Beauty Under Siege: My Rituals to Stay Focused

small anchors for difficult days

I typed “rituals how to stay…” into the search bar, but before I even reached the “f” of focused, my phone suggested “alive.” Rituals to stay alive. It says something about the atmosphere around me when even my phone is panicking.

I am not, but staying focused became my daily challenge.

Part of it is the relentless news stream from Ukraine. My friend in Dnipro lost her apartment after a recent bombardment. Another friend’s business burned to the ground. Kyiv’s Children’s Art School, which I support with supplies, still does not have proper equipment for its bombshelter. Then came the ballistic missile attack in Ternopil. Two residential buildings were wiped out and people who had been sleeping peacefully were buried under the rubble. Ternopil is practically a step from the EU border, and such a massive attack had not happened there since the start of the war.
My friend, perfumer Sofiya Dolna, lives and works there. So all of it feels painfully close.

In moments like these, staying focused on work, writing, teaching, or even simple routines becomes difficult. The only activity I can sustain consistently is doom-scrolling. Hence my phone’s alarmist prompts.

I also know from bitter experience that losing the thread of daily life can unravel you quickly. In the end, I gave up asking Google for help and turned to friends and readers. Their suggestions ranged from broad (sports, gardening, outside walks) to wonderfully specific (baroque music, Korean dramas, eating a box of chocolate in one go). Reading what keeps others steady reminded me of the rituals that anchor me.

Airplane Mode

A Belgian internet provider put up a poster across from my house: “un internet fiable partout chez vous,” which I, a slight dyslexic, kept reading for weeks as “faible.” Weak internet everywhere in your home. It seemed like an entirely reasonable proposition to me.

The most effective ritual I have for staying focused is simply switching my phone to airplane mode. On days when I manage not to turn it on, I feel like my usual self again. Not always practical, but worth practicing whenever I can.

Tea

I once went to pick tea in Taiwan during a typhoon. That is how much I love tea. Drinking it, studying it, reading about it. All of it. Tea is my grounding element.

My morning ritual is simple but sensory. I warm a teapot, add dry leaves, close the lid, shake it gently, then open it and inhale the warm fragrance. After the first brew, I smell the underside of the lid again. I smell the warm leaves. I note the change in aroma.

This morning I’m drinking Taiwanese Spring Pear Oolong, and it smells of the early days of spring when the snow is melting around snowdrops. Try this method even with the inexpensive supermarket blend, and you’ll see that even the simplest teas reveal unexpected facets smelled at different intervals.

Calligraphy / Handwriting

Calling my Chinese handwriting “calligraphy” would be generous. Still, I practice by writing characters from memory, twenty or thirty repetitions of each. An ink pen and a notebook are enough. Many of my perfume formulas begin as handwritten notes. The pace of handwriting steadies me.

Osmanthus-Scented Products

A very specific ritual, I admit. I love Japanese osmanthus-scented lotions and incense. Brand does not matter. They all smell similar: fresh apricot with a green tea twist. Osmanthus bath salts are especially lovely. The incense from Kunjudo (above) smells like blooming osmanthus when unlit, so I stash these leaves among my sweaters and scarves. The scent of osmanthus reminds of Ukrainian apricot preserves and I find it soothing.

Haiku

When my mind is spinning, I cannot focus on books. Before the war, I read more than 150 a year. Now I manage only a fraction of that. I miss the feeling of entering another world.

Haiku gives me that escape in the most economical form. Basho, Issa, Busson. Three lines and suddenly there is a window into a different space. Sometimes I write them.

Sunlight’s soft ballet
Through lace of old curtains—
glimpses of empty streets.
Poltava, 2024

Please share your own rituals or the practices that help you stay steady. Your suggestions might be exactly what someone else needs today. They might also lift my algorithm out of its current despair, because right now it is recommending a Ukrainian song with the lyrics “I will go and drown myself in a deep river.”

All photos in this post are mine.