Dear Vincent, Now you have three pen pals.

Wednesday, September 6, 2017

Dear Vincent,

So far you have three other pen pals. All of their names are secrets. Except for Sorrowful Simon. His name is not a secret.

“I have never felt enough to be with someone.”

One of your pen pals whose name is not Sorrowful Simon wrote this. So many of my friends have said the same sort of thing. That they will never be enough to find love. I have been known to say this myself. But the truth is, many people who have found love are actually rather obnoxious, or if you look at their lives, at least one or several components are a total disaster.

What does it mean to be good enough?

Dan Savage always says that to enter the dating scene you need to be in “good working order.” I imagine this means a minimum of wailing in alleys, throwing shelves across your bedroom floor, and as you like to say, having to put out all kinds of fires from six in the morning until bedtime. In fact, this past summer, my level of Good Working Order has been highly questionable. Likely, I was Out of Order. Even so, my Meditation Partner still seemed to appreciate the blow jobs, more or less. The Well-Fucked Woman says that Cock Worship and opening your throat to someone else’s genitals is redeeming, both for the cock owner and for whoever is giving the blowjob. You can even have something called a Throatgasm. What a thrill, though, perhaps first you need to be in Good Working Order.

Is peace around the corner? On Friday I moved around the corner to Hutchison street. Friday night, at a restaurant on Bernard, a Chiseled-Cherub-Faced 23-Year-Old Filmmaker asked me about my choice of Asian soup. He ordered chicken, and I had tofu, even though I’ve recently opted to try eating meat, instead of Abilify and Celexa. After our soup, we ate fortune cookies, which always allow for easy poetry. My fortune cookie said that my mind was “sharp, fast and analytical.” His said something about how he would soon meet an auspicious and valuable friend.

I told him I didn’t want babies, and he said, “But you never know. In a decade you might change your mind. You’ll be like a totally different person. I feel like I’m totally different from how I was ten years ago.”

My friend, it killed me not to say, ten years ago, you were having your first wet dreams. These are the pros of hooking up with a 23 year old. Endless earnest, innocent and adorable insight. The cons, I suppose are, what the fuck do I do with my daddy issues?

The next morning, I sent the Chiseled-Cherub-Faced 23-Year-Old Filmmaker my story, The Magical Rock Vagina Cleanse. He texted back gushing that I might be almost be a female counterpart to Charles Bukowski. His text generated unambiguous sensations in my vagina. Even though I am likely far too large him, and far too old.

All weekend I washed all the walls of my new apartment. And all the floors, and I didn’t cry once. Also, my washing machine arrived, and it purrs. Also, last Tuesday I forgot to tell you about this thing that I invented called mood sports. Mood Sports is you against your mood. One fun thing about mood sports is that they only contain one vowel. I always find this sort of thing so soothing.

While I was sleeping on Saturday night, Chiseled-Cherub-Faced 23-Year-Old Filmmaker texted me a peace sign, and asked if I was going nuts. At 5:17 A.M. the next morning, he reported that on his end, nuts weren’t had, but he made a ton of new friends. lol. Happy Face. Haven’t heard from him since.

Ten years ago I felt like a totally different person. I kind of feel the same way about last Tuesday. Everything always arising and passing away.

Happy full moon.

Love, Erica.

You too can write imaginary emails to Vincent. The project is called "Mondays without Vincent" and the secret email address is: ericaschmidt85(at)gmail(dot)com.

Vincent will be delighted to hear from you. He will write back as soon as he can.

Much love, Erica.

Going nuts tonight?
:)


Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
I Let Go

Bodhisattva Business Ventures:
Deep Cleans by Erica J. Schmidt (@deepcleanswitherica)
Montreal Hippie Threads (@mtlhippiethreads)
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Dear Vincent, Thank you for responding to my hysterical phone call.
Dear Vincent, Sorrowful Simon has written you a letter.
Chuckie the Horse and the Day Jack Layton Died

Dear Vincent, This letter is about saving a begonia. Love, Erica.

