Ecstatic Dance

With unrestrained enthusiasm and joy, a three year girl greeted me at the Montessori school. Her curly hair flew in every direction as she bounced up and down, arms flailing all over the place.

“Erica,” she asked me through her breathless exuberance. “How’d you get here?”

And so the “How’d You Get Here?” dance was born. From then on, I broke out the “how’d you get here dance,” approximately two and half times per week. The flailing and bobbing is quite becoming when you’re a tall five eight with very large, very curly hair and extremely long limbs.

“Hey babe,” I said to the Boatman, bopping around in the hall beside the bathroom. “How’d you get here?” Then I went to the yoga room to meditate for 35 minutes. I think my heart remained in overdrive for the first thirteen.

Now the Founder of the “How’d You Get Here?” dance is almost five. Despite all the time she spends exuberantly dancing, hopping around like a frog and crawling on the floor like a cat, her Montessori work folder is always bulging with imaginative creations. She paints and draws constantly, often without even looking at the page. I can’t wait to attend her shows when she’s in art school.

As for me, my Montessori career is somewhat over. I have left Halifax, and before settling in Montreal for the summer, I have spent the last couple of weeks in Toronto. Here I am enjoying this odd, in-between place where I don’t exactly exist and nothing feels like it counts.

One of the great highlights of the Toronto visit has been attending Ecstatic Dance. Having lived a somewhat sheltered life, I have never attended a rave; however, many people have told me that Ecstatic Dance is a bit like a sober rave. At Ecstatic Dance, a deejay plays a vast variety of music, and everyone is invited to express whatever is deep inside their bodies. You are welcome to wear a tutu, and the tutu can be green. Halfway through, if you change your mind, you can always take the tutu off. Anything goes.  Some people crawl across the floor like crocodiles, or lions, or hop around like frogs. You can dance with long phallic crystals or magical green rocks. No one is allowed to make fun of you and this is very liberating. It is also very liberating that nobody knows that the only time you could ever dance in high school was after chugging 2 bottles of Mike’s Hard Lemonade concealed inside juice bottles in the Student’s council room. By the way, my sister was the student council president.

Sister and Me, Restrained Ecstatic Dancing, Halifax Harbour

So far I have been to Ecstatic Dance three times. I find I frequently pull out the “How’d You Get Here?” dance. The bobbing and bouncing and particularly the limb flailing seem to truthfully match what’s deep inside of me.  I also do a great deal of bending my crooked spine over to the right and twisting it in circles over and over again. When I get tired, I roll around on the floor in incoherent ways. If I consider the unrelenting misery that was February, I never would have imagined myself participating in anything so joyful and uninhibited. Then again, why the hell not?

Despite the fact that I wrote a book called “I Let Go,” I always hesitate to tell people to get over shit. After all, as Margaret Atwood says, Old Neurological Pathways Die Hard. Even so, if you claim to be one of those people who can’t or just doesn’t dance, I say to you, Get the Fuck Over it. Ecstatic Dance is perfect for you. Be a tiger. Be an octopus. Jump around like you’re three and a half.

At the end of Ecstatic Dance, the music slows down and you might get the chance to roll around on the floor with another person’s body in a relatively unsexual way. Not everyone has a temporary or long-term source of cuddling slash sexual gratification and I feel like this end-of-dance floor union provides a viable option. Last Thursday night, I rolled around on the floor with a man who was wearing an extremely tight and short black spandex mini skirt. Although I’d assumed that he’d chosen the skirt to reflect his deepest creative self, I guess he’d actually forgotten his shorts and had resorted to raiding the lost and found. All he could find was the tiniest spandex mini skirt in the world. I didn’t find this out until afterwards and thus, I felt quite safe and dancing with a man in a spandex mini-skirt. In some ways, it was very safe and in other ways, not so safe. Still, we managed to avoid catastrophe.

