Archives for August 2006

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against modern medicine. Thanks to modern medicine and a couple of its practitioners (and especially a skillful surgeon) my son still has a mother (and I still have a functioning uterus and bladder). But.
(You knew there’s be a “but”, didn’t you?)

This is not about surgery. This is about pills. And salves. You know, I’m allergic. As a child I reacted to insect bites. Mosquito bites, wasp bites, they all ended up red, swollen and itchy. Then it turned out, I wasn’t having a cold all year long, I had hay fever instead. And then I started to be allergic to the sun.

At that time I was studying for my master’s thesis. What better place to learn than beneath the river. Each day I’d spend hours outside with my books. And then my skin began itching and developing a rash. Of course I applied sunscreen. My skin is so white that people suspect me of living in a cellar, even when I’m actually tanned. One day I planned to go out, but didn’t for whatever reason. Well, it turns out that I’m allergic not to sun rays but to the brand of sunscreen I had been using all my life. Duh.

I have to tell you that I’m coming from a family where everything has to be treated. Preferably chemical. A pill, an ointment, whatever. So my mother put soothing salve on every single of my mosquito bites. Ten years ago I happened to be bitten by a mosquito and I RAN OUT OF SALVE! Guess what?

1. Mosquito bites do heal even if you do nothing at all.
2. If I don’t put special healing and cooling salve on my mosquito bite, there will be no allergic reaction.

So I turn out to be allergic not against insect bites, but against insect bite-salve. So I have to keep this in mind: I have a very sensitive skin. If something unusual is appearing, leave whatever you smear on it off. (So I was a little quicker when I found out that my skin didn’t like the new moisturizer I had bought.)

Unfortunately my allergies to pollen and mold are real. It was not my fragile disposition that let me have a year-round cold, but hay fever. I actually suffer from it from March to October. And I’m not a pretty sight at the height of it in the beginning of August. You’d think I’m having influenza only I’m not feverish. So I started taking a pill. I have been taking this for the last ten years or so. With the exception of my pregnancy when I was allowed only a measly nose spray. The pills didn’t stop me from having a running and itching nose altogether. But I shuddered to imagine my state if I didn’t take them.

I don’t quite know why, but last week I looked at the list of unwanted symptoms accompanying my pills for the first time in years. “May cause drowsiness, tiredness and heightened appetite.” Duh! I have been tired for years regardless of the hours I slept. And maybe there was a reason that I never lost weight in the summer. So I decided to stop taking the pills and see what happens. Well:

1. I’m not feeling tired anymore in spite of lack of sleep.
2. My mind doesn’t feel numb and dumb anymore.
3. I’m sneezing less than before.
4. What I do have is sneezing fits, a sore throat and itching and running eyes.

So. The pills are out of the picture. My fear of getting allergic asthma or chronic bronchitis is not big enough to justify suffering a numb mind and heavy tiredness. I’m starting to look for some other treatment for my allergies. Maybe acupuncture or homeopathy. I’m not going chemical again.

Any suggestions? What’s worse to you? The malady or the remedy?

I really shouldn’t complain. And especially not because I’m having so much spare time on my hands. Because I’m a teacher I don’t have to work during summer break, or any school holidays. In theory this is wonderful. I don’t even mind earning less so that I have more time; but. Here’s the big “But”:

I’m having big issues with structure. That is with a lack of structure. As embarassing as it is, each friday I’m having a mini-breakdown because of the looming weekend. It’s not because of a fear of boredom. On the contrary, I’m weight down by the sheer number of possibilities. These are the days that I seem to have the time to do everything I can’t do on a workday. Clean the house, declutter, sleep in, read, view films, and produce a CD. Or something like it, anyway.

I try to stop having great expectations for weekends. In my experience free days offer only a little more free time than not-free-days. There still are the chores, and then I tend to do everything just a little bit slower on my free days and to have long conversations with my husband. And then the day is gone.

All this would not be a problem if I could do everything I want to (or even most of what I want to) in a workday, but there’s not quite enough space for something like writing songs in a full week day. So sometimes I have to chose between exercise and practice. Practice or reading. A free day should have space enough for at least two of these things.

It’s easier when I’m not at home, because then my expectations are lower. We’re looking around, talk and rejoice. Only after about a week of looking, talking and rejoicing we’re becoming real cranky, because we’re not making music. this is why we never travel for more than a week. It’s not me, my husband also becomes homesick after a short time.

I didn’t even like breaks and holidays when I was still going to school myself. I always looked forward to the beginning of school. So I had a reasonable schedule and was able to learn something and to meet people.

Since then nothing changed. Having a child helps a lot with the structure issue. A child gives me a reason to keep the same meal- and bedtime on my days off. But little by little we’re eating later and my child’s bedtime shifts. So does mine, because I don’t want to spend all of my precious evening time to brush my teeth and get ready for bed.

