Greetings!

Welcome to almost 2020! Most importantly, I want to thank you for supporting our family-owned business for 19 years! Yes, we opened O2 Somerville in 2001. Believe it or not, running a yoga studio is not easy and my family has gone through some really difficult times, but we are still here. I am very proud of that fact and we couldn't have done it without you! In honor of our anniversary, you will see some fun pop-up sales and maybe a contest or raffle. In the meantime, it is the perfect time for me to continue with my "How I Built This" project as in our last installment, I had just gotten my business in NH stable and running smoothly. I get nervous when things feel too comfortable so I did what I always do: I made my life a bit -- no a lot more -- chaotic. 

One of my teachers, Katie, was moving down to the Boston area. She was looking for work and couldn't find what she wanted. She came to me one day and asked, "Would you ever open another yoga studio in the Boston area?" I thought about it for about 10 seconds and said, "Yes, I would think about that." My mind started racing with ideas. I talked with Steven about it and he agreed to start looking at spaces with me. We looked in JP, Cambridge, Brookline, and then Somerville. My friend Laura Cuozzo was and still is a big part of what made O2 become O2. She pushed me to start teaching yoga way back when I was at the gym by rallying a bunch of friends to get my class off the ground. She also explained to me that yoga was getting popular and that I was the perfect teacher to bring it to New Hampshire!  She helped me come up with a name for the first studio. (More on why O2 is called "O2" in an upcoming installment.) She later pushed me to do my first Teacher Training and retreat in Mexico. Laura lived in Somerville and really wanted the next O2 to be nearby. She called me one day to tell me there was a place for rent right around the corner from her on Highland Avenue and Cedar Street. So my husband Steven and I went to check it out. 

Now, Steven is a builder, designer, and carpenter (and yes, that is his last name). Each time we would walk into a space I would see one thing and he would almost always see something else. We even looked at a space in Brookline that had been a funeral home. There were tile floors with drains in them, no kidding. That one we both said no to. Next was the parking garage that they wanted to rent to us. We would need to put in ceiling and walls... But often, I would go into a space and say, "Oh yeah, this would be perfect." He would then tell me all the things that he saw that were wrong with it. He has always been the Yin to my Yang, so to speak, and he was the one that was going to have to do all the work on the space, so I always deferred to him. I walked into our current yoga studio and saw a dingy video store with a porn section in the back, blocked off by a wall of plywood. Ick. Steven took one look at it and said, "Yup, this is perfect." 

You may not know this, but Steven is not just the love of my life but the brains and brawn behind all things O2. He is the one ripping up floors, building front desks and walls, and spray-painting ceilings. Just last spring he replaced the furnace and put down new carpet in the lobby. Steven is by all accounts an unsung hero and a big part of what makes O2 not just special but intact. 

Okay, so I am going to let you in on a little secret: There was one more factor in my decision to open a yoga studio at this particular location. There was another yoga studio nearby. I had gone a couple of times with Katie. It was the opposite of everything I believed a yoga studio should be. I won't go into details but I will say that it was run by someone that I didn't respect nor trust and who I thought was not just egotistical but somewhat predatory. I decided that I wanted to go head-to-head with this guy. 

Our new landlords were actually the original owners of the building and of the previous business. It used to be a neighborhood pharmacy right down to a big marquee and soda fountain. The panel next to the changing rooms is part of one of the original signs we found. And, the wall in between the studio and lobby is the riser that held the stools for the soda fountain that Steven and our friend Charlie insisted needed to be part of the new space. They used chain falls and pry bars to stand it up. The landlords had been in Somerville for many years and were and are some of the most wonderful people we have ever worked with. We signed the lease on a Friday and I found out I was pregnant with our first child, Dylan, on Monday. 

I asked Steven what he thought I should do, and he said, " I think you should do what you always do and don't change. There will never be a better time to do this. We can make it work." And you know what? We did. Yes, I remember having morning sickness and throwing up in the aisle of Home Depot. Yes, I remember driving back from Somerville in my convertible pumping breast milk and freaking out the nearby drivers. Yes, I remember terrifying the new students by teaching them handstand and then falling out of it and hearing them gasp when they learned I was eight months pregnant. And the list goes on, but we not only made it work, we survived to have this anniversary. 

For now, celebrate the New Year with us with our 31 Days for $31 sale, lots of exciting schedule changes, two great workshops, and lots more to come! In the meantime, keep being the compassionate, loving, humble, bad-ass yogi/yogini I know you are!

Love, Mimi