When it was all over, the Man in the Skirt and I chatted about who we were, where we were from and what our creative lives were all about. Within approximately six and a half sentences, I pulled out the “Oh yah,my ex-boyfriend jumped off a building in January” speech. All the people of Toronto have been amazingly receptive of this speech and for this I have been immensely grateful.  
The Man in the Skirt asked for my contact info and on Friday, he sent me a poem. I think it was about someone else ejaculating. Or it could also have been about conception. It seems like both of these things are popular poetry topics. It is always a bit fun when someone sends you a poem.

“You have such a wonderful sister,” the Man with the Skirt told my sister before we left. Ecstatic Dance makes you feel so wonderful about yourself. Life is very exciting. How’d we get here?

The End.

I forgot to mention that at Ecstatic Dance, quite a few people wear Spiritual Pants. It was quite a delight to see Spiritual Pants again. That said, I left my spiritual pants in Montreal and kind of feel as though the low crotch would impede my How’d You Get Here? dance.

Spiritual Pants and the Darling Canadians in Mysore, Green Hotel

So I’ve started a new creative practice routine where I post every MONDAY around 4 or 5 PM and THURSDAY around lunch time. One of my relatives who also happens to be a Social Media Expert claims that this is not the most auspicious social media time, but I have a Kale Phone and don’t tend to take this sort of thing into consideration. We’ll see how it goes. Stay tuned and free to follow me in whatever capacity seems to best match what’s deep inside your body:

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I Let Go, by Erica J. Schmidt

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HAPPY MONDAY!!!
Creative Practice, Simon's Genies, and the Exuberant Bodhisattva's Big Exciting Blog
Jujubes
Ecstatic Adventures of the Exuberant Bodhisattva
Darcy, which features a blue tutu

Ecstatic Dance takes place on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays from 7:30-9:30 at Dovercourt House, 805 Dovercourt Rd.
Ecstatic Dance Thursdays in Toronto 
The Move (Fridays)

 

Creative Practice, Simon's Genies and the Exuberant Bodhisattva's Big Exciting Blog News

Last Thursday evening at the end of Ecstatic Dance, which you can read all about tomorrow, I ran into a man carrying a pile of paper plates and an open package of plastic forks. He had been in charge of the birthday cake, but alas, there was no more. I’d been blabbering away about how I’d self-published an illustrated self-help book and the man with the plates and the forks seemed quite intrigued. I helped him look up the book on Amazon.

 

“My name’s Simon,” he said. We shook hands and inched our way to the top of the stairs outside the dance room. I stood at the top, and he stood two steps below.

“Oh,” I said. “I have a soft spot for Simons.” And thus, I’d arrive at the perfect segue to embark upon the “My ex-boyfriend jumped off a building,” speech. Thank you, to Simon the dead Hermit, who has provided me with so many fabulous pick-up lines that may last me the rest of my life. I told the other Simon all about me and Simon Girard’s three-part epistolary novel, The Little Savage and the Hermit. How most of it was terrible and embarrassing. How most of our relationship was terrible and embarrassing. But now that Simon was dead, maybe it was suddenly really important. The other Simon put down his plates and forks and embraced me out of nowhere.

“It’s something to love someone who suffers so much,” he said. “It’s amazing how people suffer so much…” For a few moments, we held our embrace on the stairs. Then the unrestrained conversation continued. The other Simon does something important that has to do with telephones and left-wing political parties. From what I understand, it is also good for the environment. His father writes piles of important books about various non-fiction issues. The last one was about the CBC and what he considers to be the ideal model for public broadcasting. When asked about my job, I said I do piece-meal work translating stuff from French to English. I’m not insatiably passionate about it, but I like to keep up my French, it is stimulating enough, plus I get to pick my own schedule.

“So if you had a genie, what would you ask for?” said Simon.

When’s the last time someone asked you that? It’s easy to just laugh off this sort of question. Since we all know that nothing in the world can make life entirely unrelentingly blissful. Still, what is so terrifying about considering what we want?

