The Magical Rock Vagina Cleanse, by Erica J. Schmidt

SNAG, S-N-A-G stands for Sensitive New Age Guy. At Café Olimpico I always see this SNAG and he’s one of those people who’s ultra-busy running his micro-nation the MacBook Pro. And so, he never has any time to talk to me. But one day he decided he could spare a moment to grace my life with his secret to success.

“Erica,” he said. “You have to Name Your Wounds.”

As fate would have it, I am average to mediocre at naming my wounds; however; I am just about phenomenal at naming the dudes whose legs I hump and whose dicks end up inside of me.

For example, there was: the Vegan Life Coach, the Tall Cute Cauliflower, Rob One, Rob Two, and one of my favourites, the star of my life’s beautiful blogging fairy tale, The Boatman. As his name suggests, I met the Boatman on a boat. We happened to be at a wedding. Lucky for me, the full moon whispered in the Boatman’s ear and told him to kiss me. In about twenty minutes, we fell in love, and in his beautiful delusion, the Boatman invited me to leave Montreal and go live with him in Halifax in his Big Blue House with his Big Black Dog, and in my beautiful delusion, and also because I had seven and a half part-time jobs and maybe five dollars, I said yes.

As the blogging fairy tale goes, we lived happily ever after for three and a half years, except I had no friends and refused to go on Prozac.

I would highly recommend that everybody move for love at least once, it’s just that sometimes you have to move back. So, two Aprils ago, I had to move back and within a few months, I met the man who would one day inspire, the Magical Rock Vagina Cleanse.

This man I named, the Generic Married Man (GMM).

For me, the best is when dudes are ultra-unavailable, and when they have deep and beautiful and impossible wounds. As fate would have it, the Generic Married Man was all over this criteria. Like I imagine most philandering husbands are, he was ultra-busy running his micro-nation with his kids, a really important job, in theory his wife, as well as the highly time-consuming task of mourning and wailing over all his dead and broken dreams.

But Generic was clear and relatively considerate right from the start.

“Erica,” he said. “I just want you to know, I am never going to leave my family. Like never. That is not who I am.”

And I responded, “Yes! Definitely! Do not leave your family for me. Of course not!”

The other thing he said was, “I’m also not going to be all that available for the next 18 to 25 years.”

For me, this was no problem since I was not the kind of person who would move eighteen hours and give up my whole life for some silly love story.

"That's perfect," I said. "You are exactly what I am looking for!”

So we were off to this erotic, steamy passionate affair, and we met on the monkey bars every three to seven to seventeen and a half weeks.

On the monkey bars, Generic would tell me about all his deep and beautiful and impossible wounds, and I’d sit there shivering, and I’d wish that he did not have a wife. And then, we’d make out.

But not all of Generic’s wounds were deep and beautiful and impossible. Some of them were pretty Generic, and unsurprising.

For example,

“I haven’t had sex since 2010, or like maybe once, but that was to make a kid.”

Or like,

“All my wife ever thinks about is the kids and then I go to spoon her and she recoils onto the other side of the bed, and I’m all lonely and tired and horny.”

Or,

“My life is so ridiculously crazy busy! I don’t know who I am anymore.”

Now, I love parents and I love children and I love babies. Some of my favourite friends are parents and I love their kids. As one of my current seven and a half semi-retirement projects, I tie-dye onesies for babies I will never have. But families, I love them. Having said that, one of my favourite things to do is to complain about parents complaining about having children. As though the inherently fulfilling biological task of ejaculating inside of someone you kind of like (like that must be a little bit fun), and then you combine your own special DNA to make this extra unique and exceptional child that comes out of a vagina which is really interesting, and the child is so tiny and adorable – and you find it extra adorable, because it reminds you of you – and then it starts to talk, and everything it says is extra brilliant and extraordinary because it reminds you of you, like as though this whole process is so tragic and selfless and heroic – and also compulsory. Because it’s not compulsory. You know, I always want to tell people, you could have pulled out.

