You don’t know how to relax, Virgo. The skies know that proclaiming one doesn’t know how to relax is typically a way to brag about being part of the “no days off” culture, but make no mistake--this is not what I mean when I describe Virgo. In addition to her disconnect with relaxation, she isn’t particularly driven by the hustle, either.
What I mean when I say you do not know how to relax, Virgo, is that you do not know how to be.
A woman once unsolicitedly loaned you her copy of Sheila Heti’s, How Should A Person Be. It seemed like this woman was aware of your inability to simply be, far before you were. She perhaps made this recommendation as a prescription for your obvious inabilities. You barely started this potentially helpful read, then kept it for months at a time and she later asked you to return it (in sort of an angry way). Perhaps the answers were in those pages, who knows (the skies do, this book really could have helped you out, Virgo).
Your inability to meet the moment of relaxation may have something to do with your inability to really determine which moment you’re in in the first place. To put it in terms you’ll understand Virgo, you just never really know what the vibe is.
When you were a bartender, you’d catastrophically misread the energy of the room every time you’d choose the bar music. Oh, it’s midnight on a Saturday and a bossa nova group just finished their set and the whole room is absolutely pumped? Better watch out for Virgo, because she’s going to disappear with the house iPad to put on Nina Simone’s rendition of ‘Suzanne’ for some reason, causing everyone to close their tabs and immediately vacate so they can tend to their heaving, throaty sobs in the privacy of their respective homes.
It is with this complete and total cluelessness about What Could Be Nice When, that you set off on a quest to become good at relaxation. It’s fruitless to put pressure on yourself to become “good” at rest, Virgo, but that certainly doesn't slow you down.
You start your quest with the quintessential relaxation activity. You begin with baths.
You decide that the uncharted (by you) world of bath products is the best place to begin your relaxation awakening. You purchase an exfoliator mitten that comes with a pamphlet full of shocking photos that promise you total carnage if you use this mitten appropriately.
You buy something called “body polish.” You can’t tell if it’s supposed to be a product that goes on wet skin, or dry skin, or bedtime skin, but it comes with a wooden spoon, so you guess probably wet?
You buy some bath powder that surely must have a purpose, but no amount of label reading has you any closer to learning what the purpose of the powder is. All you know is there are dried flower petals in there, and if there are dried flower petals in your bathtub, you’re moments away from some hot hot relaxation.
Armed with your potentially lethal exfoliator, your polish (?) and your petal powder, you take to your “tub.” Like most people, your tub is basically just the sad bottom of a shower. It’s not quite the right size for a human woman to comfortably “soak,” but you’re willing to be wrong about your spatial assumptions, and you draw the bath.
The coating of your tub has worn off, so there’s large streaks of rust decorating many of the tub’s relaxing surfaces. The rust stains scare you because they kind of look like blood, so you eagerly toss in your flower bath powder, and hope some of these petals shroud the scary streaks.
The hot water in your bathroom changes depending on what your neighbors do in their apartments. It periodically shifts from a pleasing, human temperature to the heat of the earth’s core. It’s hard to determine a pattern, beyond just simply happening any time you’d prefer it to not happen. This mercurial water source leaves you feeling a little cautious towards the tub. A little suspicious. But your desire for relaxation outweighs your trepidations, so you lower yourself in.
Once in the tub, you’re unclear about your role. You just have to like, wait? What are you waiting for? You thought that simply being in a bath would provide you with a clear transformative experience. You’d splash down, have a eureka moment, and splash out, finally whole. But the bath didn’t inspire such a transformation. In fact, bathtime held such a sterile, echoing silence that it felt like sitting inside of a wet drum all alone, waiting for an epiphany that would never come.
Desperately searching for guidance, you look to your flower bath powder, but the powder doesn't really seem to understand their role either. You had imagined the flowers would transform this experience for you, but they’re just kind of sitting there too. The exfoliating mitten lays nearby, listless. The polish has no idea what it’s for, and neither do you. Does anyone know what to do in a bath?
Reading is apparently a hobby of tub dwellers, but how do they get their fingers dry enough to turn the pages? And how does the process of keeping their fingers dry enough to turn the pages not occupy all of their thoughts in the tub?
You’ll emerge from your bath bewildered that the absolute classic, the beacon of relaxation didn’t “work” on you. The skies are born with a natural knack for rest and pleasure, two attributes that seem to evade most human beings. But I sympathize with your position, Virgo, I do. My recommendation is to drop the bath thing completely (you either get it or you don’t, Virgo) and instead just take naps or learn to bake or something.
The skies are rooting for you Virgo. You are nowhere near a breakthrough on this journey, but we hope that you at least save yourself the time and aggravation you’re wasting by trying to connect to tub culture.
This week the skies are unveiling a new element to our advice. Each horoscope will include a new section called The Skies Insist, wherein a weeklong deliberation amongst the skies will result in a singular recommendation to you, Virgo (and the rest of humankind, should they so choose).
Sorry that we chose the word ‘Insist,’ but the skies are all knowing entities, so there’s a lot of egos up here. It can be hard when we try to discuss art together. It’s like, just because you liked it doesn’t mean it’s objectively good, Cassiopeia. Without further ado, here is the first week of...
The Skies Insist:
You listen to Helene Smith’s song, I Am Controlled By Your Love.
You don’t know how to match the music to the moment, Virgo, so let me try and help you out here. The Skies Insist this is the perfect song to play when you cook dinner in that particular, triumphant, inspired way, that makes you imagine you’re in an indie movie about self discovery. Enjoy!