For me, I want a healthy, healed body. Regular sources of sexual gratification and intimacy are also helpful. I want regular, exuberant, uninhibited, and unceasing conversations about sex, yoga, bodies, eating disorders and people’s lives. I want this somehow incorporated into my daily existence. (I.E. ERICA, START A FUCKING PODCAST…) And the other thing that has created a consistent source of grief in my life has been the unrelenting notion that somehow I am failing creatively. That I am forever lacking a creative focus, a fruitful creative practice, and at the end of my life, this will leave me with Deep Regrets. The pressure of making something massive and groundbreaking is paralyzing and enormous. And then it occurred to me, what is wrong with making blogging your creative practice?

So maybe blogs are too 2008, and maybe they’re not the most literary or artistic or edgy mediums. But just because you didn’t get to be Margaret Atwood this time around doesn’t mean you don’t get to be a writer. There are a million different ways to be a creative person. And if your transcribed verbal machine gun provides you and even a mere handful of people with some joy and relief, well then, why not just run with it?

And so, I’ve decided that this blog, this random slew of sentences and awkward graphics will become my new, official creative practice. After beating myself up forever throughout torturous efforts to write novels and plays about foot fungus, I realize that it is through blogging, through these uncensored, reality-based words that I find my most natural and authentic voice. And although there’s some value in challenging yourself to create beyond what’s natural and easy for you, there’s also something terribly painful and futile about trying to fit into a mold that’s just not you. Margaret Atwood is Margaret Atwood. You get to have a Kale Phone.

Me and my Kale Phone

So that’s that. Thank you to the Simon who didn’t jump off a building for asking me about my genies. When it was time for him to go, he said, “You are such a delightful ball of candid emotional intimacy.” It is one of the kindest compliments I have ever received. I will try to live up to it as I go about my days.

The End.

Bless all the Simons I have known, Bless Ecstatic Dance, and Bless Toronto. I am here until Tuesday, at which point I am going to Montreal for at least the summer…  From now on, I am going to try to post something new, every MONDAY around 4 or 5 o’clock, and every THURSDAY, around lunchtime. Maybe I will also do that Throwback Thursday Thing on my Facebook Page, even though it is a little silly. I invite you to follow me however you would like.

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Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
I Let Go, by Erica J. Schmidt

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P.S. Who remembers the Karadavasana duck? Seems like a lifetime away... 

Karandavasana Duck: created by my very talented artist friend Sara E. Enquist. Check out her website!
Yours til Ekam Inhales
Simon Girard (1979-2015)
Ecstatic Adventures of the Exuberant Bodhisattva

God Box

Thursday, February 19, 2015

On Tuesday, I translated three sentences about barley.

With its varying hues, the barley gives this dish a two-toned appearance. This colouring is due to the fact that the hulls are still wrapped around some of the grains. This dish makes a wonderful accompaniment to chicken, fish, or pork.

On Thursday, I translated a letter for a bank that is firing all its employees and switching to automated machines.

In 2009, I drew my body in the shape of a small gingerbread man. I drew a circle in the throat area and inside the circle, I wrote green. My old psychologist Dr. Henderson used to teach me how to colour code my day. Pink meant happy. Orange was average. Okay or mediocre but not horrendous. Green equalled shitty. While she was explaining the code to me, she used smelly markers on her big chart paper. As I went through the day, I was supposed to rate my mood. Whenever there was food or eating disorder symptoms, I would automatically say that it was green, even though sometimes puking something tasty into your mouth felt soothing. Other times, it was just disgusting and it made me feel ashamed. My fear for you, Dr. Henderson said, is that the eating disorder will continue to insert green into moments that would otherwise be pink or orange. She explained that it was important to leave room in your life for orange moments. Sometimes life is just orange, she said. Not terrible or catastrophic, but also not spectacular. You don’t need to let the eating disorder add green and make it bad. This makes her sound dumb, but she was actually quite a good psychologist.

The gingerbread man with green in his throat

I always felt pressured to rate my eating disorder times as green and unpleasant and terrible. Except that the vomit wasn’t always particularly unpleasant. Sometimes it felt better than faking it. More honest. The insides matched the outsides.

