The Quiet Return — July 2026

Summer is the season to sleep in. Really sleep in. The moment you wake up on time because that’s what your body knows, then the instant realization that you don’t have to. The relief that follows as you burrow deeper beneath the covers. That’s Summer.

Leo season. Imagine the mighty lion languishing beneath the shade, proudly yawning and stretching, unembarrassed to reveal his softness. Content to be still. To be a sloth when necessary. Maybe that's why I've always loved this season. I'm a Leo too.

Succulent mango season.

This is Summer.

Sleep. Sleep some more. Lounge. Stretch. Let your stomach hang out. Float in the water. Buy the flowers. Feast on ripe fruit. Drench your body with God’s light.

This is Summer.

The pages that follow are my own attempt to honor the season. Some are stories. Some are reflections. Some are conversations about healing, food, home, and becoming. None of them asks you to hurry. Read one today. Save another for August. This publication was never meant to be consumed. It was meant to be kept.

-Dana

I don’t know exactly when the switch happened.

Somewhere in my late twenties, I think.

But somewhere along the way, I stopped pretending that I looked forward to beach summers.

Every June, as soon as schools let out and everyone around me started talking about turquoise water, white linen dresses, beach clubs, and weekends by the sea, I realized my mind was somewhere completely different.

Not on a beach.

In London.

I can go an entire summer without seeing the sea and never feel like I’ve missed anything.

I don’t crave it.

I don’t count the days until I can sink my feet into the sand.

I’ve never understood why everyone seems to believe summer has to happen beside water.

But a summer without London?

That feels impossible.

Like skipping something my soul depends on.

I’ve stopped trying to explain it to people.

I simply tell them that London is my summer medicine.

The longer I stay, the better I feel.

For years, I thought it was simply the walking.

When you live in a city like Cairo, walking isn’t something you casually do. You walk from your front door to your car. From the car to a restaurant. From the restaurant back to the car. Walking for the sake of walking barely exists.

So arriving in London, stepping outside the hotel, and knowing I could spend the next four or five hours entirely on foot always felt revolutionary and exhilarating.

I remember reading somewhere that our brains work differently when we walk.

That ideas untangle themselves.

That conversation becomes easier.

That emotions settle.

Whether or not the science is true, I know my own body well enough to recognize what happens after a few days in London.

I walk.

And then I walk some more.

Not because I’m trying to close my rings.

Not because the Health App on my phone congratulates me.

Not because I need ten thousand steps.

I walk because, somewhere around the second hour, something shifts.

The thoughts that have been sitting just beyond my reach somehow find their way back to me.

Ideas buried beneath weeks of mental clutter bubble to the surface.

Problems untangle.

Sentences I’ve been searching for suddenly appear.

My shoulders soften.

My breathing slows.

Twenty thousand steps later, I don’t come back exhausted.

Achy, maybe.

But never exhausted.

I come back feeling more like myself.

This trip, though, I realized walking wasn’t the whole story.

It was the cadence.

The rhythm.

The pace at which my days unfolded.

Or perhaps more accurately...

the lack of pace.

This was the first trip my husband and I had ever taken without trying to accomplish anything.

No color-coded list of restaurants.

No museum tickets booked weeks in advance.

No “while we’re here we have to...”

No pressure to squeeze every possible experience into seven days.

We woke up whenever we woke up.

Sometimes we’d open the curtains, look outside, and climb back into bed.

Sometimes we’d lie there talking.

Sometimes one of us would drift back to sleep while the other scrolled through the news or read a few pages of a book.

We rarely left the hotel before noon.

If you’d told me ten years ago that I’d sleep in while in London, I would have laughed.

Sleep in?

In London?

Why would anyone willingly waste precious hours indoors when one of the greatest cities in the world was waiting outside?

Back then we treated London like a challenge.

How many museums could we fit into one day?

How many neighborhoods?

How many restaurants?

How many shops?

Every hour had to count.

Every meal had to be memorable.

Every day had to justify the trip.

This year, something changed.

Or perhaps...

I had.

London no longer feels like somewhere I’m trying to conquer.

It feels like somewhere I return.

Like home.

We’d been enough times that I no longer felt responsible for seeing London.

I wasn’t trying to “do London.”

I was simply living in it for a week.

There’s a difference.

Home doesn’t require novelty.

You don’t wake up in your own house wondering what remarkable thing you’ll do today.

