Ghost rainbows

This morning there were two rainbow splotches on the bathroom tile. I try and take a photo but they disappeared in the camera although they remained on the wall. 

Ghost rainbows.

Rainbows were a part of my life.

As a little girl my grandmother had a prism and she'd angle it so it would colour my tapioca. Even today white tapioca, although a favourite, seems not quite right. It should be red, orange, blue, etc. Years later in Geneva the little girl down the hall who used to visit regularly came by one Sunday morning with a friend. We were all in our pajamas. She wanted to show her friend the prism and we shot rainbows at each other. My grandmother would have loved it.

Between eight and ten, I loved the Maida's Little* series about a motherless but wealthy little girl with a cadre of friends. One of the girls in the story, I think her name was Sylvia, painted rainbows to give as gifts. She had to work fast.

Of course, growing up in Reading, MA, I was a Rainbow girl, part of the traditional social life for a high school girl at the time. I served in the bow as purple, patriotism unaware at the time of the indoctrination.

Until I moved to Switzerland, I never saw many rainbows. During the summer months driving into the Vals de Travers there were often late afternoon storms followed by rainbows. The same when I moved to Geneva and the rainbow show off my balcony sent me running to my neighbours giving rainbow alerts. We'd stand and watch before going back to our own flats for dinner.

One night on the bus to Ferney (France was about four stops from home) a triple rainbow was off to one side. All the people were quiet and looked tired from the day's work until someone spotted a triple rainbow. Everyone moved to the left of the bus and their tiredness seemed to evaporate as they ohhed and ahhed and exchanged comments in a variety of languages.

Driving up to Geneva last week Rick spied a splotch of a rainbow that followed us stretching into a line of a rainbow and finally the traditional arc.

Perhaps what I love most about rainbows is that they are so ephemeral, something to enjoy for a few minutes before they disappear into memory...becoming ghosts of the past...not something to capture by a camera. 

* The Maida's Little series was written by Inez Hayes Irwin who was a suffragette. I had no idea that she lived in Scituate during the time I would visit my folks there. The stories are set in and around Boston and are still available and have a sweetness to them.