The Fourth: Self Lovin'

Yesterday, Thanksgiving, was quite a party. Pies, puddings, casseroles, mashes, 'n' salads all graced my plate ...many times! The family graced my home, music graced our ears, and even a (very) little bit of whiskey graced my lips. For ten hours I lived it up with the people I cherish most in the world but see more seldom than the postman. A strange experience to say the least.
Today, Black Friday, was a time to sit, to be quiet, and to read. There is a history test Monday on the Civil War and, until this morning, a thick layer of dust on my textbook. Weary-eyed, tired and filled with pounds of food I was not a pretty sight to behold. So I turned to my new favorite remedy...
Let me start by saying my father is a chemist. I grew up watching him mix substances I wasn't allowed to touch with names I couldn't pronounce. I remember sneaking off to the kitchen, getting out anything I could reach from the cabinets and reproducing all those experiments on my own. It's stuck with me and to this day few things are comparable to the joy of mixing up strange potions with stuff in the fridge.
A few spoons of Malt-O-Meal, an equal amount of granulated sugar, a spoonful of coffee grounds a dash of milk and swish of vanilla extract - TaDa! A body scrub that smells like a latte and feels expensive. I heard once that a dip in the sea is good for the skin. In goes a cup of salt to my bath. Somewhere I read a palm full of olive oil does hair good; I do that too and when I'm out I use the left over sour cream for the salad dressing to slather on my face!
Pampering yourself is divine. Really I try to meditate while scrubbing off dead layers of skin and getting the dirt from my toenails. Your body is your temple, your center, the one thing you can't take off. If you loose your mind body connection everything else suffers. In the past few months I've gained a new respect for taking time out to reconnect with yourself through your body. The Bacchae no doubt is the reason for this shift in perspective. I'm not one to be religious; I haven't been in years and years. To fulfil the demands of the role I absolutely had to find the spiritual side of my life, and there it be. Respect for one's mind is a thinking thing, naturally, but respect for one's body requires an abandonment of the sensible and a surrender to the sensual, much like religion. [wow what a convoluted sentence...] All of that is probably really simple for spiritual people to understand. It's in the definition of spiritual. I'm getting there...
I'm glad to have had the opportunity to feel these things and to find a fun way to get there. My hair smells awesome.