Sometimes home is coffee.

A walk.

Reading for an hour.

Wandering into the same café you’ve visited three days in a row because they already know your order.

Perhaps familiarity isn’t the enemy of travel.

Perhaps it’s the reward for returning often enough.

It struck me that this might actually be what healing feels like.

Not doing more.

Not squeezing more life into a day.

But finally living at a pace your nervous system has been asking for all along.

Perhaps that’s why this trip felt different.

London itself seemed calmer.

For July, it wasn’t nearly as crowded as I expected.

The pavements felt easier.

The cafés quieter.

The parks fuller.

And because there was nowhere we absolutely had to be, we made one simple decision.

We would walk.

Everywhere.

Not one Tube.

Not one bus.

Not one Uber.

If somewhere was an hour away...

we walked.

If dinner was forty-five minutes in the opposite direction...

we walked again.

If we wanted coffee after dinner...

another walk.

Step after step.

Street after street.

Without ever discussing it, we’d fallen into the same rhythm.

Sometimes we’d talk for half an hour without stopping.

Sometimes we’d walk in complete silence.

Not uncomfortable silence.

Companionable silence.

The kind that only happens when nobody feels responsible for filling the space.

One evening we wandered through Mayfair just after eight.

The streets were busy.

Shops were getting ready to close.

Traffic moved steadily through the narrow streets.

And yet, with sunset still almost two hours away, there wasn’t the feeling that the city was winding down.

Quite the opposite.

There was excitement in the air.

As though the day still had possibilities.

As though nobody was in a hurry to call it over.

You could still linger over dinner.

You could still walk somewhere unexpected.

You could still decide, on a whim, to sit outside with a glass of wine or wander through another neighborhood before heading home.

The day hadn’t finished with you yet.

We crossed Hyde Park almost every day.

It was alive in the way only parks can be on long summer evenings.

Joggers.

Walkers.

Football matches unfolding on one patch of grass.

Softball games on another.

Picnics scattered everywhere.

Children still running as though bedtime belonged to someone else.

A group of friends laughing through what appeared to be a fiercely competitive egg-and-spoon race.

And, of course, couples tucked beneath nearly every other tree, wrapped around one another and seemingly oblivious to the thousands of people walking past.

We walked through all of it.

Day after day.

Just the two of us.

We rarely stopped.

Except for the flowers.

The only thing that regularly interrupted our rhythm was a flower bed.

My husband has the green thumb in our family, and every few minutes he’d stop to photograph another planting combination, another border, another idea to recreate at home.

I’d wait patiently beside him, admiring the hydrangeas that seemed to grow effortlessly beneath London’s soft summer skies.

Every year I fall in love with them all over again.

Every summer I convince myself they might somehow work in Cairo.

Every summer I remember they’ll never, ever survive Cairo.

I sigh anyway.

What struck me afterwards was what we weren’t carrying.

No shopping bags.

No boxes.

No purchases balanced awkwardly between our hands.

Have you ever been to London...or anywhere…

and not shopped?

I hadn’t.

Not once.

Usually, shopping dictates the day without us even noticing.

If we’re walking to Chelsea and planning to buy something, then eventually we’ll have to stop walking.

We’ll need an Uber or a bus back.

After all, you can only carry shopping bags for so long.

But if you don’t shop...

that entire calculation disappears.

Because it isn’t just shopping.

It’s the invisible planning.

Where to leave the bags.

How much can we carry?

Should we come back later?

Will the shops still be open?

Without shopping...

all of that disappears.

You simply keep walking.

And walking.

And walking.

It made me wonder how much invisible weight we carry without realizing it.

Not just shopping bags.

Expectations.

Plans.

Decisions.

The constant question of what comes next.

I’ve often joked about retail therapy.

Like many women, I’ve enjoyed the little rush of bringing something home.

But somewhere along this trip another question surfaced.

Can I heal without retail therapy?

The answer, it turns out, was never really in doubt.

Yes.

I just hadn’t given myself the chance to find out.

The same thing happened with food.

Our children thought we’d lost our minds.

“You’re in one of the greatest food cities in the world.”

“You have to eat here.”

“Book this place before it fills up.”

“Don’t miss this restaurant.”

Every recommendation came with the same urgency.

As though we’d somehow waste the trip if we didn’t optimize every meal.

Years ago I probably would have.

