Memoirs of a Brief Affair

RH stands for Radical Honesty and might make you think of the hemorrhoid cream. Hemorrhoid is one of those ridiculously difficult words to spell. A lack of hemorrhoids is a source of gratitude. Some people make a case for lukewarm honesty. Instead of the radical kind. I am not that kind of people.

A couple of friends suggested I start a new Haiku or poetry blog. Marriedman.com.

Haiku One. Memoirs of a Brief Affair.

In meditation,

I heard your wife say please stop
texting my husband.

I'd rather not stop.
It is super addictive.
What should we do now.

My dream was about

You guys getting a divorce.
She told your family.

I sat there, listened

as Susie crawled on my lap.
Jeremy said nothing.

I wanted to text

"You didn't try therapy."
Like you said you would.

"It's too expensive."

That was your excuse. But it's
cheaper than divorce.

End of Haiku one.

Seeking redemption,

I fold all my underwear
To look like a rose.

If you’re wondering how Facebook Rehab is going, well, between haikus to the Married Man, I am now posting selfies of myself wearing plush elephant masks and talking to owl puppets. They get tons of likes.

 

Plush Performances

My deepest fear is
I’ll still be sending haikus
To you in ten years.

Tonight at 6 p.m., I get to spark joy in the house of some banker/kundalini yoga instructor. Yesterday, on my way to Butt Club, I texted my most darling friend and mentor (MMDFAM) who generously invited me to my first threesome last spring in Toronto.   

Yesterday, 5:12 PM:  MMDFAM! How’s it going? I tried to get closure with the married man in person, since the haikus did not work. But nor did seeing him. We didn’t make out but I could not can it. I like him. He will never make me a well-fucked woman. What am I doing? Why can’t I channel all this energy into something useful? I feel addicted to the drama and the constant affirmation. It is so hard to focus on life. The Facebook Rehab is a bust. Soon it will be Butt Club. I love you. I’m sure your butt looks phenomenal. XO.

MMDFAM suggested that we raise a toast to INCREMENTALLY BETTER and the Baby Steps^TM method. But having said that, sometimes closure is overrated. Like folding your underwear into the shape of a rose. Butt Club was an enormous success. Four Participants. World record. The Married Man sent his congratulations. He remains in massive haiku debt.

When are we gonna

Bother with integrity
This just needs to end.

I finished translating the novel excerpt about terrorists on a luxury cruise ship. Several sentences needed to die. For example,

“Each of their faces displayed a victorious smile and the entire group exuded a nearly infantile excitement.”

Nobody got to exude a nearly infantile excitement or display a victorious smile. Also the vanishing box did not get to bid farewell with a foamy bluish whirlpool. I am giving the sentences closure.

“Though the men appeared curious at the time, their interest quickly faded as the vanishing box bid farewell with a foamy bluish whirlpool.”

And the love affair between the ex-marine and the captivating cruise ship acrobat didn’t seem to work out either. It died in chapter eight.

“Instead of answering, Charles stopped walking and sadly watched Bella’s figure gradually disappear, like a dream that tortures the heart as it fades into the distance, beyond reach.”

There’s no narrative

Closure is overrated.

The End.

 

Exuberant Bodhisattva on Crackbook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor

I Let Go, by Erica J. Schmidt

Prozac Made Me A Better Person
Performative Crying in Alleys
The Tidying Festival

 

 

Where is Emma Fillipoff (Four)

 

previous segments of Where is Emma Fillipoff

ONE: The Grieving Mothers of Perth, Ontario

TWO: She's Missing

THREE: Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Four: Mental illness runs in the family.



"Mental illness runs in the family." Shelley whispers this sentence to the camera in one of the earliest t.v. clips after Emma’s disappearance. The most prevalent theories of what happened to Emma involve some sort of mental breakdown or psychotic break. Leading up to her disappearance, Emma showed signs of paranoia and depression. Is this why she’d chosen to stay at the women’s shelter? A former roommate reported that one time in the middle of the night, she’d woken to find Emma outside, totally out of it and tripping out on the grass, and the stars. The friend had informed Emma’s father James about this odd behaviour. Although James had offered to pay for a plane ticket home,  Emma insisted that she was fine and could take care of herself. Intensely private, Emma had been mortified to learn that her friend had called her father. Shelley never heard about the incident until much later. Had she known, she says she would have flown out.

