I remember when I was a kid, I had a friend, whose mom made stained-glass in their basement. I remember going over to their house and looking at the glass and thinking how ugly it was. She made stuff that seemed dark and dreary. Browns and dark muddy colors. Now, as an adult, I understand the beauty of a rich brown with light coming through it. The cocoas, the coke colored and the brownie lit by the sun. But as a kid, I just didn’t get it. To me, then, it was exactly what the basement of someone else’s house looked like: dark, damp and old.

When quarantine first started, there was a Facebook group for Michigan called Rainbows Across Michigan. People were drawing rainbows on their windows and sharing them with the group. They were providing light to those who needed it. I joined the group, but would never draw on my windows: first, I don’t want to have to clean that off at some point (laziness?) and second, I need my windows and my light. My house faces the south, I get gorgeous light in the afternoon that is strong enough to warm my home. Afternoons, sitting on the couch in the sun, drinking an iced coffee with my book are pretty much what I dream perfection to be like. I can’t block those windows.

But I wanted rainbows, I NEEDED rainbows.

I started searching Etsy for rainbows and found a … stained-glass shop. But this shop didn’t have the long-ago lampshades of yore. It didn’t have large, heavy browns, dark green and tan window panes. They had beautiful rainbow triangles, rectangles partnered with Mr. Roy G. Biv and small pieces, splashed with colors that I love. I bought one. I bought a bright, happy rectangle with all the colors of the rainbow.

I hung it up in my front window and immediately thought, Oh No! It is too small! Which is funny since I *didn’t* want anything to block my precious sun.

Afternoons became brighter with colors floating through the room. But I wanted more. I wanted more colors. I went back on Etsy and hearted a ton more. I needed these. For Mother’s Day, my husband (my wonderful, mindreading husband) found the same ones that I loved and bought me two more. A rectangle with a few colors to make a rainbow and a Black Lives Matter fist in deep purples that look like an oily rainbow when the light hits it. They were gorgeous. Absolutely perfect.

BUT THEN!

I was hanging out on Kick Starter and found a campaign for window rainbows. This maker made clear glass prisms that you fill with distilled water and when the sun shines on it, they cast rainbows around the room. And it does! It hangs in the window next to the triangle.

I now have 5 pieces of stained-glass (I added a grumpy looking blue bird) in my home and I am delighted by how happy they make me. Seeing the colors on a day-to-day basis never fails to make me smile and think happy thoughts. Since they project their light into my home (and in different places throughout the day), I am always seeing them – they have not become flat pictures on the wall that begin to blend in, with time, to the wall itself.

I find myself thinking about those stained-glass pieces of my childhood and wondering where those ended up. I never saw them in the windows of that friend’s house and I wonder if I had, maybe I would have fallen in love with stained-glass then. As I am typing the view I have, besides my monitor is my neighbors house and I think that my view could be improved drastically with a new window pane, filled with chocolates, dark greens and other rich hues. Excuse me, I feel the need to click back over to Etsy.