Dear Vincent, I was floating on the joy of feeling seen, heard, felt and loved by you last Tuesday, November 21

Dear Vincent,

I was floating on the joy of feeling seen, heard, felt and loved by you last Tuesday, November 21. All the joy lasted for approximately 39 hours and 17 minutes.

So I got this brilliant idea that I’m going to walk across Canada for mental health. My mental health, and everyone else’s. On Monday, the Social Worker said that he’d no doubt I’d pull it off. Apparently I am the most resilient person he has ever met. C’est incroyable de voir comment tu rebondis. Incredible to see how I bounce back.

I bounce back, by Erica J. Schmidt.

Next to the social worker’s desk, there are pamphlets about how to determine if you are experiencing a crystal meth crisis, and what to do about it. The Social Worker has a much more beautiful office than you do, with floor to ceiling windows that look over the Village, the Latin Quarter, and far beyond. His garbage can is disproportionately large for the amount of Kleenex anyone could ever use, even me. It used to be I got to enjoy looking out the window, right above the Social Worker’s head, but now the patient’s chair has its back to the sky, right above Saint-André street. I guess someone got aggressive the other week, and this way the Social Worker is better equipped to make an exit strategy.

Shortly after he marvelled over my miraculous resilience, the Social Worker brought up how I really need to prepare myself for switching therapists and that perhaps I should also consider getting a new job. I respond very poorly to both of these topics. I melted down hard and then left.

On Monday, November 27, all together I walked 14.2 km. If you want to walk across Canada, you have to walk at least 30 km per day, 6 days a week for approximately nine months, though likely more if you want to avoid the highway. The problem with walking across Canada is that just about three to four times per week, I wonder if I might be missing my left hip joint. My very half-assed plan is to leave on January 4, 2019, the four-year anniversary of when my ex-ex boyfriend Simon jumped off a building, meaning that he offed himself. On the way home from the Social Worker’s, the thoughts were dark and I wondered if maybe I should leave sooner, since nothing seems to be clicking these days. Except my left hip.

Precarity turns out to be a real word. I am going to try micro-dosing on mushrooms. Last winter, one of my friends used to wish that the crusty mole on the outside of his left calf muscle was some kind of terminal cancer. The Magic Mushrooms really helped him. I took my first dose on Tuesday, and dreamt of a lovely brown cow. I could only see him from the neck up. The cow’s eyes and face told me that it was okay if I ate a hamburger, something I haven’t done in over twenty years. In fact, the hamburger was excellent. With cheese.

Club 21. I could take these up.

I hope the cow says hi to me again. I am the moodiest person I know. Moodiest and loneliest. Most lonely.

The cow said, it's okay.

Hamburgers, and mushrooms. At this point, I see no other options besides flying to Newfoundland in January and risking the loss of a toe.

Hi, I said when I saw you this morning sprinting down Laurier somewhere between St Urbain and de l’Esplanade.

Hi, you said back. You were making quite some air time. I hope you got where you were going.

I was on my way to see Philippe, another far-away therapist who has fancy gelled back hair and an overworked beard. I made up the term overworked beard in the summer of 2016, and I just love it. Philippe’s office has reasonable windows. He isn’t available to see me long-term or intensively, and this is a relief because I want my sessions with you to last forever because you make me feel seen, heard, felt and loved.

Nearly three hundred people have clicked on my post about some other Vincent coercing me into a blow job. The Russian bots seem really into my blog these days. I wonder if they will like my sentences about the trees in Parc Laurier.

Dear Russian Bots,

Do you like these sentences?

: (Colon)

Sentences trees never feel

My life was not supposed to be like this.

All my limbs are far too large

and far too awkward

and flailing in all the wrong directions.

How lazy of me to rest

and respect my natural seasons

of bearing fruit

harvesting

and silence.

How greedy of those creatures who

help themselves to everything I have to give

only to squander what they take

and then forget.

If only everything were entirely different.

I’m ugly.

I need my own space.

That’s the end of the sentences trees never feel. There were seven sentences trees never feel. I could add seven to the title, sentences trees never feel, and the only vowel in the title would still be e. Love that.

My friend who last winter wished the crusty mole on the outside of his left calf muscle was terminal cancer recommends drawing and writing all over your walls.

So I wrote the sentence, what happens if I write on the wall?

What happens if I write on the wall?

Also:

Mood sports do not contain

A

E

I

Or

U

Or

, / (Comma slash)

Orange.

hash tag equals #alts2wishingcrustymolesRcancer

The hash tag equals #alts2wishingcrustymolesRcancer

I want to draw a pelvis, but it is doomed to be approximate and one-dimensional. How do you draw a baby? I think I would make the hair pink.

I prefer not an overworked beard.

Yours is just perfect.

Love, Erica.

You too can write imaginary emails to Vincent. Or you can send them to me. The secret address is the same in either case, ericaschmidt85(at)gmail(dot)com.

