MANIFEST

If I’m radically honest, when I first became an adult, I secretly harboured the dream that Oprah would somehow discover my raw and edgy, sex-filled blog which she would adore and which would deliver me from my seventeen-and-a-half-part-time jobs that ranged from lifeguarding at a pool that kept springing a leak, to potty training gifted preschoolers, to translating soothing sentences about emollient and foaming skin cleansers.

Meanwhile, I had not quite cultivated what the Sensitive New Age Peeps (SNAPs) would call a sense of abundance.

At 30, deep into a break-up trip to India, I found myself in Auroville, 16 km outside of Pondicherry, where I’d ended up for New Years after bailing on a ten-day silent meditation retreat. I’d chosen Auroville because I was tired of 14-hour train rides, and I’d heard that the massive circular property had more trees than the rest of India. There were rumours that Auroville was a culty commune, but I didn’t get much of a sense of what that meant. All I knew was that there was a big golden dome in the middle where people liked to meditate. The “Universal City” had been founded in the sixties by the Divine Mother whose white wispy ancient face was plastered on every wall in the commune, and on my bedroom calendar. She was often pictured next to the equally ancient Divine Father and captioned with quotes about serenity, equanimity, and divine consciousness.

The Divine Moher and Father, Sri Aurobindo Photo Credit: Henri Cartier-Bresson at Auroville.org (Click image for link)

Washed out from the Divorce Diet and endless digestive mishaps, I spent most of my time in Auroville alone. I’d wake up and meditate and do whatever yoga my chiselled-down emaciated frame could handle. Then I’d emerge from my tiny cabin in search of food before typing out a blog post or series of long-winded emails to pen pals across the globe, including one Generic Married Man. I walked forever past the permaculture fields and through the forests. It could have been idyllic, except I could not stop fretting over the worst question of all time—what I was doing with my life, now that I was homeless and single?

Auroville’s Golden “Soul of the City,” Matrimindir

That past summer, I’d earned more money translating than I had in my entire career if not enough to owe all that much income tax. Still, in India, I could stretch out the cash to take me from one end of the sub-continent to the other, eating as many thalis and coconuts as I wanted along the way. (With my raging stomach, at that point, it wasn’t very many.) 

Though I lacked the unshakeable faith that I would continue to support myself, in theory, I could work from anywhere in the world. I had clients. I had savings. I was living the digital nomad dream. I was sad and lonely as all fuck.

One night at a vegan community dinner (possibly hosted by the Serendipity Team), I met a glowing couple from Poland. They were both social workers. Between trips to Laos and Sri Lanka and now India, they landed contracts in Europe to fund their long-term travel.

“How do you swing that?” I asked.

“Oh, I never really look for anything outright,” said the dude. “I just picture what I think I might like and then it falls into my lap.”

“It’s the same for me,” said the woman, daintily scooping up her potatoes and peas with a wedge of chapati. “I used to work so hard to try to get the jobs I wanted. But then they’d slip through my fingers. I had to learn to let go so that work and money could flow toward me. You just have to open your heart to the universe.”

Right, I thought. The Manifesting Abundance People (MAPs). The morning before, I had moved all my belongings to a cheaper room. Instead of smooth, cleanish tiles, my new digs had a cement floor. I’d switched from a double to single bed and while my old abode boasted a rare neutral odour; now I slept amidst a distinct musty smell of mildew. By choosing these humbler accommodations, I would save 150 rupees per night. Back in 2016, one Canadian dollar scored you about 48 rupees. So, in two nights, I would save just over six dollars.

Fancy-ish Room versus Mildewed Room, Auroville 2016

For most of my trip, I’d been religiously keeping track of how much money I spent. My goal was less than 1500 rupees, or 30 dollars per day, travel and lodging included. But often the total was less than 1000 rupees, and a few times less than 500. Whatever the prize was, it wasn’t fun.

Despite my pathological frugality, I was game for manifesting abundance. While I was still in the cabin with the cleanish tiles, I’d opened my journal and written,

“These are my wildest dreams.”

“To be famous for being myself.

Get paid just for being myself.

Like if the blog got hundreds and thousands of views per day. Millions of people bought I Let Go. And everyone loved me for being honest, candid, spontaneous, and funny.”

