Tag: reading

Book Review: Exit West

Lauren5 Comments

I finished this book last night and wasn’t sure what to make of it.  It is billed as the story of two young people, Saeed and Nadia, who fall in love just as their city erupts into civil war and daily life becomes increasingly violent, unpredictable and unsafe.  Rumors of doors that lead straight to faraway places start to circulate, then prove to be real when Saeed and Nadia step through one.  To me, it sounded like magical realism, but that turned out not to be entirely true.

Yes, walking through a door and finding yourself in Greece or London or Marin County gives off some fantasy vibes, but this book is so much more about the brutality of life as a refugee than it is about magic doors.  These doors are purely a plot device that allow author Mohsin Hamid to skip over the journey from one country to another and focus more on what happens to and between Saeed and Nadia when their surroundings change.

The magic of this book is how real it is.  It is fixed in real locations (well, except for their home country, which is never named) and depicts real life so clearly.  Saeed and Nadia go to school, they eat together in cafés, they have jobs, they scroll through social media and it’s impossible not to relate to all of this or to imagine yourself dealing with what they deal with.

I struggle to decide if this novel is a commentary on refugees and the migrant experience or a love story, but in the end, I guess it doesn’t have to be one or the other.  I loved how subtle this book was.  It is moving in a quiet way and the eventual break-up between Saeed and Nadia is both heartbreaking and expected.  Despite the relative sadness of this book, it ends on a somewhat optimistic note and I really appreciated that.  In the end though, I still feel like I have a lot to think about on this one.

What are you reading now?

Healthy Habits in January

Lauren4 Comments

Self-care is such a buzz word right now.  It sounds simple and it sounds nice.  Weekly manicures can be justified as a “treat yo’ self” moment and buying new clothes because it’s what your heart wants and all that.  Except sometimes that stuff doesn’t feel good to me and sometimes self-care is more like not getting that manicure because it’s not in your budget and giving yourself a manicure at home can feel good too.  I guess what I’m saying is that self-care can be a case-by-case experience that includes doing what you want when you want but also doing what you should because you need to.

I’m still very much figuring this balance out for myself but over the course of January, I felt like I grabbed a hold of some healthy habits that felt like self-care in their truest form and while I’m not naive enough to think they’re permanent fixtures in my life from now on — I’ve come to realize the pace/pattern of my life changes every time we enter a new season — I want to acknowledge them here at least.

Weekly At-Home Manicures

Good quality nail polish isn’t exactly cheap but it is cheaper to invest in a few (that you can rotate through), than it is to go to the nail salon every couple of weeks.  I’ve been finding a few minutes every Saturday or Sunday to swipe on a fresh coat and my nail strength/overall health seems just as good as when I regularly go to the salon but at a fraction of the cost.

Really Reading

I thought I read a decent amount but I realized the time I spent scrolling my phone or mindlessly watching TV was taking up a lot of what could have been even more reading time.  So instead of getting into bed and spending 20 minutes on Twitter then 10 minutes reading, I just put my phone down and get so much more book time.  It feels like a life revelation and it also feels like the best!

Seeing a Therapist

I’d been wanting to do this for so long.  Not for any reason in particular but just because I’d generally been feeling less in control of my emotions and more prone to losing it (I’ll be honest, I feel like political anxiety was the real tipping point), so I jumped into therapy and guys, I LOVE IT!  Every time I leave my therapist’s office, I feel euphoric and like I might actually be okay 🙂

Hot Power Vinyasa

At the end of the year, I redeemed a free week of yoga at a new studio and sort of fell in love with the Wednesday night hot yoga class.  So I bought an unlimited month and went every single Wednesday in January.  I got so happy and excited every time I signed up.  Going to a hot and sweaty yoga class in the dead of winter might just be the best feeling ever.  I’m legitimately sad that my month has come to an end.

NOT Doing All the Things

We are a society that values productivity and working, working, working and it is so ingrained in my head that I have to be on top of things and always be put together so I’d get home and literally not be able to sit down and chill.  Cut to me feeling exhausted and overwhelmed all the time.  Not that I don’t still sometimes feel like that or try to fit too many things in but over all I feel like I’ve gotten way better at this.  I stopped doing things like trying to go to the gym and cook dinner in the same night or brew kombucha, make granola and watch two hour-long episodes of some show.  Sometimes I don’t have time to make the bed or pick my clothes up off the floor before I leave for work and I’m learning to be okay with it.

Some January moments that didn’t make the blog cut:

New calendar, who dis? // A lentil lunch salad // Staring into the face of an angel // Pasta dough cross-cut // Snow on a Monday // Tofu and veg but mostly a creamy hemp sauce // Can’t resist a Greek salad // Feet up or bust // Tuesday sunrise ♥