Dr. Henderson told me that eating disorder or not, I would probably always be a fairly anxious person. I found this news to be remarkably disappointing. I had the vision that once I stopped puking in my mouth, I would transform into someone exquisitely calm. Someone who remains impressively unphased by life’s whims. A Chill Chick. Alas, this is not quite me.

Back when I tried to do the twelve steps for overcoming alcoholism in attempts to overcome my eating disorder, I made a God Box. It was in the shape of a long rectangle. I covered it with sheets of paper which I decorated with splatters of pink, yellow and purple paint. Maybe there were also other colours. Naomi, my friend and roommate at the time, called it the Allah Box. We wanted to be inclusive of all religions and cultures. Probably we were also being a little bit obnoxious. The Allah Box was for putting all your problems and worries into. I wrote down my problems on small square sheets of paper, folded them in half and slid them through the rectangular slot on the top of the Allah Box.

The A.A. people recommend writing all your character defects down. You can make a list or write them down on small squares of paper, and put them in your God slash Allah Box, or throw them in the Lachine Canal. I think I tried all of these things. I have a list of all the character defects I put in the God Box and on a list and in the Lachine Canal. It is not that interesting. I think I got a bunch of my character defects from the sample list on the A.A. website. Oh well.

Erica’s List of Character Defects

Easily discouraged                                                   resentments

Give up easily                     tendency to create drama

Hypochondria                                   disorganization                                        prejudice

         Perfectionism                                        distractedness

                         INTOLERANCE                                     selfishness

Judgementalness                          carelessness                                        jaded facetious skeptical

Pride                  greed            seeing the negative all the time

Defects isn’t the kindest word.

Before I left Montreal to live with the Boatman in Halifax, I gave the Allah Box to Simon.  Even though we didn’t get along that well, Simon kept the Allah Box until January 4^th. Then he jumped off a building and died. Maybe it wasn’t very nice to give someone a box filled with my character defects.

On my bedside table, there is a dusty lamp that doesn’t work. There’s something wrong with the plug, and perhaps also the lightbulb. Not sure. The Boatman and I are terrible at following through with stuff like that. We could spend the rest of our lives looking after shit like that. Lightbulb after plug after leaky shower head.

The End.

I Let Go
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Simon Girard 1979-2015

Recycling Day
Rumplestiltskin

 

The part that searches

Tuesday, April 2, 2015

I will miss the wind in Halifax. Outside it always sounds like something is going on and I don’t need to anything about it. I remember meditating in the church at the Montessori school and the wind was always crackling the wooden a-frame ceiling. The last couple of times I’ve worked at the Montessori school, during my breaks, instead of meditating, I just lay down on the floor of the church sanctuary, beside the pews. Sometimes I would fall asleep and sometimes I would stare at the wooden ceiling and think about all the trees it took to build the church and all the people who had come to worship with their families, their people. Even though I was so exhausted, I was lucky to have had that time at the Montessori School. It made my life really structured and I was able to put practice at the centre of my life. I am grateful that my practice was given that structure, that focus, despite the fact that it was often too intense and physically harmful. Intention does count for something. Though there have always been delusions, I have always been sincere. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I have searched with sincerity. I love that part of myself. The part that searches.

The End.

 

My friends, the rocks on the beach
Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
I Let Go
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor

You Cling to Things Until They Die
Last Practice before Vipassana
Recycling Day

Jujubes

Although I am certainly no expert on what makes for a fabulous LinkedIn Profile, I thought that it might be in my best interest to remove the following paragraph from my summary section:

Excellent Speller:  Yes. When I was in grade one, Mrs. Vanden Bosch gave me a jujube every time I got a perfect spelling test.  My mother made me store them in a plastic bag because she didn't want me to eat jujubes every day.  By the end of the year, I had 47 jujubes.  Mrs. Vanden Bosch said that in total, I only made eight errors.  I ate all the jujubes during the year-end movie party.  We watched Rescuers Down Under, Duck Tales, and Bedknobs and Broomsticks. All I can remember is the slow accumulation of jujube acid on the inside of my cheeks.  Then my tongue went numb.  Mrs. Vanden Bosch skipped me into grade three.  Now I have Gifted Child Syndrome, and I never ever make spelling mistakes. 