But poor Generic hadn’t pulled out and now he had a couple of kids and a wife who ostensibly recoiled whenever he went anywhere near her. Poor guy was stuck using condoms with me. Although it is not charitable to publish details of one's sexual experience on the Internet, I will say that Generic gave indisputably excellent and redemptive head. Also, he let me hump his leg which, as fate would have it, happens to be my favourite.

Unfortunately, since he was so ridiculously crazy busy, I did not get the chance to hump the Generic Married Man’s leg quite as often as would have been ideal. But that was okay, since besides complaining about parents complaining about having children, and besides leg humping, one of my other favourite things to do is to be a pen pal. I am a remarkable pen pal. While I may be a little intense and self-obsessed and one-sided about it, I would say that in general, I write delightful emails, letters, haikus, postcards, and text messages, and I would say that for the most part, it makes the world a better place.

For the most part, I made Generic’s world a better place. I filled his days with heartfelt and extraordinary emails and haikus and text messages, and every night I’d sign off, not just with the regular and generic x-o. Oh no! I wrote out my x’s and o’s. It was like the opposite of abbreviations. I spelled them out, “E-x, o-h, e-x, o-h,” and I added the innovative and provocative emoticon, the eggplant.

E-x, o-h, eggplant

Generic absolutely relished my stunning and enchanting creativity. He somehow believed that I was spectacular. This was a dream come true, and the best part was, since we barely ever saw each other, he never had a chance to change his mind.

So the whole thing was mostly magnificent apart from the fact that one of my main objectives in life is to be relatively to thoroughly well fucked. This is hard to pull off every three to seven to seventeen and a half weeks. The other issue was that I experienced a degree of conflict in my heart about the fact that Generic had a wife and children. As penance, I would force myself to stalk his beautiful wife on Facebook. Like most people, she had horrendous privacy settings which allowed me to peruse her happy mom photos. I would scroll through all the birthdays and milestones and the millions of ways her precious little children filled her heart with more love and joy and surprise than she ever could have imagined before the little creatures had come out of her vagina.

This made me feel very gross.  

But otherwise, I was relatively happy with how things were going. Having said that, I had accumulated a few other problems in my life. My heart was sort of broken from my last ex-boyfriend and I kept refusing to go on Prozaac. I decided my best option was to fuck off and pull a geographic, and I decided the best place to do this was in India.

Thus, in November, off I flew to Delhi, and I proceeded to bop around India for four and a half months. I spent a great deal of these four and a half months squatting over small holes and shitting buckets of liquid diarrhea. Then, when I got out of the bathroom, slews of horny and sex-deprived men would come up to me and ask, “Oh, Madam, you are very big awesome. Have you made the sex? Would you like to make the sex with me?” To which I would reply, “No.” So India was super interesting, a little hard, but lucky for me, I had my loyal and supportive pen pal Generic to get me through it.

Half Dead in Bangalore
Photo by the Stunning and Exceptional Photographer, Maansi Jain

Generic especially nailed his pen pal duties this one time when I was in Bangalore. I had gone to the latest movie Star Wars with some friends from the youth hostel. After about eleven minutes, I had to leave and projectile vomit into a garbage can. Twice.

I remember nauseously Ubering back to the hostel all by myself. By some miracle, Generic was available. I messaged him on Facebook chat, mourning and wailing that I might be dying and wanted to go home except I didn't really have one. .

Generic’s response was so perfect and comforting.

“Oh Erica,” he said. “Take heart. I’m waving my virtual Erica Flag for you.”

And you would think that this would not be so helpful. Generic’s in Montreal, waving not-a-flag for me, as I puke across the world in a garbage can in Bangalore. But astonishingly, it was a little bit helpful.

Even so, I decided that when I came back to Montreal, the whole thing needed to end. I mean, we hadn’t had sex in four and half months, he had a wife and kids, most of the love was probably in my imagination and I was convinced that once I saw him in person, it would be over. So we arranged to meet on the monkey bars, and I was all ready to can it.

And then, we made out.

And despite thirteen and half more attempts to can it, the ex’s and oh’s, and the emails and the haikus and even the occasional leg hump went on and on and on. Until suddenly it’s the end of the summer and I really don’t like myself that much.

