There are songs and poems and endless legends about rainbows, and I love them all. In fact, I consider myself a bit of a rainbow connoisseur. I have seen my fair share of rainbows, but nothing prepared me for the day we saw thirteen rainbows in one day on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. THIRTEEN! My best friend, Kim and I were fairy hunting and researching my ancestry on the Isle of Skye. (This was 1995 before the internet, and if you wanted to research your ancestry, you had to go to the country where your family’s stories took place and start asking around.)
After two days of rain, the sky changed into bursting rippling sunshine with rainbows appearing everywhere: full vibrant arched rainbows, half rainbows, double rainbows… Each time we saw one, we screamed and whipped the car around, driving to find the end, sure that we would find pots of gold. We talked about what the pots would look like, would they be big or small? Would they be shaped like an urn or a soup pot? We passed dilapidated castles overlooking blue lochs, rolling green hills, and craggy rocks reaching up to a sky exploding in color. We were laughing so hard it was difficult to drive as the rainbow moved yet again and we turned the car yet again. As the light of the sky changed, the rainbows changed, stunning us with shimmering colors shooting in all different directions. A massive vibrant glorious arch would appear and we’d cheer, and then it was gone, disappearing and reappearing in lush gorgeous colors. For one glorious precious moment, it was me, Kim, and the rainbows. Then they they were gone from our sight, but here’s a little secret: I can still feel the thrill of chasing the rainbows that day deep in my soul. In the past, when people asked if we found any pots of gold that day, I said no, but now I answer yes. We found the pots of gold, but it was different than you think. The real pot of gold was in looking for the pot of gold: a grand adventure searching for magic with my best friend. Telling stories, laughing till we were doubled over, watching the lochs for signs of lake monsters, crawling through the woods hoping to see fairies… Even if Kim was still alive, our Day of Rainbows was a treasure more precious than any glittering pot. We didn’t need to find anything except each other. That was the real magic. That was the biggest pot of gold.