 



Jujubes



At the Freak Lunchbox, Halifax’s favourite candy store, they sell chocolate covered jujubes in bulk. The chocolate is not even dark chocolate and it could be hiding a jujube of any colour. Probably it is a terrible to consume even one of these chocolate covered jujubes. And yet somehow, whenever I go to Freak Lunchbox, a handful of these questionable items make their way into my clear plastic candy bag. I only buy a quantity that I feel capable of eating in one go without deeply regretting it. So far I have never regretted any of the jujubes I have eaten. In fact, almost every time, I kind of wish I had bought more. 



Jujubes

The End.

Post-Script: 

Andy is a well-travelled teddy bear who has been to the Freak Lunchbox. I do not know if he likes jujubes. 

Andy, the well-travelled teddy bear
Apparently he had a very nice time in Halifax. You can read all about it.



Andy lives in Chicago. This is what he looks like up close

Who is Andy?  From andyeverywhere.com



Photo from Someone's Big Day in Downtown Halifax

The Freak Lunchbox's Bulk Section, where you can buy Chocolate Covered Jujubes

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Regrets
Rumplestiltskin
Lululemon Group Interview
 





 

Recycling Day

Monday, February 23, 2015

This morning I was vacuuming the living room as the Boatman was getting ready to leave. I turned off the vacuum cleaner so that he could get ready in peace. He kissed me and said I love you. Then I finished  vacuuming. I went upstairs to hump our rolled up duvet. We haven’t had much sex over the past couple of weeks and it is one of my several complaints. After a few minutes of humping, likely less than three, I arrived at my usual orgasm, whatever that means. And then I sobbed.  And I thought that somehow this sobbing orgasm masturbation scene could begin my next excellent book.

Now I am at a coffee shop called the Smiling Goat. In Halifax, they like naming things after goats. The Stubborn Goat. The Smiling Goat. The Smiling Goat has the most expensive coffee in the city. I came here during my first weekend in Halifax. In the Smiling Goat bathroom, on that rainy Saturday, I discovered that my period had arrived. Since I was on a sex trip, this was somewhat inconvenient. Oh well. We managed.

I am drinking my expensive latte and looking out the window. It is garbage day.  Also, recycling day. Some guy parked a recycling truck in front of the café. He looks a little bit like Simon would if Simon were a little bit fatter and a little bit taller. And alive.

I am not particularly good at seeing or describing what people look like. The Boatman says that I have Face Blindness.

The Recycling Guy is shoving long cardboard boxes into the side of the recycling truck. I open my Linked In profile to see if some sort of magnificent opportunity will present itself.

Someone has posted an inspirational message.

“Stay away from negative people. They have a problem for every solution.”



Inspirational Message



This is how I feel. Like none of the solutions will work. This is exactly how I felt before I wrote “I Let Go.” Exactly like this. Terrible.

Now the Recycling Guy is putting a plastic bag filled with bottles and cans into the side of the truck. Another bag is filled with receipts and empty vitamin pill bottles. The recycling truck rocks back and forth.

A man with a comb-over walks into the café. Across the street, a police officer parks his car and gets out. I am not sure what he is doing. He has avoided the comb-over by shaving his head.

I fuck around on the Internet. By the time I look out the window again, the recycling truck and the Recycling Guy are gone.

The End.

Unlabelled Footnotes:

-Making an authentic life and/or self-satisfaction an emergency won’t help you get there any faster.  

-Everyone says that if you don’t know whether or not you’ve had an orgasm, then you haven’t had one. People say the same thing about yeast infections. I’m not really sure if any of that is true.

-Something about being the party pooper that all the Happy, Successful LinkedIn people are struggling desperately to avoid. 