After significant probing from Shelley, staff at the Sandi Merriman House admitted that Emma often acted very paranoid. They said that Emma went through a period of selling all her stuff. Following this, she began to throw things away. She would carry both her own stuff and objects from the shelter first to the lawn, and then to the curb. A lamp, a fan, a chair. When staff made her bring the objects back, Emma would protest. “It’s making too much noise,” she’d say. “It’s saying things to me.” As soon as the items were back inside, Emma would try to get rid of them again. The second time she would haul them across the street to the courthouse.  

Video surveillance footage from the 7-11 and the YMCA reveal that Emma often seemed afraid to go outside. And on the day of her disappearance, a witness saw Emma standing at a crosswalk, but refusing to cross. For years, Emma had been a manic walker. She almost always walked barefoot, clutching her shoes in her hands, refusing to put them on. Her feet would become bloody from walking so far. Thin and conveniently vegan, people hardly ever saw Emma eat. Shelley thinks she developed an eating disorder. Whether this was the cause or result of her mental distress, we don’t know. Shelter staff also reported that Emma used to overhydrate, consuming gallons and gallons of water at a time. This is common for people who undereat. Rarely, overhydration depletes your body’s electrolytes and causes something called water intoxication. The condition can be fatal. Interestingly enough, symptoms of overhydration mimic psychotic tendencies, including “inappropriate behaviour, delusions, hallucinations, confusion, and disorientation” (Source: Farrell and Bower, PMC). And yet, it is impossible to conclude that overhydrating led to Emma’s psychological deterioration. Quite often the symptom appears as part of a mosaic of unusual and compulsive behaviour.

A year before she was last seen, Emma had returned home to Perth, Ontario. A congenital knee condition had been giving her back problems and she was looking into treatment. In retrospect, Shelley realizes that during that time, Emma was acting “way too happy… it didn’t look drug induced… it looked like she was avoiding life, wandering around Perth all day and all night.” She stayed with friends and with her father, often cooking for him though rarely eating herself. Whenever she ran into her mom, she’d say she was on her way somewhere.

“Can’t stay,” she’d say. And off she’d go, fanatically walking. With her mother, Emma maintained a certain distance. Perhaps she was afraid that Shelley would see through the happy, flighty façade. Her father James didn’t ask as many questions. Like Emma, he is non-confrontational and secretive. Though he worried that Emma never ate, he felt she deserved her privacy. Very seldom would he ever bring up his concerns with Shelley. When Emma was in her early twenties, James divorced Shelley for a younger woman. The divorce was pretty brutal and Shelley is quite open to the fact that around that time she suffered from a full-blown mental health crisis. For three years, she had to quit teaching and go on disability. She describes lying on the bathroom floor all day, trying to will herself up in time for when her youngest child got home from school. Emma had been around for part of the separation and witnessed some events that must surely have traumatized her.

Shelley: “I really lost it Erica, not only did I have a breakdown but I went after James. I did a lot of things that really really disturbed Emma and I didn’t have a chance to give her my side. To tell her I was sick. That it wasn’t her mother acting in that manner… Something had really happened to me. I never had the chance to explain it to her. So she witnessed quite a violent attack on James one night at his house and she had to call the police and have me removed… Emma couldn’t handle that. Someone who was non-confrontational, even verbally. To see me going bezerk. I mean I was bezerk, I had a knife in my hand. I was really gone. I wasn’t going to hurt him.”

Emma: “My parents’ marriage in shambles.

My father turning to me.

My mother hating us both.

And me. Always the good listener.

Too nice to say that it hurt me too."

Emma, screenshot from the Fifth Estate's documentary, "Finding Emma."

Emma, screenshot from the Fifth Estate's documentary, "Finding Emma."

Shelley and Emma never ended up talking about what happened. Soon afterwards, Emma moved to Victoria, limiting her contact with her mother to cryptic flowery emails and vague elusive phone calls.

 

Shelley and James are on much better terms now. They often have family dinners together with their other children. Emma’s absence is blatant and painful, but seldom mentioned.  