This year...

we booked nothing.

We ate when we were hungry.

Wherever we happened to be.

Sometimes we’d stop because a place looked inviting.

Sometimes we’d keep walking.

Sometimes we’d return to somewhere we’d already eaten simply because we felt like it.

Indian again tonight?

Of course.

Pastries in the middle of the afternoon?

Absolutely.

Coffee with biscotti.

A brioche sandwich because it looked good.

Fish and chips because...

well...

we were in England.

There was no balancing yesterday’s dinner with today’s lunch.

No mental accounting.

No,

“We ate too much yesterday, so let’s eat light today.”

No guilt.

No compensation.

Just appetite.

And trust.

Perhaps that’s another thing healing has given me.

Food no longer follows me around all day asking to be managed.

It simply becomes part of the day.

I always leave London feeling like it wasn’t enough.

Because it never is.

Leaving has never been easy for me.

It still isn’t.

For years, I’d come home feeling almost bereft.

As though I’d left the best version of myself behind.

I even came to recognize the feeling enough to give it a name:

The Post-London Recovery.

It still happens.

Only now, it doesn’t last quite as long.

Not because I love London any less.

If anything, I love it more.

But I’ve learned to hold onto what the city gives me.

Not souvenirs.

Not shopping bags.

Not photographs.

Something much harder to explain.

A feeling.

A steadiness.

A nervous system that finally remembers what it feels like not to be braced against the world.

I can’t stay in London forever.

Life is in Cairo.

My family is here.

My work is here.

My home is here.

But somewhere between the long walks, the slower mornings, the parks full of people lingering long past dinner, and the freedom of having nowhere I absolutely had to be, something inside me settles.

That feeling comes home with me.

It doesn’t last forever.

Of course it doesn’t.

But it lasts long enough to remind me that this version of me exists.

And that I’ll find her again next summer.

Because London isn’t just my favorite city.

It’s still my summer medicine.

Food.

Cherries on ice.

Summer at home in Cairo is where I get my sun and water fix.

True, it’s chlorinated water, so nowhere near as healing or medicinal as the sea and all its superpowers. But it is what it is. Remember…I don’t love the beach.

This is my time to bathe in God’s light.

Sun-kissed all summer.

Tan.

Freckled.

Hours and hours outside.

Alternating between staying in the water until my fingers wrinkle...

getting out to dry off...

getting too hot...

then jumping straight back in again.

An iced coffee waiting at the edge of the pool.

A bowl of fruit salad always.

Some days it’s burgers and pizza with the kids and their cousins.

Whatever the mood tells us to do.

An afternoon nap.

A snooze.

A shower.

Cool sheets.

Then the evening swim.

Minus the iced coffee.

By the end of the day there’s always a pile of wet towels abandoned on the deck.

Evidence of a day well lived.

And when cherry season arrives...

they’re always served on ice.

A ritual we learned from my dad.

He’d place the bowl in front of us and announce,

“This is the only way to eat cherries.”

And, as far as I’m concerned...it still is.

A Summer Ritual.

If you’ve been reading The Quiet Return for a while, you’ve probably heard me say that I don’t fear the sun.

The sun has sustained life on Earth for millions of years. Every tree, every flower, every animal, and every human life depends on it. It wakes us each morning, nourishes the food we eat, and reminds us that we were designed to live in rhythm with nature, not apart from it.

Sunshine is one of God's greatest medicines. It's how we make vitamin D, regulate our circadian rhythm, support a healthy immune system, influence hormone production, lift our mood, improve our sleep, and reconnect us with the rhythms we were created to live by.

Every summer, though, I make the same confession: I go from zero to hero.

Every summer I have the best intentions to apply the gradual “sun training” approach where you build up exposure in daily 10-minute increments. But once swimming season arrives, all good intentions disappear. I’ll happily spend three or four hours in the pool on my very first day.

Because of that, I use a natural sunscreen for the first few days of summer while my skin adjusts. After that, I don’t use any at all. I let my skin and my body soak up all the sun's goodness without any barriers. I don't worry about wrinkles, sun spots, or cancer. To me, the benefits of sensible sun exposure far outweigh the fear we've been taught to have of it.

If you’re in Egypt, I love By Earth Natural Living. If you’re outside of Egypt, my favorite is Living Libations. Both make beautiful, natural products that I feel good about using.

Healing Practice.

Somatic workouts.

