As I mentioned in my previous newsletters, I’ve been in school vacations – which sadly are now ended. While still on them, I created a morning routine for myself: wake up, exercise, shower, prepare and eat my breakfast.
Well, it wasn't as much a morning routine because I was waking up around ten o'clock in order to make up for my nighttime work, but you get the gist.
The restart of studies brought along the challenge of adapting this routine to a new reality: my school now has morning classes. My first thought was: If I start school at 8:50 am and it takes me 20 minutes to walk there, I can dedicate three blocks of 30 minutes each to exercising, getting ready, and eating. All neat, right?
Right?
Last Thursday, I woke up with my right eye swollen because of an inflammation. On Friday it was a bit better, but I decided to go to the doctor on Saturday, just in case. I took some medicine, it started to improve... Then on Sunday my left eye started to hurt and swell. I had to go to the doctor again: it was conjunctivitis / pink eye.
Monday, first day of school, I wake up at 7 am with my phone screaming. Sometimes I feel angry at the aggressiveness of the alarm clock, but if it sings any more gently, I just don't wake up – while I don’t like it rough, I can’t say it doesn’t have its benefits. I turn off the alarm clock and force myself not to close my eyes again. I send a good morning message to my boyfriend, check my notifications to see if there's anything urgent or tempting enough, respond to one or another… Before I know it, ten minutes have passed and I jump out of bed.
Time for exercise. No, wait, better go to the bathroom first. After the first bowel movement of the day I feel more comfortable to shake my body, but it doesn't always come right away. I spend some time in the bathroom waiting. These days I even bought one of those stools to elevate my knees higher than my waist, they say it helps with pooping better (a potty stool, I think?). So far, I've liked it.
Who teaches us how to poop? Poop, sex, money, we don't talk much about these things... Phew, I can continue the day!
(By the way, I'm reading a book called Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body's Most Underrated Organ. Some day I'll gather the courage to explain why.)
Exercise. Just move around, right? No, it's not. I take off my pajamas, put on my sweat clothes, move the coffee table, open and lay out the yoga mat on the floor, start the app that tells me the sequence of movements, wait for the ad to pass, and only then do I finally do the exercises. Some of them I do very quickly, but for others I need to watch video tutorials so I can understand them. After I finish, I update the health apps with the recent data, check my sleep quality indicators (which are almost always telling me I sleep too late and short periods of deep slumber), put away the mat, put the table back in place, and now I'm late for the shower.
Shower. Just take off your clothes and wash yourself, right? I turn on the water heater, open the shower, wait for the water to warm up, take off my clothes, shower. Today is a day to use only the shampoo for curly hair, or should I also use the shampoo that cleanses better? If my hair is dry, I can also use the hydration mask... Decisions, decisions. I finish the shower, dry myself out, remove excess water from the bathroom walls, lay the towel on the balcony, put cream on my hair, use the hairdryer, use hairspray, wash my hands again. Along the way, I'm putting on clothes (the shirt before the hair cream, so as not to mess it up).
Breakfast. Whose idea was it to include fruits in the cereal bowl? I grab the banana, cut the banana, grab the strawberry, wash the strawberry, cut the strawberry, grab the blueberry, wash the blueberry, put the cereal, the nuts, the fruits and the yogurt in the bowl, mix everything, pour in the fiber supplement, mix a little more, eat eat eat, put the dirty dishes in the sink and rush to brush my teeth and finish fixing things because the clock tells me I'm almost late.
Before leaving, I put in the eye drops and apply the ointment to my eye. According to the doctor's recommendation, I need to wait five minutes between each medicine application. I wait only three and a half because I'm in a hurry and wonder if this is the best choice.
I run and arrive at school a minute before class starts. My Chinese classmate, next to whom I sat throughout the last trimester, puts his books on the empty seat I was aiming for, saving it for a friend of his. I go to another empty seat. Throughout the class, I hear his voice more often in three hours than I did in three months.
I spent the week with the song "Cotidiano" by Chico Buarque playing in my head.
It sings: Every day she does everything always the same, shakes me at six in the morning, smiles a punctual smile at me, and kisses me with minty mouth... Then the lyrics continue through the rest of the day, about how the woman is at home making sure house is all ready while the guy is out working and doing his manly things.
I think about this song and I'm bothered by the woman at home while the man goes out and do all the working. Nothing against it if that's a chosen life, but I don't believe it is for the majority of women who have lived or are living in this situation.