I came to the decision that I needed to resort to drastic measures. The drastic measures were, The Magical Rock Vagina Cleanse.

Pretty much nobody knows what that is, so let me explain.

The Magical Rock is black, it’s called an Onyx, and you can buy it for about three bucks. I bought mine at the Mont-Royal sidewalk sale. What you do is while you are menstruating, you put the rock in your underwear – not your vagina, that’s where the diva cup goes. And as you menstruate, the magical rock is supposed to absorb and dispel all of your vagina’s trauma and disappointment and wounds (and/or ingrown hair issues and yeast infections, etc…). I was hoping the rock would also absolve and relieve my tendency to make pretty inappropriate and inconvenient sexual choices. And then there was one other thing I wanted, which the SNAGS are always going on and on about. It’s called Radical Self-Reliance. Immensely inspiring, Radically Self-Reliant people wake up in the morning, they have a shower, perhaps they even go to work or something like this, and somehow, they don’t need a Vegan Life Coach or a Generic Married Man or a Boatman or whoever to send them encouraging produce emoticons to affirm what they had for lunch.

I was thirty years old and I wanted Radical Self-Reliance.

My first step was, I put the rock into a jar of salt water. This was supposed to purify things.

Next, I composed my last brilliant epistle to the Generic Married Man. The subject line read, “Attachment Wounds.”

Poor Generic wrote back mourning and wailing about some terrifying dream he kept having where his wife and his children are up in a skyscraper, and the skyscraper is burning down, and Generic is stuck on the sidewalk and his legs are so tired and heavy and weak because he has no time to work out since he’s so ridiculously crazy busy, and he tries to climb and he can’t, but even if he could, the building is burning down way too fast, and no matter what he does everything is going to disintegrate and perish. And then Generic wakes up and he’s all alone sweating and screaming silently on his own side of the bed.

With mild sympathy I offered Generic a virtual flag, mentioned that he could maybe text me some eggplants on my birthday, but right now I really needed to focus on me and my rock and my vagina.

Very spiritually, as though my vagina knew what needed to happen, I started to menstruate, right in sync with the New Moon.  And thus began Day One of the Magical Rock Vagina Cleanse.

On Day Two, I got in the car with my tiny mother and my darling grandparents who were both around ninety years old, and the very best people of life. We drove to Algonquin Park where my beautiful and perfect and exquisite cousin, a medical doctor, was getting married at a summer camp.

I sat in the backseat next to my grandmother. I shoved black licorice in my mouth, as the black rock sat beneath my crotch absorbing trauma and disappointment. To enhance our minds, my grandmother read us a National Geographic article called, “When Sex is Shocking.” It was about a bug.

We got to the summer camp where my cousin introduced me to her beautiful and perfect fiancé. They had about a hundred perfect twenty-eight-year old friends who all had magnificent careers and had been in beautiful and perfect relationships since kindergarten or at least high school. I made some small talk about tie-dyed onesies, bug sex, and cleaning out other people’s refrigerators.

The next day, to prepare everyone for the wedding, I was scheduled to teach a yoga class to all these beautiful people who were also rather athletic. And I realized that, I absolutely did not want the magical black rock to fall out of my underwear. Like this just couldn’t happen.

The other thing was that all the trauma and disappointment was starting to make the rock smell crotchy.

So I came to the conclusion that you know what, the hell with this. The hell with Radical Self Reliance. The hell with Magical Rock Vagina Cleanses. I was canning it. For once, I was able to can something relatively promptly. I took the rock out of my underwear, rinsed off the trauma and disappointment and stuck the onyx in my purse.

The yoga class turned out to be brilliant, the wedding was spectacular and before we knew it, we were all sitting at the dinner table and suddenly I was little bit drunk.

There was one of those fun and exciting happy wedding games where you have to do something to get the bride and groom to make out. At this wedding, every table was supposed to write a limerick. In my drunken charm, I decided that limericks were dumb and generic and that we should write a haiku about the magical rock in my purse. To my great fortune, no one at my table objected and I wrote my first haiku since canning my “relationship” with the Generic Married Man. I presented the haiku to my stunning cousin and her new husband. As a bonus, I handed over the magical black rock. Whether or not they decided to keep it remains a mystery, but my best guess is that the Magical Black Rock is now somewhere in Vancouver.

