My sister and I chased rainbows when we were small. Perhaps everyone did, but it seems to me there were more rainbows to run alongside in those days. That could be wrong; I'm sure a scientist could tell me. I suspect I was then more open and more often at leisure to see them. Unafraid too of the rain, or what it might take to catch one. We must have chased them often because I close my eyes and I'm there again, running through fields of dried corn, the stalks rattling from the impact of my feet, the husks slappng my arms. I never once look down to see if I'm stepping on a snake or up to think of the sun burning me thrrough my pale hair. The corn is no more than a corridor of companions cheering me on, Olympian that I am--my eyes on the prize, full of the rainbow, its colors and dreams. The bow seemed a particular miracle, one given to young girls whose days contained few. Somewhere, to one side or other, my sister chased her own dreams, probably some distance back as she was smaller and I was fleet.

Running was something I could do, with no one to add or detract points for how I did it. I often ran with no goal in mind, simply to enjoy my young body's grace and power. At night, I dreamed of running away with no idea where I might go.

Someone asked yesterday if I ever found the rainbow's end. I said, yes, I thought so, a few times. Once, a rainbow seemed to rest on the porch roof of a man who was county sheriff and who also owned the main grocery store in town. We thought that appropriate, if pots of gold were to be found anywhere. Another time, after we'd run a mile chasing a bow that seemed never -ending, I came home to find a small one seemingly balanced in the top of one of my mother's magnolias. I knew better than to climb for that one, climber that I was, spending much of my life until seventeen seeing the world from the tops of trees. Not quite the view that rainbows have but as close as I could get.

Part of me liked the story of Noah and the rainbow's sign protecting me from universal flood, one less universal disaster to worry about. But I never felt it was quite sufficient. There must be more, I thought, about rainbows, more than leprechauns as well (too given to eating and rampages for the focus a rainbow requires). I still believe that, though I must seek the rainbows themselves, for the colors' delicacy and transparency makes it hard to compete in this world of shouting advertising everywhere. Who finds the rainbow's end? Lovers and dreamers, according to Kermit the Frog and to Shakespeare. That sounds right. People who hold out their hands for gifts,those who enter the forest of Arden at night, trusting that things might be put right against all odds,those who don't ask if rainbows are deserved or allotted according to wall charts of gold stars and blanks.

Rainbows are nothing like that.


posted by Sandy at 8:03 AM

Here, I come to the boundaries
where nothing needs to be said,
everything is learned with
weather and ocean. . . . .

Pablo Neruda
posted by Sandy at 3:45 PM

snapshots from the weekend:

what is it with people in the south? 4000 of us listening to jazz, rock, blues, worth standing for hours for most of us and nobody moving, nobody singing along. from where i stood, i could see five hundred people, seated and standing. singers exhorting: sing along, show us you like it. who's doing it? me and some blond man to my left singing, swaying, as best we could in the crush. in the lights of the stage, three little girls, about eight maybe, whirling, dipping their heads, arms free. one dark and burnished, two with white hair to their waists, streaming in the wind that they made. i jog my husband with my elbow; i think he's made of burled maple.

directly in front of me, a man consumed with his wife, a compelling tableau: three little girls they've seated on two chairs they've brought from an indoor stage, parents standing behind. never felt desire for a woman in my life but i can see why he worships her. she wears a macrame sleeveless top, low in the back and under the arms. once, too long ago, i wore one like it and swung a matching small purse as she does. her skin so young, so smooth, and the hair almost fills the opening in back, curved under on one side as if to invite a hand to caress it. side profile: half her breast curves through the sleeve opening. even before i see her face, i can tell she's very young--must have been a mother even younger than i was. in the forty-five minutes i watch her, she responds to nothing: her husband's stroking, her children's reaching, the heat, her feet in high wedges; even the beer in her right hand languid against her leg. she's removed. i wonder where she is. the guy's really short, dark, gold chain on his thick neck, legs that could support a pier. hands constant on her arms, her hair, her face, her leg. it's all i can do not to slap him away; once, she makes the slightest shrug.

he goes for a beer and while he's away the music starts. lead singer: this song is for all the pretty women out there. he sings: all i want to do is make love to you. she throws back her head and disarranges all that hair. she laughs.

And they accuse women of the need for idle conversation. the main act always takes twice as long to set up-; it's a law of nature. all the women around me quiet, maybe a murmur or two. three men behind me like staccato bursts: now how about that anna nicole smith? you seen her? she's on something for sure. got all that old man's money. lord, yeah, i tell you, she's a mess. three second pause. how 'bout that rudy whatever-his-name-is? don't hear nothin' about him now, do you? who do you mean? you know, that one in new york? what you talking about, he's making big money talking around the country. more than clinton, i heard. all for being a jackass, etc, etc., etc., etc.

love it all, what life offers even when nothing's going on.
posted by Sandy at 7:12 AM

Tuesday, Sept. 3

Been thinking lately about the word "perverse." Of course, our first thoughts go to the sexual definition, as with so many words, but that isn't what has caught my mind. My mother used to say we girls were perverse, determined to thwart her at every turn. That's closer. Determined to go in our own direction even to our detriment-- as my mother was sure we'd find ourselves one day, somewhere mired fast in the slough of detriment. Halfway to hell, she implied. The origins of the word are Middle English, Latin derivation. I'm interested in the literal sense: disagreeing with what has been decided by a court of law, or with what is reasonable.

It seems to me there are times that I could justify being perverse against such cultural definitions as are often linked to law courts or those who scream loudest that others are unreasonable. But what about being perverse with ourselves? What about going against our own deepest felt truth of what is right for us or what will bring us happiness? Why do we sometimes almost willfully thwart ourselves in incomprehensible, foolish ways? Why, when something is especially wonderful, does one of our first impulses seem to be for undoing it? I wonder if this is at all akin to the feeling many people get atop towers and mountain: an impulse, totally irrational, that we may as well throw ourselves off because we're doomed to fall anyway.

I think I'm becoming less perverse in this way as the years by, but I still see flashes of it, sometimes when I'd least like to see them. I think there's something wrong in refusing joy when it's on offer. I would never recommend that to others. "Take it," I say, "it''s meant for you."

Christie's grandmother used to work all week in a clothing factory, pulling heavy men's coveralls through a sewing machine. On Saturday she'd bake half a dozen cakes and pies, force them on everyone else, and refuse even one bite for herself. "I'll just have an apple,' she'd say, "An apple is good enough for me." Some kind of perverse martyrdom in the tone that made me want to scream.

Heaven save me from that apple.


**********************
Wittgenstein said (could he have been the first?) that the face is the soul of the body. Sometimes, I think, that is true.
posted by Sandy at 8:45 PM