Nonetheless I’m still hoping because of the possibilities that summer break brings. I’m still hoping to use my free time wisely. And I’m still dreaming of becoming such a mature person that I’ll be able to cope with a free life without an imposed structure. The one fear I don’t have is the fear of being lazy and doing nothing.

Our big summer break is almost over, but I’m still waiting for that vacational feeling. My dear husband is doing one chore after the other, and the weather has been far from summerly.

I have planned to do the routines (aka household chores) faithfully and disciplined, schedule weekly excursions and every day to write a little song, even if it’s only short or ridiculous. You might cross your fingers for me.

How are you feeling? Do you love summer break? Retreat to the beach immediately? Or are you glad and sad at the same time when school starts again, like I am?

I got my postcard! Ever since the participants of Blogger Postcards from the World sent off their postcards, I have been waiting for the postcard I was about to receive, and here it is:

So now you can see why it took so long. It came all the way from the other side of the world, from New Zealand. It was sent to me by Bron. As she wrote in her blog, it’s a little joke about her husband Jonathan.

What a nice event that has been. I don’t remember the last time I received a postcard. Or wrote one.

Technorati Tags: blogger, blogger postcards from the world

(Note: I wrote this while on my way to my sister’s wedding. I didn’t know what to do with it. It was written with the blog in mind, that’s why I wrote it in English. So here it is, an open letter to my sister.)

So my little sister is getting married. I almost typed “Who would have thought”, but in fact it is not such a big surprise. But it wouldn’t have been a surprise either if she and her boyfriend had just lived together for the rest of their lives. The only thing that would really have been surprising would have been their separation.

I can’t say much about her husband-to-be. Mostly he is a voice on the telephone saying “Hello.” and “Yes, she’s in, I’ll give her the phone.” But the two times we met I found him very mellow, a little quiet (hard to be anything else in the company of me and my family), intelligent, nice and interesting.

So the only one I can tell something about is my sister. I know her quite good, you know, we spend our childhood together. In fact, she’s my little sister (I know, I have mentioned it). Last time she called on my answering machine, she said “Hello, this is your annoying little sister.” Well, she’s not as annoying to me as she used to be. The one thing that helps is the fact that we don’t have to share a room any longer. At the beginning of this year I would have said that she’s still driving me crazy, but right now I’m glad she did, because for the first time in our lives we told each other what we dislike about each other. Well, the first time since kindergarten anyway.

And then, you know, my sister is not very little anymore. She’s quite big and a lot taller than me. And has been since I were 16 and she 12. You know, four years seem to be a lot, when you’re four and your sister’s just a baby, but when your 39 (almost), the difference is neglectible.

We haven’t been close. Last June I saw her for the first time in a year and the last time before that, my son was still a baby. And we’re not talking a lot on the phone. For years our contact was through our mother, like “Oh, and by the way, your sister is moving in with her boyfriend.” And then I thought, it’d be a good thing to talk to her once in a while, because she’s the only sister I’ll ever have. And only because you didn’t like to share a room with someone as a child, you don’t have to go on resenting that person forever.

Our intense talks on the phone in the last few months have cleared the sky a little bit. And now I can see better, where we are different and alike.

Our parents tend to point out our differences. So she became the painter and architect and I became the musician. I the rational and she the emotional one. I the over-achiever and she the loser. Oops. (Parents be careful. There is enough success for everyone.)

Only when we both moved out into the world could we see that our interests are alike too. She took singing lessons, I took a drawing class, we read some of the same books (although it is really interesting that two people who both devour science fiction and fantasy books (and detective novels) can come up with quite different bookshelves. But we both have lots of them. (Yeah, bookshelves, and books, of course.)

We share an interest in graphic novels, music, computer games, knitting, design and esoteric things. During the last years whenever one of us sheepishly told the other one a new enthusiasm for things like tarot cards, astrology, yoga or tai chi, the other would say; “Oh, you too?”

It’s strange to have someone who is so strange and so alike at the same time, but then that’s one of the big marvels in all families. You know, I’m a Leo with an ascendent Sagittarius and she’s a Sagittarius with an ascendent Leo. (And my son too.)

So we both have big egos, a high sense of moral, like to travel, like to be center stage, are warmhearted and generous, prone to prejudice, but very forgiving. And there the similarities end.

The reason I’m writing this is that marriage marks the end of adolescence. Yes, even today. And even if you have lived together for ages it doesn’t have the same sense of founding a family of your own. Officially, culturally. You know, living together is private, a commitment between two people. Marriage is an institution. It’s legal, it’s public. You’re declaring your independence of your family of origin.

I believe that ritual makes a difference. So you shouldn’t marry because of tax reduction, it should be a soul thing. And it marks the time where you really grow up.

Little sister, let me tell you, while I’ll certainly never stop feeling protective towards you, you’re officially not little any more. And of course I wish you well. May you and your future spouse be blessed in your marriage. May you both live your dreams and find your place in the world. May your relationship be lasting and joyful.

Technorati Tags: open letter, sister, wedding