I heard of a courthouse in Ohio that has a major faux pas. The steps are glass.

 

No doubt the architect thought this would be classy. Most likely the team creating the building were mostly if not exclusively male and forgot that women wear skirts. The result is that ladies are told not to use the stairs. I am curious about how the designers felt when they realized the impact of that decision.

 

It is hard to see the world through another person's perspective. It is so annoyingly different than our own. I can remember hanging laundry twenty seven years ago, my mind absorbed in the task. Chara was a little over one and was watching me. Suddenly she spoke three words.

 

"Wait long time." I was taken aback. This small person had feelings about being ignored? I was embarrassed to realize that the possibility had not occurred to me. 

 

Another time I was blathering on about my kids to a woman who had none. At a break in the conversation she got teary.

 

"It is hard to listen to you always talking about your kids when I don't have them." I was chagrined to be caught clueless. Of course she would feel left out. How could I be so self absorbed?

 

Marriage is an epic adventure in yanking us out of our well worn vantage point. One story that I heard from Michele Weiner Davis at a Smart Marriage conference captured the egocentricity that weakens relationships.

 

She was counseling a couple when the husband said that there was only a small window of opportunity for lovemaking... Friday night. Any other time was an unspoken no no. His wife giggled and agreed that this was true. Michele asked him how this felt for him. He began to tear up as he said that lying next to the woman he married, knowing he could not touch her was the loneliest place on earth. Michele began to cry. The wife began to cry. 

 

"I am so sorry!! I never even considered what it felt like for you!!" she blurted out.

 

We all start out believing that we are the center of the known universe. But if we stay entrenched in that misconception, we are left as isolated planets, oblivious of the beauty of being connected. It is our relationship with each other that makes us bright.

 

 

Photo by Rhys Asplunch

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