one rainy day

This morning I was quite pissed off. I woke up to a light rain, which means that my husband will not be able to bring me and my daughter to school in the motorcycle. Because it was a cold morning, we were slow in taking breakfast and doing our morning rituals, and soon enough we were running late. And as is customary on rainy mornings, my husband does not even want to get up from bed.

So off we trudged, my daughter and I, in our hooded jackets and a single umbrella. We had to walk through wet grass to get to the road, and she started to complain that her boots would get muddy. The tricycle would take us no farther than the subdivision gate because traffic on the highway is bad most mornings (which is why the motorcycle is a convenient school service). From the gate is is faster to walk about two blocks to get to the school, than ride a jeepney stuck in traffic.

Then I remembered that I left my office drawer key in the house, and it has become too troublesome to go back for it.

My daughter's backpack is very heavy. It has wheels, but since I am too tall to drag it behind me, it will give me a heck of a backache. I carried it on my back, slung my office bag on one shoulder, opened the umbrella, and we got ready to walk. I am now really quite pissed off.

Then my daughter looked up and saw the rainbow. She squealed in delight. It was a complete rainbow, a wide arc in the brightening sky, and the colors were lovely. And as we walked to school it was in the sky on our right, and we talked about why they are called rainbows and what's at the end of it. Soon we were laughing a little, stepping over the puddles, and talking about what's good to eat for dinner later. By the time we reached the school gate, the rainbow is almost gone.

I looked at all the people riding in the jeepneys, thinking they could all be pissed off about the rainy morning and the traffic, and they did not see the rainbow. I thought about the key I left and my husband still lounging over breakfast while we were rushing for school.

And I thought that if we hadn't been walking to school, we would have missed the rainbow. We are always in a hurry to do something else that the most beautiful things go by unnoticed. Like rainbows, a child's laughter, a little love shared on a walk to school.