Dear Vincent, Some things we might just have to deal with for the rest of our lives.

Dear Vincent,

Some things we just might have to deal with for the rest of our lives.

It’s possible I will always be

A relatively terrible cook

Someone who struggles with lunch choices, livelihood, self-confidence,

And the phrase, “This is supposed to be fun.”

And maybe I will forever long for how safe I felt when I was with my first true love, the Boatman.

When I was four years old, I remember crying so hard that I gave myself a headache. The reason for the meltdown had something to do with tobogganing. Only one of my parents was coming and it wasn’t the one I wanted.

“Why does your head hurt?” my sister had asked that evening.

“I was screaming,” I replied, and in that statement, I had the distinct realization that such displays of emotion were not going to be permitted for my entire life. Crying until your head hurt was moderately acceptable when you were four, but eventually you had to grow out of it. And yet, despite my young wisdom, the big tears followed me to grade one, grade eight, first-year university, the first day of many jobs, walking home from therapy, and remembering the wrong memory some moment between two and four o’clock in the morning.  

Maybe you have chronic pain, maybe you struggle with depression, or disordered eating. Some of these things you may have to deal with for the rest of your life.

When I heard this, I was cleaning my friend’s shower. The speaker was Michael Stone and he is now dead. Last summer, he took fentanyl by accident. Once a week for almost six years, I listened to Michael Stone’s podcast about yoga and meditation and how to wake up to your life. All the questions were so enormous and yet the answers were so simple. Intimacy, relationship, taking care of things. Laundry, your body, the cashier at the grocery store. You could become intimate with anything. Even a terrible mood.

Michael Stone

I was in a terrible mood as I cleaned my friend’s shower and considered all the things I’d need to deal with for the rest of my life. My friend and I had met at my roommate’s party. He’d brought his girlfriend who sat on the couch across from us as I blabbered on and on about transcending the side effects of Prozac, and victoriously humping my pink and purple polka dot duvet two times a day all before 9 a.m. When it got close to my bed time, I invited my friend to join me as I flossed. As fate would have it, his relationship was sexless and open, and because I’d so elaborately described my masturbation practice, my friend thought that flossing meant precursors to humping his thigh and/or other body parts.

Months later, although we’d transcended the flossing misunderstanding, I was pissed off because I’d explicitly told my friend that I no longer cleaned with toxic products that dried out my face and inhaled poison. But instead of buying vinegar, my friend had gone to the Dollar Store and spent fifty dollars on Clorox, Vim, and similar items whose odours evoked hospitals and cancer.

One more time, Mood Sports. Some things in life, we will not and do not transcend.

And yet, knowing this is not necessarily bad news.

In fact, no more fighting could be a fucking relief.

This is just me

And I suck at lunch,

Professional boundaries,

Closing cupboard doors,

Lighting matches,

Staying up past 9:30 P.M.

And punctuating bulleted lists.

But I’m really good at

Morning Routines,

Folding laundry,

Walking obscenely long distances,

Mopping, and cleaning up other people’s messes

Taking out the recycling,

Buying toilet paper before it runs out

And

I’m the best pen pal you’ve ever had.

January 1, 2018
(written on the wall in smelly markers)
My goals in life are Creativity
Service
deep love for all of my cells
Buy a new roll of masking tape
A cleared and clear and generous heart
What is a cervical orgasm

Using Clorox only once will not give you cancer.

Some things, we might just have to deal with for the rest of our lives. On Wednesday, the temperature goes up to minus 9, and I get to see you and I can’t wait. Happy New Year, Vincent.

Love, Erica.

Send your letters to me and/or Vincent to ericaschmidt85(at)gmail(dot)com.

Happy New Year
Love, Erica


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


Dear Vincent, This letter is about saving a begonia. Love, Erica.
What does it mean to be home.
Mourning, Wailing, Yearning, Wake up

Dear Vincent, I was floating on the joy of feeling seen, heard, felt and loved by you last Tuesday, November 21

Dear Vincent,

I was floating on the joy of feeling seen, heard, felt and loved by you last Tuesday, November 21. All the joy lasted for approximately 39 hours and 17 minutes.

So I got this brilliant idea that I’m going to walk across Canada for mental health. My mental health, and everyone else’s. On Monday, the Social Worker said that he’d no doubt I’d pull it off. Apparently I am the most resilient person he has ever met. C’est incroyable de voir comment tu rebondis. Incredible to see how I bounce back.

I bounce back, by Erica J. Schmidt.

