cleanse

Since I am in a period of renewal and purification right now, I decided to ask my dear friend and skilled whole health expert Melanie Rose to design a gentle cleanse for my physical system. Typical guy, when I first looked at the diet schedule she had created, I told myself it would be a piece of cake, and felt even a little bored at the prospect. But in fact it has become a quite consuming and transformative enterprise, and so far completely worth the effort. Take this morning. For today through Sunday, according to the schedule, I eat only raw and steamed fruits and vegetables and drink only lemon water and herbal teas. So, this morning I woke at around 6:30, took my morning herbal supplement, did 20 minutes of Zen meditation, and then made breakfast. Hunger has been an intense and frequent companion so far (I am on day 4 of the cleanse). Though I do not restrict my portions, the foods that I am eating are not as dense and slow to digest as before. So I was ravenous on awakening. I made miso soup with nori, spinach, and green onions. If you had seen how quickly I ate this soup, you would have thought I hadn't seen food in days -- the fact that I don't usually have savory foods for breakfast made no difference. Then I juiced a tomato, red pepper, 2 stalks of celery, and half a cucumber. Flavors are very intense and complex for me right now, because my tastebuds are not constantly being flooded by tidal waves of sugar. This one glass of juice, with its frothy cream on top, and the crimson ministry of peppers and tomatoes beneath, mingled with lacy fronds of celery and cucumber lending their clear spirits to the aroma and savor, could have provided me with enough poetic material for an epic. But I was in a rush. I still had to make lunch for work. I interrupted my roommate Kurt from his dream interpretation writing to ask him if he thought green beans and broccoli would steam in the same time. Yes, he thought they would. Clean and prep. Clean and prep. I got rid of the trimmings of the veggies, put away what little remained of my soup, prepped the broccoli and green beans, and tossed them into the steam basket. I cut up a lemon for my water bottle, and packed four pieces of fruit to get me through my work day. Trying one of the green beans, it walked in its intense olive livery directly into the secret chamber of my senses, and making its announcement of flavor, made my royal highness stand up with a pleasure ecstasy that was almost an alarm. My eyes bugged a little, as all my nerves rushed to the scene of whatever is the opposite of crime. Done, and the broccoli a bit too soft, actually. I threw them into tupperware, squeezed some lemon juice over them, and packed them away. Sweep the floor, shower, dress, and out the door, I'll be a bit late for work. But wait, I forgot it may rain, must pack my raincoat and rain pants for the bike ride home. My backpack must weigh 30 pounds by now, with all the fruit, veggies, bottle of water, and all the raingear. And then I had that thought again, which has come back to me again and again during this cleanse, a constant reflection on how my body is changing, that haunts me like a ghost. Time to pee.