I Can See a Rainbow

Day 12 - 11.03am, Saturday 11 January

I see my first rainbow of 2019 today. I notice it just as Little Miss is careering into me with her pram. This distracts me sufficiently for my indignation to have dissipated before I have the chance to admonish her.

The rainbow is fragile. So much so that the fragments that are showing are barely visible even for those like me that are actively looking to trace its contours. It continues to fade in and out of consciousness on the way down the road, an iridescent heartbeat.

Little Miss does not notice it, she is too busy commenting on everything and nothing to look upward.. Even when its outline becomes firmer, she is oblivious to it; it seems to be a secret message that only I can see - an upside down smile encoded in the sky, all the while hidden in plain sight. Rather like a Where's Wally? book that nobody else is reading.

The funny thing is, I see neither the sun nor feel the rain. It just looks like a grey, nondescript sort of an afternoon. Nothing special, neither here nor there. Yet here the rainbow is.

The pram is really too small for Little Miss. She has not taken it out since she was about five years old and now she is nearly eight. She has to stoop over it, which makes the pram difficult to steer. I wonder what prompted her to dig this particular toy out the corner where it has long since been abandoned. It is a blow, because I have been mentally assigning it to the charity shop pile for at least the last month. But for these few moments of precious mother-daughter time, the cluttered corner of the dining room seems a small price to pay.