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Simon Girard (1979-2015)
Yours Til Ekam Inhales
Deep Unyielding Depression

 

 

Yours Til Ekam Inhales

It is hilarious that I wrote a book called, “I Let Go.” In truth I am rather terrible at letting go of most things. These days, writing has been very difficult. When I was eight and nine years old, this never happened. Without an alarm, I used to wake up every morning at exactly 6:30. If the long hand on my Mickey Mouse watch had somehow crept to 6:35, I would be devastated. Life would only be bearable if I woke up at 6:30. But regardless of when I made it out of bed, as soon as I was up, I would walk the dog to the mailbox, where I would mail the letter I had written to my grandparents the morning before. When I got home, I would eat cooked rolled oats slothered in plain yogurt and heaps of brown sugar. Then I would write a brand new letter. Every single day.

My letters always began with,

Dear Grandma and Grandpa, How are you? I am fine. 

My grandparents lived far away in Manitoba. They seemed incredibly ancient. White haired and wrinkled, they spent their days sitting in reclining lazy boy chairs that had remote controls. I think my letter routine began after my grandmother had a stroke. Her name was Olga and she was in her early eighties. My grandfather`s name was Julius and he was almost ninety.

“It would be nice if you sent Grandma and Grandpa a card or something,” my dad mentioned to me one day.

Never one for moderation, I took up a dedicated daily practice of sending my grandparents all my interesting news .  I told them which songs I was learning on the violin (Variations A, B, C, and D of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Bach`s Minuet in G, Long Long Ago), how many increments of twenty minutes of practice I had completed that week (at least three per day), and how many beautiful shiny stickers this earned me (several). I told them how many lengths I had done at swim practice, and how this converted into kilometers and miles. Every time I had a swim meet, I would tell them about the ribbons I'd won and how much I`d improved on my old times.  Back then, I was quite a big success. That said, in grade five, I didn`t get a main part in the Christmas concert.

December 21, 1994
Dear Grandma and Grandpa,

Hi! How are you? I am fine. I can’t believe it’s almost Christmas! We had a Christmas concert yesterday. I had to be a shepherd. I hated wearing my costume because it was to hot. I wore Dad’s bath robe with a towel on my head.

I remember that bath robe. It was a brown, pukey colour.

Quite often I liked to include jokes.

Why did the thermometer go to university?

Because he wanted to earn his degrees.

What goes Ha! Ha! Ha! Plop!?

Somebody laughing his head off!

Rather humorous. Around the middle of grade five, my letters tapered off. I became very busy maintaining my impeccable reputation in academics, swimming and violin.

April 30, 1995
Dear Grandma and Grandpa,

It’s been a long time! Aunt Barbra gave me this writing paper... Our class is going to have a science fair. I did my project on what music is best for plants (vacuum cleaners).

I liked to sign my letters, “Yours til” followed by something interesting.

Some examples were:

“Yours til the dew drops,”

“Yours til the banana splits, ”and

“Yours til the jelly rolls.”

And/or I would write, “Gotta go!” in large letters, always ending with an exclamation mark.

Mostly my endings came out of nowhere, or they occurred because I was running out of space on the paper. I guess I have never been particularly excellent at structure. Out of the letters I have, this is my favourite ending,

Oh yah the last letter I wrote at night. That’s why I said, “Yours til I fall asleep.

Yours til the bubble pops,

Erica S.

I always felt guilty for not keeping up my faithful correspondence. One summer when I was thirteen or fourteen, my grandma burst into tears when we said good-bye.  "What happened to those wonderful letters you used to write?" she cried. This made me feel terrible for a long time. Still, it was quite a delight to stumble over these the other day. Hopefully, I will feel the same way in nineteen years when I look back on this blog, and reminisce about my menstrual blood, my kale phone, and my spiritual pants.  

Big love to everyone's ten year old self. 

Gotta Go!

Yours til Ekam Inhales,

Erica.

I used my smelly Mr. Sketch markers to decorate the envelopes with beautiful designs and pictures. My artistic skills seemed moderately promising at the time; however, they haven’t improved much. 

  

Just wanted to say Hi! 
 

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Business Ideas. On a Tuesday.

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The Closer I am to Fine