I went to early yoga this morning. At 8 a.m. I was on my mat, ready to face my day, lighten my heart, loosen up my hamstrings, and stretch the sleep out of my body. The boys had woken me up particularly early and rather than be grumpy about it, I decided to embrace the day. When I saw my favorite yoga instructor was subbing at an 8 a.m. class, I thought it might be the universe speaking to me. It was. The message that Venus (how’s that for a perfect yoga instructor name?) shared with us this morning was exactly what I needed to hear. The whole hour flew by, and I left the studio with an open mind, feeling ready for whatever the universe might have for me.
Good thing too because when I got home hubby had our Sirena espresso machine on the counter. I immediately cringed. There is a long story about this machine. It was a replacement hubby talked me into that ended up breaking a few months after we got it, forcing us to buy a replacement machine for our replacement machine. This broken machine sat in Steve’s office for nearly two years. Every time I walked by it, it taunted me. Steve could not find a place that could repair it.
This past week Steve was having a conversation with his boss about espresso machines, and the Sirena came up. Steve told Sonny that he hadn’t been able to find a way to get it serviced. Sonny, logical guy he is, asked Steve why he didn’t just fix it himself. Apparently, this thought had not yet occurred to Steve. So this morning while I was being enlightened at yoga, Steve was preparing for battle with this machine, this little burr that had been slowly digging its way under his flesh for over 70o days.
I tried not to be negative when Steve removed the lid of the beast with a screwdriver. I tried not to think that he might be putting the final nail in the Sirena’s coffin as he tinkered around with it. I chose to stand back and see how things developed. Steve, while quite smart and capable, is not your typical Mr. Fix It. The way I had it figured, though, the machine was already broken and apparently no one else was interested in fixing it, so what did I have to lose?
On and off in between other things, Steve spent the entire day with that troublesome espresso maker. He reviewed online manuals. He watched videos about it. He stared intently into its inner workings as if the answer would magically appear. He found a pin that he come loose from somewhere inside the machine. We knew that must be the key to the problem. I’d leave for a while, come back, and find him standing over that machine waiting for the solution to come to him. He fixed a couple other minor issues within the black beast while he waited for the universe to reveal the answer to him. Finally late this afternoon we discovered where that stupid pin belonged and put it back in place. Steve reassembled it. And tonight, two years after her breakdown, we each enjoyed a decaf latte in celebration of Steve’s grand accomplishment and Sirena’s resuscitation.
This morning’s epiphanic yoga class was about expectation and how we need to let go of it. I am especially guilty of putting expectations on things, things which the universe is under no obligation to provide for me. I spent the class thinking about how often I set my expectations too high and am disappointed. The whole Sirena incident, however, reminded me that sometimes expectations work against us in another way; sometimes, we set our expectations too low and keep ourselves from achieving things we could if we simply tried.
Live Now and Zen 