How come I am about to praise the virtues of exercise, writing as a guest of Rancho La Puerta? I was the kind of girl in high school who would look for any excuse NOT to attend Sports (PE) class, especially when the dreaded 12-min long Cooper Test was on the agenda… So what exactly happened to that girl? Why is she writing a blog about completing her first marathon, age 41, in 4 hours…and 35 seconds? And why is she also checking out Running Retreats at Rancho La Puerta, voted Best Destination Spa in the world for many years running?
I often hear my associations of ideas are off-beat or décalé (or off-the-wall, depending on how polite you are :-). So let me throw you at the cross between yoga, running and art and see what you think! To me, breathing is at this intersection on my grid – often underestimated, so underrated yet ESSENTIAL! I practice yoga 3 times a week, no matter what. I am also half way through my marathon training program. So let’s just say I have learnt to pay attention to breathing because my life (an your life) depends on it 🙂 There is a meditative quality to breathing that helps me get through the discomfort of a crescent lunge on my weaker side or the pain that usually comes without a fail after running 17 miles. I made breathing a life tool and a habit but like most things, I refused to make it bland. My wonderful yoga teacher Karoll B. uses the visualisation of a ball of color that I can match with my mood or my needs of the day. It works wonders and allows me to power through most days! So much so that I found myself thinking of my yoga practice, breathing and […]
Hokusai’s Great Wave off Kanagawa (1830) has been on my mind a lot recently. As a print, it’s widely owned by museums around the world as about 5000 copies would have been made from the original color woodblock. Yet, it’s rarely displayed because prolonged exposure to light can too easily fade its contrasting Prussian blue and indigo. It’s so iconic and recognizable but most of us would know it from cheap reproductions, so how closely have you looked at its many subtle variations? The Great Wave is an unmistakably Japanese image, charged with the uncertainty that Japan would have faced as it was forced out of its self-imposed 200 years of isolationism by the battleships of US Commodore Perry. Fast forward to our daily dose of news from the world and The Great Wave keeps on resonating, bringing to mind the force experienced in the surf as one wave retreats and the next one crests. Processing my feelings through the filter of Art helps me put things in perspective. Think about it. When you’re looking at the Great Wave, as viewer you are also in a boat! And here, Hokusai provides a canvas of universal appeal for everybody to lay down their big (or small) fears […]
The days are a bit colder, it’s winter almost everywhere…Can you feel it too? I thought I’d share my vaccine against life becoming a grisaille, one of those melancholic artworks exclusively in shades of grey. So today, I give you…COLORS. Yes. Tried and tested, add colors to your outfit, pop some colorful jewelry and it will fight the gloom and lift your spirits…People are bound to notice and comment on it so you get to share the joy! Ta da! One area I really cannot live without colors is when I cook. My epiphany was when I wondered how I could make my son ingest something other than white food and stumbled on an Ottolenghi cook book. My husband and I used to live around the corner from his first deli in London. Such fond memories of delicious and colorful food well before Ottolenghi became the acclaimed chef he so deserves to be. His original deli was all white walls to let the colors and unusual combinations of his scrumptious Mediterranean food work their magic. First on your eyes, then your taste buds. Pomegranates shining like rubies in his grain salads, the classic green and red contrast revisited with green beans, brocoli, red chili and poppy seeds… In a nutshell, cooking […]