I've Been Poisoned

Last Sunday night I went to an Asian food market with my friend, Elizabeth. It was incredible, like stepping off the streets of Naperville, Illinois into a store in Guangzhou, China. I'm not sure where the store is based; maybe Korea? The characters aren't Chinese, anyway. This store sells everything from rice steamers to the plastic lunch boxes we bought in China to pig's ears to fresh seafood to produce from around the globe. And to top it all off, it smells like a Chinese grocery store. It's a strange mix of odors that I can't really describe. You just have to experience it.

Among other things, Elizabeth and I bought a box of mangoes to share. Mangoes are a new love of mine, acquired during my time in southeast Asia. I was as happy as a little clam with my four mangoes, and the next morning I promptly cut into one. In China I was taught to eat a mango like this:

Slice the fruit in half, slightly off-center to avoid the large, flat pit. Use a knife to cut a cross-hatched pattern across the fruit; just just down to the peel, but not through. Holding on to the edge of the peel, push the fruit inside out, so that the squares of mango flesh stick out. Eat them off the peel.

This worked quite well in GZ. A bit messy, but very effective. I thoroughly enjoyed my half a mango.

And then the next morning I awoke to find my lips red, swollen, and sore. I had been mango-poisoned. Dang. Who knew?!? So I've been on the internet, checking out this phenomenon. It seems to be relatively common. Turns out that the skin of a mango contains an oil that's related to poison ivy. Perfect. So I've been taking antihistamines and trying to pretend that I'm a movie star who paid big money to make my lips look like this.

My roommate, Sasha, tried to convince me that it isn't noticeable. Perhaps not. We do tend to think of our own appearances more than anyone else as a general rule.

Sigh.

Stupid mangoes.

Spring Flowers

During my morning constitutional today, I was particularly aware of the beautiful spring flowers along my path. I've never NOT liked flowers, but I guess I haven't ever spent a lot of time thinking about them. But this morning I did, a bit.

Few smells on this earth can contend with the clean, fresh aroma of a growing flower. Today I decided that my favorite spring flowers are daffodils and hyacinth. My all-time favorite flowers are lilacs. It is sad indeed that they bloom for such a short time.

I'm not even sure carnations should be allowed to be called flowers. They smell bad and they're ugly. What is a flower, if it's not pretty and it doesn't smell good? I mean, seriously. It's like "white chocolate". Give me a break.

Flowers seem to hold lots of deep truths. One lies in way that the very act of picking a flower kills it. And speaking of killing flowers, I was reminded this morning of the time when I was about eight and visiting Grandma Nell. Grandma is my mom's mom, and she is a true nature lover, since before that sort of thing was politically correct. I was old enough to know that Grandma loved flowers, so when I saw one in her yard (probably in a flower bed, actually) I was excited to pick it and present it to her. As you might imagine, I learned that day that picking = death for flowers.

Yesterday at Curves a woman who was working out next to me mentioned that she knew spring has finally arrived, because that morning she had gotten her first dandelion bouquet of the season. She's a kindergarten teacher.

Here's wishing you a spring full of fresh dandelion bouquets.

A Season of Rest and a Brush with Poverty

I'm trying not to chaff under the gentle friction of a Divinely appointed season of rest.

This is a phrase from an email I recently wrote to a friend, and I think it accurately describes where I'm at right now; trying not to chaff...

I'm waiting. Classes and graduation have faded, blurred and distorted behind memories of the holidays and the months since. Ecuador looms big in my future. But in between I'm floating in the shallow waters of a Season of Rest. I like remembering that it's a season. It somehow makes me better able to appreciate it, rather than resenting it.

Soon enough I'll be busy again. Soon enough I'll cringe as I set my alarm, and fall exhausted into my bed more often than not. Soon enough reading a good book will be a treat, rather than a daily occurrence. Soon enough. No need to rush.

Today I got a glimpse of poverty in America. I've seen lots of poverty in my travels. Sprawling slums of falling-down shacks in the Dominican Republic. Malnourished and under-attended orphans in Russia. Street kids running almost-naked through the dirt-packed side streets of the ghetto in China. But except for a few homeless men on the streets of big cities, the bigger part of poverty in my own country hasn't made my acquaintance.

We dress our poverty nicer here, but it's still around, under all the trying-hard-but-never-really-succeeding government programs. The poverties of crime and violence often overshadow the lack of food or shelter. We still hear reports of people dying during cold spells and heat waves, but here in Chicago, poverty most often looks like grim, gray government housing complexes, gang violence, rampant teen pregnancy, and appalling public schools.

I felt it surround me today, as I waited for my name to ring through the dull roar of a community health clinic waiting room. I sat next to a pregnant girl- she couldn't have been more than 15. On her other side was another high schooler. This second teen was working on a word search for school. She asked if the girl next to me knew a particular word on her paper. I looked up from my book as I heard my young neighbor reply that no, she didn't know the word either. It was "prerequisite". Seeing my glance, the question was repeated for me.

I defined it for her and returned to my book, but I couldn't focus on it. Our brief interaction had set my mind in motion. The storyline in print before me faded as I looked about the waiting room. Do most teenagers know "prerequisite" by high school? I can't remember. But they should.

The room was a mass of humanity. Little kids. Adults. Elderly people and teenagers. What were the experiences of these people? What was life like from their perspectives- growing up black or hispanic (and presumably poor, given their presence in the clinic) on Chicago's south side? Were they, by now, immune to the long waits and extensive paperwork that inevitably accompany anything funded by the government? What did they think of me, the only white person in the room? Or did it even cross any mind other than my own that I was a pale, lonely minority?

I've been a minority before, am that every day in my ESL classes. But not being in a position of authority or respect changes all the dynamics. It occurs to me that few people downshift like that if they feel they have a choice. We'll go where we blend in. We'll even venture to go where we don't blend in, if our nationality or wealth or education still keep us high up on the totem pole. But rarely will we choose to be a minority, without honor, without privilege. I suppose it's natural, but the thought is still new to me, and worthy of contemplation. How different would my life had been, if...

So many undeserved blessings.

Spring (Finally) Comes to Wheaton

This morning I re-initiated my morning constitutionals for the 2008 season. The long, snowy Chicago winter seems to have finally admitted defeat and started preparing itself for hibernation.

The blue skies and sunshine beckoned me through my bedroom window, begging me to come and play. But the chilly April morning was waiting outside the door, to remind me not to put my winter sweaters away just yet. A couple more weeks.

I pondered that blue sky as I lapped my four-block constitutional route. Prettier than a picture, it smiled down on my bare head, patting it gently in appreciation for my willingness to come out.

I happened to end up passing the local elementary school as the students were arriving for their first day back in class, following their spring break. It seems that we all, children and adults alike, had decided that we might just be able to force the mercury a few degrees higher by wearing clothing just a little too light for the real temperature. There we all were, going our various ways in skirts and capris and light jackets. All of us a bit colder than we'd like, perhaps, but happy to make the sacrifice. Happy to face the day without scarf, hat or gloves, and additionally without fear of frostbite reprisal for our optimism.

I looked for robins and smiled at children too young to know the inside of a classroom and breathed deeply of the wet, clean smell of spring.

My dad swears that nearly any ailment I've ever complained of could have been prevented by more exercise or more deep breathing outside. On a morning like this, I could almost believe it.