Please Welcome Today's Geezer/ Marilyn Fowler

The Rainbow

Walk on a rainbow trail; walk on a trail of song, and all about you will be beauty. There is a way out of every dark mist, over a rainbow trail. Robert Motherwell

I’m a child. 10 years old on a school trip, mesmerized by a sight so beautiful my breath escapes me. Thousands of tulips. Michigan tulips. As far as I can see they stretch across a field before me, and fill my eyes with brilliant color beneath a soft blue sky above. Their colors form a rainbow in my mind. Yellow, red, purple, pink, orange, white, all swaying in the warm breeze while the springtime sun sparkles on their petals. I hold my chest and sway with them, overcome with awe at a sight I only dreamed of in my storybooks. For a while, this incredible sight replaces the loneliness I feel at home. It’s nobody’s fault at home. That’s just the way it is.

This beautiful panorama of color taught me something I’ve carried with me my whole life. No matter what pain we encounter on our journey, there is always a rainbow somewhere. There have been times when I looked around at my life and saw nothing but dregs of what might have been. Boulders that looked too big to overcome. Doors closed to me forever. Hills too steep to climb. But my mind held the picture of the tulips, and I picked myself up and moved on.

When life throws you a curve, and you think you can’t get up, you may not see a rainbow.  But the rainbow is always there. Maybe it’s just behind the clouds you see in your life, or between rain stops when they fall, or in birds talking to each other early in the morning, or in a child’s smile. You may have to get on a bus and take a field trip in your mind to find it. But it’s there.

When it looked like the sun wasn’t going to shine anymore, there’s a rainbow in the clouds. Maya Angelou

Life has a way of putting the difficult stuff right in our face, while the good stuff remains illusive. Maybe that’s what teaches us how to be more alert and careful where we apply our attention. Rainbows are all around you. You have to know that. You have to believe that. And open your eyes and your heart to look past the darkness and find them.

I wish you clear vision along your path.

Marilyn Fowler is a retired Licensed Clinical Social Worker/Psychotherapist. She was Mental Health Team Leader, then Director of Mental Health Services in the Duval County Jail in Jacksonville, Florida. She later coordinated mental health services in five nursing homes, worked on in-patient units, and was in private practice for a number of years. Her stories have appeared in the Salvation Army magazine and in a book entitled, When God Spoke To Me, by DavidPaul Doyle. She stays active in her church and writing group, and teaches a class at a local college. Her memoir, Silent Echoes, was published two years ago. Marilyn believes that a sense of humor is a blessing to be used often.