I rediscovered the song my mother sang to me when on the streets of Blowing Rock, N.C., where I heard a version of the song sung by Eva Cassidy. The beauty of her voice rivaled the sight of the glimmering arch. Over a rainbow is where the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true. It is the place where troubles melt like lemon drops (what a line). No wonder that, when a rainbow appears, we stop and stare. We hold our breaths. We expect something, but in the end just seeing is enough to satisfy that expectation.
Where we live, on a farm out from Hillsborough, the sky is ripe for rainbows. The clouds move from west to east across an expanse of open land that encompasses our big back yard and part of the horse pasture.
Rainbows require a slant of light in order to manifest, and that slant is perfect when an afternoon storm blows through and the sky clears to the west. The dark clouds seem to stall in the east and pile onto one another, thickening. The sun slants through the tree tops, and if the dark clouds produce rain, or even a thick mist, a broad rainbow arcs across the eastern sky. It seems to taunt the darkness with its playful colors.
More often than not, we spy a second rainbow, stacked under the first one like double rings on a bride's finger.
A playful Leprechaun seems too cartoonish to juxtapose against the splendor of a rainbow. The glory of the color bands should be enough without a promise of gold. But I'll admit that I did look closely one day, years ago, when a rainbow landed smack dab in the middle of our riding ring behind the horse barn.
Amanda and I were cleaning stalls as rain pelted the tin roof of the barn, its sound amplified to a loud roar by the corrugated tin. I backed out of a stall with the wheelbarrow and looked up to see a fat rainbow hitting the white sand outside. Amanda came to see and we stood gaped-mouthed for a few minutes before it occurred to one of us to go closer. We walked out into the rainy paddock, but as we approached, the colors danced away from us. When we backed into the barn again, they followed.
Oh, the wish for a camera! But such visitations are fleeting. I sent Amanda out into the paddock while I stood fast. The rainbow scurried away from her, but held still from my perspective. I directed her into it... "take two steps forward, now three to the left, one more forward ... that's it! Be still."
She thought I was silly, for clearly the rainbow ended over THERE. But, to me, the child was painted all the colors of the spectrum. Colors ran vertically up and down her body ... red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. ... the seven hues identified by Sir Isaac Newton. The colors sliced neatly into the ground at her feet and ended there. No mist, no rainbow dust, no pot of gold (though, truth be told, we did dig a little).
We swapped places so that Amanda could see me bathed in the bands of color. The bow seemed to wait patiently for us to get our fill of her, and then the sun brightened, the traffic jam of dark clouds cleared, and the storm and its rains moved on. So did the rainbow. I've never been over a rainbow, but that one time I stood within one. Once was enough, for troubles melted there, and perhaps dreams really did come true.
Susan Gladin is a freelance writer, United Methodist minister, and executive director of the Johnson Intern Program in Chapel Hill. She tends horses and a home business on the farm she shares with her husband. Their two grown daughters live nearby. You may e-mail her at sglad1210@aol.com or write c/o The Chapel Hill Herald, 106 Mallette St., Chapel Hill, NC 27514.
