More Than A Mat

Over a dozen years ago my friend Nadia gave me a yoga mat as a Christmas gift. At the time she was my friend and yoga teacher. Soon after she became my business partner in a yoga studio we opened in DUMBO.

While we are no longer in business together, we are still good friends. And I get to recall the benefits of that relationship regularly when I roll out the purple Manduka mat she presented me with so long ago. Like our friendship, it’s a damn hardy thing. It has well worn grooves where my hands and feet go in Adho Mukha Svanasana and it has seen me through a lot of transitions.

The mat has held up through the birth and growth of YogaCity NYC, my practice as I took several teacher trainings, the celebration of my 50th birthday, the challenge of my children leaving home and going off to college, and the mourning of my father’s death.

Now my husband and I are about to renovate our home. The designer we’re working with has decided that this purple piece of rubber with the resiliency of a good tire should have its own place of honor in a sun drenched corner in our apartment.

It’s a gift that has changed my life and continues to meet me with comfort and stability every day. The mat has always been ready for what my life brings to it.

-Brette Popper