No dishwasher - No problem!

This week, my dishwasher broke. The first thought is...no, not another thing on my to do list. I'm full. But it turned out, as things often do if I let them, that it led to another memory - a connection that has left me feeling a little more spring in my step.

I realized, while taking a few more minutes than usual with the dishes at the kitchen sink, why I had insisted that I wanted a window overlooking the back yard in my house. At first, it seemed like a small thing, but just this week I realized why it has an emotional connection for me. My grandmother's house, where I visited for 3 weeks each summer, had a window above her kitchen sink overlooking her yard. In the summer, the breeze would blow in, the shade tree outside made that part of the house cool, and the conversation was sweet - something that still brings a tear to my eye. You see, my grandmother represented love to me - not just familial, you're part of the family love, but unconditional, all-encompassing love and real joy. I didn't feel I needed to fulfill any expectations from her or provide something to her. She was just happy to be with me and she made me feel special. I made her smile and she made me smile. The conversation was just the icing on the cake.

Realizing this brought me something else I hope to bring to my yoga classes. Compassion. While we often discount or minimize preferences or requests from others, we may not realize the emotions tied to that "small thing". My father rose early each Easter morning to buy a fresh corsage for my mother and I to wear to services that morning, and I still smile when I see them. That flower is tied to the emotion I felt when my father did something sweet and tender toward the women in his life. So when someone asks you for something you can give, yet it seems trivial to you, perhaps pause to remember that it may have significant meaning to them - a meaning they may not even be consciously aware of, but a deeply-held emotion nonetheless. Realizing this, perhaps we can extend a little more compassion toward each other, just as a part of our everyday lives.