I want to paint my kitchen next week and then I realized I have to paint the ceiling. But in the ceiling, we have these old speakers that are no longer hooked up, so if I take those out I would have to fill in the holes. I can paint, but I cannot repair drywall myself. The kitchen is connected to the entryway at the front and the mudroom at the back which of course both need some new paint. I do not want to tackle the mudroom because of the number of hooks screwed into the walls that keep our shit off the floor. In order to paint the ceiling in the entryway, we have to repair the tiny leak in the roof. There seems to be no clear stopping point and honestly, I don't want to go down the rabbit hole. I just want to paint the kitchen walls.

Remodeling is like pulling the string of a cheap sweater -
the job keeps unraveling.
Margo Kaufman (ironic but no relation)

I decided to tackle my outdated website too. That lead to figuring out all the emails, passwords, logo, and billing associated with all of those things. But like anything else, it can be overwhelming. What seems like a relatively straight forward task can easily escalate into something that 1) I do not have enough time for or 2) I cannot afford. It is way too easy to tell yourself, F**K it, and click next episode on Netflix.

One of my favorite sayings is "Rome wasn't built in a day." When I Googled it to see who to credit (John Heywood) I learned that the rest of the phrase is "But they were laying bricks every hour". Funny how we don't often hear that part? I do not have the time, the energy, or the funds to redecorate my entire house, but I can tackle a project here and there. So I am taking next week off teaching and am going to paint the kitchen walls.

This lesson is clear in our yoga practice as well. The practice is designed to be just that, brick laying. To arrive on the mat and expect to accomplish poses is not the point. The journey, the bricklaying, is the sweetness. Starting small, hell just starting, is where the magic lies.

And my website? Well, that is getting tackled bit by bit too. I encourage you to click on the Retreat page. With vaccines slowly being rolled out and with light on the Corona horizon, it is time to lay some bricks toward the future. I want to invite you to consider a yoga retreat. Surrounding yourself in nature, eating delicious food, spending time with amazing like mind people, and yoga every day is perhaps the balm we all need to recover from this past week, this past year, these past 4 years. Time to restore our nervous systems. Consider joining Jessica Sandstrom and myself and head to Cabo San Lucas in May OR join Patti Lupo and me and head to Italy. Then, we can see for ourselves, the bricks in Rome.