So, as you may have gathered, I’m deep inside of an absolutely gigantic project.
This means I spend most of my time looking/poking at What Is Not Yet Done.
Because there is a certain amount of DONE that needs to happen in order for Stompopolis to open.
Or at least: This Is Relatively Do-able and/or What The Hell Ready Enough. But some form of done needs to happen. And ideally as soon as we can swing it.
Anyway, it’s kind of exhausting having my eyes on What Is Not Yet.
I’m ready for the point where you turn around and exclaim over how it actually looks like you’ve done a lot.
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa look how far we’ve climbed! Wow. I had no idea! This is breathtaking and incredible. “
That’s what I need right now. So let’s do that.
Here’s What’s Done.
Let’s see…
The new Destuckification Playground has been transformed.
The massive stage is built.
The stairs for the stage are built.
The trim and carpeting for the stage are here.
The sides of the columns (did I mention that we have an enormous ballroom?) have been painted ORANGE, and the faces have been painted a buttery cream.
The Toy Shop is painted. The Mezzanine is painted. The Treatment Room is painted.
The stage is painted. The curtains are mostly up.
As of yesterday, the baseboards are painted (yay!), and now everything looks sharp.
Let there be light. And sound. And internet.
The electrician came and put up the spotlights for the stage.
The rest of the lighting has been ordered.
The chandeliers have been cleaned.
The sound system is on its way.
Internet in ten days.
Necessary things have been ordered.
Like fairy doors.
But also: the new yoga mats.
The French bulldogs of entry. The owls.
Necessary things have been bought and collected.
Various furnishings.
Tables, chairs and rugs.
We have a massage table coming for the Treatment Room.
Necessary decisions have been decided.
About the nineteen Stations inside the new Playground.
About signs and systems and hours and prices and how/when/who/what-if.
Cloth.
We have been cutting and knotting and cutting and knotting.
Thinkery is being thought.
About so many things!
Meditations are being meditated.
I have been going deep.
This project (which, by the way, is really not a big enough word for being on a crazed mission to change a city and launching five different businesses at the same time) requires a lot of INSIDE time.
Not just interior but very interior. And even more interior than that.
So I’m doing it.
The humming is humming itself.
And every day I go to the new space and I sing to it.
I sing the Embarking song from Rally (Rally!) and I sing it the special songs that it likes. And it reverberates and hums. It hums READY READY READY and PLAY PLAY PLAY and LOVE LOVE LOVE.
This will happen.
This will happen.
This afternoon, I am going back to the piles of notes. To all the deciding that is yet to be decided, the systems that don’t exist yet, the challenges that have not yet found their perfect simple solutions.
To the bathrooms that need seemingly endless work and the Nap Room, which has not even been prepped for painting yet. The hooks, the web copy, the cushions, the signs, the softwares, the mistakes, and whatever else is in the labyrinth. Don’t forget about juice glasses!
But just for now, I am turning around. Deep breath in and out. Surveying all that has been done and put into place.
And all the internal expansion that I have done to become the version of me who can pull this off.
From the knowing that this new place exists (which I have known in my heart for two years) to being Almost-Ready-To-Open.
Stompopolis will hold many things.
A full-time open-to-the-public Playground where anyone can come and play.
A Shiva Nata studio with daily classes.
Treatments: thai massage, chiropractic, bodywork and fun coach-ey things.
An Introvert Recovery Room where you can spend an entire hour napping, meditating, reading, being with your project or just basking in alone time.
We have new offices. And of course there’s the current Playground — which is now becoming the Playground Caboose. That’s part of it too.
Stompopolis will hold 7600 square feet of transformative, playful, hilarious, sweet, gentle, joyful, fun, exploration for gleefully making progress on projects, gwishes, and anything else that needs destuckifying and biggifying.
And this is JUST THE BEGINNING.
Hello, every-step-already-taken.
Sometimes it seems like there’s still forever to go.
And I’m planting this here as a reminder that actually the view from here is pretty damn impressive.
Hi, new Playground! Hi, new space! I’m on my way.
Play with me. The commenting blanket fort.
What I would love:
Joyful welcoming for Stompopolis and for all the marvelous things that will live inside of it. Also hand-on-heart sighs for both how far we have climbed and for the rest of what is left.
