Pink of Perfection

This week, several women in my sphere have bemoaned feeling blue. The worst part about feeling a little worse for wear is not having the energy to do the things you usually love. While perhaps a walk through the park or a trip to the accessories department of Forever 21 would normally lift your spirits, you — sad little creature — hardly have the will to lift a finger. Here, a short list of comforts to turn to when your tank is running on empty.

Light a candle. The other night I couldn’t bear to trek through the cold rain to the gym. I decided instead to do a relaxing yoga practice in my cramped living room. I lit a tall candle pillar and placed it a few feet out from the top of my mat. Whenever my mind started to wander, I would focus back on the flame. So fond of the warm flickering light, I left the candle burning on the coffee table afterward. It cast a relaxing glow on the living room for the rest of the evening.

Have a cup of tea. Some of us rarely, if ever, drink herbal tea at home, yet when it’s offered before a yoga class or beauty treatment, we’re the first in line to sign up for its calming benefits. The ritual of it is so appealing: have a cup of tea, start to relax. Sit down at home with a cup of peppermint, chamomile, or ginger. And really, if you’re going to take the time to take a couple of deep breaths over the steam of the cup, milky black tea (my favorite) will surely do the trick as well.

Apply a face mask. We don’t always feel that we have time to devote a lot of time to pampering ourselves, but putting on a facial mask is like pressing the pause button on life. You will likely sit quietly alone, either reading, watching tv, or listening to the rain outside for at least 10 minutes as the goop does its job. Sometimes that’s all the time you need for a shot of freshness to your face and your spirit.

Get in the bath, preferably with reading materials. This is as time-tested a cure as there ever was. Grab your novel, a magazine, or the book of poems you’ve been meaning to read and sink into a hot tub. True, it’s not the best for your skin (the hot water saps your skin’s natural moisture), but it is the best for a tired mind and an achy body. Low on luxurious bubble baths and oils? Squirt some shampoo directly into the water stream in a pinch. Afterward, wrap yourself in the nicest robe you have, slather your feet with thick moisturizer, and put on socks.

Retire to bed. When a bad day strikes, why prolong it? I know plenty of grown women not afraid to get under the covers at 7:30 on a bad day. In a dark room, and starting at the top of your head, imagine every part of your body relaxing: your scalp, your eyebrows, your ears, and work your way down to your toenails. Much more effective than counting sheep.

Self-massage. This is so simple, yet so satisfying. Place a few drops of aromatic massage oil or lotion in your palm, and rub your hands together to heat it up. Knead the muscles at the top of your shoulders and the back of your neck. Apply pressure to your temples, the fleshy pad below your thumb, and the arches of your feet. Ahhh…

print of original watercolor by vivstrauss

I knew a girl in high school who had a ration of two parent-sanctioned “mental health days” per semester. Most people I knew at least had to feign a stomachache to get out of Comparative World Studies, but this girl had the complete compliance of her parents. In fact, sometimes she and her mom made a special mother-daughter day out of the hooky. One morning by our lockers she told me they had gone shopping and out for lunch. I was dumbfounded, and jaw-droppingly jealous. She wasn’t missing much — just a day of teenage angst, high school melodrama, and an algebra lesson she’d probably need to come after school to get — but this ducking out of expected routine seemed deeply rebellious and even a tad glamorous to me.

Continue reading “Taking a Mental Health Day” »

The other day, as the sun was setting at its depressingly early hour, I stepped into a Crate and Barrel for a dose of holiday cheer. Inside, there were decorations for the mod bachelor pad, the enviro-loving pinecone candle burners, and people who just want to buy a lot of gold trinkets, a lot of red ribbon, and a life supply of sweet chocolate-dipped confections packaged in striped tins. After I stumbled out, sort of in a Karen Carpenter-induced daze, I needed a caffeinated jolt. Inside the ‘Bucks there were more carols, Christmas mugs, gingerbread cookies, and a widespread feeling of hurried pandemonium. As happy as I was to get my coffee in the beloved red holiday cups, the whole production felt sort of…empty. I walked back to my office, past the Gap and a display of sweaters that pronounced in hypnotic scroll, “Joy to the Girl!” And I just thought, this is not what it’s about. Whether or not you work in Times Square perhaps you, too, would you like to count some ways in which we can celebrate the season that have nothing to do with gift receipts and sales on prepackaged gingerbread men.

Continue reading “10 Ways to Enjoy the Holiday Season That Have Nothing To Do With Buying Presents” »

Is it just me, or is waking up just plain hard, no matter how you slice it? No matter if it’s the weekend and the sun is streaming in through the window, or I crawled in bed early and have been dead to the world for 9 hours (my requisite), I just have trouble getting up and at ‘em. The new bed has only made the job more difficult.

