A rainbow disappears over the mountain. Appears and disappears. Rainbows are sudden miracles, regardless of what number of you’ve got seen.
“Miracles” and straightforward to get carried away with. I’ve executed loads of gushing, however this time I did not have a selection. While visiting Mom in Borrego Springs, a rainbow rose over the mountains. It rose, brightened after which caught for 5 minutes. Five minutes is ceaselessly in rainbow time. Its good colours appeared an indication — of what I wasn’t positive — however an indication nonetheless.
Mom has been coming to Borrego Springs by herself since Dad died in 2016. Borrego is a poor man’s Palm Springs, east of San Diego and south of the Salton Sea however with greater than 900,000 acres in the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, it’s a treasure trove of dry, desert riches. There is nothing cleaner and extra austere than the desert panorama. It’s even higher in the winter and spring. The desert appears unfussy, unbusy and more straightforward than a denser, greener setting.
Borrego was quiet and chilly at night time, however the days had been clear and heat. Mom involves Borrego as a result of Mammoth is chilly this time of 12 months and while you’re 94, chilly is further chilly. I additionally suppose Borrego reminds her of Dad. It does me.
He liked this place. The tennis courts, the doves in the morning, the geese waddling to and from the ponds on the golf course and the orange tree outdoors their again door. Dad liked fresh-squeezed orange juice and would stand up early so his friends might have a glass in the morning.
“Would you like some fresh-squeezed orange juice?”
New this 12 months was Mom’s inexperienced electrical tricycle. She had the trike final 12 months but it surely was not electrical. Just a few months in the past, a neighborhood bike store turned it into an electrical bike. I believe the proprietor bought a kick out of his 94-year-old shopper. People like individuals who do not stop despite the fact that they could wish to stop and in the event that they did stop, all people would perceive.
Get Mom shifting. That’s the watchword for her youngsters, mates and Fabi, her helper. Moving is simpler when you could have a inexperienced electrical trike.
A ten-minute trip round the golf course is now an hourlong victory march round the surrounding neighborhood and if you’d like extra, she’ll provide you with extra. I borrowed a yellow mountain bike and Mom was able to go so far as I wished, however after 80 minutes, this horse was able to return to the barn.
Electric bikes are a biking godsend. If you prefer to trip an everyday bike, I would not advise making an attempt one. Not until you wish to smile and trip ceaselessly. Forever and into the sundown.
It has been a kind of excellent California springs, all over the place however definitely in the desert and on the coast (not dangerous right here both). Spring has been clearer and longer than most.
Just a few days earlier, I used to be strolling on the seashore in Del Mar. It was late afternoon and the tide was the lowest I’d seen in years. The tide was so low that I puzzled if all the water had been sucked out to sea and perhaps a tsunami was on its means in.
The low tide had forged tons of of sand {dollars} onto the sand. Sand {dollars} are like rainbows (watch me convey this collectively) in that they’re thrilling, uncommon and mysterious. Maybe one other signal, and if it’s a signal, perhaps this.
We are normally extra hopeful in the spring and perhaps much more now. It’s been a difficult couple of years however I believe we’re popping out of this (and I consider Ukraine will, too). Life is opening up, you possibly can see it in folks’s faces when they’re in public.
It’s type of a glad-to-be-alive feeling. Spring helps. Rainbows, sand {dollars} and electrical trikes do, too.
Email contributing columnist Herb Benham at benham.herb@gmail.com. His column seems right here on Sundays; the views expressed are his personal.