No advice, please. Just warmth and appreciation for what we’ve done so far.
And if you would like to take your own Turning Around — in Grand Fashion!— to look at the view from a different angle, you are welcome to join me. I think I’ve been giving myself a crick in the neck from all this peering upward.
Love love love.
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Squeeeee! So excited to have the new Stompopolis come into the world! So excited to visit it! More squeeeing and jumping up and down!
Gleeeeeeeeeeeeee!
SO MUCH LOVE to you and Stompopolis. Both are already changing the world just by being out loud.
Can I just say, I have wanted this kind of nap/project/introvert recovery space to be available (in a book-a-room kind of fashion) for a very, very long time. I have dreamed of nap hotels, sensory deprivation hotels, rentable nap spaces, etc. And now there will actually be one! I am unbearably excited about that. And that unbearable dancing gleeful excitement is only one tiny corner of my excitement about the whole of Stompopolis. Wow.
Hello and most joyful welcomes! So much happiness and glee and appreciative big sighs in grand fashion!
Hello, Stompopolis! Hi!!! *waving enthusiastically while hopping up & down*
You are absolutely amazing! I am so excited to meet you someday! 🙂
*huge hand-on-heart sigh for the journey to now and for the journey to continue*
WHA?? WOAH!
So I’ve been away for a long while… even my lurking stopped sadly. BUT, now I’m back and WOAH WOAH WOAH!!! SO EXCITING!! A playground that I can come visit just because? What an excellent development! and OH MY… DAILY Flailing classes??? I can see myself being up for that instead of yoga or dancing or someotherthing I never stick to. AMAZING!
congratulations to you and Selma and the entire crew that has been making this happen. I can’t wait!
xoxoxo
EEEEEeeeeee! 😀 Muppet arms of enthusiasm for you!
(I am also selfishly-gleeful at the thought of being able to just drop in to Stompopolis when I visit the Portland area to see my family.)
I wish I were there to help paint things!
Most impressive, Havi. Well done! The Stompopolis (great name!) sounds awesome, exciting, as well as mellow. I hope I get to visit some day.
For now I think I’ll get back to climbing my own mountain. Feel like I’ve spent the day trying to catch my breath on some ledge from which I can see neither up nor down very far. But perhaps I’m gasping because I’m getting to high altitudes. 😉
Best wishes for the rest of your climb!
Hurrah !!!
I love the Listing of All That is Done!!
* inspired & off to do some of that *
Hurrah’s!
Wowwowwow! Lovelovelove! This is super exciting!!!!
So timely, too: in the class I’m co-teaching, today we worked on our “brag sheets,” writing down every single thing we’ve accomplished (in the past year.. in life so far.. this week..)
Nothing like acknowledging what’s done to banish the “You Suck” monsters. 🙂
I hope to get to play at Stompopolis someday!! Squeeeee!
Extra-loving hurrahs for Stompopolis! (Fabulous name, that.)
Yay for all the wee (and not-so-wee!) projects completed that will one fine day equal a grand a beautiful whole! And yay for the presence of mind!
I haven’t been to Portland in ever-so-long, and reading about this blossom makes me feel like I need to remedy that.
Also, I am inspired to take a moment to be mindful and pleased with what I’ve done. Thanks for this.
Happy happy happy stompety stompety of welcome!
The place sounds amazing!
And as soon as I restock on packing tape, I am sending some blue and purple scraps. And some scarves. And a silk lei. And a bolt of tissue paper. The thought of becoming a part of the ripples of rejoicings pleases me very, very much.
Yay!!! And much joyful welcoming for Stompopolis!!
Big hand-on-heart sigh of appreciation for what has been done and what is to come. I sincerely admire the way in which you make your visions come true.
Applause, hugs and humming for all that has been done! Warm thoughts and whiskey for all the beautiful details that are finding their way to reality to the Playground and Stompopolis!! Oh, for a long weekend to lend my hands to this fun!
*hand on heart* Hhhhhhmmmmm!
So much appreciation and admiration for your glorious creations.
In related news, I have recently been rewriting an inner story which kept trying to tell me, In the past few years you have accomplished nothing. So utterly untrue! And even if it were true it would still be utterly unhelpful, but it also just so happens to be a complete falsehood! Hogwash! Balderdash! Poppycock!
