Know Your Neighbor: Mekea Fishlin, Yoga Instructor/Graphic Designer, Mt. Kisco
Throughout her childhood Mekea Fishlin was quite familiar with yoga by watching her mother practice regularly.
Although she didn’t enjoy participating as a teenager, that youthful aversion is long a thing of the past.
In recent years, Fishlin, 41, found herself gravitating back to yoga as a form of meditation, particularly when she was pregnant and had more time when no longer commuting to work in the Bronx. Today, if Fishlin hasn’t found time for a session, or at least to do it at home for 20 minutes, she said she feels off center.
“It was something that I could do that was completely relaxing, and to me has a spiritual connection as well as getting a workout,” Fishlin said.
She began taking classes at the Saw Mill Club in Mount Kisco. One of those classes was prenatal yoga when Fishlin was pregnant with the second of her three children.
When she stepped down as publisher of The Riverdale Press, a weekly newspaper in the Bronx, about three years ago, Fishlin was searching to find a new direction in her life, so she training to become a yoga instructor. She put in 200 hours to become certified, then an 85 additional hours to be able to teach the prenatal yoga sessions. She’s currently in the midst of 300 additional hours of training.
Fishlin started off as a substitute instructor at Saw Mill, and since January, has been leading three 60- or 75-minute classes a week–one for beginners, a power yoga class and the prenatal.
She said having attended the prenatal class helped her and other women as they went through the various stages of pregnancy and beyond. The class focuses on controlling breath.
“Besides from providing a wonderful communal space with people who are going through the same thing as you, yoga itself helps to even the body and helps prepare for the changes that are happening, the growing belly and the labor to follow,” Fishlin said.
The roughly five-minute commute for Fishlin, who has lived with her husband, Todd, in Mount Kisco for about 11 years, allows her to be close to home to raise their three children, who range in age from nine years to 20 months. It also permits Fishlin to do freelance graphic design from home for several publications, including The Northern Westchester Examiner.
Fishlin, who grew up in Manhattan and City Island, took a somewhat circuitous path to earn her college degree in media arts. She started at SUNY New Paltz, then took a year off from school to travel around South America.
Upon her return Fishlin, an avid photographer, went to Pace in Pleasantville for a short stint, but realized that she didn’t want to stay in New York and preferred being on her own.
“I wanted to go as far away from New York as possible, I guess,” Fishlin said. “So I just looked at the map and said where is the farthest place. Washington (state) was the farthest place.”
She went to school at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash. because she wanted to go someplace that was different and beautiful. The school also allowed her to create her own major and parlay some of the time she spent in South America toward credits.
After completing her degree, Fishlin returned to New York where she was able to get a photography internship at The Riverdale Press, which led to a job as staff photographer, launching a 20-year association with the paper.
She also served as production manager, oversaw the design department and dabbled in page design, ad design and layout. When new owners came aboard, Fishlin became publisher. But with two children and a third on the way, she couldn’t see herself putting in the demanding and unpredictable hours required.
Today, she works 20 hours a week as graphic designer for the paper’s parent company, the Long Island-based Richner Publications.
Fishlin would also like to continue adding to her qualifications. She’s in the process of getting her childbirth education certificate and also hopes to become a doula, someone who assists a woman before, during and after childbirth.
And yoga will remain a big part of her life.
“It’s something that I had always wanted to understand more about the history of the culture, the philosophy, to be able to dive into it and have my questions answered as well as being able to share it with other people,” Fishlin said.
Martin has more than 30 years experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, including a frequent focus on zoning and planning issues. He has been editor-in-chief of The Examiner since its inception in 2007. Read more from Martin’s editor-author bio here. Read Martin’s archived work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/martin-wilbur2007/