When I was in Australia teaching environmental education six years ago now (wow!), Sonya, one of the CVA (Conservation Volunteers Australia) volunteers, was the first one to mention the word "gorgeous" when describing another human being. "Oh, Graham?" she would say. "He's gorgeous! You'll love him!" So, right away I was thinking that he's hot and super cute or fine or something along those lines of "gorgeousness". Well, Graham turned out to be about 58-years old and, while not a bad looking chap, not exactly what I had in mind. But, after a while, and a bit of time talking to Graham who turned out to be very kind, I realized that there are a group of people in Australia that I have fondly come to think of as the "Gorgeous People". Essentially, the kind and warm and generous people that I had been lucky enough to meet while there. The ones that came to me as strangers but left me as something else, something akin to friends. I decided then that I liked this term, "gorgeous", and that I would use it a bit more from time to time...
Now, six years later, during this unusually rainy early summer in Colorado, it smells like Australia outside. It smells like an earthy cool Wisconsin morning in the fall; the crisp breeze off Lake Michigan; the humid mist of the Redwoods in California; and, yes, an unusually rainy summer downpour in the heat of Colorado summer. Wet, overcast, cool, earth...but that smell reminds me mostly of Tasmania and South Australia - where I met some of the most gorgeous people in the world.
Could it be that these people came to me as that much more extraordinary because I was essentially on my own in OZ? Certainly. Could it be that I am, in fact, surrounded by Gorgeous People every day of my life but fail to notice them because I am bogged down by everyday responsibility? Yes. So, I feel blessed by the rain today because it has slowed me down just enough to remember and realize the gorgeousness in us all.
