Saturday it started to rain.  We were at the Skippack Spring Fest, in our tent, and started gathering up my mosaics and Stratoz’s stained glass.  We had some twinges of anxiety, but most people seemed to be leaving their tents, and we were tired, and the tent was soggy, so we headed home.  We stopped at our favorite diner, West Main, in Lansdale for pie and coffee.  Seated in a booth by the window, I looked over and saw a rainbow.  I joked with Stratoz that it meant God would spare our tent.

The verse from Genesis 9 is one I remember learning at church camp, from the story of Noah’s ark, and God destroying the world by flood, but then putting the arc in the clouds as as sign of a covenant to never destroy all creatures by water again.  This spoke to me, in the midst of being depressed as a 14 year old, flooded with sadness.  The theme song of that summer was The Rainbow Connection, and even now I feel magic listening to it.

So here we were, on Saturday, looking at a rainbow, and my phone rings.  The storm came through, and some tents were damaged and could we please come check to see how our tent fared.  Stratoz dropped me off at home and headed back to Skippack.  He called after finding it in a heap.  Other tents were standing untouched but others were knocked over.  I came out and together we were able to fold the frame up, and put it in the car.  5 trusses were bent or broken.  Although exhausted, I felt gratitude that we were not in the tent when the storm came through, and our art wasn’t in the tent either, and that we can get replacement parts. Stratoz said I was his sweetie, and that made me happy in the midst of the damage.  I’m not certain what to make of the rainbow at the diner.  The tent was not spared.  But we were.