Cleansing the Absentee

And after a near 3 month leave of absence, she returns.

I've thought about it every day. Because of the absentia, I've been both happy and sad. But each day I was away, it kept getting harder to get back to it. Eventually, I couldn't write a thing. I couldn't read anything either. Words would scramble and conjoin in an alien fusion.

It was just easier to stop.
I don't feel like it.
I don't wanna.

And this applied to a great many things in my life.

Around the beginning of this year things started collapsing. Relationships turned into a bilious poutine. People fell gravely ill. Babies were lost. Cancers were discovered to be inoperable. Friends were indefinitely hospitalized, one (gratefully) dead from a massive coronary.

And then there were the survivors...

For us, there was a poisonous brine being injected into parts of the populace. It seemed like an unauthorized pharmacological experiment.

Participants wanted!
Healthy? (or as healthy as one can be in our culture)
(relatively) Drug free?
Call this toll-free number NOW to take part in this IMPORTANT experiment.
$$ <-- We got these to give!

Except we weren't being paid.
We signed no waivers
Because we didn't know we were guinea pigs.

We were just left
Depressed
Anxious
Sobbing sad
And Angry


When Ack, the ex-husband/ best friend, and I were still together we had a friend who, after a night of grand pontificating - ever with a tasty adult beverage in hand - was usually found the next morning passed out on our couch. Lucky days were counted when his nether regions were sheathed. One morning, my eyes fell to where the usual weekend lump resided, only to find a heap of thrown-back covers and a blood red stain on the carpet.

Panic.

Upon closer inspection, the stain was the uninspired and regurgitated bordeaux from the night prior. Along the bathroom walls and floor was its companion art piece. The toilet remained pristine.

Though his DNA was splattered like a Ralph Steadman drawing,
He was nowhere to be found.
His car had disappeared from the driveway,
And he wasn't answering his cellphone.

He-who-never-returned-to-clean-up-his-own-filth-and-was-subsequently-never-invited-back-to-my-house once told me that just about all organisms seek an alternative mental landscape.

Aforementioned Self-Inflicted Projectile Puke Abandoner: Take the ever-lovable koala. It's a dual tasker. It feeds on eucalyptus while getting stoned in the process.

Lesson: Look to nature to explain man's shortcomings.
We can't help it; we're animals.

It's as good an excuse as any.

For me, one who's been prone to picking up new addictions with a zealot's enthusiasm, once I gave up cigarettes, I turned to new vices or reinvigorated old flames. Vast quantities of the following were gorged:

Chocolate
Tequila shots, vodka, beer, coffee - in rapid-fire succession
And something I'm not terribly proud of, unless I'm in culinary circles, at which point I brag: the engorged liver of a force-fed duck or goose

The city: Montréal, Canada
The restaurant: Au Pied du Cochon
Translation: With the foot of the pig
Item which sent triglyceride levels soaring: Duck in a Can (recipe as follows)

Take one Muscovy duck breast, partially slice its fat along the meat to make the protein more malleable. Pack said breast into an Alpo dog food sized can, pushing the flesh into the sides. Fill the centre with foie gras. Season with balsamic vinegar, thyme, salt, and pepper. Can (following manufacturer's directions). Place in pressure cooker for exactly 28 minutes. At the table, a plate of celeriac purée, the cushion before the fall, is placed in front of the poor sod who ordered coronary-on-a-plate. Then, as the tin is punctured with a razor sharp tin opener, a fine savoury mist releases to the east. Best to wear protective lenses for this portion. Once the can is deftly opened, pour/ slop the contents onto the celeriac mash... and enjoy.

I downed 6 pints of water during that meal, in a poor attempt to curb cirrhosis of the liver.

Lately I'd been using food and booze to numb myself.

Over the last few months I've been really upset with the state of humanity. No one seems to care about anyone anymore. They avert their eyes to pretend they don't see someone who may obviously be in need. A friend of mine, the one mentioned earlier who is indefinitely hospitalized, fell - splat - on a busy sidewalk on a cold winter's night. For two hours people walked over and around him. Was he drunk? Yes. Had he peed himself? More than likely. And it probably froze to his old, drunk ass. He'd also just had a stroke. And because it was so cold and because there had been so much time that had elapsed, he'll probably never walk again.

