Hello, friend, and welcome. Take off your shoes. :)

My name is Sunny Abrams. I'm thirty-eight years old and I teach yoga in Boulder, Colorado, at a little studio on Pearl Street called Open Sky. I made this page on a Sunday afternoon with a cup of tea at my elbow, and I made it slowly, the way I try to do most things now. Please read it the same way.

My Mat
It's purple (of course) and a little frayed at one corner, and it has been with me through two apartments and one very long year. I roll it out every morning, even on the mornings I only lie on it. Some days that's the whole practice, and that's okay. The mat doesn't mind.

The Mountain
From my kitchen window I can see the Flatirons. At sunrise they go pink, then gold, then just themselves again. I say good morning to them out loud. My neighbor has heard me do this. She waves now.

The Long Road
A few years ago my marriage ended. I won't write about it here, because it's not only my story to tell, and because I've made my peace with it. I'll only say that there was a winter when I could barely get out of bed, and a friend picked me up one Tuesday night and drove me to a beginners' class, and I cried the whole way through the last pose and nobody minded. I went back the next Tuesday. And the next.

Yoga didn't fix anything. It just gave me somewhere to put my feet while I healed. I became a teacher because I wanted to hold that door open for somebody else.

I'm okay now. Truly. Some days I'm better than okay.

This takes one minute. You can do it right now, at your computer.

1. Sit up tall, but not stiff. Let your shoulders drop away from your ears.
2. Rest one hand on your belly.
3. Breathe in through your nose for a slow count of four, and feel your belly rise under your hand.
4. Pause, gently, for a count of two.
5. Breathe out through your nose for a count of six. Let it be longer going out than coming in.
6. Do this five times.

That's it. You just did yoga. I'm so proud of you. :)

My Garden
It's small, just a few raised beds behind my building, but it's mine. This summer: six tomato plants (I named them, I'm not telling you what), a row of lavender, sweet peas on the fence, and sunflowers taller than me. Up here you don't put anything tender in the ground until after Mother's Day, and I've learned the hard way to listen. I talk to the tomatoes. They seem to like it.

My Favorite Tea
Peppermint, with a spoonful of wildflower honey from the Saturday farmers' market, in the lopsided blue mug my sister made in her pottery class. Some things are simple and perfect. This is one.

People keep asking me if I'm worried about Y2K. Not really. Whatever the computers decide to do on New Year's, the mountain will still be there in the morning, and so will my breath.

If you've read this far, take one slow breath before you click away. I'll wait.

There. Thank you for visiting.
Namaste  (the light in me honors the light in you)
    — Sunny