When my group left Lamego for Porto, our last chapter in our “Pilgrimage into the Past” itinerary, it seemed like a typical day on the tour.

Another hotel, another breakfast buffet.

Many of us took to sharing small discoveries, like how we figured out how to work the coffee maker or shower in our rooms or relayed what we did during our free time. I liked this.

I live alone and found this ritual of relaying daily experiences and airing perspectives to be really nice. I was also irritated by the habits of a few group members who complained about almost everything.

Following some restaurant meals, I heard fellow travelers complain that the size of desserts were too small and that people at the other end of the table got served more wine.

If I heard the statement, ”Why do they eat dinner so late?” one more time, I thought I would scream.

Didn’t they get the memo? We were guests in other people’s countries? Why should we expect the local residents conform to our habits and preferences?

So many thoughts swirled through my mind as we loaded onto the bus for our last long drive.

It was very windy and the roads were narrow. As a Midwesterner, where the topography is flat, often, I could not bring myself to look out the wide coach window and observe the steep drop.

We traversed several bridges, I suspect crossing the Douro River more than once, and hit a patch of rain and strong winds. At times, the bus shook. Wind socks, placed as helping guides for truck drivers, blew straight out at 90 degree angles. I was grateful I wasn’t behind the wheel.

As we descended into the valley, closer to Porto, the weather became less severe, and I relaxed.

A rainbow came out. Then, after a few more turns, another appeared.

I saw nine rainbows over the last week of the trip, beginning when we moved from Basque country to Galacia, the province on the northwest corner of Spain, enroute to Santiago. It rained, at least a few minutes, every day.

It became a sort of joke among our  group, how it rained all the time. The My Fair Lady song, “The Rain is Spain” became our anthem.

I delighted in these “rainbow” sightings. Their appearance and positioning on the horizon were totally beyond my control. I began considering rainbows as a kind of cosmic reward for going through difficult times. I guess that is what I wanted to believe.

I didn’t consider how my attitude can help me make room in my awareness to notice their beauty and perfection — I was preoccupied with judging other things.

Since being back home, when friends asked me about my trip, I often recounted how the few people in my group irritated me.

I gave a lot of head space to what I found unpleasant or bothersome; how there was a woman in my group who found something wrong at every restaurant we visited and one that insisted that a Pastel de nata (custard tart) served at a home-hosted lunch was bought from Trader Joe’s.

Instead of honoring my own discoveries in what I was present with at the time — the sign I saw at a tavern’s front door warning patrons not to bring pets inside (Prohibida de Animales Domesticos), walking quietly in a forest under a light drizzle along the French Camino path, holding a baby goat at the small farm outside of Leon, or making a do-it-yourself dinner with other group members in our hotel bar out of odds and ends we bought in the street— I kept thinking about things I didn’t like.

I spent a lot of time wishing that other people behaved differently or found myself disappointed with how some experiences played out.  I forgot how important surrendering my assumptions and expectations were.

Like every other human being, I live in the NOW under the rainbow. I have to take responsibility for how and where I focus my attention. In order to experience the unmanaged delight of living in the present moment, I have to stop trying to manage.

Making room in your consciousness for the next wave of wonder is essential.

Practicing letting go of irritations, and even pleasures that can’t be repeated, is no small thing