mnmlist just posted a list of 10 essential things. It’s his take on those lists they do in magazine with famous personage where they get them to list consumerables they just can’t live without.
I avoid these kind of lists (the consumerable ones) as I don’t so much like consuming. This is probably disappointing for the reader. That said, I’ve got one coming up: “what’s inside my beautyf bag”…but I’m doing it so I can highlight organic options…does this make it OK? In my head it does.
My list. I had to make it a 13-pointer:
1. What I wear: the same thing over and over. I have a pair of green American Apparel shorts I’ve had for six years and I’ve wear them 4-5 times a week – for sport stuff, but also pretty much all weekend. I like the simplicity of having a ‘thing’ that works.
2. What I eat: kale… in juice, for breakfast (with a poached egg on top), in soups. If I’ve been a bit off-kilter, the green stuff gives me my energy back.
3. How I hydrate: Tea. In the morning I drink a stack of green tea (I make one pot and keep topping it up with hot water). Then I move to herbal. I make my own concoctions from herbs I buy at the health food shop and make it up in big coffee plungers and sip on it all day. My favourite right now: dandelion root (unroasted), cinnamon buds, licorice root, ginger root. When I’m feeling toxic I drink a lot of dandelion root (both roasted and unroasted; unroasted is better for you). The bad stuff just flushes out. Literally. (The French call the root pis en lit…piss in bed cos it makes you just want to go and go).
4. My favourite thing to do when I’m a bit flat: hang out in Ariel book shop in Sydney for an hour, just looking at covers and watching interested, interesting people.
5. My other favourite thing to do when I’m a bit flat: get acupuncture. It balances me like no other. I see Daniel at The Pain Relief Clinic.
6. My favourite smell: white waxy flowers – daphne, magnolia, gardenia and jasmine. I love Sydney in summer at night, when the jasmine comes out…when I ride through the suburbs it smells like happiness.
7. My essential online aid: instapaper.
8. What I do for fun: go for bush jogs. I have a ritual. On weekends I head to a National Park and, with a map and my key stuffed down my bra top, and wearing my read cap and green shorts and a bit of sunscreen, I jog through the bush. Very slowly. Slow enough to smell and see things. But with a momentum. And no carry-on clutter (water bottles, snacks etc). I LOVE to create a journey out of it…catch the train from Central up the coast (I buy a tea and the Saturday newspaper and zone out). Bush jog with just my map and key. Train home. Eat MASSIVE lunch.
9. How I feel better: salt water – floating in it. I float and stare at the sky and I reckon it works some crazy magic.
10. What nourishes me: really good chats. You have to set them up sometimes. Like, book in a chat with a friend. Not a dinner. A chat. Or you have to take responsibility at social functions to extract a good chat from someone who might’ve been OK just to flitter with small talk all night.
11. What also nourishes me: yoga. It rinses out all my angst and grounds me and makes me a nicer person. I do a vinyasa style because I like the flow it instills in me.
12. My guilty pleasure: red wine. It tastes like the earth and it fills me up… not like food does, but somehow it penetrates my cells and gives them an experience that just feels pleasantly complete. I can’t drink much of it…one glass in a session. So I drink it from a nice glass.
13. My favourite feelings: being stroked on the inside of my arm, plane turbulence (it feels exciting), sun on my face, running in the rain.
What’s on your essential list?
