Struck to the Bone

I'm in Santa Cruz spending the day with Katie today before we head up to Santa Rosa for our Durham Bookclub reunion tomorrow.  She had an appointment so I took an nap and then went out to take a walk.  Before I'd gone more than a few houses, though, it started to rain hard.  I turned around and walked disappointedly back to her house.

After a few minutes the rain lightened up so I borrowed a rainproof jacket and took off again.  I must have really needed that walk, because (much to my surprise) I didn't even listen to the podcast that I had downloaded.  Instead I walked and looked and occasionally took a flower picture.  Within 10 or 15 minutes I'd arrived at West Cliff Drive, a place that is like heaven for me.

First I watched surfers, then continued along the cliff.  I saw warning signs and a place where workers were repairing a place where a blowhole had emerged.  

As I continued walking I was watching the crashing waves but also the light because I figured if there *was* going to be a nice sunset I didn't want to miss it. 

And then I thought (but I wasn't quite sure, it was so faint) that I saw a bit of a rainbow.  It's really been a rainbow month for me, so I thought it would be totally lovely to see a rainbow.  And sure enough, it appeared.  So close to me that I couldn't take a picture of the whole rainbow.  Within a few minutes it was brighter than any rainbow I've ever seen before and there was a double rainbow.  People were stopping their cars all along the street to take pictures.

It was so beautiful to watch the rainbow and the waves that all I could think was a bit of a song from Les Miserables:

Had you been there tonight 

You would have known how it feels

To be struck to the bone 

In a moment of breathless delight...

Finally the rainbow began to fade a little as the sunset intensified.  And what a sunset.  We spent 2 weeks in Hawaii and watched sunsets more than half of the nights, but never saw anything like this.  In the end the sky was colored 3/4 of the way around, only 90 degrees short of a full circle.  It was really lovely.

And then all of that beautiful color gradually faded and I turned away from the ocean and started walking back to Katie's house, filled with happiness from my moment of breathless delight.