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Mince pies, Fat thighs & New Allies
cleanse
klɛnz/
verb
make (something, especially the skin) thoroughly clean.
It is safe to say that the year 2017 is tucked away behind us. It's sitting awkwardly in the archives of the many years of our lifetime and now, I guess, is the ideal time of year where most individuals all around the world have either thought about starting, started or are considering to commence the dreaded ''cleanse''. For some this will mean a cleanse in the physical sense and for others it's excavating other parts of our lives that have somehow managed to harbour all sorts of debris.
Our fridges stand laden with the remnants of December's most decadent food - turkey,rice, yam,mince pies, mac and cheese (my personal favourite), gravy, roasted potatoes. Such food temptations are not exactly the ideal first stepping stone to entering a fresh, new year so naturally our fridges will probably go through the cleanse before we do.Or we can just treat ourselves to the last few leftovers and swear up and down to get things right once mid-January rolls around.
Some of us will choose this fleeting period (and intermittent times throughout the year) to crucify our bodies, microanalyzing the folds and lumps that have now made homes on our hips while swearing to ourselves that we will hit that 24 hour gym all of next week.Some of us are furiously attempting to cleanse our mental space - getting rid of toxic people and toxic energy, toxic thoughts and perhaps that annoyingly futile coffee table or whatever useless item that has somehow become one of the many items we've successfully managed to convince ourselves that we need. The idea of a cleanse is an interesting topic. The verb itself contains the adjective clean and with this in mind, I realise that a lot of us strive to reach this state as we commence a new year.
Forget New Year Resolutions (which honestly have an expiry date of around 3 weeks, a month at most), a lot of us start the New Year off by trying to become "clean".
When I think of cleanliness (or the lack thereof), I'm not just talking about raiding underneath the bedroom drawer and retrieving that book you've spent ages looking for as well as noticing that the true colour of your bedroom floor boards is a beautiful pale brown.
I think of the accumulation of thoughts that have left remnants in our minds for the past 365 days. I think of the new ideas that were waiting to be birthed into existence but were left on the wayside, along with the "could've,would've,should've" itenarary that has probably also added to the heavy weights of our minds. I think of the possible doors we have walked away from because of fear and doubt.
Come to think of it stress, negativity, fear, unsupportive friends, self-doubt, pessimism - (in fact, I'm pretty sure you could easily add a dozen more to this list) - these are the things that clog up our mental space. These are the things that cause our job as "clean-up woman/man" pretty damn daunting come January 1st.
I often think about what becomes of the "dirt" we carry around. I'd like to think that some of it sits on our lips and clings to our ears. Suddenly we find ourselves stagnant, wondering why we can never see things through a positive lens. We subconsciously clip our wings and become our very own stumbling block.Our words are now laced with the common phrases like "I couldn't do that" or "There's no way I could ever be good at this". We unwittingly teach ourselves to adhere to every incoming negative notion that decides to make a grand entrance.
Looking at how we approach each new year, the plan is to always do better and become better however our approach to becoming such is what should be better. I think that each time we self-evaluate, the essence of our ''clean-up time'' should become a routine practice and not just a quirky fad or trend that we can adopt for a good seven day period so that we can find something cool to say on Instagram. The idea of a cleanse isn't to pick up all the dirt we can along the way while never bothering to see how much we are accumulating and then come January 3rd attempt to bring out the soap bars and disinfectant to start scrubbing.
Just like the bare emptiness of a new notebook page, the smell of fresh new sheets or a never used canvas, the opportunity to commence each day anew is one that we can take at any time. Not just in the New Year.
I guess the road to cleanliness is one that should be walked on routinely.
The thoughts we have,
The company we keep,
The words and uncanny phrases that
lay
between
our
lips.
There is a genuine battle between what we know, what we feel and the right thing for us.
I came across this poem that I made me think about the topic of cleanliness in a different way.
"Cleanliness is something that you learn when your mom washes your hair and reminds you to brush your teeth before bed. It isn't something you think about, it's something you do out of habit. Cleanliness is something you memorize, you don't associate it with someone's sexual history until their history writes itself into your present and future. It receives a new meaning once you wash your hair and brush your teeth and you somehow still don't feel clean."
- Hannah Lace
There are nights where sometimes we have perfectly good drinking water but we reach for Pepsi.
There are nights where we have a banquet of food laid out for us but we consciously or perhaps subconsciously reach for the stale crumbs from last night's meal.
cleanse
klɛnz/
verb
- make (something, especially the skin) thoroughly clean.
New year new you ?
Eh, lets scratch that.
I think I'll go for new year, a clean slate(that's been scrubbed to the best of my capacity) and the occasional Nando's because listen everyone deserves a damn good time once in a while.