"The Paws at the Top of the Inhale"

The first thing Wilbur did was outgrow my car. She was a zippy little thing, a two-seater, convertible Mazda MX-5 I had just bought to replace the mommy car that was no longer full of pom-poms and backpacks and girls giggling or rather, “um, like, giggling” from the backseat. To make room for my puppy, who was expanding faster than biscuits rising in a hot oven, I leased a boring 4-door Mercedes sedan. Wilbur thanked me by eating the passenger side armrest and all the electrical wiring under the driver’s seat when I ran into Target to get him a toy.

My baby.

The Mercedes and I toted our little furry ingrate to and from Carmel beach every day so he could swim and roll in stinky dead stuff while Daisy attended (barely, unbeknownst to me) her senior year at the all-girls Catholic high school from which I prayed she would not be expelled given her escalating debates with Sister Mary-Pull-Down-Your-Skirt over whether Ugg boots with skirts were, in fact, “slutty”.

My babies.

When Daisy left for college, Wilbur and I put California at our backs and drove our leased Mercedes all the way to Charleston, where he has been my constant and loyal companion for these 11 years, except, of course, for the time he ditched me on Queen Street and after 3 hours of tears and terror (and getting CPD involved), I found him eating shrimp & grits at a Ravenel family reunion. (Let it be known that both my daughter and my dog have rubbed elbows (or paws) with Charleston’s finest while I, for a time, mostly rubbed elbows with the checkout girls at the Little Crickit on State Street who sold me prodigious amounts of cheap chardonnay and then the 20-year old methheads and 50-year old alcoholics I met in rehab.)

My babies.

Charleston is a walking town, so Wilbur and I ditched the Mercedes and wore these streets out. I walked him (or he walked me) towards love, out of addiction, through a pandemic and into Grayce Yoga. Since the day we opened in 2022, my good dog walked me to and from Grayce, sometimes scoring a pup cup on the way in or a treat from Woof Gang on a break between classes and conference calls, training and teaching, lawyer-ing and yoga-ing, janitoring and bill paying. During class, he waited patiently for the soft music he knew signaled the end when he would receive the Holy Sacrament of “Snackvasana" from my students. And on our walks home in the dark, my protector was always on high alert, ready to viciously attack any stray slice of pizza that threatened to harm me.

This busy, beautiful life I have carved out of Charleston worked while Wilbur walked.

And then it didn’t because he didn’t.

In January of this year, Wilbur started laying down in the middle of the sidewalk after only walking a block or so. By Spring, he could no longer walk to Grayce. I adopted Shortie so Wilbur would have some company while I was at work. Wilbur, however, is the spoiled only child of an overindulgent single mother, and he wanted a baby brother about as much as he wants a rectal thermometer shoved up his butt. And so I began to struggle with the demands of running the studio, teaching yoga, my job as a lawyer, my elderly dog and the grinchy little pup I suspect is genetically related to Genghis Kahn. When, in August, Wilbur could no longer walk up the stairs to our apartment in Harleston Village and I had to move all of us into Grayce (where we have an elevator) until I could find us a new place to live, I broke. Three rents, two dogs and two and a half full-time jobs. Physically, mentally and financially, I broke.

Life has eased up a bit since then. Wilbur, Shortie and I have settled into a little house on Coming Street just over The Crosstown. My big boy can only walk a block or so now, and Shortie, who is an anxious little bean, won’t walk without him. So we circle the block, as regular as a commuter train, many times a day, to take in some fresh air and avoid accidents in the house, which threaten to increase as Wilbur’s mobility decreases. It is a different life, but a happy one. And when I am really lucky, my daughter drops by for a meal, after which she generally asks me to babysit my grand-dog, plunders my cupboards and borrows my car (a sensible Volkswagon Tiguan my sweetheart has named "The MightyMighty").

My babies.

2025 has taught me a thing or two about love. The first is this. If you love something or someone, you are eventually going to have to clean up its shit (literally and/or metaphorically). Here’s the second. Love is an action verb, and my capacity to nurture the people, pets and professions I love and with which I have been entrusted and blessed, is not sufficient to meet the demand. Something must give. And so, as of January 1, 2026, both Grayce and I will semi-retire.

Starting January 1, we will offer only two public yoga classes a week at Grayce. Saturday and Sunday mornings at 10 am, I will teach a 75-minute class called, simply, The Practice. I hope you will continue to practice with me as I hope I have something valuable still to teach. Because of our limited public class offerings, we will no longer sell unlimited memberships or class packs. Classes will be available at the drop-in rate of $25.00, though we will reserve a few mat spaces for our beloved ClassPass students and we will honor current memberships through their expiration dates. I am available for individual and group privates on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, and the studio is available to rent for popups and gatherings. If you are interested, please reach out.

There are no words adequate to thank Lauren Vega, Hannah John and Danielle Giovannone for their beautiful, soulful, intelligent teaching, their loyalty and their love. I did not deserve you, but our students did. So thank you eternally.

This is not goodbye, my friends. It is just a transition. The moment I am writing this is the pause at the top of the inhale. The exhale must follow to make space for the next breath in this beautiful life I continue to carve out of Charleston. You are a part of that life, and I love you more than you know.

Graytefully,

Erin