After the wedding I went to go hang out in Toronto. And I thought, you know, yah I bailed on the Magical Black Rock Cleanse, but maybe I have managed to acquire a little bit of Radical Self- Reliance. You never know.

As fate would have it, Toronto is an excellent place for resetting your vagina. You don’t need a magical black rock, and you don’t need radical self-reliance. The hell with it. In twelve hours, I got to hump two people’s legs. This was more action than I got from the Generic Married Man in like six months. It was spectacular. Loved it.

The most persistent temporary source of sexual gratification was this sad, successful and horny actor – he was a little bit older than me, pretty cute, funny, also super depressed. The sad, successful and horny actor was struggling with a whole slew of physical, emotional and psychological problems. He definitely had the deep and beautiful and impossible wounds going on, not to mention an extremely weird dog. Weirdest dog I’ve ever seen. I called the sad, successful, horny actor, Dead Inside Man. D-I-M. Dim. 

DIM's weird dog

Dim has been going to therapy twice a week for twenty-seven and half years. He just discovered his inner child and so he spends a great deal of time lying on the couch and soothing his inner child. And every once in a while he lets me hump his leg which is very fun. After the leg hump, I ask him how he’s doing

Mostly Dim says, “I feel so sad and tired and broken.”

“There, there,” I reply, patting his head. And I offer consolation with a special imaginary flag. Eventually, Dim lets me hump his leg again, and it’s wonderful. One time after a nice leg hump, Dim gives me a nice speech.

“You know, Erica,” he says. “You’re lovely. You’re amazing. But… I just really don’t want to get too attached to you. You know?”

“Oh you too? How interesting! But that’s okay,” I say quickly. “That’s perfect. You are exactly what I'm looking for.”

Dead Inside Man is so neurotic that for him to drive four and half hours to see me would be this massive ordeal, and mostly unrealistic. Plus he has that really weird dog. So pretty much we’re confined to being pen pals. But Dim does think I’m spectacular and this brings me great comfort.

Every night, I’ve trained Dim to text me, “E-x, o-h, e-x, o-h.”

For now, Dim is a little too dead inside for eggplants, but maybe we can work on it.

The End.

Ex, Oh.
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Soul Fucking
Not That Kind of Girl
Mythological Unconditional Love

 

Dear Vincent, How was your eclipse?

Dear Vincent,

How was your eclipse? I cleaned all the way through it. Cleaning is healing for the grieving and traumatized people. My Magical Hoarding Client told me that the Navaho people consider it unlucky to watch an eclipse and prefer to stay inside and do something they find sacred. For example, cleaning. What a fucking relief. Hopefully you too were protected from bad luck in your windowless office where you treat people with both delicate and indelicate weeping skills.

Over the weekend, my Monday client consulted me about how to ride her couch of her semi-geriatric cat’s stale vomit and urine residue. I replied with a story about my semi-geriatric Big Black Dog who used to have highly irritable bowels and who used to be the star of my blog. One time my ex-boyfriend, Robbie, the Boatman, the other former star of my blog, fed the Big Black Dog rainbow lucky charm dog food. This caused the Big Black Dog to puke and shit all over our bed and couches. We ended up renting carpet cleaner contraptions from Canadian Tire and I remember the endeavour being extremely soapy. Once the dog died, the Boatman’s mother gave us a new couch. She always had an abundance of couches.

Eliot the Big Black Dog, post Lucky Charms ordeal

I might start making my own homemade Enzymatic Cleaner. You need citrus peels. My favourite kind of citrus is grapefruit. What about you?

When I move to my new apartment, I might also take up fermentation compost, though I am not sure I am meticulous enough of a scientist for this to be an enormous success.

In my neighbourhood, people have so many children they don’t have time to do the dishes, so they eat with plastic cutlery off paper plates, and they drink out of Styrofoam, or more plastic. All the alleys smell like piles of garbage. Kind of like in India.

