The Erica Museum

It appears I have left the sub-continent.
Now I am in Canada. Montreal, as fate would have it.

I thought that India would involve more sex, and more blogging. But that’s okay. Now I have a whole bunch of extra condoms I can put in the Erica Museum I’m about to blog about.

The girl I am subletting from for April kindly emptied her plentiful shelves. I am curating the shelves with my suitcase and two backpacks full of stuff. Since returning from India, I have added an extra suitcase to my life. At first, this generated mixed feelings; however, I think that ultimately it expanded my curating options. Isn’t curating a delightful word?  One might also say, Curation, though I am not entirely sure about that.



 

Me and My Life with the Extra Suitcase

My room is large and sunny. It came with two beds, two sets of shelves, and a weird pale peach coloured dresser. Included on the biggest bed was a Canadian Version of the Ugly Polar Fleece Bedsheet. It reminded me of India, and this instilled unrivalled comfort. I have nicknamed the Canadian Version of the Ugly Polar Fleece Bedsheet (CV/UPFB), the Deer Duvet. As a source of sexual gratification, it is working reasonably well, as such polar fleece items generally do. These days I tend to leave the Deer Duvet rolled up.  

Deer Duvet

Palm Tree Wallpaper. The photo does not do it justice.

On the walls, there is absolutely nothing apart from three long strips of palm-tree covered wallpaper, framed together. I’ve never seen framed wallpaper before, not even in India. What good fortune. If I had tape, I would add to the walls a birthday/going away card from my sister. It is a picture of a photographer taking a photo of a whole bunch of people’s bums. Full Moon Portrait, it is called. My sister generously labelled some of the bums with names and initials of some folks whose bums I saw and/or came close to seeing this year. How nice that at the birthday dinner table, my father and his girlfriend got a sense of what I’ve been up to.

Full Moon portrait. Labels on bums removed to protect the innocent.

As it happens, I do not have any tape.

However, I am the very proud owner of scissors. And they made it into Exhibit One of 19. While I was in Delhi, I purchased a large pair of blue scissors for 90 rupees. Since then, I have been cutting my own hair and it is one of the greatest joys of my life. Travelling with scissors means that on airplanes, you no longer qualify for the prestigious Strictly Carry-On luggage status. But let me tell you, it is totally worth it.

Exhibit One of 19 + Scenes from a Haircutting Party, Bangalore

Exhibit One of 19 also features the Juno nominated children’s CD, “(name concealed due to the Dignity of my Somewhat Famous Relatives),” in addition to the intermittent presence of my I-pad mini, whose redness brings together a rewarding motif of primary colours.

Now we are going to skip the purse, shoes and broccoli t. shirt exhibits to get right to Shelf Nine of 19. Purple Combination Lock and Chain. Purple Combination Lock is from back in the days when cardiovascular fitness was still a concern and I used to go to Public Lap Swims. I took the combination lock all the way to India and used it to keep various beach house shacks secure. Somehow I remembered the combination which I wrote down in a cloth covered fushia journal in approximately 2009. The journal now exists in an unknown location. I really really really like purple. Same thing for fuschia, despite its elusive spelling.

 

Chain from Shelf Nine

The Chain from Shelf Nine was given to me by my Friend Franck. Franck is a rather spiritual and unusual fellow. In the winters, he hangs out in Rishikesh, writing, helping with a digeridoo factory and talking to God. In the summer, he builds boats in Montreal. Like a real Boatman, not just an arbitrary name I made up for blogging fairy tale purposes. Oh well. Anyways, when I went to Rishikesh, Franck took me up the mountains on his motorcycle. Everyone is dying to know what happened and so we are both going to write a story called, “No Garlic, No Onions, No Toilet Paper.” Franck’s version and Erica’s version. Franck gave me the chain after the motorcycle trip, for my eighteen-hour train ride to Varanasi. God is a big deal for Franck. He talks about God all the time. Even so, he thinks you should lock up your bags on the train. I wanted to leave my chain in Goa, but my Israeli friend convinced me to keep it, in case I ever want to be tied up.

Me and Franck on our way up the mountains.

Plus Me, In the Mountains
No Garlic, No Onions, No Toilet Paper

Exhibit 16: Books.

The Book of Stuff and Whatnot: I helped a bunch of teenagers put together this anthology of short stories, drawings and poems. Perhaps this in itself counts as a sort of curating. In any case, narrowing down my book collection to contain 50% teenage poetry and creative writing was not a terrible choice.  A few excerpts:

The Struggle:

My heart feels ever so heavy.
I’m about to stumble. I’m feeling unsteady.
I feel like I could forever fall. I just can’t stop hitting this hard, brick wall.
My head spins.
And I feel like I’m not going to win.

