5 Things I Learned This Week

1. September is weird for everyone, no matter what age you are. Even if you’re not in school, it feels like summer's end spells the end of fun. Everyone seems to have a bit of the September blues (except for everyone on social media in the South of France, Italy or Portugal). There’s also a weird anxiety in the air that you didn’t do enough summer. You didn’t swim in enough water, you didn’t spend enough time outside, did you eat enough peaches? And soon it will all be over. Equally, there is a back-to-school feel with renewed energy: time to get that project done. There is always a bittersweetness to summer’s end, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop feeling that way. 

2. I learned that the interest I once had in taking a photo every time my blood is taken has waned. It was probably boring to begin with, but at the beginning of my patienthood I couldn’t believe how many vials of my blood would be filled on a weekly and sometimes daily basis. It’s no longer weekly, and I no longer care to document it. But it would be cool if I take a picture every time until I’m 80 and then do a TikTok video (if TikTok and humanity are still alive then) charting the ageing of my arm. Would you pay good money to watch that film?

3. There is immense value in routine. I knew for sure I was not well this summer when I was moving around so much — I could never ground myself, I just kept packing bags every week. Though I did have a lot of fun this summer, I also need a routine to feel sane. Don’t we all? It’s never felt better to fill jars with things I plan to drink or eat, cook meals for myself and others and make a daily drink, and drink it in the same place. It’s never felt better to build my altar and sit at it every day. So maybe that suspended moment of shaky ground happened to help me value routine and no longer romanticize the nomadic life. 

4. I’ve been deepening my nutrition knowledge this year with the Academy of Healing Nutrition, getting another (yes, another) certification as a holistic nutrition coach. One of our classes this summer was about fermentation. I made both a Fermented Tomato Bruschetta and the Beet Kvass in the past two weeks, and the jury’s out on the fermented tomatoes, but I am REALLY into this beet kvass. Easy to make, not as easy to get down you. TBC if I recommend either of them. I do, on the other hand, recommend eating fermented food as a general rule.

5. I never knew how great it would feel to have a years-long hairdresser. I met Liv before I moved to London in 2018 and after a bad haircut on Portobello that year I decided she was the only person allowed to cut my hair. I also realized that for the first 30 years of my life I was going to hairdressers who had no idea how to cut curly hair and did not have any sort of reverence for the curl. They’d roll their eyes after the 47th minute of blow drying my hair stick straight and inevitably say “Wow, your hair is really thick.” Liv and I are not friends, though this week (when I got my haircut, duh) she mentioned she was getting drinks with a client turned friend that evening. I wondered “could that ever be us Liv?” But I think I want to keep the relaysh strictly strand to strand for now.