At the same time, I recognize myself in the search for predictability. I don't want my days to be all the same, but I have found value in regulating maintenance activities, those everyday things I need in order to keep life happening in a healthy way. Cleaning, exercising, eating, all of that takes up a piece of the same time that I have to generate income (working), learn new skills (like Japanese), write, socialize etc.
A few years ago, I wanted to streamline maintenance activities as much as possible to then enjoy what I thought was really important: production and leisure activities. Cooking and cleaning were obstacles to the life I wanted to live. I wanted to write, meet friends, gather groups, facilitate learning and creativity environments... What I didn't want was to waste time on "everyday trivialities."
Little by little, very little by little, I have begun to value these moments of caring for myself and for my people as something that is also productive and enjoyable. This is very zen of me: after cooking, eat; after eating, do the dishes.
Case in point, an example of this has been my return to cooking. Although it started as an attempt to save money and maintain more practical routines, I have rediscovered the pleasure of experimenting with flavors and discovering what each new ingredient adds or transforms when preparing a dish. I remembered the pleasure I feel when I smell the onion and garlic frying in the pan and the frustration that consumes me when the strawberries I bought two days ago start to mold.
Life is happening everywhere, all the time.
Conjunctivitis knocked me down midweek. I took exercise out of my morning routine because lowering my head was hurting too much and also skipped class on Wednesday. I spent the day at home groaning in pain and running from bright lights.
The next day I was already a little better, so I had lunch with a guy I met on Grindr, and we ended up coming to my house. I swear it was an innocent "I need to put my eye drops before we go to that store," but it resulted in good sex and I'm here thinking about how life gets sweeter when I'm open to meeting cool people (and not feeling like shit because I’m sick or busy or tired or all of that together).
I still want to find time to exercise during the week. Sex doesn't count, at least until I do as much as I would like - or what I think I would like, since not always the image I have of myself corresponds to the self that lives in reality.
I keep thinking I'm a youngling, but I don't have the energy or patience for most youthful things. Or maybe I do, I just don’t find them interesting enough – I’m talking to you, bars and clubs with your loud music and poorly lit ambiance.
Last week I went to an onsen for the first time, which are the hot springs here in Japan. It's so delicious to experience the contrast between the hot water and the cold outdoors. Seeing the naked men, I kept thinking of a text from
(in Portuguese, but surely worth a translated read):I can tell more about the onsen experience if anyone is curious. If so, just let me know.
Thanks for reading!
With love,
Tales
I don't even remember every detail of what I do in my usual morning routine as I'm usually deep in my thoughts or just not fully awake yet haha!
Interesting that it was your first time at the onsen and would love to know more about your thoughts of it.
I love going to one. It's quite relaxing and especially nice during cold seasons, and would try to go to one every time I'm in Japan. I feel it's very freeing though it took me a while to get comfortable being naked around others when I went for the first time years ago!
Olá, tudo bem? Não sei se é muito seguro não seguir o tempo do remédio, então não seria melhor aplicar no meio do caminho? Assim você não chega atrasado e coloca e deixe o remédio agir no horário certo. Já que você está gostando de cozinhar vou te recomendar uma das minhas receitas favoritas (Ela é doce então não sei se você vai gostar) além de ser bem econômica e fácil de preparar.
Bolo/Pudim de chocolate
- 4 ovos
- 1 xícara de achocolatado
- 1/4 de uma xícara de óleo
- 1/2 leite condensado (até menos se não for muito fã de doce)
- creme de leite ( É opcional, só vai deixar mais cremoso e render mais)
- uma colher de fermento em pó
Modo de preparo
-Separe as claras das gemas e bata as claras até chegar o ponto em neve. (Se você tiver liquidificador não a necessidade de fazer isso basta bater os ovos de uma vez)
- Acrescente os outros ingredientes exceto o fermento e bata muito bem
- Acrescente o fermento mas não bata só um pouquinho o suficiente para não deixar pelotas.
- Coloque numa forma untada (Use achocolatado se quiser deixar ainda melhor) e deixe o forno pré aquecer
- Coloque o bolo no forno a 160° por 30 min e pronto.
Por incrível que pareça não fica tão quente, mas mesmo assim sugiro esperar antes de tirar porque ficará feio se tirar de uma vez, mas se você for assim como eu e não liga para esse pequeno detalhe já pode provar 😋
- Acrescente as gemas e bata novamente
- Coloque tudo den