I had arrived from New York City via Greyhound, and didn’t have a car. Which meant that I had to walk more than a mile each way from the studio to Motel 6, where I was staying. There was nothing interesting between the hotel and studio except for a couple of desperate looking bars, a bridge, a few fast food joints and houses.

After the day’s practice, a bunch of yogis had congregated outside the studio to recap everything they’d learned. I really didn’t feel like talking yoga with yogis (it’s like talking alcohol with alcoholics). Some discussed going somewhere to eat—a vegan restaurant was mentioned. I got the urge to eat beef jerky alone in my hotel room.

I walked downstairs to the ladies room. I looked in the mirror. My hair was matted to my head from sweat. My face was beat red. My yoga clothes—a Spandex top with Spandex shorts — were damp to the touch. I felt like the inside of someone’s gym sock. I used the john, washed my hands and face and walked outside to start the walk back to the motel.

It was hot—90 degrees or so. The yoga center was adjacent to a busy intersection that fed into a bridge lined with idling rush hour traffic. I had to cross the bridge, packed with bumper-to-bumper cars, to get to my hotel. Having to pass all those idling cars while wearing nothing but Spandex made me cringe. I was quite possibly the sole pedestrian in all of Winooski.

Thankfully, my oversized sunglasses and baseball hat provided some protection from all the eyes I felt sure were resting on me. Yeah, I caught myself, you wish.

I lowered my head and started walking. I hope nobody’s looking at me. From out the corner of my eye I saw a Subaru Outback full of hippies looking at me. My butt unconsciously clenched.

What is wrong with me? I thought as I reached the end of the bridge and continued walking up a steep incline. Why do I care if I’m being looked at? Why do I care?

On my left was a droopy, unkempt Victorian house surrounded by a dry, overgrown yard. In it, stood an overweight woman wearing sweat pants pulled up to the knees and a tall, reed-thin man. As I walked by, I heard the woman suppress a laugh. Oh great, now they’re laughing at me, I bristled. Why can’t I just be at the hotel already?

At the other end of the yard, a dirty-faced toddler wearing diapers smiled big and wide as I passed. I smiled back—he was very cute.  For a fleeting moment, I wished so badly that I still possessed a child’s undeveloped sense of self-awareness. Wouldn’t it be great if there were no such thing as ego?

Ego had been a big topic of discussion in yoga, and something I had been thinking a lot about lately.

One of the core tenets of yogic philosophy is to rid oneself of the ego, a state of consciousness obsessed with the physical self. The ancient Indian gurus preached asanas—contorting the body into all shapes and forms—as a means to make the body more malleable, and in effect, the brain more malleable. A “bendy” mind allowed one to shed the external, physical self and be left with only a subtle self, not bound to the ego, but connected only to the soul.

But this theory presented a paradox, as far as I could tell.  By working to rid myself of my all-consuming ego, I’d actually become more aware of it—of myself, thus more egocentric—than ever.

Practicing yoga for the past 10 years had allowed me to climb so far up my own ass—both figuratively and literally—that I couldn’t see straight anymore. Increasingly, I wanted out. Going on yoga retreats bugged me. Yogis annoyed me to no end.  I wanted beef jerky.

A Toyota Forerunner whizzed by. The driver cheerfully tooted the horn. I was positive the beep was directed toward me because there was no one else walking the streets. Why can’t these people leave me alone? I wailed inside. I can’t help it if I’m hot and look good in Spandex! My next thought was, Oh, shut up, you arrogant asshole.

Two sloppy, middle-aged men who looked like they were no strangers to Miller Genuine Draft leaned against the front of a convenience mart. I ignored them as I passed, feeling the Spandex shorts inching ever higher up my butt. I was about twenty feet beyond them when I heard one of them make a crack. What, you’ve never seen a hot girl in Spandex? I thought. Get over it, geezers.

The Motel 6 was in sight. I hurried my pace.

When I reached the motel, a wave of relief overcame me as I finally unlocked the door to my room. I threw my notebook and yoga mat on the bed, cranked the air conditioner and turned on the TV. Back-to-back episodes of Law & Order would be starting soon.

I flopped down on the bed. I was sick to death of feeling so stupidly self-conscious all day, all the time. Nobody actually cares, I reminded myself. I’m not important. Nobody looks at me. It’s just my ego talking.

I went to the bathroom and turned on the shower. The cool water felt good running down my hand and arm. I walked over to the sink and looked in the mirror. What a mess, I thought as I peeled off my top. I started to take off my shorts when I caught sight of something white, and twisted my rear end to face the mirror.

To my horror, a foot-long swatch of toilet paper dangled from the rear waistband of my shorts.

My ego was not shed that day.