The Hardest Part:

Even though my mind knows it, my heart refuses to accept the truth.
That you are gone from me.
Forever...

Curiosity Killed the Cat (A Sonnnet)

They say curiosity killed the cat.
Now and then, notice where your head is at. 

The Book of Stuff and Whatnot + a book about Ashtanga Yoga and Having Babies

Yoga Sadhana for Mothers: Shared experiences of Ashtanga Yoga, pregnancy, birth & motherhood: For someone who has no desire to bear her own child or be a mother and/or practice Ashtanga Yoga, I read this book incredibly quickly. I think I am going to pass it on to my Pregnant Friend, who is no longer pregnant, but who has remained my Pregnant Friend in my psyche. Maybe you have friends like that.

 Hazy Indian Currency/Condom/Bandaid/Broken Rock Mini Museum

Indian Currency/Condom/Bandaid/Broken Rock Mini Museum: Here we have the leftover Indian currency, the leftover Canadian condoms I took to India – there were more than two, but I gave some to friends, and selected these specially for my exhibit – and the broken brown rock that my friend Naomi gave me to heal my painful gushing periods. And bandaids. I smashed the menstrual rock in my seven-dollar hotel room in Rishikesh. From that point on, menstruation ceased for over four months.  The blood came back two and a half days after I curated this exhibit, and the morning before I went to visit Franck. Franck takes full responsibility.

Teenage Poetic Interlude:

The Serenity of a Journal Entry:
As you can see, I adore poetry.
Reading and writing are skills I carry.

(End of Interlude.)

May we all carry these skills all the time.

Some of my clothing made it onto the shelf, including a somewhat fuschia and multi-coloured dress I bought in Goa for 500 rupees, the Threesome Tights, and a fancy frilly shirt my mother game me.

Threesome Tights on Legs, with Birkenstocks

Other exciting exhibits feature Tarot Cards, the Fanny Pack Museum, Generic Spiritual Objects A, B and Others, Burgundy Doc Martens and A Letter from Cambodia. The Erica Museum will be on display for the month of April. That is to say, it is a limited edition. Also, I will need a new apartment come May. And/or another country to live in.

To learn the Secret and Exciting Location of the Erica Museum, please get in touch. Curating/Curation Workshops are also available. The fees are not exorbitant.  But if you’re super short on cash, in lieu of money, I could sort of use a decent sized book for balancing on my head during meditation. I gave, Not That Kind of Girl to some rickshaw drivers in Agra.

Not That Kind of Girl, passed on to young rickshaw drivers in Agra

 

Not That Kind of Girl, on my head

And it seems the teen poets are winning the day.

At the end of The Book of Stuff and Whatnot, they generously wrote me a bio. Whoever taught them how to write bios was an okay teacher. I am pretty happy with this:

Erica Schmidt (Coordinator)

A woman of character and just a touch of both serious and childish nature. An altogether fearless mentor to the writing club, she is fearless in her writing, as well as in real life.

Book: The Book of Stuff and Whatnot

Genre: Murder, Mystery and Imagination

The End.

See you at the museum!

The Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
2-3 Dollar Self-Help Book: I Let Go


Not That Kind of Girl, The Blogpost
Business Ideas, On a Tuesday
Mother's Bunion

God Box

Life Is Very Exciting

My Cool Friend From Belgium is very advanced because she inspires the most interesting and original quotes from Sharath.

“No butterfly!” he called at her years ago while she was learning to stand up from a backbend and waved her arms to either side as she was flying up.

 

“No hugging in the shala!” he said another day when her butterfly arms wrapped around him as she came to her feet.

This trip, when she came into his office she told him that her back was a bit sore on one side and she couldn’t fold forward very easily.

“Oh okay,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be perfect. Nobody’s perfect.” I thought that was nice.

One morning, Sharath was helping my Cool Friend From Belgium with Supta Vajrasana. She was having a hard time grabbing her big toes. Sharath helped pull her hands forward.

Daylene and Kino in Supta Vajrasana

 

 “You need auto,” said Sharath.

“Pardon me?” asked my Cool Friend From Belgium.

“Auto. Like Rickshaw,” said Sharath.

“I need two!” replied my Cool Friend From Belgium.

The other day, Sharath was trying to get my CFFB to grab her ankles in backbends. My CFFB squeezed her anus and pressed her femur bones as far forward as she could, but the catching was not to be.

“Why?” asked Sharath.

“Oh, bad day,” said my CFFB.

“No puja?” asked Sharath.

No Puja?