Next to the social worker’s desk, there are pamphlets about how to determine if you are experiencing a crystal meth crisis, and what to do about it. The Social Worker has a much more beautiful office than you do, with floor to ceiling windows that look over the Village, the Latin Quarter, and far beyond. His garbage can is disproportionately large for the amount of Kleenex anyone could ever use, even me. It used to be I got to enjoy looking out the window, right above the Social Worker’s head, but now the patient’s chair has its back to the sky, right above Saint-André street. I guess someone got aggressive the other week, and this way the Social Worker is better equipped to make an exit strategy.

Shortly after he marvelled over my miraculous resilience, the Social Worker brought up how I really need to prepare myself for switching therapists and that perhaps I should also consider getting a new job. I respond very poorly to both of these topics. I melted down hard and then left.

On Monday, November 27, all together I walked 14.2 km. If you want to walk across Canada, you have to walk at least 30 km per day, 6 days a week for approximately nine months, though likely more if you want to avoid the highway. The problem with walking across Canada is that just about three to four times per week, I wonder if I might be missing my left hip joint. My very half-assed plan is to leave on January 4, 2019, the four-year anniversary of when my ex-ex boyfriend Simon jumped off a building, meaning that he offed himself. On the way home from the Social Worker’s, the thoughts were dark and I wondered if maybe I should leave sooner, since nothing seems to be clicking these days. Except my left hip.

Precarity turns out to be a real word. I am going to try micro-dosing on mushrooms. Last winter, one of my friends used to wish that the crusty mole on the outside of his left calf muscle was some kind of terminal cancer. The Magic Mushrooms really helped him. I took my first dose on Tuesday, and dreamt of a lovely brown cow. I could only see him from the neck up. The cow’s eyes and face told me that it was okay if I ate a hamburger, something I haven’t done in over twenty years. In fact, the hamburger was excellent. With cheese.

Club 21. I could take these up.

I hope the cow says hi to me again. I am the moodiest person I know. Moodiest and loneliest. Most lonely.

The cow said, it's okay.

Hamburgers, and mushrooms. At this point, I see no other options besides flying to Newfoundland in January and risking the loss of a toe.

Hi, I said when I saw you this morning sprinting down Laurier somewhere between St Urbain and de l’Esplanade.

Hi, you said back. You were making quite some air time. I hope you got where you were going.

I was on my way to see Philippe, another far-away therapist who has fancy gelled back hair and an overworked beard. I made up the term overworked beard in the summer of 2016, and I just love it. Philippe’s office has reasonable windows. He isn’t available to see me long-term or intensively, and this is a relief because I want my sessions with you to last forever because you make me feel seen, heard, felt and loved.

Nearly three hundred people have clicked on my post about some other Vincent coercing me into a blow job. The Russian bots seem really into my blog these days. I wonder if they will like my sentences about the trees in Parc Laurier.

Dear Russian Bots,

Do you like these sentences?

: (Colon)

Sentences trees never feel

My life was not supposed to be like this.

All my limbs are far too large

and far too awkward

and flailing in all the wrong directions.

How lazy of me to rest

and respect my natural seasons

of bearing fruit

harvesting

and silence.

How greedy of those creatures who

help themselves to everything I have to give

only to squander what they take

and then forget.

If only everything were entirely different.

I’m ugly.

I need my own space.

That’s the end of the sentences trees never feel. There were seven sentences trees never feel. I could add seven to the title, sentences trees never feel, and the only vowel in the title would still be e. Love that.

My friend who last winter wished the crusty mole on the outside of his left calf muscle was terminal cancer recommends drawing and writing all over your walls.

So I wrote the sentence, what happens if I write on the wall?

What happens if I write on the wall?

Also:

Mood sports do not contain

A

E

I

Or

U

Or

, / (Comma slash)

Orange.

hash tag equals #alts2wishingcrustymolesRcancer

The hash tag equals #alts2wishingcrustymolesRcancer

I want to draw a pelvis, but it is doomed to be approximate and one-dimensional. How do you draw a baby? I think I would make the hair pink.

I prefer not an overworked beard.

Yours is just perfect.

Love, Erica.

You too can write imaginary emails to Vincent. Or you can send them to me. The secret address is the same in either case, ericaschmidt85(at)gmail(dot)com.

Much love, Erica.

Some might say I'm not quite overworked. Not like the beards.


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


Hippie Threads Holiday Market! December 2!


When I am really upset, I need to be seen, heard, felt and loved by someone whose dick has been inside of me.
Or else you.
Dear Vincent, Are you lonely? Do you have a pain body?
Lizzie