One of the simple rituals that’s become part of my evenings has nothing to do with skincare, supplements, or herbal tea.

Before I go to sleep, I spend about ten minutes doing somatic exercises from The Workout Witch.

If you’ve never heard of somatic movement, think of it as gentle exercises designed to help your body release stress and settle your nervous system. There’s no sweating, no equipment, and no pressure to “work out.” Most nights, I do the entire routine lying in bed.

The movements are so small they almost feel too simple to make a difference.

But they do.

I’ve noticed I fall asleep more easily, wake up feeling more rested, and carry less tension in my body during the day.

It’s become one of those tiny habits that asks very little of me but gives me so much in return.

As someone who believes healing isn’t found in one miracle solution but in the small things we do consistently, this has become one of my favorite evening rituals.

If your nervous system has been feeling overstimulated lately, I think it’s worth exploring.

I’ve partnered with The Workout Witch because it’s something I genuinely use and love. If you’d like to try it, you can use my link below:

https://theworkoutwitch.com/DANADINNAWI

Objects. Beautiful things worth keeping.

Maybe we don’t have too many things. Maybe we have too many things we don’t love.

As I was choosing which object to write about this month, I found myself looking around the house.

Not at what I love.

At what I tolerate.

The bowls I never reach for.

The vase I bought because it was useful.

The stack of things that are perfectly fine, yet never quite belong.

We talk so much about decluttering as if the problem is quantity.

I’m beginning to wonder if the problem is something else.

Maybe we don’t own too much.

Maybe we own too many things we don’t truly love.

Things that ask for dusting, storing, organizing, moving, insuring, and eventually feeling guilty about.

Objects have a way of shaping the atmosphere of a home.

The right ones become almost invisible because they feel inevitable.

The wrong ones constantly ask for your attention every time you walk past.

Lately, I’ve been trying to make room, not for more, but for better.

For objects that carry a story.

That age beautifully.

That I would miss if they disappeared.

Everything else is just... occupying space.

This month, however, I knew exactly which object belonged here.

This blue Murano glass lamp.

It was one of the very first things I bought after deciding to redecorate our home last year.

At the time, I had no master plan.

No mood board.

No carefully curated vision for the house.

In fact, I hadn’t bought a single piece of furniture.

I didn’t know what the room would eventually look like.

I didn’t even know if this lamp would work.

I just knew I loved it.

Not in the sensible, “I think this will go with everything” kind of way.

In the irrational, heart-skips-a-beat, I have to live with this kind of way.

So I bought it.

Looking back, I think that lamp became the beginning of everything.

It gave me something to build around.

Or perhaps more accurately...

it gave me permission to trust my own instincts.

For most of my life, I decorated with restraint.

Creams.

Natural linens.

Wood.

Ikea.

Soft, neutral colors that blended gently into the background.

Beautiful, certainly.

But safe.

Color was something I admired in other people’s homes.

Not something I imagined living with.

Then, somewhere over the past year, something shifted.

Now, whenever I find myself choosing something for the house, I instinctively reach for color.

Not because I want the room to feel louder.

Because I want it to feel more alive.

This lamp was the beginning of that change.

It was the first piece that made me realize I wasn’t simply redecorating a house.

I was discovering what I was drawn to when I stopped worrying about whether it made sense.

Every piece I’ve bought since then has, in some way, traced itself back to this lamp.

The colors.

The textures.

The confidence to choose beauty simply because it speaks to me.

Now, every time I walk into the room, I see it standing beside the French doors.

Sometimes it’s switched on.

Sometimes it isn’t.

It doesn’t seem to matter.

The room feels different simply because it’s there.

I’ve realized that’s what the best objects do.

They don’t just fill a space.

They change the feeling of it.

And perhaps that’s why I know I’d miss this lamp if it disappeared.

Not because it’s beautiful.

Although I think it is.

But because every time I look at it, I’m reminded of the moment I stopped decorating according to someone else’s idea of good taste...and finally started trusting my own.

BODY LANGUAGE. If this symptom could speak, this is what it might say.

Every symptom has a story.

This month, we’re listening to anxiety.

I’m not trying to ruin your life.

I’m trying to keep you alive.

I know it feels like I’ve become overdramatic.

Like I’ve started seeing danger where there isn’t any.

Like I’ve forgotten how to relax.

But I haven’t forgotten.

I’ve adapted.

