Rainbow

As I drove to Vermont dark rain splashed upward from the pavement, streamed from passing trucks, and made driving an anxious chore.  I could detect the presence of fall foliage, ghostly in the gray dimness, but I concentrated on the traffic made semi-visible with each wiper stroke across the windshield. Forecasters predicted fine weather for the day we were to return, but we awoke to noise of downpour. Scrubbing plans to wend southward on country roads, we grimly hit the Interstate.

As we went along there were intervals between the showers, and flashes of sun ruined my right to grumble that we hadn’t seen it for the entire time. Mostly it rained.  But then we passed a valley veiled in mist and drizzle, but brilliant with sunlit autumn color and arched by a rainbow. I contemplated this splendor for a one-second glance to my right as I held my lane at sixty-five miles an hour.  There was a rest area coming up, and I pulled in, hoping for another look, but it was surrounded by dripping forest and afforded no view.

But the moment was enough.  Time is a peculiar dimension.  We all know it flies when we’re having fun, and drags when we’re faced with a wearisome chore, but in this case the fleeting glimpse stayed in my mind as though I’d wandered for days through an enchanted vale.  In fact it’s surprising how soon we become bored and turn away from the most spectacular vista. Beauty starved, I took the vision in, and it is with me now.  It’s good for fogies to remember that quality of life is as important as the duration thereof.