The Rituals of Comfort. By lady Verity

“Comfort is an expansive word. There is day comfort, night comfort, bed comfort, couch comfort and certainly kitchen comfort and it goes on.”

Comfort is my thing. Tactile c’est moi. Fuzzy. Soft. Fluffy. Velvety. Maybe because I’m a Taurus and essentially a primitive being, and if I could, I’d live in a cozy (centrally heated) cave strewn about with ethically sourced sheepskin or synthetic furs.

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For short-hand comfort, I start with my environment. First, the bedroom painted in the Farrow & Ball shade Pitch Black. Not funereal black but lovely and relaxing velvet black. White is too “on” and demanding. Shades of black surroundings give me comfort – and a reset to relaxation – probably because during formative years I had a girl crush on Morticia Addams. Her Addams Family crew was the original punk family before punk existed.

Comfort is an expansive word. There is day comfort, night comfort, bed comfort, couch comfort and certainly kitchen comfort and it goes on. Now that COVID keeps me home, the stresses accumulate as I sit in front of a computer screen for most of the day. You know the drill. By the end of the afternoon, it can easily feel like a compression band is tightening around my head. So after screen-day, my first order of comfort is destressing at the gym in our apartment building. Even if I have only 30 minutes, I'll jump on the elliptical machine, turn on BBC America news, and get my body moving out of sit-mode.

The best part comes next. Take a shower and wash away the stresses and detritus of the day! Some people love baths, but for me, baths are for dwelling. Showers are for resetting my mood. They’re an important comfort ritual. My shower is my home spa. Soaps and shower gels are key and I usually toggle between French and Italian products. I’ve moved away from my fave Italian soap, Santa Maria Sappine Fior d'Iris, to my French standby: Darphin Aromatic Shower Gel-Seaweed. It feels posh and makes worries melt away. A bit herbally floral, and certainly nothing seaweed about the fragrance, but like it would belong on a yacht moored at St. Barts. The scent alone makes me close my eyes and take a mindful breath. Back to tactile…towels and bath mats as thick as possible. And as for robes, one can’t underestimate the importance of a beautiful plush robe that signals: stress level now plummeting. I bought a divine Kenzo bathrobe a few years ago when I went shopping at the Galerie Lafayette department store in Nice, France. There’s something about French bathrobes. They kick ass. Mine is burgundy with giant splotches of navy blue roses. Slippers are key to the comforting ritual too. I wear black shearling Arizona Birkenstock sandals as slippers because I like a little arch support in slippers. The Birkenstocks are like house pets because they don’t go outside.

Lounging at the end of the day does involve time in the kitchen. As long as there’s chocolate in the house, I’m comforted. I order Green & Black’s “Panama” dark chocolate by the carton from vitacost.com. I’ll brew some chamomile tea and have a couple of squares of chocolate. Then inevitably go back and repeat. On a particularly bad day – let’s say when the meter moves to 9 on a scale of 10 – I go for Valley of the Dolls classic – a glass of white wine and pop an Ativan and then hang ten my way into feeling good.

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