The day of the eclipse, I cleaned all the way through lunch. At midnight, I woke up hungry and ate some cottage cheese. When I finally fell back asleep, I dreamt I showed up topless to my cleaning shift at the Real Estate Agent’s. This made me feel quite embarrassed because my tits are so small and I really should have showed up to work with a shirt on. In my dream, as I cleaned, I accidentally broke the head of the Real Estate Agent’s crystal Santa Clause ornament. The Santa Claus ornament had red and green wings and the Real Estate Agent’s boyfriend had programmed it to fly around in circles up the Christmas tree. When I showed her the broken head, she just laughed and seemed happy and in love.

After that I dreamt that the Dead Inside Man offered me a cheque for 50 grand, as well as his really weird dog.

Dim's weird dog. Weirdest dog I've ever seen.

Then I dreamt that my mother gave me a voucher of redeeming vitamins.

Then I dreamt that someone gave me a rim job, and this made me feel quite self-conscious. Kim Anami, the well-fucked woman, who lifts chandeliers with her vagina, says that anal sex is powerful because it opens the orifice that leads to your deepest shit. I think I am going to apply to be her copywriter. Yesterday, I hooked up with my meditation partner again. We do not exactly open the orifices to one another’s deepest shit, but at least it took the edge off. And I drank my meditation partner’s cum, which the well-fucked woman claims is a natural anti-depressant. So far I have not taken any Abilify, or Celexa, and I don’t exactly feel like dying. Today, I am translating minestrone, apple crisp, spinach salad, and macaroni and cheese recipes. After that, it’s more cleaning and grieving. Thanks for being there.

Love, Erica.

Vincent was my therapist from October of 2016, and May 2017. After we ran out of subsidized sessions, I began to write him daily imaginary emails.

I called the project, "Mondays without Vincent," and it turned out to be quite healing. You too can write imaginary emails to Vincent. 

The secret address is: ericaschmidt85(at)gmail.com.

Vincent will be delighted to hear from you, and he will not judge. He'll write back as soon as he can. The correspondence can remain a secret, or else we can share it here with others and maybe it could be healing for everyone.  Love, Erica. 



Shiny and happy with Half an Inch of Nip (September 2016)


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I Let Go

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Poopy Mango Baby Wipes and the First Day of Christmas
Why I am like Jane Fonda
Lizzie

Still Me

October 30, 2012
Dear Simon,
 
Yesterday was the Full Moon and the Hurricane and My Birthday.  Also, the Boatman’s father had heart palpitations.  He got dizzy and sweaty and he almost fainted.  His heart isn’t beating at the right rhythm.  It beats too slow, or else too fast.  My father had the same thing.  Neither of them will die.
 
The last time I saw the Boatman’s father was at a party at their big beautiful house.  The Boatman was late and his mother complained.  The Boatman’s father snapped, “Kathy, he’ll enjoy himself here more if he finishes what he’s doing.”  By the time Robbie arrived, the Boatman’s father felt better but he was drunk.  Robbie brought the Big Black Dog and the Boatman’s father was happy to see them both.  The Big Black Dog took a shit on the deck where Robbie was drinking beer and his father was drinking red wine.  They took him to the front lawn where the Big Black Dog crouched over the grass and tried to shit but mostly it was only gas. The Boatman calls this a foop.
 

 The Big Black Dog, our love and fooping champion.

“Erica,” the Boatman’s father told me when he came inside.  “Isn’t it nice that Eliot can pass gas outside on our lawn?”  It was so nice.
 
At dinner the Boatman’s father hardly ate anything.  Afterwards we were standing around the kitchen counter.
 
“Erica,” he slurred.  “You’re so...  Great.  You’re just great.”  I smiled and said thank you.  “And you know Erica,” he continued.  “The great thing is, when Robbie’s at work, you’re still… You’re still you.”  What a wonderful thought.  Five minutes later the Boatman’s father was in bed snoring. 
 
I’m still me.
 
Me.  I am twenty seven now, I like the number. I got a job at the Elections Call Centre. The call centre changed my life. Now I feel like a real person.  The Boatman feels like I am a real person too.  Every day we are all over each other, snuggling and fucking and kissing. 
 
