Cleanse

Two years ago I drove to Cambridge to visit my friend Schuy and to plan our hike up Mt Kilimanjaro, when I arrived he had just finished a juice detox cleanse. I think the NYT did an article about cleanses and featured the one he did, it was premade juice meals delivered to your house with idiot proof labels for 200 bucks or so. The description of his poo that week was fascinating. For a while now I've been feeling like I need my own cleanse. At the beginning of September I was taking the 82 bus back to Neuilly from the American Library, my seatmate noticed my babysittee sitting in the seat in front of us, was a whiz at her Leapfrog - at first I didn't know what she was talking about because I have a misplaced memory of this handheld thing being called a "whipit" and so it took me a minute to make the connection. We got to talking, she too was American and she told me she was an energy healer. At the time, I thought cool, and I asked her how regularly the French utilized her services as frankly, I'm coming to feel like Parisians live like they are wearing a stick up their asses, and having sought out yoga here I haven't found a very enthusiastic community of yogis, so I figured other, potentially more spiritual avenues wouldn't really get much of a following. She assured me it was an underground thing.

I've basically had it up to hear with Parisians. A few days a week I take the girls on long scooter rides in the neighborhood or the Bois de Boulogne- I've started playing this game with myself where I say Bonjour to everyone we pass, and generally tally how many people return my friendliness. It's roughly about 50%.

In August I spent 3 weeks in the states where it was midwestern manners no matter where I went. Hello, Goodbye, excuse me, no, you first. I had clearly been in Paris too long, this neighborly friendliness among strangers literally disoriented me. It all felt so foreign that I regularly commented on the unfamiliarity of kind words and niceties.

I wouldn't give up this year in Paris for anything, but I wouldn't come back to live here for anything either (this is not intended to slag off all of France, just Paris). It has gotten to me. The other night I totally bitched Sylvain out for using the last of the toilet paper and leaving me stranded. I'd argue that's kind of a good reason to get upset but he did have a cold so he was using it for tissue and I got out the crazy a little. But where is the joy here? Everyone is suspicious and instead of giving anyone the benefit of the doubt they give you the evil eye. I get pushed around on the metro all the time, this weekend at Centre Pompidou an old lady actually pushed me, old men tell me where to go and what to do with my bag if they find me or it in the way, old ladies refuse to say Bonjour in the park. I don't want to live with so much negativity around me all the time, and I'd run to see that energy healer if I had gotten her card.

I cant wait to get back to NYC, but part of me feels I will need to exorcise this negative energy I've got building up inside me. It's rubbing off on me, I hate being a nanny, and I am bored all day long starring at puzzles and feeling like each day from 9-6 I'm storing up anger and resentment for having to do something so dull and mindless, each day the same as the last but beholden to the whims of a 4 year old bully. A month ago I tried to tackle the problem with a couple earnest trips to a yoga class that offered what was actually a decent Zen garden courtyard, but the class was a dud and the instructor kept trying to get me to make noise breathing through my nose, when I didn't get loud enough right away she didn't give up on me like I wanted her to. I mean, that's great if you're learning to read, or to do equations but if you're at yoga and you're trying to breath loud the more effort you put into something like that, the more likely you are to embarrass yourself with undesirable ejections in this cold and flu season - and frankly you don't want to hold up the class with your insufficient breathing- yoga isn't for the judgmental, but if you can't get the breathing right, during the first 5 seconds of class, your basically exposing yourself as a yoga fraud. Yeah sure you've been doing this for years... After I gave up on yoga at 20 euros an hour I decided to give Haagen Dazs a try, and for a week I consumed ice cream with every meal. Unsurprisingly, it cleansed nothing but added 5 pounds onto my frame.

I'm sure a juice cleanse is not what I need, but I am sure there is something that needs to be ingested or purged to rediscover my former self... Maybe I just need someone to hold me while incanting Your Welcome! thank you! Good Morning! Excuse me! No You Sit! in a thick midwestern accent.