Somewhere Over the Rainbow

I love that a rainbow inspires a softness in the thought life of people looking at it. Why is that do you think? I don’t know about you, but for me, it’s the ethereal way that the washday hues are hung out across the sky, over a valley, in the sea or any other place we least expect to see it.

A rainbow neither billows on the breeze or whips about trying to escape the clutches of a fawning wind, it is past, present and future all at once. It has no reason to push in and demand attention, it simply is, no more and no less. It has a completeness to it that has to be envied. I envy it.

Is it true when we get old we no longer believe there’s a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow? God forbid, it’s a lovely thought. My personal stocktake has unearthed more shoes that I haven’t worn in a while. How do you choose which ones of them stay and which ones go? Where do we draw the line and what is the criteria for finally throwing them out?

I can’t bear to part with my old Hush Puppies, Doc Martens or my Landrovers, all of them made from quality leather, immediately comfortable from day one when I first brought them and every one of them capable of reminding me … ‘when I …’

Of course this isn’t about shoes though is it? No. It’s not. Then what? Places and sometimes people we’ve met along the way. Making room for them in the storage places of the heart. The stocktake is just the labelling process, still it’s hard.

I promise myself I’ll draw rainbows on the outside of those storage boxes so I won’t forget, but looking through the cupboards, I notice I’ve drawn rainbows on all of them. I smile. And so will you when you find you have too!