I wrote this letter by hand in an enormous sketchbook. It is covered with old photos and cut up birthday cards that the people with disabilities made for me.  There are also pictures from the Paper Bag Princess that I ripped right out of the book.  Our book if it ever gets published our book may just get cut up and glued onto some shitty writer’s shitty scrapbook.  Inside my scrapbook, I glued pictures of myself and my friends from when I am less that twenty. Mostly I look exactly the same.  There is a picture of me pushing a little boy in a wheelchair.  His name is Glendon and my family and I have been taking care of him for years.  He doesn’t speak or walk or see or feed himself.  When you push him in the wheelchair sometimes he can raise his arm up above his head and wrap it around his ear.  Or if you lean over his head and say “Hi Glendon,” he will tilt his face up towards yours. 
 

Further on in the scrapbook there is a thank you card from my cousin who got married when he was twenty-three.  For his present, I bought him a garlic press.  The thank you card has a black and white picture from their wedding on the front.  They look like teenagers.  They got married very young so that they could have sex without Jesus getting mad. 
 
The next page of the scrapbook is a letter I wrote to my pothead boyfriend from a few years ago.  His phone was always dying and that was a metaphor for the whole relationship.  I wrote the letter on white paper and glued it onto colourful construction paper.  Beside the words, I’d glued blurry pictures of myself, dressed up as a hot seventies housewife. In one of the photos I am holding a banana as a gun. Luckily I never sent that letter.

Me in Moomoo, with Banana

Last Saturday night, Robbie and I sat on the couch drunk, and I read him the pages in my scrapbook.  There’s a picture of me in front of the big grey van I used to drive when I lived at the house for people with disabilities.  All the people who I lived with there are surrounding me.  Isabelle is sitting in her wheelchair in front of me.  Beside me Madeleine, one of the older ladies is holding up a fushia sign that says, “Merci Erica On t’aime beaucoup.”  I had just started practicing yoga with Darby and fucking my 11^th boyfriend, the vegan life coach.  I hadn’t puked in my mouth for three weeks.  I wouldn’t puke in my mouth for another 7 months.  I am twenty-one years old and I am glowing
 
“You look adorable,” said the Boatman.  “You look exactly the same.”
 
The next pages I wrote over a year and a half ago.  Back when you and I were trying not to fuck. I had all these dreams about writing with joy and ease and living somewhere warm and not being poor and fucking someone who loved me and made me rejoice. 
 
Robbie said that this was all very sweet.  And that maybe one day we will move to a warm place and I’ll write wonderful things and we’ll have enough money to do what we want and see each other all the time.  We’ll go to the zoo, and our children won’t get lost. 
 
At the elections call center, there was a pregnant employee named Raven.
 
“Raven like the Big Black Bird,” she said when she introduced herself. Every once in a while, Raven would screech and squawk, usually between phone calls. Raven was being a surrogate mother for her brother’s baby. So she carried her brother’s baby, formed in a test tube and then sheltered from the world inside her uterus. Now Raven has to take time off from the call center.  A fake maternity leave.  She is feeling terrible.  It is a terrible idea to have someone else’s baby.  Especially your brother’s.  I do not recommend it.  Last night, Robbie and I talked about this. About poor Raven and her sad empty uterus. “It’s too hard,” I said.  “It is way too hard.”
 
“Life is hard, babe,” Robbie said, putting his arm around me.  “But it’s easier for us because we have each other.  And I know I’m not perfect, and you’re not perfect, but I really feel like you’re the most perfect person I’ve found so far.  Before you came, I was so miserable.  You make me so happy.  And I feel so lucky to have you.  I do.”

Life on the Happy Stairs.

Life is hard, but it’s not that hard for me. For us.  I feel like everything is falling into place.  The Big Black Dog can pass gas on the lawn, and it’s so nice.  Robbie is at work and no matter when he comes home, I’m still me.  I’m still me, but I cannot wait until I see him again.  The book might be more interesting with some crazy cunt wrecking cardboard box twist.  But I’m not planning one.  I’m happy and I’m finished. 

