Congratulations, you have successfully moved into your Greenpoint, Brooklyn apartment and you’re ready to take on New York City life head-on. You walk down the stairs from your third floor apartment and right there, tucked into the handle of your building’s front door sits a glossy, rolled up pamphlet. You grab it and take a look.
“Begin your journey toward a better life,” it reads in carefully chosen, flowing, circa 1997 WordArt.
Then on the inside, “Mind. Body. Spirit. First session free.” You see limber silhouettes in a sequence of what appear to be bodily contortions beneath an unrealistically spectral sunset.
Why not? You tell yourself. Might as well try something new; you’re not getting any younger. You haven’t done any serious exercise since high school cross country and you’ve been feeling more and more like an extended bag of flesh attached to a pulsing orb of anxiety that is your 22-year-old, newly metropolitan head. Plus the address shown on the back of the pamphlet is only a few blocks up the street. You fold it into your jacket pocket and walk briskly toward the studio. This feels surreally important, like you already know it will be a turning point in your impending adulthood.
You reach your destination within a few minutes. From the outside, through an all-glass exterior, you see something that almost immediately brings a tear to your eye. It is some kind of ceremonial procession. A group of equally spaced, identically dressed dancers are posing in sync. You hear an ethereal, persisting, whistle—the opening notes to Rae Sremmurd’s “#DoYoga.”
In fact, peering in closer, you notice Swae Lee and Slim Jxmmi themselves sitting on top of a Mercedes-Benz G-class. How the vehicle got inside the studio, you can only imagine. Perhaps it was assembled piece by piece like a ship in a bottle, you wonder. Swae is on the roof of the Benz, barking the word “stretch” as a command toward the dancers, as it occurs in the song. On the hood of the car, Jxmmi is distributing hundred dollar bills liberally among the dancers, though none of them stop nor compromise their respective postures to pick any of it up.
“All my girls do yoga,” the mantra repeats over and over, and you begin to feel your breath rising and falling involuntarily with each iteration. Your worries about making it in the big city evaporate gently, and soon you realize you’ve been standing outside this Brooklyn yoga studio for over an hour, in hypnotic bliss. The sun has settled, and the dancers all simultaneously fall to the floor with grace.
Two blunts, originating from the Benz, each bursting with inner material, begin to be passed around—one clockwise, the other counterclockwise.
“Then get high at night,” continues the song, looping itself as the room fills up with billowy smoke.
The group appears to be wrapping up this particular session. You decide it could be an appropriate time to walk through the front door.
Swae greets you heartily, welcoming you to his place of teaching and recreation. “Only once you have control of your body, may you begin to control your own mind,” he declares, grabbing your shoulder encouragingly. It is as if he knew what was plaguing you.
Still in a daze, you nod in agreement.
“#Balance. #Alignment. #Loud.” adds Jxmmi, pronouncing each hashtag explicitly.
“No mid,” clarifies Swae, simply yet with profound confidence.
Wow, you think to yourself. You could really live here. You walk home realizing, damn, Rae Sremmurd has zero bad songs. When you get back to your apartment, your roommate is putting his dishes in the sink without soaking them, just kind of letting it all pile up.
“Hey bro!” he announces when he sees you. All your anxiety comes back in that split second. You have to get the fuck out of here.
