You are at a pretty cool coffeeshop in Western Massachusetts, getting ready for an awesome day of working, reading, and writing. It’s very crowded and who’s sitting next to you? Kim and Thurston. Whoa, dude, cool. You can eavesdrop on them all day long! Kim is such a babe and totally dressed better than any other girl there! They have secrets that you should learn - like, how to be totally swoonily in love and partnered and only have eyes for the other awesome person on your art team. Life lessons. Today is going to rule!
You reach into your bag for your wallet - nothing. You have managed to drive two hours, emptying out the gas tank, and you have no cash or credit to get through your day. What do you do?
A) Call your family and try to get them to give you their credit card numbers over the phone.
B) Tell Kim and Thurston your predicament. They’re cool. They’ll understand. After all, you’re pretty close to having a panic attack in front of them and they can sense your worry. You could also justify your need for, like, a ten so you can get some gas and get home by saying “yo, I’ve bought a lot of Sonic Youth albums in my life!”
C) Go to your yoga studio and see if they will gladly spare you $15. Flap your arms around trying to convince people that you are not crazy, not a miscreant, and do take yoga there nearly semi-weekly; just not at that class.
I thought about A) but C) was the one that ended up working out. I thought really hard about B) but decided against it, even though it would probably make the weirdest/best story. The lesson of the story? Even though I’ve been doing yoga at that place for nearly a year, and really enjoy it quite a bit, there’s something about it that doesn’t, on the daily, feel like a community. But in an emergency like that, I was part of a community. And I ended up going to a yoga class there the next day.