Around me and including me, I felt as if there was flagrant injustice happening, and there was no one to readily come to the defense of myself or anyone else for that matter. I stood alone, again, feeling I was the only person who was doing anything.

At work.
At home.
Around town.

Plenty of people were around, plenty of things were happening, but no one seemed to be doing much. Or maybe they couldn't do anything. Their lives' trajectory had led them to a zenith of ineffectuality. Or I was asking too much. This began a building of general malaise, nervous anxiety, seething anger and feelings of not wanting to do anything either. I can't beat 'em, so might as well... Why do now, when it can be done later? Or whatever. I had no energy to do things that had been easy and natural to do before. Any creative process seemed both daunting and pointless. At home, fight rounds had intensified and multiplied.

I thought I'd increase my exercise quotient.
I went on epic bike adventures for hours,
And not only gained weight, but my treasonous clothes were treating my body as life snuffing, binding sausage casings.

A few months ago my Klipsch 2.1 computer speakers blew. My only link to decent music. It was a premature self-annihilation, as I learned later. One satellite was non-responsive. The other sent crumbled cracklings out its clothed maw. For over 2 months I didn't listen to music. Sure, I'd hear the canned stuff while strolling cleaning supply aisles in supermarkets, or while ricocheting between tables at work, but those were more the supporting tunes for the Bob Ross painted backdrops of our days.

A couple of years ago I gave up cable television.
In January, cigarettes went bye-bye.
Now music.

I had no desire to listen to music.

This ain't right.

After a few nights of being despondent after work, coming home and sobbing for several hours over what, I can't remember, though, I'm sure, there was major significance at the time, I decided that my brain physiology wasn't firing properly. Luckily, I'm not the kind of person who A) denies there might be something wrong with her or B) wallows for too long in a situation in need of change. I just tend to do the kind of things others might not have as their first choice.

Ack: What have you given up this week?

That's his new question for me.

The Comrade: Food, booze and coffee. I'm detoxing.

What if:
People weren't actually depressed, they were just slowly poisoning themselves with everything they ingested regularly.

With record cases of depression and simultaneously the highest level of processed food available and consumed, it's plausible. Fasting was what my body was telling me to do. And I'm a slave to the wishes of my body.

I'm currently on Day 7 of the Master Cleanse.

The summary is something like this:
Drink a concoction of lemon juice, cayenne pepper, maple syrup and distilled water throughout the day.
Before bed, drink a herbal laxative tea.
Wake up like a shot, tail-tucked, screaming all the way to the toilet.
Sweet release.
Chug 1L of lukewarm water with 2 tsp of Celtic sea salt dissolved within - as fast as possible.
Release some more. Less sweet.

Times 10 days.

Strangely, I have more energy than I've had in a very long time. On no food, I'm doing bike distances I've never done before. My head is clear, the sausage casings removed, and the depression is gone. Any obstacle that has come up this week has been handled with minimal emotional attachment. I've worked, serving the street's most delicious food, with no qualms. Last night, in a moment of missing the practice of utilizing my culinary skills, I made dinner for my darling boy.

I've got 3 more days to go. Fantasies about drop kicking and rushing poor vegans to get to their plates of kasha and sauteed green beans only come up a couple of times a day now. I'm fantasizing about my first meal: a soup of wild and tame (whatever that means) mushrooms, a touch of cream, a float of wild leek pesto and a drizzle of truffle oil. It's currently holding a spot of prominence in my freezer. Cupcake, my friend and the culinary prodigy at my place of employ at the Cheer's Equivalent bar, its inventor.

My relationship is still maddening. It still leaves me winded and staggering to think how a man and a woman in love can have a conversion, that sounds like it's in English, but really it's in two foreign tongues from the farthest reaches of distant nebulas. With, of course, the resulting universal hurt pride on both sides. Both of us are in our respective corners waiting for the bell to ring again. The fighting's a little different for me now. I still fight my side. I'm still passionate with my convictions. I'm just not raging with utter frustration on the inside when I'm doing so.

Amazing what falls out of our ass during a cleanse.