Day 10 – Sunday, 5 April
It’s a beautiful day. The sun pierces through moving clouds, scattering them away, giving us a respite from the rain. The sunshine is like a breath of fresh air – we are sitting in the garden, on striped sun loungers covered by brightly-coloured beach towels. We may as well be at the beach today, except for the sandy shores and sea waves. Barefoot and shaded by the sun umbrella, I take my laptop and catch up on some writing, reflecting on the first week of lockdown, and what I’ve learned in the past days. I take a look at my novel progress, too, and finish this new wave of writing inspiration with a crossword puzzle, sunshine and plenty of vitamin D.
It’s about high noon when the smoke lifts over the Webber grill and my husband carefully lays the marinated porterhouse steaks on hot charcoals. I prepare a greek salad with avocado to balance the scales towards healthy eating during this time when we are at home craving mostly comfort foods.
Halfway through the quarantine, we have indulged in creamy soups, buttery ciabatta, moreish pasta and rice dishes. Luckily, most days start with a light breakfast or brunch. I don’t feel a bit guilty, and I notice my body feels better, too, when I listen to it and its needs. Working from home, we can better organise our time to include healthy meals and snack breaks instead of depriving ourselves of essential nutrients. Cooking at home from scratch also means less or no added sugars, modified ingredients and harmful additives.
‘Self-care’ is probably the best thing to come out of this enforced lockdown. This is the perfect time to take a good look at our lives and ask what and who is important to us, and the changes we can make to build a happy and balanced life. We now have the time to make space in our homes for calm, quiet, simplicity and well-being. Use this time well to reevaluate your life and focus on the people and things that matter the most to you.
In recent days, a comment kept popping up in my social news feed, advocating for a new ‘normal,’ a simpler life to return to after an era of busy-ness, excess and consumption.
“In the rush to return to normal, use this time to consider which parts of normal are worth rushing back to.”
Or, in other words, taken from another page,
“Nothing should go back to normal. Normal wasn’t working.”
Perhaps this quarantine is the blessing in disguise we all need to forge a new way of living after the worse is over.
Note: I follow quite a few social pages and websites that focus on positive thinking, mindfulness, well-being topics, minimalism, slow and intentional living. These have excellent resources and articles that I highly recommend if you want to cultivate a more positive and happy frame of mind. Here are my absolute favourites:
- becoming minimalist
- Becoming UnBusy
- Simplify
- Life Simplified
- Soulcation
- Barefoot Five
- Simple Slow Lovely
- A Life in Progress
- Abundant Life with Less
- The Life on Purpose Movement.
Stay home, stay safe, take care, and enjoy!