Dear Vincent,
I went on my adventure.
Everything is green.
I love you.
I found this perfect poem on somebody’s fridge. The poet was eight
years old, or maybe less.
It’s very boring, but many people don’t have anything on their fridges.
I recommend animal postcards, ironic magnets, artwork from children whose insides match their outsides and fortune cookie fortunes. Everything is green. You
are broad minded and socially active. Land is always in the minds of flying
birds. I do not recommend Happy Couple wedding invitations, or Happy Family Christmas
newsletters.
Recently I discovered that the best thing to clean the front of your
fridge with is dish soap. No need for bottles of poison labelled with skulls
and cross bones and the words, “keep out of reach of children.”
Once I cleaned a house called Happy Times. Every corner of Happy Times
was some kind of museum. Mannequin and Strange Doll Museum, Bad Harlequin
Museum, Endless Stacks of Records on a Ping Pong Table Museum. I cleaned Happy
Times for three days, ten hours per day. Outside the fridge, it was covered with
middle-aged masters swimming ribbons, 35 years of photo booth photos, grocery
store receipts, baby pictures, and every ex-girlfriend’s every pet and child at
every stage of life. Inside the freezer was a Ziploc bag that housed a budgie
named Budgimagar. Budgimagar had been dead for at least five years. To
taxidermy his body would have cost at least three hundred dollars.
 |
| I decided not to post a photo of Budgimagar in a ziplock bag. |
Before I left, I wrote on the on the back of a mountain goat animal
postcard.
Dear Fraser,
How come you don’t have any pictures of me on your fridge?
I wanted to remind you that you do not need to buy any more edamame
beans. Or salsa.
Also, your dead budgie’s corpse is in the freezer in the basement.
Love, Erica.
I hung the postcard on the fridge under a picture of a dog in the snow
and above a bicycle magnet and a photograph of an ex-girlfriend’s four-year old
child who is now a grown man. Fraser did not see the postcard for at least six
days.
Once I met a child whose insides matched her outsides, and her shirt
also matched the sky.
“Guess what, Ercica?” she used to say. She'd point to her shirt and say, “Blue.” Then point to the sky and say, “Blue!”
“Er-ci-ca,” said the girl whose insides matched her outsides. “Are you
proud of me?” She pronounced proud like an elementary school student whose
music teacher had just explained the importance of accentuating your vowels
while singing in the spring concert. Proud with wow inside of it. PrOWd.
The girl whose insides matched her outsides had just silkscreened a t.
shirt. The blue and green and yellow puddles of paint made a sail boat on
squiggles of water, and a tree on an island and a cloud that rhymed with proud
with a wow inside of it. And the best kind of little kid sun, that’s just a circle
with huge rectangular rays coming out of it.
“Yes, I’m SO proud of you,” I said. And I was. Proud with a wow inside
of it.
On my fridge, I have three circular magnets of flamingos doing yoga. For
a period of time, one of the magnets held up a list about of the three things I
knew about my therapist, Vincent, you, at that time. There was something to do
with how Vincent likes citrus and apples, and how Vincent does not recommend
cooking with a crock pot as the excess moisture might interfere with flavour.
And you were learning to stand on your head, and this warmed my heart.
Now I know that when you first became a psychologist, you ate too much
trail mix and this wreaked havoc on your liver. And I know that you are 38 years old, and that you are not
amazing at doing your lunch dishes promptly after you eat, and sometimes you even
leave them on your dusty filing cabinet until the next day which is somewhat
questionable, as is objecting to cooking with a crock pot.
I eat an extensive amount of trail mix, and last October, I took down
the list of the three Things I Know About Vincent, and this made me vaguely
Proud of myself, kind of like I feel after I take out the recycling and most of
the cans of coconut cream are more or less rinsed out.
Now the front of my fridge is three drawings from children whose
insides match their outsides, a birthday card from my friend who loves me just
the way I am, the Swadisthana sex chakra, the magnets of bendy flamingos doing yoga, magnets my mother
sent me in a care package, and a fortune cookie fortune that says, “Happy
events will soon take place in your home.”
They say the stock market is starting to swoon. Inside my freezer there is compost, homemade vegetable broth, and one third of a bag of edamame beans. Tonight I am going to a
BBQ, but until then the kind of Saturday I am having is a Blob Saturday. Everything
is green. I love you.
Erica.
Send your imaginary and un-imaginary emails to Vincent, or to me. The secret email address is ericaschmidt85(at)gmail(dot)com.
More stories, please.
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