I’ve been running on emergency power for so long...

I no longer remember what ordinary feels like.

Every cup of coffee you drink just to push through the exhaustion...

I interpret as another reason to stay alert.

Every afternoon your hands begin to shake because you waited too long to eat...

I assume food is scarce.

Every time you wake at 3:17 a.m. and can’t fall back asleep...

I stay on guard.

Every time your heart races while you’re sitting perfectly still...

I think I’ve spotted danger before you have.

Every time you sigh without realizing it...

hold your breath while answering another email...

clench your jaw through another meeting...

tighten your shoulders until they almost touch your ears...

I hear one message.

We’re not safe yet.

Every stomach ache you ignore.

Every bloated meal you push through.

Every headache you’ve learned to call “normal.”

Every afternoon when you suddenly need something sweet or you’ll snap at everyone around you.

Every time you stand up too quickly and the room spins for a second.

Every weekend when your chest feels heavy because the next week is coming.

Every night you’re so tired you can barely keep your eyes open...

only to lie awake the moment your head hits the pillow.

Every text message that makes your stomach drop before you’ve even opened it.

Every notification that sends a tiny jolt through your chest.

Every time you say,

“I’m fine.”

while whispering,

“I can’t keep doing this.”

I hear all of it.

I don’t know the difference between a tiger...

and an inbox.

Between starvation...

and another diet.

Between real danger...

and the thousand tiny emergencies you’ve learned to call normal.

I only know the chemistry you create.

So I stay ready.

All the time.

I don’t get weekends.

I don’t know you’re on vacation.

Until you show me.

Your heart beats a little faster.

Your breathing becomes a little shallower.

Your jaw never quite unclenches.

Your shoulders forget how to come down.

Sleep grows lighter.

Digestion slows.

I keep scanning.

Waiting.

Watching.

Preparing.

Not because I’ve betrayed you.

Because I love you enough...

to believe every signal you send me.

Please don’t confuse my vigilance...

with my personality.

This isn’t who I am.

It’s who I’ve had to become.

Give me safety again.

Give me nourishment.

Give me steady blood sugar.

Give me deep sleep.

Give me moments that don’t require me to brace myself.

Give me enough quiet to remember that the danger has passed.

And watch how gradually...

I remember peace.

Sometimes, the body remembers calm long before the mind does.

One of the biggest mistakes we make is assuming anxiety always begins in the mind.

Sometimes it does.

But just as often, the mind is narrating a body that has been living in survival mode for years.

When blood sugar swings wildly...

Sleep is broken...

Inflammation is high...

Digestion is struggling...

Stress hormones never truly come down...

The body begins interpreting ordinary life as something to survive.

That doesn’t mean anxiety is “all in your body.”

It means the body is part of the conversation.

And when we change the environment the body is living in, that conversation often begins to change.

Calm isn’t something we force.

Sometimes it’s something we uncover.

Anxiety — Shifted.

After years of living with crippling anxiety...

2½ months into the Hormone Reset Program, she sent me this message.

“The amount of stress and anxiety that have left my body in 2.5 months makes me want to cry from happiness.”

What I find most remarkable about her story is this:

We didn’t “work” on her anxiety.

We didn’t spend months unpacking her mindset.

We didn’t create strategies to avoid her triggers.

We changed the internal environment that had been supporting her anxiety.

By removing inflammatory foods, nourishing her body, supporting detoxification, balancing her blood sugar, and giving her nervous system what it needed to feel safe, her anxiety no longer had the same foundation to stand on.

We didn’t chase the symptom.

We changed the environment that allowed the symptom to exist.

Maybe your body isn’t fighting you.

Maybe it’s been trying to protect you all along.

I hope this summer gives you more than a holiday.

I hope it gives you enough slow mornings...

enough long walks...

enough deep breaths...

and enough unhurried moments...

to begin hearing what your body has been trying to tell you all along.

And if reading this felt like your body was describing you...

you don’t have to figure it out alone.

I’d love to help.

Whether you’re looking for a gentle place to start, a complete reset, or more personalized support, I offer several ways to work together.

Send me an email, tell me a little about what’s been going on, and I’ll help you decide which program is the best fit for you.