 

“No one will tell me what they think,” says Shelley. “Because I know what I know.”  Throughout the case, the rest of Emma’s family has kept a low profile. Behind Emma’s posters, Shelley is really the face of the search, though both Emma’s father and youngest brother agreed to interviews with the Fifth Estate. Ultimately, the Fifth Estate did not include the younger brother’s interview in the documentary, but this was the CBC’s choice. Apart from Shelley and Emma’s youngest brother, the family refused to watch the program. Perhaps it is too heartbreaking. Especially if they allow themselves to consider at all the fact that they advised Shelley not to go get Emma. Shelley had always been the disciplinarian parent and they didn’t think Emma would be able to cope with this. In any case, everyone had Emma’s best interest at heart. Nobody intended for things to come to this.

 

“I wish Emma were here to see how well you get along,” Emma’s older sister said to her parents one night at a family dinner. “How everything turned out just fine.” Except Shelley’s not really fine and Emma’s not there.

End of Part Four.

-Written by Erica J. Schmidt



Where is Emma Fillipoff

Read More:

(NEXT SEGMENT) FIVE: A Mother's Instinct

ONE: The Grieving Mothers of Perth, Ontario

TWO: She's Missing

THREE: Wednesday, November 28, 2012

 

SIX: Okay. So I'm dead.

SEVEN: She ran away because she fucking hates her parents.

EIGHT: Safe Until She Returns

NINE: A Perfect, Beautiful Family





HAVE YOU SEEN EMMA?
Please Share Your Stories and Tips
Help Find Emma Fillipoff Facebook Group
Email Erica: ericaschmidt85(at)gmail(dot)com
(contact form below)
Email Shelley: fillipoff(at)hotmail(dot)com
Call the police.

Finding Emma on the Fifth Estate

Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Erica on Twitter: @mypelvicfloor





Why I Am Like Jane Fonda

Passionate about purple leg warmers, grueling butt exercises, and the eradication of oil pipelines, Jane Fonda and I share a great deal in common. Before I had yoga videos, I had Jane Fonda’s advanced cardio workout. It was something upsetting like one hour and forty five minutes. But Jane never seemed to tire and it was thus with great enthusiasm that I followed along with the bouncing, pumping and squeezing of various body parts. My hair was more dishevelled than Jane’s perfect feathered down-do, my sweat, more profuse, and my ten-year-old athletic wear much less spectacular than her belted pink and purple leotard, her grey leggings, and of course, the excellent purple legwarmers. Even so, Jane never made me feel alienated from her supreme and elite fitness endeavours. In fact, as Jane rapidly whipped through ninety-six and a half tricep kickbacks, I felt like she was looking right at me.


Resist. Photo From Here.

“Resist,” she urged me. I did, determined to overthrow the wobble of my underarms. What does Oprah call those? Flags. How ridiculous. Although flags and Oprah have their place. I used to watch Oprah on Wednesday afternoons, my only night off from swim practice. That’s how I learned about Jesus whispers. One day the show was about people who had made some sort of horrible distracted mistake that had ended in someone dying. There was a woman who had backed her car over her grandchild, and another who had fallen asleep at the wheel and driven her car full of her kids over a cliff. A third woman, who had hit and killed a cyclist felt like the whole thing could have been prevented had she listened to the voice inside her head.

“Those are Jesus whispers,” Oprah told her. “And I wanna thank you for coming on the show today because now everybody out there watching will know not to doubt that voice ever again.”

Oh Oprah. Despite listening very intently, I never had much luck with the Jesus Whispers. Fortunately, Jane Fonda’s voice on a podcast called “Death, Sex & Money,” had a similar effect. The podcast transcript came out on June 18, 2014, which happened to be the third-year anniversary of Epic Day, the wonderful day when I met the Boatman on a boat at my friend Fern’s wedding. After that, I moved to Halifax and we lived happily ever after.

On the podcast, Jane (my dear friend) spoke about her divorce with billionaire cable executive Ted Turner, her third husband. Ted was fun and good-looking, and he had a beautiful home on beautiful acreage.  Being married to Ted was easy and “safe.” Then, about ten years in, Jane had the revelation “that if I stayed with him, I could never be a fully realized person” (Jane Fonda in Episode 30 of the Death, Sex & Money podcast, with Anna Sale). This is where the Jesus slash Angel Whispers came into play. Said Jane:

“I felt like Virginia Woolf, only I had two angels in the house. One on one shoulder saying oh come on Fonda lighten up!

