rainbows in my life

this is a photo of a rainbow my almost four-year-old son colored the other day, he likes colors and he knows it: "i like colors" and his favorite color is red, the bottom one is a drawing of a heart-shaped hot air balloon, i have no idea where he got the idea from but i doubt that it came purely from his imagination, and he colored the balloon with rainbow color.  my little artist also likes to color with a pencil !!! so who am i to judge his artistic choices...

for me what is most beautiful about rainbows is the biblical story of Noah, regardless of the terror in the part where everybody else drowns to death, there's the happy ending (for Noah and his family at least) when God makes a promise that human kind will never be abolished ever again. God does keep his promises but humans never made such a promise and they filled history with massacres and attempts of wiping out entire nations, the latest of which is what's happening in Syria, so i personally hold on to the rainbow promise today more than ever... there WILL be sunshine after these dark clouds, and out will come BEAUTIFUL colors... this faith is what keeps me from breaking down every time i read something on facebook or listen to the news on Syria...

a few weeks ago on a rainy day in this city at the cost of the Mediterranean, i was driving my son back from the nursery and as we drove along the corniche my son spotted a beautiful rainbow jumping down from a dark gray cloud dipped into the deep blue sea: "mama fi (there's a) rainbow". i love it when one of my children draws my attention to a little piece of beauty that was right there in front of my eyes but i didn't have enough "purity" to see it. my 20-month-old daughter does the same when she sees a crescent or a full moon, she goes like: "aman" for "amar" which means moon in Arabic

my children's love for the moon in all shapes and stages throughout the month might have come from me, my husband once told me that i do notice the moon a lot and i used to draw his attention to it when we were engaged. i know that kids pick up bits and pieces, sometimes huge chunks too of what we do, say, and choose, so my children's fascination with the rainbow might have also come from their mama

the possible reason for my love of rainbows is that i love rain, my name means "light continuous rain" but i was born in Damascus where it rarely rained, i grew up waiting for and anticipating rainbows after the rain, the thing that usually people who hate rain do, but i loved rain including its aftermath, yet i've never seen a rainbow in the Damascene sky longer than a "free sample" piece of what should be a long curved arch

but i guess you'd all agree with me that the photo above is BEAUTIFUL even if you've seen as many rainbows as the number of your hair... i saw this one from the window of our living room, at the new apartment. our huge glass window is a blessing i'll forever be thankful for, because in our old apartment we spent 5 years of guessing whether the sun was up or not yet, because we couldn't receive enough daylight through the narrow few windows we had there. so now you don't only see me running around the new apartment with our camera in my hand taking photos of my kids but also taking photos of the changing scene from our living room large window

the true rainbows in my life are these two precious little ones...

so i've decided it was time i changed my blog photo and i came across this beautiful painting by "London Art Girl" when i googled images of "rainbow woman", i don't know if i'm allowed to use it or not, but i couldn't find anything about copy rights on the page so i decided to use it and mention the source as well so more women around the world can identify with this woman of many colors who seems not to be ashamed of herself but holds her head up looking out into the world with hope, anticipation, self confidence, and love, she seems to have a lot to offer including of course those rich colors...