MY RESOLUTIONS, AFTER SUMMER VACATION

SUMMERTIME SADNESS

In the car, Lana del Ray is singing with her sultry voice «kiss me hard before you go, summertime sadness …», while the dust lifted from the car wheels conspire in my  ”drama queen” situation. The magical beach we enjoyed like modern nomads from sunrise to sunset and again, for seven days, is slowly being removed from the landscape, while the port is waiting for us to return home. No, I’m thinking, this time I will not cry, while I remember similar moments in Bali and Thailand, crying uncontrollably with  just the thought of getting back to Athens. Today I choose to focus on the verse “I know if I go, I’d die happy tonight”.

THE DAY AFTER

Bags discarded here and there, and my two sons roaming allover, one with a hairbrush in hand, and the other with shower gel dripping stains on the floor. Keep you “zen” Kakia, I think it’s time for unpacking and decision making. While I unpack the cosmetics’ bag, I take a puff from a Monoi Body Oil I found on the island, and I immediately feel better. Tomorrow I start working and so as not get stressed I start writing on my agenda “things to do”. While the list is getting longer, I stop and look myself in the mirror. I am deeply tanned, my nails are broken by childish games on the sand, my nail polish looks like an incomplete mosaic, my  hair is a bleached mess and the skin is on the verge of dehydration. I wonder why did I carry all these cosmetics with me? What kind of a beauty editor am I? I take the last question personally, and I decide to revive me beauty status before dawn.

GARDEN BEAUTÉ

I grab a plastic bowl, my favorite Gewhol footbath, a wooden rasp and all my mani-pedi essentials, and head to the garden, determined for a transformation. Along the way, I decide to take advantage of this 30 minutes to apply a n all natural hair mask. In the kitchen, I break an egg, hold the yolk and mix it in olive oil and honey to create enough mixture for all my hair. After applying it  from roots to ends, I gather my hair in my traditional meatball hairdo. I’m so glad it stopped raining and I seat outside! My husband would brake up on me, only with the smell of a raw egg on my head!

MY RESOLUTIONS

As I patiently file, cut cuticles and so on, I put my thoughts in order:  I want to quit smoking,  I want to go to the dermatologist for those freckles and from now on I will wake up 10 minutes earlier than the kids to meditate -my evening meditations almost always lead to sleep-. I realize that September in my heart, is like a New Year, and further decide to start again my tennis sessions and drinking more of that Yogi Tea I discovered recently, for mental clarity and calmness. I got it from the super market along with my favorite Twinnings Jasmine Green Tea, having read on the package that it contains a combination of ayurvedic herbs such as gkinko, ginger and lemongrass to elevate the spirit. From now on it will be my favorite caffeine free beverage…

LEAP IN THE VOID

A few hours later my thoughts for the future flared. Still have not started the season, I said to himself, and I’m about to mentally burn out? So, I decided to make a bubble bath. A dip in the bath, fro me always equals a leap in my mental stillness, where all problems are nonexistent and my thoughts are as clean as the body after the ritual. Ritual it is: lights are low, essential oils are burning, claiming “Time to relax”, while the salts are from the Himalayas and I have stolen them from the kitchen. Before I got in the tub, I scrubbed my whole body with a brush on dry skin. After getting out of the bath, I generally sprinkled my hydrating cream. Having done all that, how can I not be relaxed? The salts alone, can detoxify the skin, relax the muscles, loosen the joints and balance the lymphatic system. Oh well, go on and tell me, you  just got back from vacation and you need all that to relax? I will laugh and answer that the most tricky part of getting back from vacation, is to stay in your holiday mood back at home all year long! Me, today, I did it with my bubble bath, and who knows tomorrow what I will come up with!

GETTING STRONGER FOR WINTER

Preparing tomorrow’s jobs, I thought it was about time to start a food supplement to get a stronger immune. Before I left for vacation I finished a bottle of Solgar’s Skin Hair & Nails and I was very pleased with the results, but the season, however, requires more than just good skin hair and nails…With all that viruses coming from kids’ school, I think it’s time for me to start taking the royal jelly and the hippofaes food supplements. To my four-year-old son I will give the royal jelly chewable tablets, which he enjoys as much as candy!

MY SOUVENIRS

Just before sleep, I scroll the photo album on my mobile: an ode to summer pictures of my wellbeing. I laugh with my hat-installation who accompanied me to the beach each summer day, like a little vintage umbrella. In my hand I hold the magic pebble from my secret beach, as I follow Rhonda Byrne’s advice in the book “Magic”. I put it next to my bed, in the company of my books. That will remind me each dawn in Athens, all for which I am grateful, while the books of immense wisdom along with a nice hand cream, will put me to sleep each night with spiritual lullabies like “Thinking is destiny”.

Kakia Kaffa (kakia@arnica.gr)