whyistheworldsocreepyshesaid

My friend, Trish, taught me several things. Here are just three… the three that I have been really thinking about lately.

TRISH TAUGHT ME HOW TO HUG.

I never was a hugger. I was of the Dirty Dancing philosophy of, “this is your dance space, this is my dance space.” Then I met this new neighbor named Trish- always stylish, always smiling and always with a hug to greet you. When Trish hugged you, you melted into her. This was no crappy, “oh, I’m going to give you a quick pat on the back” type of hug. This was a full on, “You are awesome and I love you” kind of hug. All of the sudden, I knew why people hugged. Hugging is awesome! Now, I hug all the time- at business meetings, with strangers at the airport, with friends and family. It’s a veritable hug-fest and Trish started it. When new friends tell me that they love my hugs, I tell them, “It’s my friend Trish. She taught me how to hug.”

TRISH TAUGHT ME THE WAYS OF LIQUID FABRIC SOFTENER.

It sounds trite, but it’s true and awesome. Upon hugging Trish, you couldn’t help notice how great she smelled. Part of that was her favorite perfume and the myriad of fabulous hair and body products that she loved, and the other part of it was that she was just one of those people who just didn’t have the capacity to stink. Every time we hugged I would say, “You smell soooo good.”

One afternoon, I popped over to her place to find her gardening. She was sweaty and hadn’t taken a shower yet and still smelled good. She said, “But I’m gross. I can’t smell good. It must be my fabric softener.” I told her that I used those dryer sheets too and I never smelled good like that. A look of surprise came upon her face and she replied with a tone as if she were revealing some basic cosmic truth, “Nooooo. Not just dryer sheets. Liquid fabric softener.” She then gave me a tutorial on the beauty of this foreign substance. I was sold. To this day, I use the same fabric softener she used back then and every time I do laundry I get to smell Trish again.

TRISH TOOK ME TO MY FIRST OFFICIAL YOGA CLASS.

While part of me has always been an extrovert, there are also parts of me that require alone time and introspection. Even as a child, I would spend a Saturday morning organizing the neighborhood kids into some sort of made up adventure game, only to get bored with them and head back to the house to do my own thing. For fun, I would often lay in the middle of the living room floor or on our silky, peacock covered, seventies couch, and try to ‘think of nothingness’ much to the dismay of my mother who would occasionally come into the room to see what I was doing only to shake her head in confusion once I told her.

I was so proud one day, feeling like I had finally done it! I thought of nothingness! I imagined outer spacey darkness, an empty void. I had done it! Only to realize moments later that “darkness” was “something.” Damn. I would also stand in strange poses in the backyard and hold them for as long as I could. Again, my mother would look out of the kitchen window and shake her head- I’m sure in wonderment of why her 7 year old daughter was such a wack-a-doo. I didn’t know what I was doing was meditation or yoga. It just felt right.

Early one cold, Saturday morning, nearly 20 years later, my lovely friend Trish dragged my tired and slightly hung-over body out of my apartment to Dover Yoga for my first official yoga class. During that class, I fell in love with the practice of yoga. I knew this was going to be something very important in my life. Rather than introducing something new, it was more like it was awakening a part of myself that had been lying dormant. It was nourishing part of me that I had been starving. I didn’t know how or when but I knew this was going to be big for me.

I can still see her in the beautiful space of the Dover Yoga Studio, the sun streaming in on us. She sat to my left and in my mind I can almost reach out and touch her. The beautiful part of all this is that I am currently finishing up my training to be a yoga teacher. In fact, when I heard the news of Trish’s passing, I was in my yoga teacher training class, surrounded by people, who like Trish, are loving, kind and who upon hearing the news of her death, have lifted my heart with their love.

It took 7 years, but I finally ‘got’ this gift that Trish gave to me and now every time I get on the mat, every time I meditate, every time I fill my heart with kindness and love instead of anger and pain, I get the opportunity to thank Trish with each yogic breath.