Wonton soup

Still languishing under the iron fist of this mysterious affliction of the lungs ... I'm over the worst of it but my chest still crackles and rattles away every time I exhale (keeping me awake all night despite earplugs, since the noise is coming from inside my own body) and I just generally have very little energy to do anything but sit at my desk, staring at the screen through thick mental fog and slugging down herb capsules with copious amounts of hot herb tea.

I haven't felt like eating anything for more than a week now. But you have to eat something, even when you're sick, and what I've been eating when I have to eat is soup. Wonton soup. I've decided it's the most perfect food in the universe for me right now – days upon days upon days of nothing but wonton soup, and I'm still not tired of it. I had a big bowl of it an hour and a half ago, and am already looking forward to having it again for dinner.

This particular soup comes from a little Chinese place near my office, and is served in all its green and golden glory in a big yellow, orange, pink and white striped ceramic bowl with turquoise dots around the rim. She (there's only one of her) brings it out on a plate – the plates are usually plastic with various Chinese flowery designs, but the other day it was heavy white restaurant porcelain with a pattern of dark green egg-shaped things around the border – and gives you one of those flat-bottomed spoons to scoop it up with. She sets it before you ... and the steam rises from the clearest of all possible lovely clear broths ... and there are the puffy little delicious wontons paddling around on their backs, daring you to kiss their adorable soft white bellies as they float amongst slivers of green onion and big crunchy pieces of bok choy ... and you dip the spoon in and lift it to your lips ... and the yummy delicious warmth and flavors fill your mouth with happiness ... and you feel it (the happiness) move down your throat and into your stomach and all throughout your entire weak and exhausted body ... and suddenly, you feel as if you can live again.

Yes, this soup has restored my will to live. More than once.

Last night as I was falling asleep I found myself dreaming, "Only 15 more hours until I can have some more of that soup again."

Did you know that "wonton" can be translated as "swallowing clouds"? It's true. If that lovely image doesn't make you want to order up a nice big bowl of beautiful delicious wonton soup, I don't know what will.

Also over the weekend, I got out my box of jewelry-making stuff and made a pretty little wrist mala out of 21 rudraksha beads knotted on red silk with an antique melon-shaped citrine bead as the stupa and a hand-tied silk tassle. I'm very happy with the way it turned out – everything about it. It's the first thing I've made in a really long time that I've been this satisfied with. The process of stringing beads and tying the silk between beads is a nice little meditation, too.

I was reflecting the other day about how my mind seems to have changed since I changed my daily work from writing to design. Part of me still feels jealous when I see the list of stories other people have been assigned to write, and I know I could go back to writing if I wanted to ... but overall, I have to say I kind of prefer the wordlessness of working with colors, shapes and images. It's still work, of course, and sometimes the production aspects of it get boring, but the work itself – creating a visual space that communicates effectively and is pleasant to look at – is fun. And it seems to be moving my mind away from the linear, text-based space I lived in as a writer, where I was obsessed with analyzing words, thoughts, ideas, constantly trying to precisely describe and explain everything ... and into a more intuitive kind of life, where meaning and emotion can be simply experienced, rather than having to be "said." I don't think it's a coincidence that my artistic life is slowly re-awakening now that I'm putting myself in a more visual, emotional kind of environment every day. It feels good to feel that happening.