The Rainbow Connection: In Four Acts
“Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection. The lovers, the dreamers and me.”
2013:
Warm sun rising on the western horizon. My feet head west, down Encinitas Boulevard, under the 5 freeway overpass and closer to the glorious Pacific Ocean coastline found there.
I have just left my lovers apartment.
After building emotional intimacy for eighteen months, I had finally surrendered to the instantaneous Soul connection I had immediately experienced with Burt. From the get go though, my ego had to run through its old programming - so fearful it was of the change it intuited would come with a relationship with Burt.
Such as: needing to have multiple lovers and one-night stands - one of which resulted in an ex-girlfriend popping her head into the bedroom as we were laying together in the morning. "Well, that's a first!" my inner voice chortled. Yet, with each of these experiences an element of 'rejection' was burning off of any of my remaining, childish need to be "special." After all, Burt treated every woman with deep love and presence.
He made every. single. woman. feel special. (How much he taught me. This is the kind of man I want to be with....)
As exciting as a new Lovership can be, in those moments - as I was walking back to the beachside condominium I had been staying in - my heart felt heavy. I was filled with guilt and shame.
My only sister had just ex-communicated me from her life. She saw me as someone who was too 'toxic' for her to continue to engage with. And, I couldn't blame or fault her for it because I was well aware of my own patterns of behavior - of how all of my unaddressed early childhood trauma and emotional pain was adversely affecting my life and my relationships.
As well, I knew that I could behave like a narcissist - someone who was extremely self absorbed and took every single thing ( from a Facebook post, to a facial expression) personally. I also lacked empathy and was quick to defense. Unable to cry and release my pure emotions - of sadness, embarrassment and guilt - I looked up and there, stretching in front of me, was a brilliant rainbow. "It's all going to be okay," I heard Spirit whispering in my ear. Even in the midst all of my pain, I also experienced hope as well as the faith to keep on, keeping on. 1986:
“Why are there so many songs about rainbows?" my ears desiring to hear the twangy banjo chords strummed, as Kermit’s unmistakable voice sings along. “Rainbows are visions, but only illusions. And rainbows have nothing to hide.” Nine years old, thick, brown hair kept short and close to my head, I browse through a stack of black, plastic 8-tracks that my parents keep on their entertainment center in our living room. I am searching for our copy of Jim Henson's The Muppet Movie.
Little girl hands finding what she wants, I slide the thick contraption into a rectangular, 8-track player. Speeding the device ahead to the Rainbow Connection song, “Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection. The lovers, the dreamers and me.”
Finally,
I return "Home."
Back to my center,
and that place where everything is pure Love.
"Have you been half asleep
And have you heard voices?
I've heard them calling my name
Is this the sweet sound
The voice might be one and the same
I've heard it too many times to ignore it:
It's something that I'm supposed to be"
These lyrics touching a place deep inside of me that is beyond the rational and that knows that there is so much more to this life than all of the pain, anguish, anxiety, fear, rage and violence that surround me.
"Who said that every wish would be heard and answered, when wished on the morning star.”
Vibration is movement; our Universe beginning with an 'Om'.
Our most primordial of beginnings is sound.
Music is a transmission that exceeds all time and space.
Hence, song keeps the Spirit world close. It is a healing balm and a medicine for how we can retain our Spirit ~ even in the midst of hell and chaos. Just ask free people stolen from Africa, and brought to these western shores. Their "spirituals" rising from their enslaved bodies and, in the act, they touch Spirit. They reclaim their sovereignty - for however briefly - and they rejoice in something that can never be broken, or taken away.
2020: Burt is becoming increasingly bedridden. His cheeks concave, his skin a yellowish-tone with fluid stuck at his ankles. Once again, I am at peak anxiety. I can not rest at night because he can't. He cannot find comfort. Instead, he rolls from side to side, getting up and down to use the bathroom. I follow behind him, and find that his urine has taken on a reddish-tone. I know what's coming, but he so badly needs to believe that he is healing himself naturally from this second cancer invasion. It is my job to support him, and whatever choices he makes.
He is dying. I finally decide to tell him so.
Bending over him as I help him find comfort from where he is sitting upright in bed, I say, "You're dying, Burt." "No, I am not. That's your fear talking, Cara." "Okay," I back off.
It's not my job to convince him otherwise.
(Or, is it? I.don't.know.)
As I am wont to do, I get our young son out of the house for fresh air and to escape the trauma that is unfolding within it. Burt isn't emotionally or spiritually suffering, but his son and I sure are. Nature has always been my go-to medicine for healing myself from suffering. We walk out the door, and there is a rainbow stretched over our casita surrounded by fruit trees and flowers and near the river. "It's all going to be okay," my Spirit sings.
Only sometimes, Death is the prayer. Months later, 2020: Burt is gone. An infectious disease has our whole planet on lock down. Masks and quarantines a global phenomenon. No car and no home, my front, primal cortex is freaking out. I am a lone Mother staying with dear friends who do not share my political beliefs. "Would they force me to do something I don't believe in?" After two months of primarily staying in the safe confines of their University City home, and seeing no one else, my mental health is beginning to slip. I am becoming increasingly physically aggressive with my son at bedtime. I need to make a change or else something might happen that I will spend the rest of my life regretting. I buy a van. Driving it back from Temecula, we pull onto our friends' wide, suburban street at twilight. I recall that the side, front lights on our van are tinted yellow. And then I notice that, at night, they cast a rainbow on each side of our van.
The Rainbow Shooter Mobile (RS Mobile) is born.
Today: On Labor Day weekend, I receive word that my sister's husband - and a relationship of almost 30 years - has passed away. Instantly, my Soul knows what it needs to do. Oh, how I had wished and hoped that my sister would have reached out to me upon hearing the news of Burt's prognosis and death. Now, I get to give what I never received. This is how I (we) Heal. "I am sorry, for Everything," I eventually text her after a few weeks so as not to bombard her space. "Remember this song?" I ask, sending her this link to a celebrated version of the Rainbow Connection.