I’ll be here when you’re ready:)

email: info@danadinnawi.com

I’ve tried endless ‘morning’ rituals in the past few years with the goal of empowering myself and creating the life I want versus being passive.from journaling to workouts to saying affirmations to walking doing all of those at once in a row; and even though they worked, I feel grounded, focused, proactive, at some point, I ended up feeling like a robot going through the motions. So now I wake up and instead of following my morning ritual, ‘to-do; list, I sit up and ask myself “What would LOVE to do RIGHT NOW”? not tomorrow; not this afternoon, right now. “What would give you the most joy to do right now?A workout? To write? To sleep in some more? To take a walk? To take a shower and go for coffee? To jump into work? To make breakfast? Go for a swim? And I feel into it- for real and do THAT. And what happens is I want to do less and less. The urge to hustle and be super productive and prove that I can do EVERYTHING EVERYDAY..pretty much gone. I don’t have that desire anymore. I used to. And it felt amazing. To end my day with a 27-point check list TOTALLY completed felt invigorating and empowering. Between work, family, self care, housework, self development, laundry, cooking, organizing in, decluttering, writing, coaching, working out. It was all done and dusted. Now. I don’t. Just. no. my morning ritual is not a ritual anymore. It’s a gift I give myself. There are no rules or ‘shoulds’. Those can come later. For now, writing is a gift I give myself because writing connects me to my needs and desires and releases any pent up creativity that i know needs released so I don’t go crazy.

Before I tell you what to read, this month I thought I would start by showing you how to read:)

Well, I won’t show you, but I’m sharing this Substack post I came across a few weeks ago called “How to Read a Book,” by Twitchy Witch, and I don’t think I’ve stopped thinking about it since.

Her advice?

Treat books like conversations, not museum pieces.

Underline them. Argue with them. Write in the margins.

Dog-ear the pages. Crack the spine.

Copy your favorite sentences by hand. Read them in the same place with the same candle burning.

Basically...Love them hard enough that they become yours unmistakably.

When I first read it, I actually caught myself holding my breath.

Mark up a book... like this?

This is literally akin to blasphemy in my world. I actually laughed out loud.

I’ve spent my entire life treating books with almost religious reverence. You don’t write in them. You certainly don’t dog-ear them. And cracking the spine? Absolutely not.

Even in the depths of my MA in English and Comparative Literature, I didn’t do this.

Then I relaxed into the possibility that maybe...just maybe...for the sake of my literary evolution...I could try it.

My very next thought?

“Well... yes... but then I’ll obviously have to buy a second copy of the book I’ve just eviscerated.”

I’m imagining my book shopping…“One copy for reading... and one copy for destroying.”

Apparently, I’m not quite there yet.

But I loved this piece because it completely challenged the way I’ve always thought about reading.

Whether or not I ever become the kind of woman who writes all over her books...I’m strangely tempted to find out.

Read it here: How to Read a Book by Twitchy Witch

Next month I’ll give you my reading recommendations:)

I used to think I travelled to discover new places.

Lately, I’ve realized I travel to return.

Not to the famous landmarks or the restaurants everyone insists you book months in advance.

To the places that somehow begin to feel like mine.

The ones I miss before I’ve even left.

This trip to London reminded me that my favorite places aren’t necessarily the city’s best, the trendiest, or the ones all over social media.

They’re simply the places that make me exhale.

2-4, Queen’s Elm Parade, Old Church Street, London, United Kingdom SW3 6EJ

This was a new addition to my list.

I’d never been before, and it wasn’t somewhere I’d planned to linger. And you actually can’t- there is very little seating space. So plan on picking up and leaving and only staying if you’re lucky enough to grab one of the few tables.

But it was one of those lovely little discoveries that makes a trip memorable.

The smell of roasted cacao, the chocolate being made just a few feet away, the relaxing atmosphere- it felt more like stepping into someone’s workshop than a café.

Everything is gluten-free; refined-sugar-free; grain-free; dairy-free and made with super clean ingredients.

I’ll be going back next time.

House 66/67, Burlington Arcade, 51 Piccadilly, London W1J 0QJ

Another wonderful surprise.

Tucked away in Burlington Arcade, it felt like a little escape from the busy streets outside.

We sat upstairs with a coffee and a pastry, watching shoppers wander through the arcade below.

It was elegant without feeling formal, and one of those places where time seems to slow down just enough that you forget you have anywhere else to be.

Nothing here is gluten-free or sugar-free;)

69 Abingdon Road, Kensington, United Kingdom W8 6AW

No London trip feels complete without it.