Just for context, the blog was called, The Ecstatic Adventures of the Exuberant Bodhisattva. Back in 2016, its top posts included a photo gallery of my menstrual blood which I had collected in a peanut butter jar. At the blog’s peak, it had about 77 followers.

Menstrual Blood, Peanut Butter, the blog post of Oprah’s wildest dreams. Click image for link.

I Let Go is my 32-page illustrated digital self-help book that I published in 2012, with great assistance from my pal Sara Enquist and the star of my life’s first great love story. The book cost $2.99 on Amazon and earned enough in royalties to pay for a pink-and-purple-polka-dot duvet cover from IKEA.

Another wildest dream included “2016 Book Contract.” Below my wildest dreams, I mapped out my plans for the year. I would stay in India January to April. The spring was a wild card, but for June and July, I’d been invited to cat sit for my friend during the monsoon season in Cambodia. Beyond that, I figured maybe I could go to France for a meditation retreat with a teacher I followed named Michael Stone, and perhaps stay on for the fall. Michael Stone used to say, “When you die, all that matters is the state of your heart.” When Michael Stone died, they donated all his organs except for his heart that was too tired, from fentanyl and maybe also from living a life with his heart wide open.

In any case, according to the glowing happy Polish people, I didn’t need to list out my wildest dreams. With an open heart, they would come to me. The morning after the Serendipity Team dinner, I awoke in my mildewed room and proceeded to angst and sob as I attempted to meditate. I turned off the timer and made a vow to open my heart and get over myself.

Erica, Auroville, 2016

At a nearby French bakery, I ordered a chocolate croissant and a chai. Across the table sat an old French dude who looked a bit like the Divine Mother.

“Mind if I join you?” he asked. Let’s call him Jean-Patrick. I told him I was a translator, so he could go ahead and speak French.

“Magnifique,” he exclaimed. As fate would have it, Jean-Patrick had just published a futuristic novel with the prestigious Auroville Press. In it, the youth of tomorrow was weakened in body and mind since their parents spoiled them out of guilt for not doing anything to fight climate change. The youth soothed themselves with Aurovillian meditation and yoga practices. The only people who had been partially spared the great descent into mediocrity were the Muslims, who now made up more than 75% of the population and were on their way to overtaking the planet. Despite the potentially racist premise, Jean-Patrick was convinced that the Divine Mother must want his book to be published. “That I would meet a translator, right in the flesh over breakfast! It’s perfect. You can come live with me in France this spring. I’ll pay for your food and lodging.”

I wondered if this was the 2016 book deal I’d been trying to manifest. And maybe my wildest dreams meant going to France in April, instead of that summer.

“Did you get any sense at all that he wanted to sleep with you?” my Cool Friend Fern asked me afterwards.

Jean-Patrick was at least sixty-two, and that was if he wasn’t lying about his age. Surely, he realized he was old enough to be my father, and not a valid candidate for fucking.

“Well, I am following the tenets of the Divine Mother,” he said as he sipped his second chai. “Been cutting out red meat. Sex. It’s not easy.”  

I nodded and twisted my hair. Though I can’t remember exactly what I said, I imagine I had something racy to contribute. Historically, I tended to talk a great deal about sex, not realizing that this often gave dudes the misguided impression that I wanted to have sex with them.

“It has been at least six months since I last made love,” said Jean-Patrick. “A long six months. You know, people think that just because you’re old, you don’t want it anymore. But I asked my mother when she had sex with my father for the last time. And she said, ‘He kept fucking me until the day before he died.’”

For his mother’s sake, I hoped his father was a great lay. After breakfast, Jean-Patrick took my email address and paid for my croissant and chai. I hopped on a twelve-hour bus ride to the jungle. I decided that all-you-can-eat croissants and espresso wasn’t a fair deal for translating a snoozy and possibly racist novel. Especially if I might have to put out on the couch I was sleeping on. I asked Jean-Patrick if he’d be willing to pay me. He never wrote back. I let the gig slip through my fingers.

Instead of Cambodia or France, that spring, I flew my bony ass back to Montréal and hit up a hospital emergency room for some Prozac. For money, I ended up becoming a cleaning lady. The most famous cleaning lady in the neighbourhood. The most famous and the most honest, candid, spontaneous, and funny, more or less. All my clients loved me just the way I was. It was like getting paid for being myself.

Long Live Deep Cleans with Erica, 2016-2019