Beautiful Little Miracles

As some of you know who have read my developing blog before, I want to make it all about seeing the beauty in all things. I thought this past year of my spiritual journey had taught me just that, but I was wrong.

Who knew of all people to teach me about beauty…it would be my 19-year-old Italian med school roommate, Luca.

Luca Di Candia (yes I was that joking American who always called him Luca Da Candy), studying to be a doctor, from outside of Napoli, who swore he spoke horrible English (which he didn’t, he was amazing and taught himself from watching Jimmy Fallon), who sometimes when we spoke too fast would shrug his shoulders up to his neck, “I don’t understand,” but who always reminded me to see beauty in the smallest of things.

He claimed it was from his lack of knowledge of the English dictionary, but I gave him more credit than that. Every conversation we had, it included him expressing how something was beautiful: “It is beautiful,” he would always say.

This statement could be as simple as a dish we were preparing that night, how American girls love to sing and dance, Belizean music, Natalie Portman (his favorite), or the epic Tuscan view from our window.

As conversations went on, I realized he would mention something was beautiful every time. It was in the most innocent way that he would say it too, you could see it in his eyes. He was like a child experiencing everything for the first time, gawking at the simplest things most people would overlook. And I admired this about him.

When I had my realization about truly embracing and recognizing the little miracles around you, it was when again, Luca called something beautiful. It had rained that day in the beautiful medieval town of Siena, and just outside of our window you could hear water from the shackled Italian rooftop drip-drop on another surface. We were sitting in silence and he said, “This is beautiful, this sound. I will enjoy sleeping with this tonight.”

Water drops: something so regular, that maybe even some people would find irritating, he embraced. He had me thinking: like come on, it is a miracle! Water falls from the sky and lets us drink it, bathe in it, cook with it; and here it is dripping from a 5-story building making a beautiful song.

He saw what ordinary people overlook: all this complexity coming together to play us a song. That song is supposed to remind us to be grateful and recognize the small things in our everyday lives that allow us to thrive. Water. Food. Dance. People. These things we overlook. And that word: beautiful, all sums it up; because that is what they are: beautiful little miracles we have on this Earth.

I challenge you to not settle for ordinary; start seeing beauty in the smallest things. Being grateful will bring your life more beauty than cosmetics, clothes, or shoes ever could. You will start to notice the small things around you, then recognize them in other people, and eventually yourself. I promise.

So, I dare you…be like Luca, he knows what he is doing. He is going to be a doctor, after all.

"When you seek beauty in all people and all things, you will not only find it, you will become it."

#beauty #Luca #water #simple