My favorite ways to embrace the charm and coziness of the winter season.

A summer reading list for inspiration, entertainment, laughter, and healing.

When I took my first training in 2007, my teacher trainer posed the question, “Is yoga enough?” In the traditional Ashtanga practice of Mysore, a 6-days-a-week practice of the same sequence every single day, would that be enough to keep the body balanced, strong, capable, and mobile?

Someone recently said that my upcoming Montana retreat looks like the vacation they need from their vacation. I know that feeling. Some trips come with a flurry of planes, trains, and automobiles so that you can get the most out of where you are in the shortest amount of time. There is certainly a time and place for vacations like that. But when you’re ready for a getaway that leaves you more rejuvenated than ragged, I think a retreat-style trip is hands down the way to go.

I don’t so much have a story. I have a whole saga. For my entire adult life, I have experienced the same romantic relationship over and over and over again. Starting with the man I married at 26 and divorced at 32. Followed by the one in California who nearly left me in the middle of Paso Robles, four hours from home without a ride.

In 2018, I had left my dog, Leland, in Chicago with my ex-husband so I could move out to California and start a new job. No words can encapsulate how devastating that was for me. We had only been divorced for seven months and were trying out the whole shared dog custody thing, a ridiculous modern-day issue that childless couples face post-breakup.

It seems we all come to our mats for different reasons initially. After my first real yoga practice in 2003, I decided that I hated yoga. I couldn’t touch my toes. I felt like an imposter. I didn’t know the weird language they were speaking. And I had zero body awareness. All in all, I didn’t feel “good” at it.

When you move somewhere new, it changes you. And I feel like a snowman that is slowly starting to melt into a more mellow version of me. Hustle culture, people call it these days. After living in cities for 18 years, I thought hustle was simply my nature. But then I moved here and it felt like slamming on the brakes.

Blink and you’ll miss it. Holds true for most of these small towns in Northern Michigan. At the only intersection in Maple City sits a post office the size of a postage stamp itself, a gas station that has a handwritten sign over the 89 at the pump — no premium gas — and an abandoned corner store that says “Exciting things coming in 2020!” even though we’re six months beyond. The population is 113 and I wonder if that includes me.

I completed my first 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training in 2007 at Yogaview in Chicago. I was 22 at the time, fresh out of college, and so fortunate to have a job as a graphic designer at a boutique ad agency down in River North. I was also completely disinterested in agency life and while my original vision was for me to be Helen Hunt from What Women Want, I knew that my feet liked to be bare more than they liked to be in heels and my time on my mat was much preferred over time in strategy meetings. As one does at the ripe age of 22, I prematurely quit my job and walked right into the world of teaching yoga.

As I write this I can see the outline of where my dreamcatcher used to hang, just to the right of my window. I took it off my wall yesterday, wrapped it in paper, and placed it in a box. If I stare intently, I can see the actual lines that made up the inner web of the dreamcatcher. The ring that held the web together. The strings that dangled from the ring — beads and feathers and ribbons. Everywhere you look, it appears I stenciled my walls with smoke. I couldn’t fathom why my walls were so alarmingly dirty. All the wildfires, my sister said. And then I had immediate concern for my lungs.

Friday nights were the worst. I would stick my hand into my purse as I walked out of the glass doors at work and search for my travel pack of tissues. The ones that I hid in every coat, all my handbags, in the console of my car and the drawers of my work desk for the inevitable moments when my eyes would start leaking, often unexpectedly and always aggravatingly. As I watched everyone else leave work and make their way home to kids and spouses and pets and out to dinner with friends, I would climb into my car and hear nothing.

I once was a wife. 

There was a point in time when I’d wake up alone and astonished. When I drowned in the silence of my apartment, silence that I had craved, and then, when granted, suffocated me. For the first few weeks after moving out of my condo I shared with my husband, I sat in my empty loft on the one lone rattan chair that cocooned me until my new furniture arrived. I watched an entire TV series in that chair, the echo of the TV boomeranging off the walls, my puffy eyes reflected back at me when I powered the TV off. 

On the eve of New Year’s Eve a pizza peel arrived on the front porch of my sister, Jamie’s, cabin. She and I watched as my brother-in-law, Ted, ripped open the box, assessing the size and whether or not it was big enough for the pizzas we were going to toss onto his brand new Big Green Egg. The day prior, Jamie and I went to our favorite spot in Traverse City, Folgarelli’s, in search of all of the items we needed. Neapolitan pizza dough, imported sauce, bottles of wine, and an impromptu cash-register cookie purchase.

Looking at the highs and lows of a year can be so confronting. Oftentimes when I write these blog posts I end up in a fit of ugly tears as I relive some of the more tender moments of my life. But seeing how far I’ve come, looking back at the lessons and wisdom that blossom from my struggles – that’s what I live for.

Outside the window there is a perfect snow globe of fresh flakes falling from the sky, like Santa ordered it himself. Beneath the windows are photos of my nieces and nephews, wedding photos of important people in my dad and stepmom’s life, new babies who have since grown, family vacations, and school photos. I wonder what it was like for them to take my wedding photos down. Was it a conscious decision they made together? Was it one that bore little thought? Or did they reminisce about that day or my relationship?

When I moved to Chicago in 2003 I saw a trifold brochure for running a marathon in support of the AIDS Foundation. "Anyone can do it!" it said. Anyone, I wondered? I hadn't run more than a mile in gym class in high school, so the consideration of a marathon was cute of me to entertain. One week later, however, I was lacing up my Nikes and run/walking a 12-minute mile. Six months later I was crossing the finish line in Honolulu. Grand goals have always enticed me, so considering I went from 0-100 with running, it didn't really surprise me when I put my deposit down to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro with no prior mountain climbing or camping experience.

My practice this year as I navigate self-trust is to simply pause when faced with indecision. Instead of flipping through my internal rolodex to find someone else to tell me what to do or how to feel, I use my own reflection skills to determine the best course of action. Something as minor as a text to a potential first date or as grand as a new job, I have found a handful of questions very helpful in getting me to tap into my own internal trust. It's my new rolodex for decision making and it goes something like this:

I knew things had seemed off between them. But when we sat at their kitchen table, my then husband and I, the news that our good friends were divorcing was still met with disbelief. I felt a tightening in my throat, a rush of heat to my sinuses, constriction of my jaw, the rapid blinking of my eyes in an attempt to redirect my tears. But why? But how? But you're sitting right here together. Can't you work it out? 

At the end of 2018 when I was making the decision to either stay in Chicago or move out to California, I would sit in bed at night, the light of my phone illuminating my face, my fingers tracing Google maps, and I'd imagine myself in a new life. One that was waiting for me once I spoke the words "Yes, I'll take the job."