If you are a keener reading this, please ask Sharath about the backbending puja at conference this week. See what he recommends. I hope it involves Snickers bars.

Last week my Cool Friend From Belgium went to Sharath’s office again to pay for the month of November. He looked at her card.

“Hmm,” he said. He crossed off 4:30 on the Monday Led time and changed it to 7:30. In case you’re not in Mysore and you have better things to do than keep track of other people’s yoga classes, 7:30 is when Sharath teaches the intermediate series instead of the primary series. There are some frightening Led Intermediate legends kicking around and many people fear that they won’t come out alive. My Cool Friend From Belgium figured she didn’t have to worry about it since she’d only just started sticking one leg behind her head and she hadn’t been very consistent about her pujas.

“I come to Led Intermediate?”

“You’re doing Eka pada?”

“I’ve only done it three times so far.”

“Okay. You come.”

Stunned, flustered and rather terrified, my Cool Friend From Belgium wasn’t sure what to say.

“Well that’s very exciting,” she said, her tone a little unconvinced.

Sharath laughed. “Life is very exciting,” he said. 

 

I was going to bring banners to Led Intermediate to cheer on my Cool Friend From Belgium, but we weren't sure whether or not this would inspire very many excellent quotes. Instead I tried not to make too much noise as I watched from the lobby. This proved to be a big challenge because it was all very exciting.

 

The End.
 

I could only find a picture of Sharath with both legs behind his head. Well, you get the idea.

Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook

Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
HowTo Let Go, for $2.99

Happy
Do Not Kill Your Baby (not happy)
Day Trip (half and half)  

 

Day Trip

A couple Thursdays ago, I woke up and my vagina was bleeding. Since I am very advanced, I don’t practice yoga when I first start menstruating, not even in Mysore. The day before I had maxed out on lying around, masturbating on the internet and eating very strange ice cream. So I decided it was time to take a little Day Trip.

According to Google, there was an interesting little town called Srirangapathna that I could visit in less than a day. I wandered down to the shala to see if anyone wanted to come. People seemed busy looking for tiger balm to rub into their hamstrings and buying curd for their morning granola. On practice days in Mysore, the quest for tiger balm can be more than enough excitement for one day. People applauded my ambitious plan to catch a bus in Mysore city, but no one was feeling my sense of adventure.

Oh well, I figured it could be sort of fun to hit it up on my own. I went to the main road to see if I could find a rickshaw driver who could drive me to the bus station. One seemed particularly delighted to see me.

“Where you going?” he asked. His name was Sri Brahmanam or something spiritual like this.

“I’m a guide. We go to Big Century, Temple, Museum. 500 rupees. Good deal. Good guide.” I didn’t know what Big Century was, but, what the hell. It sounded like a pretty good deal. In Halifax, 500 rupees can’t even get you from one end of the city to the other.


Mysore rickshaw. I thought rickshaws in India were guys pulling and I swore I would never take one. They have rickshaws like this in Halifax. In Mysore, rickshaws are kind of like sturdy black and yellow golf carts.

From the horror stories I’ve heard about driving in India, I’d imagined that getting on the road would mean chronic fear for my life and spinal cord as I scarcely survived one head on collision after another. The reality is much less terrifying. I like riding rickshaws. The wind cools me off and I can look at things without worrying about my horrible sense of direction and driving skills. On the way to Sri Rangapathna, we passed many fields where people work all day in the hot sun. I asked my rickshaw driver what they were growing in the fields.

“Good guide,” he answered. “First we go to Big Century.” And he pulled into the Rangantitthu Bird Sanctuary. Although most of the birds were far away on an island in the middle of the river, it was refreshing to be out of the city. We walked along the path by the river. After about 300 metres, my rickshaw driver seemed tired.

View from Lookout at Big Century

 “Tired,” he said. “No breakfast.” I told him to rest on the bench while I explored. I climbed up and down a couple of lookouts and could sort of see birds. All I could tell is that they were white. Further along the path, a young man was painting an iron fence yellow.

“You need guide, Miss?” he asked.

“My guide’s resting,” I said.

“Come with me,” he said. He motioned for me to go under the fence. Probably this was a terrible idea. But I figured he worked there, so that was somewhat legit. Also, I felt like I hadn’t seen 300 rupees worth of birds. Maybe this guy would show me something interesting. I went under a part of a fence that wasn’t covered with fresh yellow paint. Yellow Paint Man grabbed my hand and led me down a wooded path. I let go, however, my hand still got covered in bright yellow paint. Yellow Paint Man continued to reach for me on the steeper parts of the path.

Yellow Paint Man's Hands, with red flower

“I’m okay,” I said. We came to a clearing.