Truly the only way for me to make like an early bird is to have little motivations. When I open my eyes to a small hobnail vase and fresh flowers on my bedside table, I feel like my life has a modicum of grace — even if I am running late and will soon be eating a scone on the subway platform. Granted, fresh flowers are a luxury, but what payoff! Sometimes you simply can’t resist the Key Foods bargain of 2 dozen roses for $12 or the $4 bouquet of space alien mums. Certainly, a splurge worth making every now and then.

You don’t need floral tape to put together a nice arrangement. Put your office supplies to work by making a grid across the top of your vase with transparent tape. This will help anchor the flowers at angles that defy gravity and reason. Dropping in a splash of bleach will help keep the water and flowers fresh longer too, ensuring you catch the worm for as many mornings as possible.

Our older brother–a jambalaya-, football-, and philosophy-loving man of 6’4″ who grows his own tomatoes and Habanero peppers–has a list of five things to do to improve his mood. It reads like a modified version of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:

Eat Something
Drink Something
Take a Nap
Take a Shower
Exercise

It’s a simple list–much more practical than mine: get in bed; watch the opening montage of the Devil Wears Prada; leave town, etc.

Last night when I hopped from the train to the platform in my threadbare satin shoes at 11:45 p.m., bed loomed like a concession, though, not a luxury. Sometimes commuting feels nice–sexy, even–in the way it bookends a day with crowded solitude. But last night it was awful. And I’d left the Kathryn Chetkovich essay I’d intended to read on the train–a 21 page printout about the envy she feels for her boyfriend, Jonathan Franzen–in the tray of a communal printer at work.

At the risk of sounding like a complete misery-guts, I washed my hair at home and wondered, can this day be saved?

I ate a honey crisp apple. I padded into the living room. Then I grabbed the candlesticks I bought for last week’s dinner party (I made beef bourguignon. It was almost as good as beef stroganoff.) and set them onto a mirrored side table. These weren’t mere votives or wacky, tacky and cloying Yankee candle affairs. They were beautiful, drippy sticks and their light bent into rainbows on the glass. This must be what it feels like to light a devotional in church, I marveled.

In any case, I perked right up–partly because I so enjoyed taking this picture. My brother would totally gag, but for me–and perhaps, for you–a moment of good lighting, a pair of pajamas, and (who am I kidding) a cup of wine can indeed save the day. (Especially if you know that when you wake up tomorrow, you won’t be drinking your coffee in the shadow of a man. )

One would hope in the absence of perils such as hunger, homelessness, or lovelessness, we would be happy. Too often our highly evolved selves teeter quite near the top of Maslow’s pyramid, and we find our needs not as simple as they could be. Happiness, self-esteem, and excitement should rule the day, or at the very least, we should not be unduly mired in ennui, ridden with anxiety and self-doubt. When we are unreasonably unwell, thank heavens we have people to tell us to take off our shit-colored glasses (thank you, Sebastian) and give ourselves a treat (thank you, Mom).

My treat lay at the flower shop. I bought a bouquet of heady roses that are the very pink of perfection and an armload of paperwhite bulbs to watch bloom through the winter months. On my walk back to the office, I passed a police officer on a handsome bay. “Lucky you, you got flowers,” he said. “Is it your birthday?” I went over to pet his horse, and his nose was velvety soft. “No, I just bought them for myself.” “Good for you. You gotta celebrate. Everyday above ground is a good day, right?” I smiled up at him. “Right,” I said.

Usually I turn to fortune cookies and horoscopes for dime store philosophy, but this police officer had spoken the truest words I had heard all day. Smiling to myself with gratitude, I took a turn and accidentally ended up on the wrong street. I admired the bathing suits in the window of Eres, envied a vintage red Schwinn locked to a stop sign, and sidestepped uneven cobblestones.

A random assortment of sensuous treats — nuzzling the horse, smelling my roses, discovering new streets worth exploring — had combined to create lenses that were a lot more rose-colored than shit-colored. I felt open to the world and all its unknown, unpredictable delights again.

The roses, their ivory petals tinged with pink, sit by my computer monitor and keep me sane from 9-5. The bulbs are taking root in my apartment. Using fabric remnants and leftover trimmings, I recycled some old soup and bean cans into impromptu flower pots.

For your own, glue fabric scraps or leftover wrapping papers unto a tin can and trim with sewing basket odds and ends. Then pour a bit of gravel in the bottom of each vessel you are using, place a bulb inside, and surround with more rocks about 3/4 of the way up the sides of the bulb until it is securely anchored. Watch over the weeks as they shoot up strong green stalks and then bloom into an intoxicating bouquet. Watch, too, as the slightest alterations in your routine can make a world of difference in your perspective.

There are times when it feels as if the world is asking more of you than you can possibly bare to give. As your body and spirit start to rebel, the warning signs mount: tension headaches go on for days, you burst into tears when the copy machine jams, you catch a cold three times in one month. Instead of hunkering down and plugging along, it’s time to refill the tank that is running on fumes alone. That’s when you ask yourself, if I could do anything this weekend, what would it be?

Continue reading “Restorative Girly Weekend: Homemade Sugar Scrub” »