A holiday. For the first three days I am so ill that I think the heating’s broken at night, as I talk and toss and tear at my skin to make sense of where I am and who’s with me in the hot air and dizziness. I ride down water park rapids with our wild otter children in my waking hours and feel my legs and arms being pushed by currents hours later, back in bed, dry and still.
I reread Lucy Wadham’s The Secret Life of France, and marvel yet again how much sense it makes, and how much it explains my mother and her family, and the light years that yawned between her and my Scottish Protestant father. As ever, anything French makes me think about the levels of grooming la femme française is assumed to engage in as her duty as a woman. I think about how much I love face creams and washes, Liz Earle cleansers and Clarins serums, Eight Hour Cream and REN exfoliators, Bobbi Brown eyeliners and NARS blushers, Revlon lip crayons and Rimmel nail polish. I love the packaging, the smells, the rituals. But the trouble is, I can’t think where in my day I would find five minutes to groom more than the very bare minimum I do. In our seven-day break I brush my hair three times, and put mascara on twice. I want to be better groomed, I really do. Blow outs and skin care and classic, well-made clothes. But when it comes to the end of each day, I don’t know what I could ditch to make space for even washing my face. Less reading? Less work? Less sleep?
Inconceivable.