Off to Paris
(Photo courtesy of Stephan Edelbroich)
This Week In Review
Photo: picnic lunch at Hong Kong Park with an old friend. Only five minutes from my office but feels a world away.
Training: currently undergoing a crash course. My Beijing Half Marathon is next weekend!
Anticipating: the summer season has officially arrived. Cue boat trips and bikinis, beach barbecues and Coronas, holidays with tan lines.
iPod: Calvin Harris, yes please.
Firefox: The Maturation of Mark Zuckerberg, New York Magazine. Good read.
Kindle: The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
Pondering: my insomnia. It seems like I am able to fall sleep everywhere else except for where I am supposed to be asleep. I am nearly narcoleptic on friend’s couches, in the movie theatre, on a boat…but am boldly rejected by my own bed.
Product: Kiehl’s Calendula Flower Toner. I have been a die-hard Kiehl’s fan this year, as their products have finally controlled and reduced my breakouts, which I have been battling for years. Years! This toner is my current favourite, as the sauna-like weather in Hong Kong means that grime and pollution are at epic levels.
Eats: Cold soba noodles with soft-boiled Okinawa egg from Suzuki Cafe; endless handfuls of Salted Kettle Chips on a boat; lamb and carrot cake at my favourite new gastropub Harrington’s, Jelly Belly Sports Beans consumed on long runs
Most ridiculous/obnoxious Hong Kong moment: ordering the Ava-tini, the signature cocktail at AVA Restaurant in Hotel Panorama. Description as follows: “Delivered smoking to the table, the AVA-tini is a girl’s best friend that looks just as pretty as it tastes. The drink features Absolut mandarin, Belvedere raspberry and Malibu, shaken with cranberry juice and fresh lime, which is then stir-chilled with LN2 (liquid nitrogen) to create a dramatic bubbling and smoky effect. Raspberries and mint leaves on a bed of ice help keep the unconventional martini glass chilled.”
I am demanding.
Work, training, family, friends… There is not one area of my life that I don’t constantly judge and push myself.
This includes happiness. I am blessed to live a life of abundance. When caught in a down moment, I often get frustrated with myself for acting so silly, when I actually have so much to be thankful for.
In this quest for joy, I sometimes forget that just one day of unreserved happiness can be enough to fulfill me.
In this vein, today I was happy.
This is what I was smiling about:
- The anticipation of being reunited with my wonderful college girlfriends soon. Girls, it’s been too long and I have missed you.
- A sweet email from my physio after a long overdue appointment with him to thank me - thank ME! - for reaching out to him for a sports massage and a catch up
- Red wine and chocolate cake at dinner
- Finalizing my travels over the next two months. Beijing. Paris. Nice. Toronto. New York. Is this really my life?
- An on-the-fly lunch with a new found friend at work
- Laughing. Today. All the time.
- The best messages from my Tumblr friends
This is my love for books, written perfectly.
Used bookstores are one of my favorite things because you can find all the old people you’ve been there.
The Haunted Bookshop in Tohono Chul Park means I am 2, my first playground of sorts; Adventures of Tom Sawyer is my dad reading to me in their big white bed, doing a deeper voice for Jim; a brittle copy of Franny and Zooey means I am 10 and I am falling in love with all his favorite books, safe in being his creative child; a hard, thick Michener novel is the very top shelf of our living room bookshelf; Needful Things is reading on the carpeted floor of the middle school library, too scared to bring a Stephen King novel home; Susan Minot means I am 17, writing bad poetry on strips of notebook paper and holding them to a candle’s flame; Memoirs of a Geisha is a drafty February in my Italian apartment, 19, lonely and lost, reading all the novels left behind by past travelers; Junot Diaz is sinking into steaming bathwater and crying over an unfixable love; History of Love means I am 27, sharing a windowless stateroom on the Alaskan Ocean; Richard Siken’s poetry is a small gift to a new man who would become the only man, a tiny green spear of me pushing up through the rubble, an offering that things are sometimes dark but also beautiful.
Running in the rain is one of my favourite things to do.
It doesn’t solve any problems but it certainly pauses them for long enough for me to feel like myself again.
Today, the skies opened up in the middle of my run.
The rain was torrential. I was soaked to the bone, my feet were splashing my shoes, and I could barely see.
I felt free.
