A New Year: Part 3

So now–by a hair– I can say, ten years of writing here on dear old Bloom.

Relatively consistent, but no bonafide blogger.

You know who would have been a bonafide blogger? My grandmother.

She would have been a Pinterest Queen. She loved crafts and hand lettering. Her Christmas cards were handmade each year. She was a professionally trained singer with style. She dressed my mom and her sister like dolls (as long as she could– my free spirit aunt once vowed to give up wearing shoes for Lent!). She wrote, illustrated and self published children’s books and even her own memoir.

I have been thinking about her lately. A little bit because of this children’s book thing. I have two children’s books of my own completely written, but not illustrated. I have since 2020. But, I have not done anything with them. One of the cliches I see in Dan’s death– something I knew, but clearly don’t put into action– is to share your talents, do things imperfectly and live your dreams now. I should, and I want to, and I could get these books to the finish line.

For so long I wanted Danny to make a YouTube channel of him playing the guitar just so I could access it for my kids. Danny made the channel but was so slow in getting songs up there. I didn’t understand and got frustrated with his desire for better “sound” and perfect takes. He had tons of songs in his repertoire, but only two on his YouTube channel. Perhaps that’s a lesson for all of us in this? Listen to your bossy, frustrated sister.

But more so lately my thoughts about my Grandmother have been about her self published memoir that she titled, “Life on a Rainbow.” I remember seeing it in her home and then in her room in the Alzheimer’s unit. My cousin read an excerpt from it at her funeral. But, I have never read it and I don’t even clearly remember the piece from her funeral. I think it might be poems. But, I wonder if it was essays, too? I wonder a bit about her gumption and desire to write it. But more so, these days I am wondering about the title.

Why that?

Why “on” a rainbow? What does she mean by that?

She was a woman who lived a, no doubt, blessed life, saying in her final years that here was not one day of her life that she didn’t feel loved. She was an only child– which comes with it’s privileges; but, also likely loneliness and longing. She is a child of The Great Depression that left its mark on her for the duration of her life. She was a musician and a faithful christian. She was a mother, traveler, memory keeper, volunteer and sports fan.

Was the “on the rainbow” a musicians play on “over the rainbow?” Was it a journey story, not yet to the end of the rainbow and the legendary “gold?” Was it an overly cheery look at life and all its bright, gorgeous colors that might make my eyes roll? I still want to know.

And also, not to sound totally like Kermit; but, why are we all so hung up on rainbows?

I mean, I get the appeal. There is something magic in them that require us to have to look. If you are in the car with someone else and don’t say, “Wow! Look at that rainbow!” when you spot one, I worry you might be a sociopath. Or, blind.

They are quick to cause wonder even when driving alone.

Once when driving south on I-31, through the northern Indianapolis suburbs, I was taken by a rainbow that seemed to run the same line of highway I was traveling. Splitting the east side of my view from the west nearly perfectly. But, what was more striking than the rainbow was how the view to the east was the darkest blue. Lightning bolts still danced across the sky and the strength and danger of the storm was still so clear. While to my right, the west, the place where the storm had just been, was bright and sunny. Skies a pleasant blue. Other than a little glistening in the puddles of leftover rain, it all looked fine. Not like this huge storm had just plowed right through.

The obvious Pinterest quote here? You need rain to have rainbows.

But really, you need both rain and sun to have rainbows. And, when you really see it, what a thin line a rainbow really is between bright blue and the darkest of dark skies.

So maybe this is Life on A Rainbow? Even if it’s not Grandy’s, maybe it’s mine.

Maybe this year has been Life on a Rainbow.

Living life in a place where I can see so clearly see, feel and still fear the storm. But, also a place that can easily swing to so much goodness and sunny skies. A place where eulogies and toasts are in fact quite similar. A place where chapters close and it is good and right and sad and hard at the same time. A place where grief is anger and sadness swirling together separated from joy and gratitude by only the thinest of margins. Life on a Rainbow is perhaps where the worst days and the best days exist together.

Join me in 2023 and wherever the next ten years takes us, where I plan to paint the world with the colors on this rainbow as well as with celebration, honor, remembrance and love to make this gift of a life the most beautiful art we are capable of.

… Maybe I will start in my Notes App.