“Marriage?” he asked me. The Boatman and I have never been married or engaged, except for Indian purposes.

“Yes, I’m married,” I said emphatically.

 

“Beautiful,” he said. “Photo?” He took out his phone

 

“No no.” He showed me a red flower, and a bush with fuzzy red sumac like plants on them. Yellow Paint Man mushed the fuzzy part until a red paste formed between his fingers. He pointed his red and yellow index finger towards my forehead.

Sumac Type tree. I am not excellent with plants. Anybody know the tree?

“Bindi?” he said. Bindi are red dots you see Indian women wear on their forehead in line with their ajna third eye chakra. Marriage is one of the reasons women wear bindis and to protect you and your husband.  It is also good for cultivating your third eye chakra wisdom. I love chakras, and suddenly the Boatman and I were married. Even so, I did not want a bindi, especially not one mixed with yellow paint.

 

“Oh, no thank you,” I said. We continued into the woods. Here Yellow Paint Man reached for my butt and tiny boobs once or twice. 

 

“No touching!” I said once I was positive his caresses were not accidental.

 

“Oh, okay mam. Sorry mam.” Well, I guess I had been confusing about my marital status since I had refused the Bindi.  Now we were at a river bank. He motioned towards a bed of dried grass reeds in front of a bunch of bamboo trees. “Lovers, mam,” he said.

 

“My lover is in Canada,” I reminded him. On the way back, we made one more stop at a grove of bamboo shoots.


Lovers

“Lovers,” Yellow Paint Man said again, showing me where couples had carved their initials. I did not ask for Yellow Paint Man’s initials, nor did I write Exuberant Bodhisattva + The Boatman inside a heart. Finally we were back at the yellow fence. I climbed under and said good-bye.

Probably the whole ordeal took about twenty minutes.

“You losted! You losted!” my rickshaw cried out when I found him.

“I’m fine.”

“Where were you? You’re my response. 500 rupees there and back to Gokulam. You’re my response.*”

 

I suggested we sit down the steps leading up to a gazebo.

“No breakfast. Not resting. Worried. You’re my response.” He let out a big sigh. Then he put two fingers in front of his lips and turned to face me.

“Kiss, kiss?” he asked.

“No!”

“Oh, oh oh. Sorry, miss. So sorry, so sorry. Testing. Testing only. You’re my response.” Anti-harassment activists reading this are most likely horrified that I landed myself in two potential molestation situations within half an hour. Perhaps I should have fired my rickshaw driver, taken the first bus back to Gokulam, and made the non-negotiable vow to never do anything else by myself ever again. Honestly though, neither incident left me very traumatized. Of course crawling under a fence was not consent for Yellow Paint Man to grab my ass, but at least he more or less  understood the concept of no-means-no. And to give him the benefit of the doubt, there might have been some misunderstanding  about the marriage situation. Maybe he thought I said yes, I’d marry him, or maybe he thought my marriage with the Boatman wasn’t serious because I’d refused the Bindi. In any case, as far as horny, sketchy dudes go, I have met much worse in North America. To me Yellow Paint Man seemed like a 14 year old and the rickshaw driver was like a small child. 

Even so, before continuing on with my rickshaw driver, I made sure he got the message.

“Don’t do this again! Never do that again.”

“Oh, okay miss. So sorry.”

“Guides should not do that.”

“Oh okay. Testing, miss, just testing. Good guide, good guide.”

“No, no. Never do that again.”

“Okay miss, so sorry miss. Good guide. Excellent guide”

At the Sree Ranganatha Swamy Temple, he repented by giving his gods several bunches of coriander. Everywhere I went, people stared. I guess they were captivated by my extreme height and whiteness, and possibly my curly hair and biceps.  Several people asked if they could be in a photo with me. If it was women and children, I said yes. When I shook their hands, they got all giddy. It was a little bit sweet. Even hunching, I towered over them in the photos. I hope I didn’t make too many funny faces.

 

Besides the temple, we went to a jail, the grave of Super Warrior Tippu Sultan, a mosque and a couple of art museums. My favourite place was these steps by the river where people swam and did their laundry. Got the biggest stares here. 

By the river

 At one o’clock, my rickshaw driver finally had some weird deep-fried chip like concoction for breakfast. Then he drove me back to the Gokulam coconut stand.

“Needing good guide. Calling any time.”

I’ll be sure to keep this in mind.

The End.

 

*my response=my responsibility

Now my most recent post is no longer about pubic hair.

That's a relief.

Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
$2 self-help book: I Let Go

Other Cool Things to do in Mysore (Butt Club, etc.)
Laundry Day
Ham Wraps, Pool Noodles, Iphones