After the Rain

It hasn’t been a good year, but there have been worse ones, or so I try to remind myself. The world hasn’t been filled with much in the way of good news which make it easy to forget the better moments that happened. One needs to keep an eye open in order to catch those fleeting moments of magic that make life worth living.

A sunset drive last night in search of food to break the monotony of my diet featured an unspectacular sky leading me to leave my camera behind. So of course, I saw something I’d never seen before --  a column of rainbow light coming from the middle of a cloud on the horizon. No rainbow arch, just a nearly straight shaft of prismatic color descending from the sky like a psychedelic tornado, it caught my disbelieving eye.

With only my Asus Zenpad S 8.0 tablet along, the poor quality pictures above are the best that could be managed under the circumstances. At least I have proof that I saw it to convince myself it wasn’t imaginary.

The food wasn’t worth the money I spent, but at least the trip was worth it to see this unusual event.

Last Saturday, the flood waters that hit the valley I live in had moved downstream into the Root River. My father and I went on a short road trip to follow the flooding in the hope of capturing some pictures. While there was plenty of water inundating fields from Houston to Hokah, the imagery was oddly boring. You know you’ve seen too many floods in a short span of years when indifference becomes the dominate  reaction.

At Hokah, there is a tiny little park where people can park and sit on benches to admire the river near to the bridge. That was the only location that inspired me to take out the camera, mainly due to the rising water. When we first arrived the stones that serve as barricades to the river marked the edge of the flooding. By the time I got the camera out, water had started to ever so slowly trickle past them.

Still photographs can’t convey the force of the racing water going by, sweeping along logs and other flotsam at a terrific rate. As we watched, the water slowly crept up closer to us and to the bottom of the bridge. It didn’t quite make it, however I later heard that damage had been done to another bridge farther along where the turn to Brownsville is.

 

Flood waters respect nothing. Neither the works of man or the creations of nature are immune to the brown merciless surge.

That said, the grimy water cannot cover everything. A flash of color near the lapping river caught my attention. A single flower in full bloom sprouted up from the packed gravel glowing radiantly in the dull light of a cloudy day.

Beauty can be found anywhere at any time.