Dear Vincent,

I moved.

I guess I didn’t need

to pay you 90 dollars to affirm

this decision.

A gifted and influential meditation teacher has died.

Struggling with challenging mind states linked with bipolar disorder, he sought out street drugs. These ended up containing fentanyl, and this killed him.

This is Michael Stone.
You can learn more about his teachings at michaelstoneteaching.com/.
You can support his family here.

His death has made me want to resume our imaginary emails. In fact, I considered sending this to you for real, though instead, I think I will simply post it on the Internet.

 

Opioids have their appeal these days. I don’t know much about them, but I think I can understand.

I get when it feels like you’ve tried everything, and the mind states still feel unmanageable. Extreme, unmanageable, and

in the words of my thoughts, unacceptable.

 

Michael Stone, the teacher who died, meditated every day for more than half of his life.

People can be so unforgiving of meditation. As though it all fails if the results are not entirely impeccable, and serene. I’m not sure I’m amazing at forgiving all the rituals and routines whose results have not turned out to be
unfailingly impeccable and serene.

 

These past few weeks, in preparation for the move, and because I want to erase myself, I’ve been obsessively giving things away. The tie-dyed clothes that no one will buy, old shoes I need to replace, but I never get around to it, sweaters, food, two of the books of my seven book library. Now there are only five books, and two of these are borrowed. How else can I erase myself?

 

Wednesday morning

Post evening of vodka and packing,

And almost three hours of sleep,

I transported all of my belonging from Mile End to Outremont.

About seven blocks.

It took three trips.

Two on foot,

And one $6 taxi ride.

I gave the driver a 100% tip.

I am rich now.

 

On the corner of Bernard and des Querbes, my new street,

a relatively obvious poem

came into my head.

 

There is no way

to erase

that you

existed.

There is no way

to erase that you

are alive

or that you lived.

 

After that, the poem crumbled.

Where I’m living is immense. I am subletting from family who is visiting Denmark for all of August. I’ll stay here until September 1^st. Then I will move again.

The five year old who usually lives here has a whole room for her dollhouse and toy kitchen, a mini artist table and child-sized canopied couch. I keep wandering from one end of the apartment to the other, not remembering where I’m going or what I’m looking for.

Though my pile of belongings is quite tiny, yesterday it seemed far too intrusive and out of place, and nothing seemed to fit.

One of my favourite friends came over to help. 

 

“I want to get you something large and obnoxious so you learn to take up space."

These are all my possessions, minus one large Rubbermaid of winter clothes, and two boxes of memorabilia I keep at my parents' houses.

Then I remembered the hanging begonia. One of my cleaning client’s Airbnb guests had been so thrilled with my communicative Facebook messages that she’d bought me a hanging plant. I’d forgotten to retrieve it from my client’s balcony. One of the nicest things people can do is say thank you, and I’d abandoned the gesture, figuring the plant was too large a possession, and way too much proof of existence.

 

The plant turned out to be far more enormous than I’d imagined. Several of its leaves and peach-coloured blooms had turned brown. It was dried out, but not quite dead.

This is the begonia.

Once I’d left my client’s place, I immediately squatted on the sidewalk of Parc Ave. It seemed so important to pick off all the dead leaves and petals. I think I can save the plant from dying.

Now the plant is hanging on my balcony, above the hammock. In the mornings, I will bring it water, and feed it my eggshells and coffee grounds.

Love, Erica.

 

The End.

 

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. In fact, if you'd like, you can send them to me, on any day of the week.

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

Let me know if you’d like a response. The correspondence can remain between us, or else we can share it here with others and maybe it could be healing for everyone. Love, Erica.

This is me in a movie with the begonia.


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


Not Separate From All That Is
Mourning, wailing, yearning, wake up.
Deep Unyielding Depression, Part Two