Much love, Erica.

Some might say I'm not quite overworked. Not like the beards.


Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
I Let Go

Bodhisattva Business Ventures:

Deep Cleans by Erica J. Schmidt (@deepcleanswitherica)
Montreal Hippie Threads (@mtlhippiethreads)
Instagram: montrealhippiethreads


Hippie Threads Holiday Market! December 2!


When I am really upset, I need to be seen, heard, felt and loved by someone whose dick has been inside of me.
Or else you.
Dear Vincent, Are you lonely? Do you have a pain body?
Lizzie

Dear Vincent, Some other Vincent coerced me into a blow job.

Dear Vincent,

Some other Vincent coerced me into a blow job. Tinder's great, except for the high risk of rape. I don't quite feel raped, but you'd think the sentence, "I don't want to take my clothes off," could be interpreted in some way other than, I'll just stick my hands down your pants in as many different angles as I can think of. Hard to say.

"Are you gonna go out with the Fake Vincent again?" my friend asked.
"Are either of them real?" I replied.


I went to the movie, Loving Vincent, and it was pretty good. When I was in grade twelve, I did a project  on Vincent Van Gogh, and called it "Vincent and Me." Or was it, "Me and Vincent?" All I remember is that somehow I compared my angsty, agonizing, excruciating creative process with Vincent Van Gogh's, and I included a picture of a rainbow papier maché dinosaur I'd been inspired to make with a balloon and toilet paper rolls in grade one. The caption under the dinosaur photo read, "It's gorgeous."

Vincent and Me

And I remember the Vincent Van Gogh quote, "Well, what shall I say? Do our inner thoughts ever show themselves outwardly? There may be a great fire in our soul, but no one ever comes to warm himself at it, and the passers-by see only a little bit of smoke coming through the chimney, and pass along their way."
Like Vincent's fire, my fire felt lonely, unvisited, and possibly futile. All of the fire was not yet all over the internet.
Well, what shall I say?
I quit Tinder again, and will have to find the next Vincent elsewhere, if there even is one. Each non-self-soothing day is about as poetic, or non poetic as the last one. Since two Tuesdays ago, there have been three or four and a half non-self-soothing days. At the end of the second non-consecutive non-self-soothing-day, I found a cassette tape on Parc Ave, right on the sidewalk in front of RONA.
The tape was called RELAXATION - SAILING and its tracks were,
Gaze Beyond The Top Of The Mast And Into The Heavens -
Time Will Seem Endless... /
The Ocean Gently Lapping Against The Hull Speaks of Life and Immortality.

Time Will Seem Endless... /

It all sounded very soothing, but I still went home and drank most of a bottle of wine. I have never been an excellent drinker. Terrible, in fact. Thankfully, infrequentIy.
"I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say, 'He feels deeply, he feels tenderly." -Vincent Van Gogh.
On the third non-consecutive, non-self-soothing-day, in the free book box in a park below Van Horne, I found a copy of the Celestine Prophecy, The Tenth Insight, and Curtains: Adventures of an Undertaker-in-Training.

Curtains

I opened each book, and read only each one's first sentence. The author of the undertaker book was trying very hard. His name is Tom and Tom warns against stopping at the drive-thru while transporting a dead body, because this puts doughnut brands at peril. It's a bit like opening a blog post with a blow job. I don't think the undertaker author gets to be as famous as the author of the Celestine Prophecy, and the Tenth Insight, who is the same person. In the Celestine Prophecy, the narrator begins in a car, and in the Tenth Insight, he walks. I decided not to keep any of the books, and put them all back in the free book box, and passed along my way.  Each non-self-soothing-day is approximately as poetic, or non-poetic, as any other. When there is fire in the soul, and no one comes to visit, it does kind of feel like a waste, doesn't it. See you tomorrow.


Love,
Erica.

Send your letters to Vincent or Erica to ericaschmidt85 (at) gmail (dot) com.

p.s. Two Mondays ago, I was interviewed by Nighttime Podcast host, Jordan Bonaparte about my series I wrote on the disappearance of Emma Fillipoff, who vanished into the night in Victoria, B.C. on November 28, 2012. We are coming up on the five-year anniversary of when Emma was last seen. This November 28, families and loved ones lighting candles, and holding vigils in Emma's honour. You can check out Jordan's interview with me, plus a bunch of other fascinating interviews her on the podcast, Emma Fillipoff is Missing. 

Making these chakra cards is quite soothing. And they are for sale. Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
I Let Go

Bodhisattva Business Ventures:

Deep Cleans by Erica J. Schmidt 
(@deepcleanswitherica)


Montreal Hippie Threads 
(@mtlhippiethreads)
Instagram: montrealhippiethreads


Dear Vincent, Today I might tell you that I love you, or else I might just ask if you too are a Scorpio,
and if so, is it your birthday
The Best Thing I've Ever Done
Where is Emma Fillipoff (One)