Day 23 - Crack Pie

“I’ve been on this eating program for three weeks now,” a friend texted to me. “When can I have a muffin?”

Traditionally, the cleanse Dr. Mark Lucas offers at his clinic Proactive Health Care lasts for three weeks. In the old days, three weeks seemed forever to me. This time, thinking in terms of 93 days, I barely noticed its passing. 

I went to breakfast with some friends last weekend and we sat down in the café and I looked at the menu and realized there wasn’t one thing I couldn’t eat without going off the food plan and feeling guilty. The fact that I’m sensitive to eggs and avocado made the choice even more complicated. I wasn’t going to ask if we could eat somewhere else. I’d rather have chewed on the table. 

(I interviewed Tony Suau who is currently making the film Organic Rising, http://www.organicrisingfilm.com/trailer/, and when I write up our talk, you’ll better understand why food sensitivities, a real thing, are so prevalent these days.)

Orthoxia is the obsession with proper or healthy eating. 

I don’t want to be obsessed with anything that gets in the way of me connecting to others and to my deepest self. So if I’m going to get all internally haired out because I have to eat some sausage, then something is wrong on the ship I’m sailing.

I want to feel good. I want, as you know, to have good poops, poops that fall with a satisfying plop into the toilet and don’t run down my leg in the middle of a big city or leave me always wondering where the closest bathroom is located. For this reason, I am eating “clean”— food that is not processed.

I have watched Volume 4, Episode 1 of Chef’s Table three times. The whole season is about pastry, and this episode focuses on Christina Tosi, creator of, among many things, crack pie. The entire show is about sweets. Each time I watched it, I have cried at a different point out of the sheer beauty of Christina Tosi’s dedication to her craft and the joy she brings to baking. And I am not going to participate in crack pie because it’s not on some list I have on my computer?

Granted, crack pie would probably put me out of commission for the rest of the day or night. My body doesn’t handle sugar well, but I sure could have a bite. Hell, if I wanted to, I could have the whole pie. I’d just have to clear my calendar so I could recover. Knowing that I could have it makes me less frantic, less grasping. If it’s there, and if I want it, all is good.

I don’t want to die with a clean gut and a life half lived. 

I’m going to continue eating foods that aren’t processed because overall I have been more at peace in my body and mind in the last two weeks than I remember ever feeling. But I also am going to give myself some wiggle room to be social, to try recipes I see demonstrated on my beloved shows, to have some ice cream on a hot day. Because I need some structure, I’m going to see what it’s like to have one of each meal: breakfast, lunch, and dinner be anything I want once a week. 

That way I can really pay attention to my body and see what feeds it and what makes it sick. That way I can try whatever I want. 

I want to eat freedom. 

What if life is crack pie? What if every breath we take is a jolt of pure experience?

What if we all got lifeoxia: the obsession with getting as much life into our lives as possible? The Rolling Stones would have to run to catch up with us. 

Balance can be harder than extreme behaviors. It’s easier in some ways to starve yourself than to feed yourself, but I’m learning to walk the middle path. You can overeat; you can undereat, and you can eat.

Let’s eat. 

Amen.

See you tomorrow.

Xoxo