The second week of spring break my mom decided that I needed to relax. I said I am relaxed, and she said watching “The Fast and the Furious” love scene montage does not relaxation make. I said rub my back; she said no. I started to sing a song; she said stop. Such began my day of relaxation!

First we went to a stretch class at the YMCA. The YMCA is trying to be cool, methinks. Aren’t we all! We took this class because my mom said I am tight as a fiddle. I said isn’t that a good thing har har, and she said clam it. But really I can’t touch my toes and feel as squeaky as an old minstrel strumming his minstrument. The instructor was named Mark, and he was attractive in the way that mildly attractive older men are attractive to not attractive even older women.

So here I was in this posish called wind releasing pose with this one leg to one side and the other leg to the other side and was just cracking up, my mom was all smacking me to shut up, but her shirt was tucked into her underwear, sending me more over the edge. So scene is set, and now Mark begins this tale of woe about how we hold our pains in our body. The olds* were eating it right up. He told this story of once he was stretching and his hip popped and this powerful memory from when he was a wee babe came flooding back and he began to cry and never had chronic hip pain again.

So it got me thinking of what if all our physical aches are really our body’s memory of some past pain? Like my lower back hurting every once in a while is really just because it is remembering Austin Webster in fifth grade asking why my hair was so bad. My ankle is still waiting for the release of my dead cat, Lily, and my roommate’s constant pain in the ass will not be released ’til she no longer has to live with me. And, oh hey Mark, guess I will have to take another stretch class in order to erase the memory of this one. (Zinger!)

The next class we took was called Chi Gong. It was focused on capturing the essence of animals. We did flamingo, monkey, tiger, cow … Boring. I was thinking that if I were to lead that class I would dedicate most of the time to the essence of the jerboa, a hopping rodent. This creature is elusive. Let’s pretend I am the teacher of this class.

Here’s the deal, class. The jerboa is so elusive that it has only been caught on camera ONCE. And that was because he WANTED TO BE. This animal is a SNEAK. If it is time for fight or flight his choice is FLIGHT. This animal is nocturnal as SHIT. Your “momma” is NOT a jerboa. If we tried to capture the jerboa’s essence in Chi Gong the class would be EMPTY with a sign on the door that says BOOYAH.

P.S. I got to choose the next class, and it was called LUNCH. Eerebody like lunch say HEYOOO!

After lunch, the only class left was yoga which I refuse to do — ever. So my mom decided we should play what she referred to as a common parlor game called The Cube. You visualize a cube and some accompaniments like what it looks like, where it is, the weather, and a ladder and a horse and some plants. After you describe all of this to someone they look in the back of the book and betray you because everything you have just said is a secret admission of your innermost desires, which they now know.

Let’s take my horse for example. Maybe I am dull alright, but I just said my horse would be a black stallion. If I had only known that this horse was symbolic of what kind of man I wanted I might have been more specific. Like maybe — a horse who is a woodsman. Or a wild mustang from the island of Chincoteague. Maybe even a Centaur. (Eerebody like a Centaur say HEY-O!!!)

The analysis of my horse stated that I wanted a black man. OK.

I also said my cube would be surrounded by three trees. This means I am a mother of three. Where are they? Do they love me?

I guess I just don’t understand. I suppose this cube is for my ideal life, the one I wasn’t even aware I wanted, the one with the high-rise apartment and the black man and the three kids. But I want to know what my cube looks like now. Can we analyze that visualization? I guess it is kind of like a Snapple box on a mound of crabgrass and maybe a YouTube video of Vin Diesel whinnying.

*Molly Green gives credit to Ben Flores for the phrase “the olds.”