Over the Rainbow

The first month of the New Year is fading, and with it, perhaps, our New Year’s Resolutions. It is so alluring – New Year, Fresh Start. “This year I’m going to lose those 20 pounds, earn or save more money, and make new friends or get along better with those I already know.”

I think of a New Year’s Resolution as a charming rainbow which begins in our hearts and ends over the horizon. Such rainbows are enchanting to create, and delightful to enjoy, with our very own pot of gold waiting for us at the end. But we all know that following that rainbow can be more difficult than we expected and the pot of gold we hope to find at the end can often look very different than we envisioned.

When she was four years old my daughter Sara first watched The Wizard of Oz on a video my wife and I bought for her. I was surprised, and thrilled, to see Sara play that video five times over the weekend. She memorized the lyrics to “Over the Rainbow.” Why not? I can’t think of a better song to carry with me every day, or a better singer than Judy Garland, to implant those aspirations in my soul. I’d love to wish upon a star and find a place where troubles melt like lemon drops. Who wouldn’t?

But reality intrudes, as it always will. Suddenly, just between wish and love, Sara is 35 and I am 73. Thirty one New Year’s Days and even more New Year’s Resolutions have appeared and disappeared over the horizon of our lives. Sara is a yoga instructor in Boulder, Colorado. Life for Sara, for me, and probably for you, has turned out to be a bit different than our dreams – perhaps better, but certainly different. As they say, life is what happens while you’re making plans. Sara’s tree-climbing dog Bryce was struck by a car last year and died in her arms on the way to the pet hospital. I’m here plugging away at a computer, no longer a typewriter, and young children are long gone from my home.

Where do our prince and princess charming actually reside? They reside in the people nearest and dearest to us — alive and comforting us every day.

My princess charming isn’t perfect. After years of marriage the fire of attraction might burn more faintly, and she will never devote her every waking moment to me. And yet my princess charming has slept in the same bed and cuddled with me almost every night for more than thirty years. I need to remember this single truth — to find my wife to be the right person I have to be the right person myself.

To be the right person I have to listen, as well as talk. I have to take care of, as well as be taken care of. I have to love, as well as be loved. As a teenager I searched for the magic formula to be loved. I haunted my local public library. I read magazines and books. I finally found one sentence in one book which satisfied my quest. It said, “To be loved, love the other first.”

As January slides into February, as the snows of Winter yield to Spring, let us each remember where the rainbow ends. And the rainbow ends not in the next county, the next relationship, or the next day.

The rainbow begins and ends with you. Here. Today. And, with a little digging, you will discover that you are the right person. You and your circle of family and friends are the pot of gold. And today is your day to shine.

I wish you a happy 2014.

Alan