Yoga, Massage, and the Art of Relaxation

My friend Mindy told me the other day that I need to either try yoga or get a massage because I text in CAPS too much, and that shows that I’m stressed out. To be fair, I am a little stressed out, but that’s because I’m teaching full-time and taking classes full time. I’m actually kind of impressed that I haven’t begun hyperventilating yet.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN I’M WOUND UP TOO TIGHT!?!?!?” I texted Mindy. “IT STRESSES ME OUT WHEN PEOPLE TELL ME I’M STRESSED OUT!!!!!”

She was all, “Um, chill. I didn’t say you were wound too tight. I just suggested you take measures to relax.”

I considered the massage, but immediately rejected it. This is how a massage would go for me:

10 a.m. – lie on table

10:01 – start to get tickled by stranger

10:02 – try desperately to suppress laughter, so as not to hurt stranger’s feelings

10:03 – clench all muscles together in an effort to make self less ticklish

10:04 – narrowly avoid falling off table because squirming too much to get away from tickling

10:05 – fart on masseuse because of all clenching, tickling, and squirming

10:06 – crawl out door in shame

So that is out.

Then I considered yoga. Whoever invented yoga is making a fortune right now. I wish it had been me. I would be all, “Now I want you to bend your left arm around your right elbow and stand on the third toe of one foot while you breathe deeply and think of lotuses. Namaste. That will be $20.”

As you may have surmised, I have never tried yoga, that is just how I envision it going.

Yoga is one of those things that is really hip and mainstream right now, like eating sushi and wearing rompers. It’s like the in-thing to slap on some spandex and have a yoga mat slung over one shoulder, and I get that, okay? Part of me even wants to buy a yoga mat, just so I can sling it over one shoulder and walk around Clayton-DeMun looking like, “Yeah. I just came from yoga. Admire me.”

Why don’t I just GO to yoga, you ask? I am incredibly uncoordinated. I blame this on my maternal grandfather and his size 14 feet. While my feet are not as big as his, they are quite large for someone who is only 5’6’’ on a good day. Combined with the fact that they are also 3A narrow, I look kind of like a flag pole balancing on skis when I'm just standing still. So you see, the idea of trying to balance on only ONE ski, while wearing spandex and contorting into strange shapes in front of an audience does not appeal to me.

I decided to go look at art instead. Art is relaxing; I would go to the Art Museum. Plus, I would get points in my own head for being cool and cultured as opposed to hip and mainstream.

It turns out art is stressful. There is just SO MUCH OF IT AND IT IS EVERYWHERE!!! And it has all these paragraphs that I feel like I should read so that I can really “understand” the piece and what it is trying to say to me. And then if I give up and don’t read the captions, I KNOW that I am missing huge chunks of both form and sense! But then sometimes when I DO read the paragraphs, I still don’t understand what the hell is going on!!

Take Voyage of Life – Old Age. I tried to just look at that, but then I was like, “Is that angel his guardian angel? Or does it represent his soul leaving his body? Or—oh gosh!—is it the ornament from the helm of his ship and it has broken off and entered the realm of reality because he’s ready for the spiritual world? OH MY GOSH I BETTER READ THE PARAGRAPH TO FIND OUT WHAT IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING IN THIS PAINTING RIGHT NOW BUT THERE ARE LIKE 5,000 OTHER PAINTINGS IN THIS BUILDING THAT I NEED TO LOOK AT TOO AND NOW MY HEAD IS ABOUT TO EXPLODE!!!!!!!!!!!!

That’s what happens when I visit an Art Museum. The Met nearly killed me.

And so, now that I have ruled out massages, yoga, and art, it is on to margaritas…