Okay, it’s pretty late over here. I’m going to tuck myself into bed now, and tell myself a brand new story.
P.S. Hogwash, Balderdash, and Poppycock: Attorneys at Law. But possibly just one guy.
Okay, really really going to bed now…
WooHOOO! Your climbing makes me feel like I can climb, too. (And I want to commmmmme!) How absolutely amazing. Hooray, Havi! Three cheers for Stompopolis and for YOU!
ONE MEEEELLION SPARKLEPOINTS and love to you and this amazing thing you’re creating!
hip hip hooray :))
This is SO exciting! YAY!!
I just wish I was closer so I could be more help… for now all I can do is cheer from New Hamphsire….
Oh, look! Look at this! It’s amazing! And look, you made a path up the mountain for us, so we can see the view, too!
Amazing and breathtaking and piercingly lovely, this view. Thank you! Can’t wait to be there in person.
Woo woo woo for all of this! Havi, it continues to amaze and inspire me, how you have done these things and will do other ones. It’s just miraculous. YAY!
Here’s a mini-looking-back on what I’ve done:
? Mailed the Big Important letters
? Had the Big Important Meeting
? Reserved the tent
? Made the list
? Procured the frock
? Reserved the time
? Gathered the primary ideas
? Ordered the ring
? Declared the theme
Wow! So much done. Yay. And many hand-on-heart sighs.
Oh Havi. I’ve read this post two times and both times I end up feeling so hopeful.
So more YAYs to you! And more sparkle points! And extra woohoos!
Celebrating with you from the middle of Louisville!!
SQUEEE!! THis is so completely juicy and delightful and I am so PROUD of what yuou have created! Omg how very sparkly!
I love this so so so so so so so much. YAY for you and Ath and the Director and everyone involved for bringing such beautiful wonderful sparkly goodness into the world!!!!!!
What you all said!!!
Also: Whooooossshhh!!
Can’t imagine how I can wait to visit Stompopolis!
(Although I must, for a while at least.)
And oh by the way —
@Kathleen Avins: “Hogwash, Balderdash, and Poppycock” is the best name for a law firm!
whirling dervishes of joy for you and Stompopolis. Another year (at least) will pass until I can come to Portland, but when I do, I must experience it all.
Besos!
Go team!
Big love to all of it.
xoxoxo
Yay! Stompopolis sounds so wonderful and exciting and lovely!
I *just finished* writing a story, so here’s a quick Turning Around to see all I’ve accomplished:
*Brainstormed.
*Came up with this idea.
*Slowly researched and gestated.
*Figured out time period.
*Figured out plot.
*Did a lot of inspiring research.
*Wrote, wrote, wrote!
*Finished!
@Kathleen
“Hogwash, Balderdash, and Poppycock: Attorneys at Law.” Yes, indeed. Hahaha.
So much love and excitement about all of this! About projects and growing culture and everything!
READY READY READY
PLAY PLAY PLAY
LOVE LOVE LOVE
Yes!!!
It is ready, you are ready, we are ready… to play, play, play. And to love, love, love.
My wish for you tonight: may all moments of breakdown transform into moments of breakthrough.
Your vision is magnificent and watching it come to life is breathtaking.
<3
I am so excited! I want to come plaaaaay! And visit!
This is all so exciting! You guys are doing a great job. 🙂
xoxo!!
The most wonderful sentence ever:
The chandeliers have been cleaned.
I’m serious. The next time I’m in on of those grumpy, unhappy moods, that’s what Im going to ask myself. Have I shined up the sparkles? Am I letting the light do its own natural thing? Ae the rainbows happening? Thanks as always.
The most wonderful sentence ever:
The chandeliers have been cleaned.
I’m serious. The next time I’m in one of those grumpy, unhappy moods, that’s what I’m going to ask myself. Have I shined up the sparkles? Am I letting the light do its own natural thing? Are the rainbows happening? Thanks as always.
Cheers and Joy.
I am excited by the excitement and determination.
I love the idea of Turning Around. It may at first sound counter-intuitive as a step in going forward, but it is fun and necessary. It makes me think of the opening scene of The Sound of Music, where Julie Andrews is singing happily on top of a flower-covered hill and just spins around in child-like delight and appreciation. Without turning around, how would one really know where one is?