The thing about New York—and maybe cities everywhere—is the light. The natural kind, where one minute a building is cold and grey and the next it’s a shining beacon. This happens mostly at sundown, when the light is pink, then magenta, and a unique show gets under way. Windows blaze; a glow leapfrogs from ledges to cornices, and the sun frolics through our caverns before signing out for the day.
Such sparkling moments can be distracting to people afflicted with visual FOMO, like me. I want to see it all and miss nothing. For example, my head was bent writing this when I caught a glimpse of a nearly full moon emerging from wispy clouds against a deep purple sky. Impossible to resist, so I grabbed the phone and ran to the balcony. But the scene could not be replicated with my ever-present Samsung, and my more accurate but bulky Nikon was stored in a bag somewhere.
So it was with deep satisfaction last evening that with one quick swoop I spotted a rainbow and photographed it in full with my phone. One moment I was reading and the next I saw the rain. But the sky was bright orange, which meant there was sun, which meant…a rainbow, and not just any rainbow. This one claimed a good portion of Manhattan northeast of my balcony. Its beauty was insistent, like a dressed-up child shouting, “Look at me!”
If you squint at my photo, you can almost imagine a peacock spreading its glory over the city. Gone in a flash, but a gift, nonetheless.
