Dear Friends,
This newsletter was supposed to say:
"See you in a week! We're going to our first retreat in Tulum on Saturday!"
But 24 hours ago, at 10pm, I got an unexpected email from one of the retreat coordinators that started with this:
Grace.
(Note to self: don't start emails with just someone's name and a period after it, unless you're about to drop some serious news.)
And that's what happened. She told me that there was a Norovirus outbreak going on (all around Cancun), and it was showing up 48 hours after guests arrived at the resort, with symptoms of diarrhea and vomiting.
Not good... but I needed more information.
Thank goodness I immediately called Laura Briggs, who has been to this resort twice before and had wonderful experiences both times... because her sondid some Googling right away, and I got the information I needed.
He found a Trip Advisor review posted from a yoga teacher who was at the same resort just last week and said 37 of her 41 students were projectile vomiting.
Well... as you can imagine, I went through all the stages of grieving and mourning and spent the next 12 hours making the impossibly difficult decision to cancel the retreat. I made sure every single person (45 heartbroken people) got the awful news through texts, emails, and phone calls. I had to cancel flights. I had to fight to get a full refund, which thankfully they agreed to.I haven't slept and I've broken down multiple times in front of my daughters because I know I wasn't the only one in tears. It's just pure shock from being at the highest level of excitement to the lowest level of disappointment.
But I am grateful for this community that has shown me so much GRACE.
Despite this seriously disappointing situation... every single person has reacted with kindness, support, compassion, understanding, and surprisingly, thankfulness. They found the upsides. They found the silver linings. They believe it was meant to be this way.
Can you imagine if we hadn't known ahead of time, and we all got sick 2 days into our retreat? That would have been worse for sure!
Anyhow... so that happened!
...and classes aren't cancelled anymore!
We're back to our regular schedule and I'll be dancing Saturday at 9:30am on Zoom or in-person if you're free to join!
Happy Birthday this past week to Marianne Jacobson, who celebrated with us on Tuesday! She picked all her songs and said she wasn't coming up front to dance... hehe. I love it when people change their minds =)
Congratulations to all of you who made it to DAY 25 of our ABS Challenge!!! Today's the LAST DAY - so finish strong with those 8 minutes of old-fashioned sit ups!!! I'm so proud of you!
"When life gives you POOP (and Vomit),
RUN AWAY!!!"
Love,
Grace
