Coming Into Gorgeousness

Almost a year ago, on a tour of Italy I took with my mother, an American man told me I was gorgeous. We were in Rome and it was the last night of the tour and the waiters had been singing romantically to us while we drank bottomless bottles of Chianti, but still. He said it like he meant it. “You are gorgeous.”

This is one of those scenes of life I will play over and over in my head for all of eternity. Since that moment on the Via Nazionale in front of that tour bus, I have turned my life upside down and given it a really big shake. I moved into a tiny apartment all my own, got a divorce, and fell in love. I don’t believe all of this happened because a man told me I was gorgeous.

But then again, maybe it did.

Because, let’s face it. I am the woman who has spent all of her life standing parched at the proverbial bar for embarrassingly long chunks of time before finally resorting to yelling to get a drink. I’m not saying I’m ugly. I’m just saying it’s never been my looks that got me anything I wanted.

And no one before had used that word to describe me. Not counting my mother, I’d never even been called “beautiful” except once, when I was 24 and my on-again-off-again boyfriend with a flair for melodrama said, “You’re beautiful when you’re crying” as we broke up for the 3,753rd time.

Gorgeous is a word with a lot of power, and it doesn’t really mean what I thought it did. It turns out that gorgeous isn’t the word for women who could get hired at Hooters or win Miss America. It takes a lot of work to be gorgeous, and I'm not talking nips and tucks. It's much harder than situps. But I’m now convinced that every single one of us – whether we’re supermodel beautiful, homely as a tree stump or somewhere in between – has the potential to come into gorgeousness.

I believe this for two reasons. One is that I’ve gotten called gorgeous a lot since Rome (and may I remind you that I turn 42 next Friday?). Young men flirt with me over the tomatoes in the grocery store and old men flirt with me by the bread. The other night I’d just walked into the Surf Club where it was $2 pint night and crowded two deep the entire length of the bar when a tall man in a business suit said, “Hello, Gorgeous” and held out his hand. It was like the Red Sea parting for Moses as he and his buddy made way for me.

I’m still the same flat-chested, broad-shouldered girl I've always been, only now I’ve got wiry gray hairs sproinging out of my scalp, new wrinkles every day and a vein the size of Rhode Island that pops out of my forehead each time I smile. “Don’t you have me confused with someone else?” is what I feel like asking. But then, who am I to shatter their illusion?

Only thing I can figure is that maybe after years of cultivating what I was always told was my best feature, my personality has finally become a physical manifestation, one that is now as obvious as a boob job or an eye lift. My sisters, for your personality to do that, I’m pretty sure you've got to take a really big risk.

Not bungie-jumping off a bridge in Australia kinda risk, either. More like splitting yourself right down the middle of your breastbone like a chicken, really opening yourself up to discover your true identity. This and only this will afford you the opportunity to experience true bliss, and a woman in the midst of whole-hearted bliss is what people find irresistably gorgeous.

So here, to prove my point, is a quick glimpse of the most gorgeous women I know. One is in her 50’s and quit her journalism career 15 years ago to pursue a dream of writing and playing music. Her voice catapults me to new levels of appreciation and if given only one word to describe it, I think you can guess what word I would choose.

Another gorgeous woman I know with a master’s in education and the long-fostered intent to teach second grade, suddenly took a job as a flight attendant – a job which catapults her to new levels of self-confidence despite the vociferous objections of the person she loves most.

And the most gorgeous woman of all is a bald-headed nun with man hands who spent most of her life fighting fires in New Mexico before heeding the call to teach Buddhism to Texans. So..........

... what does it mean to come into gorgeousness?

Take a cleaver to your own heart and soul and find out.