The End.

Love, Erica.

Small details have been changed for confidentiality purposes.

This is the last letter in the last book I wrote with my ex-ex boyfriend Simon the Hermit. We called the book series, The Little Savage and the Hermit. It never got published, and everyone knows Simon jumped off a building last January.

The Big Black Dog used to be a big star on this blog. He also died.

And well, while we're at it, the Boatman and I broke up and I don't live in Halifax anymore. But I'm still me!

Now it is May 11, 2016. Today I have a meeting with my banker. I kind of wish he was my therapist. I look forward to making fiscally sound choices. And maybe I will visit the Bald Baristas for some performative grilled cheese on the way.

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I Let Go, by Erica J. Schmidt

Why I am like Jane Fonda

Stuff From the Little Savage and the Hermit:
Soul Fucking
Lizzie
Cardboard Box
Rumplestiltskin

 

You No Look Back: Farewell to 2015.

On Sunday, January 4, 2015, infused with alcohol, my ex-ex boyfriend Simon Girard climbed from his eighth floor apartment all the way up to the 23rd. From there, he made his way to the rooftop, walked to the north-east corner of the building and without pausing, threw himself into the air. Since he was eight years old, he had imagined throwing himself from a great height. I think of him whenever I stand before a vast cliff, or waterfall, or building. His suicide has permeated my mind and my writing. But he got he wanted, and it’s time to move on.

Other things that died this year: my romantic relationship with the Boatman, which I thought was supposed to last forever. My life in Halifax, which had been a strain for some time. My Ashtanga Yoga Practice, something else that despite long-term arthritic like symptoms in my joints, I believed I’d be best to continue for my whole life. Likely losing my legs or breaking my spine, or pushing one to three small humans out of my vagina would have been more disruptive than 2015’s series of events. Still, I feel it has been a pretty thorough ride.

“You no look back, you look future.”

On a trip to Udaipur, India, I ended up at a cooking class, despite the fact that I have absolutely no desire to improve my pitifully minimalist culinary skills. To my surprise, it turned out to be a major highlight. The teacher was a gem of a woman named Shashi.

Shashi

“My English, no perfect,” she told us as she passed out a 12-page hand-out of recipes that some Australians had helped her put together. Even so, she candidly told us her story. When she was 32 years old, her husband died. She didn’t tell us how, but it seemed like it was sudden. Because she belonged to the Brahman caste, Shashi was sentenced to being a widow for the rest of her life. In accordance with the traditional grieving process, for 45 days, she wasn’t allowed to leave the house. With her face covered, she had to sit in the corner of her living room.

“All day, people coming. People going. Crying, crying. Me no talking,” she said. At five o’clock, she was finally allowed to take off her veil and cook. But she was still all alone. For an entire year afterwards, whenever she left the house, she had to cover her face. 32 years old. No husband, no money, and it seemed, no future. Many years later, when her son was closer to college age, he would bring his friends home from school to study. Shashi decided to cook for them.

“Chapathi, paratha, dahl, gobi masala…” As it turned out, her food was quite delicious. One of her son’s friends suggested she start cooking classes for tourists. The only problem was she only spoke Rajasthani. “No English speaking.” This however, did not kill the idea, and Shashi took enough classes to learn the basics. Before long, it was time for her first cooking class.

“Big shaky, big, nervous,” she said as she described standing in front of the table of tourists for the first time. Now Shashi has been giving classes for over six years. Her classes are so outstanding that she made it into the Lonely Planet.  With no skipped beats, she instructed us on how to prepare an unthinkable number of tantalizing dishes. Chai, pakora, chapathi, nan, three kinds of paratha, how to make paneer, how to use it in two different curries, dahl, gobi masala, rice pulao… As she guided us from dish to dish, it seemed like she had her entire handout memorized.  What was also  impressive and very touching was her ability to translate many of the ingredients and recipe terms into other languages.

“Mélangez!” she told my Quebecois buddy Hugo, who stood before the magic masala sauce with a wooden spoon. She knew all the words for the vegetables in French. I found this to be both lovely and inspiring. So much can be gained when you open yourself up to learning something new, without the fear of not being perfect. 

