Mikans make my palms yellow?

It is very cold these days.

A few decades before, “kotatsu” and “mikan” were symbols of Japanese winter. (A kotatsu is a low table with an electric heater. For keeping warm, the kotatsu table is covered with a quilt. A mikan is a mandarin orange.)

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This is a kotatsu table.

When I was a child, many families bought mikan by the box in the winter. I took out some mikans from the box and ate them while I was warm at the kotatsu. I ate a lot of mikans before they are became rotten or moldy － like a job to eat them up. After I got full I tried to put my whole body under the kotatsu: being bent double or lying diagonally under the kotatsu. Then I fell asleep. Sleeping under the kotatsu was a very happy and peaceful time, which I could enjoy only in the winter. Unfortunately, my happy time was never very long. When I was sleeping under the kotatsu my mother always woke me up and scolded me, “Don’t sleep under the kotatsu! Go to your bed before you catch a cold!!” Most Japanese must have had the same experiences as I did. This was one of the typical Japanese winter scenes in the Showa Period.

“Look at my palms! See?” “Wow, what a very bright yellow. How many mikans did you eat?” “I ate 20.” “I ate more than 20!” This conversation always happened just after the New Year holidays among elementary school children. It was like a competition that compared the number of eating mikans and whose palms became the deepest yellow. Is the same conversation still common among the school children now? In the first place, I haven’t seen people buying mikan by the box in the winter recently. Most Japanese lifestyles have been westernized and many of them don’t have kotatsu in their houses now. What is the number of kotatsu holders in proportion to the number of mikan buyers? Is there any deep connection with kotatsu and mikan?

Then I have a question. Why do only palms become yellow when we eat a lot of mikans? I have never compared the color of other body parts with classmates. I have never seen other kids comparing the color of their necks, arms, or feet － faces either. Why don’t all of our body change color like our palms? I also have one more question. If eating a lot of mikans makes palms yellow, many Italian’s palms should be red because they eat a lot of tomatoes ie: pizza sauce or pasta sauce. If there are people who love squid ink and eat squid ink dishes everyday, their palms should be black. Green pepper lovers? Green palms.

I think eating mikans doesn’t change my palms’ color. The mikan peelings’ coloring matter may make my palms deep yellow. It is the reason that only palms change color. However, why did I eat a lot of mikans frantically?

If I really want to know the truth, “mikans make my palms yellow”, I have a way: for several days eat a lot of mikans while wearing plastic gloves, 7 to 8 mikans a day as when I was a child. If I do the experiment I can know the fact a week later, but now, I am a little older and I don’t have enough passion to inspect mikans’ mystery. So please let me know if you know the truth; what did make my palms yellow?

Robert Frost

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep.” One of my teachers, Justin, taught me how to use a comma using the phrase quoted from Robert Frost’s poem. He also explained about Robert Frost: he is one of the best American poets. Robert Frost… I was not sure, but I have heard his name before. I might have come across one of his poems. In the end, I couldn’t possibly remember the poem, during the lesson.

After I came home, I started searching about Robert Frost. I thought that the poem must have been used in the film, The Outsiders, directed by Francis Ford Coppola. I thought hard, but I remembered only a few words: “something gold,” and “something is a flower.” Then I typed two search words, “The Outsiders” and “poem”, and clicked the search icon.

“NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY”; it is the poem that I was thinking of.

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

When I was a student, “The Outsiders” was a very popular film among adolescent teenagers who distrusted society and adults. We liked the ending song of the film, STAY GOLD, performed by Stevie Wonder. Some of my friends hummed the song, and some of them copied the poem into their notebooks. We believed that the poem was about the principle of living for the moment: Nobody can keep their good time. Nothing can remain good, conditions or situations. We don’t have any good futures which are guaranteed. That’s why we should spend time as we like.

About 20 years later, a little older and a little wiser. I read the poem again. I had different impression. “Nothing gold can stay”; that’s the reason why we should not waste our time. “Nothing gold can stay”; that’s exactly why we love the moment or time which will be never repeated again.

Then I read the poem which was quoted by Justin.

“STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING”

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Until I read this poem, I had not realized that each word has potential to evoke a feeling effectively. “The woods are lovely, dark and deep.” ; the phrase is very simple. Even though it shows the woods by only 3 simple adjectives, it makes me think deeply. Writing situations descriptively is difficult for me. However, if I can choose a word which is simple, yet having the power to help people imagine a scene, the phrase will become more emotional and impressive.

Now I know his two poems. Both poems project images in my head as if watching footage. I can feel like I am inside of the footage. I can also look at the same scenery as the man who is inside the poem does; the scenery is very beautiful, warm and lonely.

Robert Frost, he is a great poet as Justin said.