Mark Twain is famously quoted as saying “If you don’t like the weather in New England, wait five minutes.” I imagine this would be true in most of the United States, but I didn’t expect it to be quite so true in Hawaii. Hawaii, to this Midwestern born and raised woman’s way of thinking, meant sunshine. And true, I was blessed with sunny skies much of the time I was traveling the islands.

Bright skies, glowing sunsets sliding below glowing horizons.

 

And circus colored remnants once the sun had set.

But just as often I could turn around and see the nearby mountains cloaked in gray. I’d be walking along the streets under sunny skies, wondering where I’d misplaced my sunglasses, and then the sun would disappear above the clouds. I no longer needed sunglasses. Instead I needed an umbrella.

And I really didn’t need an umbrella for long, only an awning to shelter from the rain. Within minutes, the skies lightened and the famous Hawaii rainbow appeared.

Five minutes was plenty of time for a change. Rain. Sun. Windy. Calm. Or a rainbow as reward.