This isn’t somewhere I visit once.

It’s somewhere I go every day. I’ve been going for the past 15 years.

This small family-owned and run cafe is my go-to for coffee, breakfast, fruit, a salad, or something for later; it has become part of my London rhythm.

There’s something comforting about walking into a place where you already know exactly what you’re going to order.

4 Derry Street, London, W8 5SE

Some traditions are worth keeping.

For me, one of them is eating at Dishoom.

Not because it’s fashionable.

Not because everyone recommends it.

Because every visit ends the same way: with comfort. When we go with our kids, the table is overflowing with samosas, keema pau, okra fries, chicken tikka, gunpowder potatoes, dahl, all the naans.

But this time, just the two of us, we chose their hearty lamb biryani that we somehow seemed to only discover on this trip.

Some restaurants become destinations.

Dishoom has become part of the trip itself.

9 Young Street, London W8 5EH

If you’re looking for an uncomplicated, perfectly cooked steak, Flat Iron is hard to beat. The menu is refreshingly simple, the steaks are consistently excellent, and the beef dripping fries (yes, fried in beef tallow) are worth ordering every single time. And when you’re feeling exceptionally indulgent, then their Smashed Onion Double Cheeseburger is the perfect winner.

In my world, fries cooked in traditional beef fat are completely guilt-free, far preferable to the industrial seed oils used in most restaurants. No fuss, no white tablecloths, just really good food done exceptionally well.

It’s one of those places we happily return to every trip.

Tea.

If you’ve been in my community for a while, you know I love my café mocha.

You also know I drink it with oat milk, sometimes almond milk, and sometimes as a frappuccino.

I only drink half a shot of espresso in all cases.

The coffee is so insignificant compared to the milk and chocolate that my mother always says,

“This isn’t coffee. This is ice cream.”

She’s not wrong.

Then again... she drinks four cups of straight Turkish coffee on an empty stomach.

I’m a caffeine wuss.

And yes, you also know that I regularly take breaks from coffee because it is one of the biggest disruptors of hormonal health.

Yes, it absolutely is.

Even if I absolutely love it.

Loving coffee doesn’t magically make it good for me.

So no...

I’m not changing my mind about that.

No matter how much some of you wish I would.

😉

But here is what I’m changing my mind about...a bit... because it’s still caffeine..

Tea.

Like so many Egyptians, if I drink tea, I drink it with milk.

A lot of milk.

And a lot of sugar.

I couldn’t imagine drinking it plain.

Just like I couldn’t imagine drinking coffee black.

Then, lately...

my beloved mocha stopped serving me.

I suppose it was only a matter of time.

A daily shot of espresso.

All that oat milk.

All that chocolate.

My body said,

“I don’t think this is working anymore.”

One night sweat more than usual one month…

A twinge of period pain more than usual another month…

Feeling like I need another mocha after I finish the first one…

Immediately, my brain began negotiating.

“But what about my writing?”

“What about my morning ritual?”

“What about my me time?”

Somehow, I’d become convinced I couldn’t write without a café mocha sitting beside me.

Which is ridiculous.

Because I’d already proven I could.

I’d stopped coffee before.

I’d kept writing.

I’d kept working.

I’d survived.

It’s amazing what the brain will invent to keep a habit alive.

Even when you have evidence that it isn’t true.

Then one day...

I found a tea called Cinnamon Haze.

I thought,

“Wait a minute...”

I love cinnamon.

Maybe this is my way in.

So I made a cup.

No milk.

Just a little honey.

Yes, dear readers...

Yes.

And do you know what surprised me?

It wasn’t that I liked the tea.

It was realizing that the ritual had never belonged to the mocha.

It belonged to the pause.

The mug.

The notebook.

The moment I gave myself permission to sit down and think.

Apparently...those things taste just as good with tea.

I hope this issue reminds you that healing isn’t always found in the big decisions.

Sometimes it’s found in a slower walk.

A better conversation with your body.

A beautiful object that changes the feeling of a room.

A meal shared without guilt.

A city that feels like medicine.

I’d love to hear from you.

What was one moment this month that made you slow down? Or one small thing, a place, a meal, an object, a conversation, that quietly changed you?

Leave a comment below. I read every one.

I hope, by the time we meet again next month, you’ve found a few moments worth lingering in.

I’ll see you in August.

Warmly,

Dana