 

Hugo stunningly stirs. Perhaps next I could use a photography course!

“You no look back, you look future,” Shashi said as she reflected on how her life had changed since her husband had died. Surely, as a young woman, Shashi would never have imagined that she’d become a widow and wind up teaching world famous cooking classes to foreigners. But that is how her life turned out. You no look back.

Although I will probably never become an excellent cook, Shashi was an excellent teacher. Her words and presence and spirit will remain with me a long time. A year ago, I would never have imagined that I’d have given up Ashtanga Yoga, that I’d have become single and nomadic and taken to prancing around India with no real itinerary. And yet, this is my life right now.

Having always struggled with making decisions and with changes in routine, I have been amazed at my ability to be adaptable and somewhat chill.  To bathe, I squat under faucets of cold water and to shit, over holes in the ground. I have also had to observe myself through periods during which I am rather embarrassingly shrill and obnoxious. As though my intense preferences might possess the capacity to change some of India’s most frustrating attributes. And perhaps the most amazing part is my body’s ability to shit liquid for such an extended period of time. Luckily, things have solidified since I arrived further south. Oh Varanasi, I will never ever forget you…

Varanasi, The Land of Limitless Boatmen and Liquid Shits.

I fluctuate between viewing myself and my life as a hopeless disaster and then realizing that I might be on the verge of becoming super strong.

After bailing on Day Two of a Ten-day vipassana meditation retreat, I found myself in Pondicherry for New Year’s Eve.  Though aimless, I was craving some sort of symbolic ritual that would help me move on from this crazy year. Pondicherry was noisier than I’d imagined, and my travelling companions were somewhat into beer and cigarettes. As midnight approached, I could feel myself becoming disappointed and angsty. Surrounded by smelly hungover boys, I would wake up in 2016 and everything would be messy and the same. Well, isn’t that always the case.  Every morning, still Erica.

But beer and cigarettes don’t always rule out depth. An Australian friend shared his family’s New Year’s custom. On one piece of paper, you were supposed to write down something from the year before that you wanted to let go of. On the other, you wrote something you wanted to chase after. Right around midnight, you were supposed to burn the paper with the thing you wanted to let go of, and let the other paper fly into the wind.

Without overthinking it, I picked WORRY for the thing to burn. The beach was windy and crowded. I had to get some Indian dudes to help light my worries with matches.

“It is taking too long to burn all your worry,” one dude said. Luckily, it all burned away. At midnight, everyone wanted a Happy New Year selfie. It seemed like Happy New Year in India was an occasion for handshakes and hugs. I started to decline after someone tried to grope my now devastatingly tiny eternal right tit. The scene reminded me of New Year’s 2011 in Montreal. Simon and I walked down Prince Arthur Street towards the building that Simon would one day jump off. Both of us drunk, but Simon, drunker than I, insisted on shaking everyone’s hand. “Happy New Year!” he’d wish to everyone, almost compulsively. I remember feeling super embarrassed as everyone looked at him weirdly. Too bad we hadn’t been in Pondicherry. Simon would have fit right in.

For the thing to chase after in 2016, I picked Self-Love. As I threw the paper out into the wind, I knew I would have to chase after it fast.

But you no look back.

 

 

One Morning in Rishakesh

The End.

Happy New Year to All. Much love.  

Whatever your struggle, you are not alone.

Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook: I've been posting a bunch of photos and updates there! We'll see about more blogging... I may need some coaxing from my fan club!

Twitter: @mypelvicfloor ...

 

More On Shashi's Cooking Classes. Come one! Come all! Highly recommended.

Most viewed new post of 2015: The Where is Emma Fillipoff Series And we still don't know where she is.

Some of my favourite posts of the year:

The Benefits of an Ashtanga Yoga Practice, Part Two
Guillaume, Part Two (Asking People About Their Lives)
Why You Are a Hermaphrodite (Asking People About Their Lives)
What a Beautiful Face
Not Separate From All That Is
How I am violent, by Erica J. Schmidt