Thursday, January 08, 2009

A pot of gold

The weather yesterday was sunny and warm, a balmy 55 degrees in January. And then, around 4:00pm, a very ominous looking cloud system started to creep over the sky. By 4:30pm, it was raining hard and by 6:00pm it was hailing.

But there was a break between the hard rain and the hail, and as I was driving home (travelling east, into the storm system), the sun peeked out for a small while. And there, to my right, was a fully formed rainbow. A few minutes later, another fully formed rainbow appeared, right above it. A double bow.

What I find funny is that we know exactly how rainbows are formed...refraction of light from the water particles. But even though we know this, it's a spectacle that still catches us by surprise and causes us to be happy. It's still a very magical scene, maybe because it doesn't happen that often, and it's easy to see why people once believed it was the work of pointy-eared leprechauns who planted a pot of gold at the end.

But maybe the rainbow, itself, is the pot of gold. What a beautiful surprise at the end of the day.

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