Signs

Lately I've had trouble getting to yoga -- purely a logistical and emotional concern, as my yoga studio is directly across the street from our apartment. I could really just sit on my bed and look through the giant plate glass window and take the class for free, it's that close. But I don't go.

I'm also a believer in signs. So when I woke up and it was 9:11 (can't explain now, but about 65% of the time when I look at the clock this is the time that's showing, and it's not related to September 11th as much as it's related to my own psychological idiosyncracies, but I am more or less of a believer in synchronicity, so I've taken to soul-searching and inventory-ing whenever it happens) and then M. suggested off-handedly that I go to yoga, and then I was on the phone with my friend Pregnant Lady who concurred that going to yoga was a good idea, I decided Well I'd better just go with it, maybe the Universe is telling me I'm getting slovenly or maybe some Bright Idea will come to me in the midst of a half-moon pose, even though all I really wanted was an iced coffee and a donut.

So I pulled myself together and somehow managed to cross the street and walk up the flight of stairs to yoga and stand in line to sign in, and that's when I noticed that people were literally signing their names up the margin of the sign-in sheet, and then I looked into the studio and saw rows and rows and rows of yoga mats lined up shoulder to shoulder and head to tail so that there wasn't any visible floor space remaining, and then I looked at the sixty hyped-up 23-year-olds sitting and standing and chatting and looking thoroughly annoying on their yoga mats, and that's when it hit me:

Yes, I was meant to come to this yoga class to learn a very important lesson, but nothing along the lines of self-actualization or inner peace or emotional cleansing -- what the Universe was telling me, through this very yoga class, was that it is officially time to get the hell out of Dodge.

And I didn't even need to break a sweat.

And I still got my iced coffee.