The Day after I Retired, I Flew to the Bahamas

How long can YOU sit like this?

The day after I retired, I did something that surprised almost everyone, including myself. While some people ease into retirement with a quiet breakfast or a long exhale, I wheeled a suitcase into the airport and boarded a flight to the Bahamas. Not for a vacation, or an escape, but for a month‑long yoga teacher training.

Yes… yoga teacher training.
At 64.
The morning after my last day of work.

For decades, I was an architect (well… kind of, but that’s a story for another day). I lived by deadlines, drawings, codes, meetings, and the steady rhythm of a career that defined my days. I knew how to design spaces, but I had absolutely no idea how to design a retired life. I was nervous, was I ready? Could I afford to retire? What would I actually do?

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So instead of easing into the unknown, I jumped.
Headfirst.
Right into something brand new.

I wanted to start this chapter with energy, intention, and maybe a little chaos. (Okay, a lot of chaos. It was yoga bootcamp disguised as island bliss.)
It was beautiful.
It was hard.
It was humbling.

My diligent brain kept trying to memorize every multi‑syllabic Sanskrit term, while also attempting to distinguish between the 7 Bhumikas, 4 Paths, and the 8 Limbs, as if it were a spiritual math equation.

My aging bones, meanwhile, had loud opinions about waking up at 5:00 a.m. to chant and meditate.
And honestly, the hardest part of the training wasn’t the yoga poses.
It was sitting cross‑legged during satsang and philosophy classes without losing circulation in both legs.

And yet… it was exactly what I think I needed.

When I came home, I brought back more than a diploma.
I brought back a desire to move, experiment, stay curious, and redesign my life with those same principles.
(Also: a deep appreciation for chairs with back support.)

And then, almost by accident, I found pickleball.

Or maybe it found me.
One morning at the local community center turned into two.
Two turned into four.
And before long, I was playing 3–4 times a week with the most wonderful collection of characters; some warm, some hilarious, some delightfully cantankerous; almost all retired.

These people became part of my new routine, my new community, my new “classmates” in this unofficial retirement curriculum.

Which brings me here.
To this blog.

Design, Dinks & Downward Dogs is where all my worlds meet:
my architect’s eye, my yoga practice, my pickleball obsession, and my desire to make this third act vibrant, meaningful, and full of movement.

This isn’t a blog about perfect retirement.
It’s about real retirement; the kind with sore muscles, new routines, surprising friendships, redesigned spaces, reinvented habits, and plenty of good stories.
(And yes, some days where I have the motivation of a houseplant.)

Thanks for being here.
Stay tuned.
The best (and funniest) parts haven’t even happened yet.

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