The guy’s got two million acres of the most gorgeous land in the world and he’s funny and he keeps you laughing. And on the other shoulder there was an angel with a very soft whisper saying, Jane, you can stay with him and die married, but you’ll die not being whole. And so I opted for the whisper" (from Episode 30 of the podcast Death, Sex & Money: Jane Fonda After Death and Divorce).

The notion of being a fully realized person is rather vague. And probably, everyone is always whole, whether they listen to their angel whispers or not. But I get what Jane meant. Before I moved to Halifax, I had just come to the end of more than a decade-long relationship with eating disorders. My most prevalent symptom was puking in my mouth, over and over again until whatever I had eaten became bitter and acidic and disgusting. While I was in the throws of my eating disorder, I always imagined that the eradication of my symptoms would coincide with the emergence of a new and beautiful Erica. A Whole Erica, who didn’t fret about silly things, who didn’t get overwhelmed and melt down, who didn’t fight with her mother. All this and more would be the prize for not puking in my mouth. It is hard to do things without expecting a prize in return. Fame, Money, Weight Loss, Prizes, Sex. (FMWLPS). I want all of these things, though perhaps finally I can do without the weight loss. One big prize that I felt would surely make me Whole was finding a long-term partner. Until I met the Boatman, success in this area had been minimal. There was Simon the hermit, who I met on a biodegradable yoga mat. In the name of art, we got drunk and fucked around as we attempted to write and publish our groundbreaking epistolary novel, The Little Savage and the Hermit. Despite the creative excitement and exhilarating recklessness, mostly it felt messy and not that whole. One day, after waking up with Simon in a room that reeked of vomit and vodka, it occurred to me that perhaps I needed a year off from relationships. Somehow I would get myself out of Montreal, take my space, and figure myself out, whatever that meant.

Less than a month later, I met the Boatman. We had our Epic Day. Beneath the light and guidance of our friend the Full Moon, the profuse making out began. Of course the Boatman was wonderful. Of course the day and the night were magical. And when the Boatman invited me to come live in his house in Halifax, of course I said yes.

Although I was never particularly enamored with Halifax, like Jane Fonda’s marriage to Ted Turner, living with the Boatman was safe and relatively easy. The Boatman was fun, supportive and loving. Unlike Simon, who mostly considered me to be a fucked up disaster, the Boatman believed in me as a person. I was set up in a house with a hedge and a dog. The Boatman’s mother bought me fancy clothes. For the first year or two, I had lots of time and space to practice and teach yoga, and write. And when I got the job at the Montessori school, the Boatman supported me through my perpetual state of overwhelm.


Me and the Hedge Clippers

On our Epic Day anniversaries, the Boatman and I wrote similar things on our cards. For now, the Boatman’s cards to me are stored in a box in Halifax. I remember the drawings of the moon, and the gist of most of the words.

“I’m so grateful and lucky to have met you.” “Nobody else is as wonderful as you.” “I could never find anybody else but you to talk to about potty training and poops, and the dress-up box." "I'm so glad our friend to moon helped us get together." “I can’t imagine what my life would be like without you.”

Whoever you are with, it can’t be like anyone else. We are all precious and irreplaceable. I couldn’t imagine what my life would be like without the Boatman. Yet when I listened to Jane Fonda speak of her angel whispers, I was sad to realize that deep down, I didn’t believe I was capable of pulling off life on my own. If I hadn’t left Montreal, would my life still be infused with vomit and vodka and Simon, all the way until he jumped off a building?  

Oh well, I thought, the first time I heard Jane on the podcast. There was no way we were going to break up. That September, I went to India for three months.  I missed the Boatman immensely; however, I discovered that in fact, I could maintain some kind of autonomy without him. I lived in four different apartments; I organized day trips, and Butt Club, and even coined the term "Spiritual Pants." Every day, there was someone to eat curry with. The entire thing was so delightful.

Spiritual Pants

But my token fly-to-India-and-have a meaningful-revelation-about-your-life was, “You kind of completely hate Halifax, and you’ve barely been happy for a really long time.” When I melted down to the Boatman over FaceTime, the first thing he said was, “Well, I really can’t move.” There wasn’t much to be done, but fly home and see what happened.

