Chasing a rainbow is the inevitable consequence of a storm. This morning I woke up to a storm so strong I could only see the leaves of horizontal trees sticking out above a solid block of rain. It was impossible to tell where the wind stopped and the rain began as the windows shook with every wrenching clap of thunder and flash of light. With life and nature swirling in one gigantic breath around our house, it felt like we were the center of the storm, and for a moment, the center of the turbulent universe. And as I sat up straight in bed with a paralyzing awareness of everything that surrounded me, for the first time in a long time, I didn’t think of you.

All summer every time I drove to your house I turned away from my street hoping that by the time I reached your driveway, I’d know why I wanted to see you. But I usually spent the long part of 15 minutes pondering sitting next to you on the couch and re-straightening my hair at every stoplight.

Today as I put down the mascara and slam on the brakes I remind myself that I’m used to this. I drive with my head in the clouds and my hands on the wheel while my mind spins though space trying to keep up. But tradition is comforting and I’m back to daydreaming about you when I see the rainbow.

When I look at the sky I’m always searching for something. It’s not enough to glance at the white clouds in a clear blue sky and wonder at the marvel of what’s above the blue. I find myself thinking that in the great expanse there should be something, anything at all, that’s just for me. And I end up spending most of my time just looking. So the glimpse of a rainbow in the sky always feels like a hallucination to me. I have to stare hard at the clouds to convince myself I see it. And if I look away for a moment it disappears and the precarious chains of clouds are alone again.

I’m still driving on auto-pilot as I make the turn onto your street. I tell myself to watch the road and I focus on the red Chevy with paint peeling off the bumper and a rusty Darwin fish over the license plate holder. Instead of thinking about you, or thinking about the rainbow, I tell myself the road is stretching uneventfully ahead and the sky is easily matching its monotony. But I can’t keep my eyes on the road and its boredom. The allure of danger and illusion draws me into the sky once again, ignoring the gold Toyota Camry now in front of me on your street bearing the license plate “Camry”.

I remember when you told me in March that I was going to have to get to know your street. We were in your car driving down my section of Route 83 and at the time we were both still getting to know all the everyday parts of each other’s lives. I knew both your cats’ names and which one always slept in your bed. You had met Alice, the cashier at my old job, in all of her math deficient glory. I was figuring out that you learn more about someone in one afternoon with their family than you do in a dozen dinner conversations.

Four months later, we’ve been apart for longer now than we were together, and I know your street and your neighborhood and your circular driveway but I’m left feeling that maybe I didn’t really know you. It’s the only feeling that makes sense when things happen that are unexpected.

But there’s a weird sense when we’re together now that we know each other as well as any respectable couple should, only we’re not a couple, and the only thing neither of us seems to remember is that we ever were.

I’ve stopped wondering if it’s you every time the phone rings. Today when I get to your house we’ll sit on the couch playing video games and our hands will touch without our even noticing or remembering the dozens of times when being that close was the only thing that made any sense.

Transience, like the volatile waves of emotion, must have been invented by nature.

I come to an intersection where I have to turn, and then I see the rainbow. And in the midst of my haphazard daydreaming that sometimes is mad at you and other times enamored with you, I have this thought. I think the kind of friendship that we could become would be the kind of thing you remember when you’re 85 years old and 3,000 miles away from one another. It’s just a fleeting glimpse of this incredible connection and then it’s gone. You’re not going to be something I have to work for anymore.

On the other side of the sticky gray windshield the rainbow is gone and in its place are a brilliant blue sky, the clear white moon and the fiery sun, staring at me from generations away. A 30-year journey made by a ray of light just so that I could see is over in a second. And I’ve been too busy looking for a rainbow to see it. The clouds change colors for me and I’m driving toward the pearliest white I’ve ever seen.

I arrive at your house and it’s just like every other house on the street. But I still remember your cats’ names and you still remember Alice. I sit for a minute knowing that I want to see you because of all the times you made me laugh and not because of the times you made me cry, and hoping that when we’re 85 and still laughing we remember walking to South Street on our first date. But I also know I won’t think about it every day until then. I’ll be too busy enjoying the clear blue sky.

I look at the clouds and I think of you. I know they remember their rainbows.