It's gray...

and beautiful!

I have a dear friend who used to talk about "El Encanto de lo Gris" - or literally translated, the enchantment of gray. I used to think he was crazy, but then I did love his quirkiness.

It took me years and a bout of nostalgia to look through his eyes, although at that point I was away from my native Peru. I remember sitting in a hallway at Cypress College looking through a floor-to-ceiling window at the rainy day. It was cold and wet, and very, very gray. And it hit me like it had never before. It was, indeed, beautiful.

The bricks were a different shade of red - intense and powerful, set against the backdrop of green leaves from trees whose trunks had darkened with the water. Everything, somehow, seemed to come alive. In contrast with each other, nature and buildings stood in the rain full of what seemed to me was life. Vibrating, demanding to be seen, and beautiful in their own right.

The rain cleans, and somehow it cleansed me. That moment alone stands out in my memory as one of incredible sadness and powerful self-awareness. I missed so much in that instant, and at the same time I was given so much.

Winter has never been the same since. When it rains, I get past the cold and the wet, and I remember that moment of powerful epiphany. Not just because I looked at the beauty of my surroundings, but also because it reaffirmed for me the belief that some of the most beautiful things in life are found in those unexpected moments, when we finally open our eyes and become aware of the gifts that surround us day in and day out.