My first day back in Halifax, I obsessively calculated how much money I would have to save if I wanted to get back to India the following November. If I was going to stay in Halifax, every year would need a decisive exit strategy. The financial verdict was about 900 extra bucks a month, tricky in Halifax, the land of Nepotism and Underemployment. Still, I could give it a try and hope for the best. I wasn’t ready to fuck off just yet. The Boatman and I avoided discussing the situation and I went about my days, struggling to breathe.

Finally one day in February, the Boatman replied to my ten thousandth anguished rant about friendlessness and loneliness with the words, “You could leave.” I felt a distinct sense of relief and I paused briefly before deciding that I should mourn and wail, since his words meant my world was collapsing.

I made an appointment with my psychologist, who I called My Expensive Friend. He happened to be one of only a handful of friends that I had made in Halifax, after more than three years. My Expensive Friend didn’t think that I should do anything too drastic in February. He helped me to write down goals on Index Cards. Go to a potluck. Invite your friend Lindsay out for dinner. Organize the Halifax Butt Club.

Halifax Butt Club. Note the Purple Legwarmers
Mysore Butt Club, Et. Al.

Jane Fonda Butt Club. See how we are similar?
Photo taken from this dizzying video.

Although the Halifax Butt Club enjoyed two rousing sessions, it was all too little too late. For Valentine’s Day, the podcast Death, Sex & Money rounded up highlights from the past year of interviews. Sure enough, as I trudged up the hill to the Boatman’s house, Jane told me about her angel whispers once again.

“Jane, you can stay with him and die married, but you’ll die not being whole. And so I opted for the whisper.”

Soon it would be time. I was gone by the end of April.

As Dan Savage says, a relationship isn’t only a success if it ends when somebody dies. Unfortunately, our children’s diapers and underwear are covered with princesses, and our world seems to hold a bias for the Forever After People. The good news is that all of the people - me, you, Jane and everybody else- all of us are whole. 

Some people’s paths may lead them along with one person by their side the whole time. Surely, this can be beautiful. I may have a shot at this later. In the meantime, I get to be a little bit like Jane Fonda. Depending on your Jesus whispers, you might considering joining the club.

Jane Fonda speaks out about Fossil Fuels. Go Jane. Image taken from this page.

Seventy-seven years old, Jane Fonda says that “when a woman is older, sex is better. Partly because she doesn’t give a fuzzy rat’s ass anymore… she knows her body, she knows what she wants, she’s less afraid to ask for it. If it doesn’t work out, so what?” (Jane Fonda, on Death, Sex & Money). I think that’s great. From now on, I will aim to have sex like I’m seventy-seven.

Four years ago today, I met the Boatman on a boat, and he kissed me under the moon.

In fact, the first time we met wasn’t actually on the boat. We met some other time, in Fern’s kitchen. I made the boat part up, for the sake of the Blogging Fairy Tale. I am as terrible as the folks who make princess diapers. Oh well. 

Boatman and Me, Blogging Fairy Tale

Every day can be an Epic Day. The moon is always your friend.
Happy Epic Day, to the world, and to the Boatman.
I’m so grateful and lucky to have met you. We are so lucky for the time we had together.

The End.

All Jane Fonda quotes are from Episode 30 of Death Sex & Money – Jane Fonda: After Death and Divorce

Subscribe to Anna Sale’s Death, Sex and Money on Itunes. New Episodes come out every other Wednesday! And it's free!

Follow Jane Fonda on Twitter: @JaneFonda
Follow Anna Sale on Twitter: @annasale
Follow Death, Sex & Money on Twitter: @deathsexmoney
 

 

 

The Boatman and Me, Again. Well, we made some cute photos for the internet. One More:

Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook  

Follow me on Twitter: @mypelvicfloor

Fame, Money, Weightloss, Prizes, Sex: I Let Go ($2.99)

Jane Fonda is a Cuttle Fish. Are you a Cuttle Fish? The Ocean Invertebrate Personality Quiz

Everyone is a Hermaphrodite
Why I Am Different From Margaret Atwood and What I Don’t Gain From Humping Duvets
How I am Violent, by Erica J. Schmidt
Another Break-Up: The Benefits of an Ashtanga Yoga Practice, Part Two