This post was originally entitled ‘Albany’s Nipper Pukes A Rainbow‘ but then I remembered it’s almost fucking Christmas so I wanted to show a little respect. Just a little bit. (Just a little bit.)
Rainbows in December – for all the charm and wonder and beauty of them, something disturbing and foreboding lingers in the queasy light and rain. On a recent afternoon, following a day of drizzle and gray clouds, the sun peeked out, and a multitude of rainbows filled the December sky. One landed right outside my office window, another seemed to emanate from the mouth of Nipper. (Strangely enough, not the dog’s first nip at a rainbow.) Andy sent me photos from his doctor’s appointment, where a full rainbow arched over the entire sky. Social media lit up with all of them – a world of rainbows on a December afternoon – signifiers of peace or something much more sinister, like climate change, and none of us caring to be any wiser.
So we put our pictures up and write our blog posts and go on our merry ways, thinking how wonderful and enchanting it is to have rainbows at this late stage of the calendar year. Would Noah have gone through all that trouble if he knew how little humanity would care for any of his creatures gone extinct? The planet in peril perhaps… the rainbows a plea…
And somewhere over the rainbow a heaven that may or may not exist, along with whatever might become of our souls. When you’ve seen the dust we all become, you understand what little substance makes up a rainbow, along with how pure it must be. Maybe the rainbows are angels, messengers of God, telling us when we’re getting it right, and, probably more often, when we’re getting it wrong.
Driving home through the rainbows, I do my best to live in some sort of grace, so as not to ruffle the universe’s feathers too much. Invoking the wrath of any entity, human or otherwise, is rarely a wise motion. Silent reverence, then, in honor of all that we do not know, and a little respect. Just a little bit…
