t know how to handle. I always look forward to the lunch break, but on a day like this one, it’s all the more precious.

So the lunch that day was nothing but wonderful. I temporarily left the insanity and peacefully grazed over my Mache salad. The salad made me think about my friend who I went to Buch’s with and a poem she wrote. In the poem she talked about carrying something someone said, as if to take a part of that person with her. I felt like I was doing that, too. By eating the kind of greens she told me she had in Germany, I was carrying a part of her with me. It was a good thing, because she happens to be someone who has the sweetest presence about her. I very much needed the tranquilizing presence of my friend. Though it had Japanese sesame dressing, the salad tasted like Germany.

Oh, about pineapple. It was great. But I think I’m allergic to it. My tongue got swollen up and it got itchy around my mouth after eating a few pieces. Bummer! I finished the whole container over a couple of days, though.

On Writing

A friend of mine posted a cool blog entry on the subject of writing. Her mother once commented that the poems she wrote was full of Ego. From the memory of that painful yet pertinent (according to her) critique, my friend explored the nature of creative writing. She quoted a famous Japanese poet, Syuntaro Tanigawa:

“It’s only by my guts I can tell if words in a poem are established as a piece of artwork. One thing is that those words must stand independently apart from their writer. No matter how chattery the words are, such independent words set themselves apart from the writer’s noise, settling quietly on their own.

There are poems with only three lines that are too noisy. The poem does not work well without artistry, so the independent words crafted with artistry can convey themselves more effectively to their readers. Merely saying, “I’m suffering so!” does not communicate the essence of suffering to the audience as much as you’d think. The main source of noise today is that everyone is trying to express themselves, crying out loud, ‘I this, I that!’

In contrast, noiseless words or words with silence within are born from anonymity, a kind of collective unconsciousness, instead of belonging to a particular individual, I think.”

I don’t know enough about poems to have an opinion on Tanigawa’s view of how they ought to be formed. But the idea that “quiet” words are more effective in communication was intriguing. It got me thinking about how I write. Do the words in my writing stand quietly? Or are they noisily displaying my ego?

When the purpose of my writing is to vent, the contents of my writing don't need to be understood by others, or even by myself. The nature of vent-writing is more physical/mechanical, rather than intellectual or emotional, though it certainly serves to release the emotional tension; like punching a sandbag to let out the steam. But if I intend to share my writing with others, transporting the unprocessed contents of my head onto a Word document wouldn't be good.

I interpreted Tanigawa’s comment about "words that stand independently apart from their writer" as objectivity in writing. By “artisanry”, could he mean the ability to look at one’s own writing from a reader’s point of view? Without the objectivity, we can’t skillfully deconstruct the raw materials within ourselves and reconstruct them into a refined work art. It seems to be the case not just in writing, but in other forms of art as well.

In her blog, my friend wrote; "Words are not only produced to convey our ideas and emotions for ourselves, but also to create space where others’ ideas and emotions can be brought out and be wrapped up"...

I really liked her idea of writings that create rooms where others can explore their own thoughts and feelings. Ego-filled writing does not provide that space and can be suffocating.

Breathe, my writing, breathe, breathe…