Beginning Again. And again and again and again….

In 2006 Kat and I hosted Beryl Bender Birch for a weekend of yoga and we had so many people sign up that we had to rent the gymnasium at the Black Community Center in Hanover. Though I look a little stoned in this photo, I remember the weekend as exhilarating and filled with joy and community. It was such an honor and privilege to host this founding mother of contemporary yoga and, being at that time only one of two yoga studios in the Upper Valley, we drew a lot of students. Now, there are a number of other yoga studios, and all the local gyms, rec centers and health clubs offer yoga. We are the longest continuously running studio in the Upper Valley, but we are no longer the only gig in town.

UVY turns 18 on Monday. (See below for info on our outside celebration class).

Kat and I formally launched the studio on Labor Day in 2003 and every year at this time I wish we had photos from that class, but we were simply too overwhelmed and giddy and—ok, a little disorganized—to take photos. (Remember, this was before iphones.) We were astonished at the crowd that showed up to fill the gym, and the studio really took off after that. Every move and change since has signaled a new beginning. We renovated and moved into to a dedicated space in Norwich, then Kat moved to Philly, and soon after we moved to the Dreamland Building in WRJ. Later, we expanded that space. Next we added the Thetford space. We launched an online studio. And then, several months ago, preparing to return to in-person classes, we made the space in WRJ smaller to address the financial reality of running a yoga studio during and after a pandemic, in a region and time that is now saturated with yoga offerings.

So many beginnings!

Along the way, a couple of health obstacles forced me to step back from teaching for a time in order to heal, and regroup, before beginning again. A month ago I had biceps tendon repair surgery. The healing process from that surgery has been humbling and illuminating. And slow! At 57, I can feel the pace of healing is slower than when I was younger, and requires more patience, more acceptance and more grace. I've had another health complication more recently that landed me in the ER and has forced me to slow down still more. Younger me would have been pretty fed up with this whole process. But I find I am oddly at peace with the pause. And appreciative of the small markers of healing progress that I note each day. I return to teaching tomorrow (barring another setback) and I'm still a number of weeks from weight bearing on my hands. I'm pretty spacey while my gut is healing—I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to teach. My own time on the mat has been minimal and careful, of necessity. But, begin again I will! Thankfully, I have a lovely friend/student who will be "my body" for teaching, and my heart feels open to the unknown as I prepare to return after 5 weeks. I am looking forward to reconnecting in person, on Zoom, in all the ways. I hope that you too can embrace what the transition to Fall offers us; an opportunity to begin again, to embrace the unknown, to move forward trusting that collectively and individually, we will find our way.

Thanks for helping us make it to 18 years, and hopefully many more to come!

Love,
Leslie