Day 4 of Beaches Bikram Yoga Challenge:  30 hot yoga classes in 30 days, 90 minutes per class, that’s 45 hours of moving meditation, folks.  I am only one tenth of the way there and I have already lost my sense of humour.  If anyone needs to hightail it over to an ashram, it’s me.  It’s all about my inwardness serving my outwardness.  I have to learn not to react so much:  stop fidgeting, breathe through the nose while ignoring the snot bubbles, stay still, be calm.  The lesson is what not to do is as important as what to do.  So, I have been thinking about what colour I’m going to paint my living room.  Last week I was at the new location of Le Papillon on Eastern at Coxwell, check out their website here.  The interior is really spectacular, in particular the yellow they use as accent walls.  I swear it is that mimosa colour was Pantone’s colour of the year 2009.    I am going to try to match this with some Benjamin Moore shade (sparkling sun).   Now the old me would have painted the entire room that colour but I have learned restraint in my yoga practise.  It is about finding the perfect off-white for the room that will set off the strip of yellow that I will paint above the fireplace.  It turns out there is some use for all the boring greige and taupe that exist in the interior design world in stodgy old Toronto (I’m looking at you, Brian Gluckstein). The calm of the neutral palette makes the colour have more impact, just like the savasana in yoga makes the postures stronger.  Just go along with me, there’s 26 more days left.  For more jolts of colour, I found a store in Little India called Rang, click here and look at all the pretty things:

Rang, 1413 Gerrard Street East    

Diana at Flohaus also visited a store full of colourful Indian decor accessories called Liloo at 734 Queen Street East, click here to see inside.  “Pink is the navy blue of India,” said Diana Vreeland in 1962.  I say bring more India to Taupe Town.  I’m going to add some fuschia pillows to the greige couch and some turquoise drapes, or vica versa…it will be my Ashram Room with a Nintendo and Wii, I’ll post the before and after photos!