After a busy day shopping for knick-knacks around town, I called my childhood friend, Toluwalase, to find out if I could pop in for a quick chit-chat before heading home. As was expected, she obliged me with the visit, and within ten minutes I was at her doorstep. It is never a dull moment with Lase (as I fondly referred to her) and this time I found her making Homemade pasta from scratch… I mean from the semolina flour. Astonished, I quipped “My dear African Italian, where did you pick this up from now? You never cease to amaze me.” In her quiet manner she responded, “Havilah, just watch me and after you admit to eating the best pasta and meatballs ever, I will tell you the secret.” I watched intently as she deftly rolled out the pasts into incredible shapes and couped them in an awesome tomato-based sauce with delicate meatballs. The aroma was mouth-watering. So, as we sat to our delicious dinner chased down with some white wine, I asked between mouthfuls “So can I get the gist behind this new Italian cuisine chef status? “

Lase laughed and cleared her throat, “During my last visit to our daughter, she gave me a lecture on the need to relax thoroughly and engage in some leisure and self-care. Thereafter, she lined up a series of activities to engage in during my short stay. The activities were varied but impactful. Relaxing yet productive and I daresay, I learnt quite a lot yet enjoyed myself doing so. You see, I attended a pasta-making class from an authentic Italian chef, and it was fun rolling the pasta from scratch and learning the tricks of the trade like the right quantity of salt and whether oil is required at all, etc.  I also went to a winery and did some wine tasting, learning the aging process and types of grapes used for the different classes of wines like rose, champagne, red wine, etc. How I wasn’t intoxicated that day is still a miracle but gladly, I was not driving,” she said with a laugh, and continued. ”I visited the theatre to watch a musical show and listen to an orchestra, went up the mountains admiring nature along the way, hmm, it probably was the time I was most at peace with myself and it helped me to appreciate God more.”

Her experience helped me to relive my own experience at a “sip and paint” recently where time sped past as I tried to put together some colours on canvas for my living room. My painting started off as a masquerade but ended up as an abstract painting but hey… who cares, I had fun doing it and the banters shared around the room by all who participated helped with networking. That day, I shared my High School Geography teacher’s cynicism with all in attendance. I had put in my best effort to draw the map of North America and this woman had squinted at the map and asked with all seriousness “Is this a yam”. The class had erupted in laughter and though initially pained, I later found humour in her comment.

As I left Lase, I realised that too often, we ladies get too involved with caring for parents, husbands, children, and a host of others, that we barely have time for ourselves. We fail to enjoy the simple things  of life. The lines of W. H. Davies in his poem entitled LEISURE kept creeping into my mind. “What is this life if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare…A poor life this is if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.” We do not take time out to breathe and enjoy nature – The beaches, the countryside, our tourist attractions, live shows, and newer leisure activities like ceramic/pottery painting and other art-related activities, karaoke and other musical activities, sporting activities, etc. The benefits of leisure are enormous, especially in a world so full of stress. We tend to forget that life is fleeting, and the reality comes home when I translate the years to days. 100 hundred years is merely 36500 days! How many of us have the grace to live for a hundred years? May the Lord help us to apply wisdom.

From experience, a little self-care or self-indulgence enables you to cope better with stress, you decompress to better prepare you for subsequent stressors.

Let us learn to take those little breaks, vacations, and trips and generally live life, life does not have to be one of drudgery.

Love

Havilah