I used to chase rainbows. I guess I’m a bit like Dorothy Gale in the Wizard of Oz, only I don’t have a little dog, a witch isn’t chasing me (anymore), nor do I live on a dustbowl of a farm in black and white Kansas.
I do, however, live in the Emerald City, so I think I know something about the topic. And as a one time rainbow chaser, I think I’ve earned my stripes when it comes to being a bit of an authority on the topic.
I was a rainbow chaser until late last year. I really don’t know what I was searching for now that I look back. Happiness? Peace? Love? Meaning? A place in this world? The past?
Crap, I have no idea. All I know is that there really isn’t anything at the other of the end of the rainbow that you haven’t had all along, if you just took a little time to notice it.
Yes, perhaps the Wizard of Oz has a deeper meaning than I once thought, well at least in my life.
Lord knows, I’ve been caught up in a storm or two in my time, largely of my own making. I did know some little people, as we know. And while I didn’t exactly stay long in Munchkinland, Florida, I did happen upon some strange characters who were dead ringers for a cowardly lion who wanted courage, a scarecrow who needed a brain and a tin (wo)man who didn’t have a heart.
So, how do I know I was chasing rainbows up until now? I happened upon a letter a day or two ago that I had written to myself about this time last year. You see, I had been going through one of my legendary periods of angst where I question everything about my life… what I’m doing for a career, why I’m living where I am, and what I want out of life.
I thought it was pretty profound at the time. It was a blaze of stream of consciousness that ran about 3,000 words. And most, if not all of it, was a total waste of space. What seemed so deep back then is just nonsense a year later.
Yes, I was chasing rainbows. Like Dorothy, I thought life was supposed to offer more than it had been. I wanted off the farm in Kansas and hoped to run off with Professor Marvel and see the Seven Wonders of the Worlds and meet heads of state (do you known any?).
I wanted to go to the Emerald City, too. Only I didn’t know it at the time, nor the reason, really. Sure, there’s the whole part about seeing the Space Needle and bursting into tears. I knew that I missed home. But life in Kansas, well, Florida in my case, wasn’t so bad.
Color me embarrassed now. The world is indeed more black and white than I ever imagined.
You see, chasing rainbows isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. This is something I’ve come to understand only recently. While rainbows are beautiful to look at and can be very seductive, they don’t really lead anywhere. Plus, they can vanish almost as quickly as they appear. There one minute, then gone the next, a miracle and mirage of nature, one that seems so real you feel as if you can start at one end and walk right over to the other side.
But you can’t. They aren’t real, at least in the sense that they really lead anywhere.
Does this mean I’m no longer a dreamer? Hardly. While I’ve given up chasing rainbows, I still dream bigger than ever. Dreams, you see, do come true. They can continue to come true throughout your life if you have the brains to understand that things you can’t see are still there and find the courage to follow them with all your heart.
A year after writing that letter, I have gone home again. Many of the things I wrote about wanting in that letter have come true. It wasn’t the rainbow chasing that brought me here. It was the fulfillment of some dreams, but recognition that some of my dreams are best left unfilled.
You see, I was already home. Like Dorothy, I could go home any time.
It wasn’t in the Emerald City. It was right there in Florida. It was the home I had created out there on Hutchinson Island with the Janmeister. I didn’t have to go to a faraway place somewhere over the rainbow. It was right in my own backyard all along.
I’ve spent a lot of my life searching for something that I already had, it seems. I just didn’t have the courage to realize it. Like Dorothy, I always wanted to run away from home rather than realize that I was already there.
I didn’t have to hop on a state fair balloon or click the heels of my ruby slippers. I did, however, have to get hit up side the head a bit in order to realize that there is no magic place, somewhere, out there. It can be right there before your eyes and you don’t even realize it.
Oh, sure, there are some who would like to throw some cold water on my dreams in the hopes that they would just melt away. But they aren’t rainbows. Dreams just don’t suddenly disappear. They are with you all the time. They burn deep in your heart and they dance in the night in your mind. And there’s certainly nothing cowardly about following them, even if they lead right back to the home you always had. It was there right before you all the time. If only you had the courage to see it.
In the Emerald City, feeling at home,
– Robb