Dear Vincent,
If Oprah does not invite you to sit in her decadent plushy green chairs
in the middle of the Oprah Forest to discuss your beautiful soul’s beautiful
hero’s journey, it’s possible this might be a blessing. It’s possible you might
just be spared.
Love, Erica.
Dear Oprah,
My beautiful soul’s beautiful hero’s journey is I broke up with the star of my life’s most beautiful blogging fairy tale and after six months of
weeping indelicately in public, I ran away to India and this was fun for
approximately five and a half weeks and then I got extensive shits and I got to
be an emaciated and hysterical bone rack and when I finally made it back to
Canada, I was so washed out that I had to go on Prozac and then I met my
therapist who I fell deeply and madly in love with and this really messed me up
as did accidentally doubling my Prozac dose in the winter of 2017 and then
going off of it and then breaking my roommate’s delicate and precious teapot,
and meanwhile, to fulfill my enormous potential and to live my best life, I
clean other people’s bathtubs and sometimes I weep over the ledges of these
bathtubs, or else the dusty baseboards, or else the refrigerator drawers filled
with mouldy vegetable chunks, and approximately 100% of the time, nobody
notices.
Love, Erica.
Dear Vincent,
When I call the crisis center they tell me to call back because I am crying too
hard.
They should bring back the role of the Village Wailer, and this should be my
job.
Erica Schmidt, Mile End Wailer.
On Wednesday, May 30, 2018, as I wailed below the Saint Laurent
underpass, two people, asked me if I was okay, and I blubbered ‘I’m fine, this
is just me, a walking disaster,’ and then next to the railroad tracks, a woman
on her bike who said she worked with addicts insisted on an extended
conversation, and she asked me what I liked to do, and said, ‘I can see you
like to walk,’ in fact, she was right, and in fact, she was quite kind, and in fact, I sincerely hope our
encounter was good for her Mother Teresa complex.
Addict Mother Teresa Friend said there isn't some magic formula, you just keep
trying different things to see what works. I guess this is not terrible
advice.
On the way home, underneath the underpass, some dude walked by me and handed me
an apple. He had an apple too, and I was too lonely to go home and so I
followed him to Clark Park and watched him wash the apple in the water
fountain.
His t. shirt was white and on the right breast corner it said something
about the Xavier school of gifted youngsters.
“Were you a gifted youngster?” I asked.
“Oh, this is from X-men,” he said. “And it’s a rare shirt. Kind of my
superpower.”
“Oh,” I said. I know very little about x-men, due to being a
philistine.
“What about you? What is your superpower?”
I did not want my superpower to be mopping, although I am quite good at
this.
The star of my life’s most beautiful blogging fairy tale used to say,
my emotions could maybe be a superpower.
The star of my life’s most beautiful blogging fairy tale had never seen
anything like my emotions.
“Maybe my emotions could be my superpower. But mostly they just give me
a really hard time.”
My emotions, they
are very astonishing.
On Wednesday, May 30, 2018, I found a dead mouse, stuck to a sticky
mouse trap under a kitchen sink, and the sink belonged to a family who has an
enormous baby, and I always say that the enormous baby’s face is very
astonishing.
Every 12 minutes to 36 hours, I feel totally astonished.
The guy with the gifted youngsters t. shirt said, “I bet people give you all
kinds of suggestions on what you should do. Meditation, working out, yoga,
journals.”
“Yes,” I said. “And I have been doing all of it since I was seven years old.”
He went to drink beer with his friends, and I went home to do the
dishes.
The apple was macintosh. It tasted small and generic. Then I fell asleep on the
couch.
In the morning, I finished a translation about houseplants. Apparently, there
is no reason to resist growing houseplants. None of my houseplants have grown
since I got them, and the basil seems doomed. And I have a lovely succulent
plant that Dexter brought.
Succulent plants are very trendy.
I am not happy with my Village Wailer performance though some might say it was
rather impressive.
Best wishes for an unoppressive and/or invigorating day.
Love,
Erica.
Dear Vincent,
I can appreciate professional boundaries but just to let you know where I am
coming from, last Friday afternoon, I gave my client Linda a free haircut and
henna streaks at my house, partly because being a hairdresser is my dream job
and partly because on Friday, May 27, 2018 I knocked over Linda’s precious and
delicate miniature horse ornament and the front left leg came off and considering how suicidal I became after
breaking my roommate’s teapot on Friday, May 26, 2017, and considering how the
horse’s leg can probably be glued back on, the incident was not all that
traumatic; however, it did instil a self-imposed obligation to buy another
horse and to say yes to the next seventeen things Linda asks me for, and this
began with the henna streaks and the haircut.
Last night I dreamed about cleaning big chunks behind someone’s stove, and the chunks
belonged to my client Genevieve who barely needs a cleaning lady and who is
about to move across the country and I’m a bit sad because we get along great
and Genevieve signs off all her texts with three emphatic thumbs up, and I sure
as hell could use three emphatic thumbs up every other Monday or Wednesday. In
my dream, I cleaned up all the chunks behind the stove, and then I went to
Genevieve’s wedding, and I was deeply embarrassed by how disgustingly dirty my
feet were, and the groom was Tim Ferris, and Genevieve and Tim vowed to
manifest the spectacular hell out of their lives, and when they kissed, it was
passionate and convincing.
I woke up at 4:14 and all the stoves and the bathtubs and the whole
week seem impossible.
I really wish you could save me and that you loved me back but you can't and
you don't, not even if I offer to give you a free haircut and even though you
probably like some version of my face when I am not sobbing it off, and maybe
also my legs and all this, along with at least 37 easily listable details of
life leave me feeling breathtakingly disappointed.
The other thing I want to say is, I packed a sandwich for lunch.
Love, Erica.
Dear Erica,
Where is your nervous system?
Thinking about your nun friends.
Love, Erica.
Dear Oprah and Vincent,
Linda’s haircut went great.
Love, Erica.
Dear Vincent,
On a podcast I learned that to relieve trauma you can lie on the floor
and cradle the back of your head and then gaze your eyes from one side of the
world to the other. Maybe I will try that the next time I am hysterical.
Love, Erica.
Dear Vincent,
I still love you, and I still love Oprah.
Love, Erica.
*Names and crucial identifying details have been altered due to excellent professional boundaries. Send your letters to me, or to Vincent or to Oprah. The top-secret email address is ericaschmidt85(at)gmail(dot)com.
p.s. Vincent is my therapist and I have that thing where you love your therapist and I get to see Vincent every other Wednesday.
