I'm going to miss this place: the Tregaron Conservancy
As we prepare to move from DC to Providence, Rhode Island, I’m thinking about some of the places I will miss. Today, when I should have been packing, instead I went down a rabbit hole of looking at my pictures from the Tregaron Conservancy. Over the past few years I’ve taken hundreds of pictures and spent so many hours there. It’s truly one of my favorite places on earth.
The Tregaron Conservancy is 13 acres of historic gardens, meadows, and trails in Northwest D.C. It’s free and open to the public every day and it’s right across the street from my apartment building. But I only discovered it for myself in March of 2020, when I, along with everyone else, was craving a sliver of beauty, and peace, and safe out-of-the-house time. I found all three at Tregaron and I began to walk there every day. So many others were using Tregaron for this purpose, too, all of us slowing down and opening our eyes to the parade of constantly changing sights, sounds, and smells that made up an especially lovely spring.
By the following fall, I was a volunteer at Tregaron, helping out with weeding and planting, and before long, I was working with new friends helping to organize volunteer efforts. When April 2021 rolled around, Tregaron’s executive director asked if I would be interested in hosting some outdoor yoga classes in Tregaron. I’d been teaching only online for a year by then, and I’d never taught an outdoor class.
Of course I jumped at the chance.
I scoped out a space that seemed like the best mix of flat, shady, and a little secluded. I made signs. I made a map. I made a QR code. I figured out how to make a Facebook event (not worth the effort, but I did learn how!).
We set up under a grove of oak trees near the frog pond. For many of us, those outdoor classes were our first venture out, in public in a group activity with other human beings, in over a year. For several people it was their first time in Tregaron (I always asked.) It was amazing.
Later, that spring turned into the summer of the cicadas in Washington DC, and while they were interesting, the cicada population had the effect of fortifying the otherwise negligible population of oak mites. We all started to get giant, itchy bites, everyone privately worrying about bedbugs and new skin conditions until we figured this out. The bites were so bad that we had to cancel class for part of the summer, until the oak mites went dormant. But we made up for it in the fall, continuing class way into October.
The spot by the frog pond was shady (yay!) but a bit muddy (not so yay) and the next spring when we re-started the series, we relocated to the “cow pasture” by the twin oak stump. It was grassier and dryer but we were on a slope, so everyone had to debate for themself the merits of facing uphill or downhill during a yoga practice. No matter.
Through 2022 and 2023 we shared so many wonderful Sunday morning outdoor yoga practices. One day it started to pour in the middle of class and everyone decided to just go with it, getting soaked to the bone and laughing through the rest of the class. It cleared up suddenly at the end of class.
In 2023 one regular in the class turned out to be a reporter for WTOP and she interviewed me. (Thank you Emily Venezky!) It was a great opportunity to talk about how yoga can support our health, and to talk about Tregaron. You can read the piece here: ‘Be in the Present Moment:’ Accessible Yoga Classes in DC Focus on Overall Health .
I am going to miss Tregaron so much. It was such a privilege to teach in that gorgeous space, and to meet so many others who enjoyed it as much as I did. Thank you to all of you who joined me for class in Tregaron over the past few years, and a special giant thank you to Lynn Parseghian, Tregaron’s executive director. And one more thing - if you’re in the area, please consider supporting or continuing to support Tregaron. It’s easy and so important. Here’s the link tregaron.org/donate to make a donation.
Here’s a sampling of from my rabbit hole morning of pictures from the past few years.
I hope you enjoy them!
