the rainbow diaries

april 29

6:17 p.m.

a light and dizzy rain soundtracks my songwriting process. I’m at an impasse with my words and the song won’t come out. I idle somewhere between a chorus and verse.

distracted, I toy with different melodies until I feel something tugging on my shirtsleeve like static. yes, I know it is raining. but the sky is sunny in some parts and dark in others. It won’t storm today, not seriously, I tell myself. I try to ignore it and concentrate on my lyrics.

I feel the tug again and turn my head--met with delight. a double rainbow jumps across the sunny field right outside my balcony.

getting up in excitement, I open the sliding door, duck under the hanging plants, and step onto the veranda.

it’s not especially cold for april, and the rain is barely present, shimmering in the sunlight. I haven’t seen it rain like that in a long time.

even as I take out my phone to film the double miracle in the southeast, it starts to fade. I stare at it in disbelief, watching it break in the middle and unravel to the ends. five minutes later, it's completely gone.

I step back inside and write the rainbow into my song: “the sunrise hangs sweet and low, cause she doesn’t know. she hasn’t seen the rainbow come, the rainbow go.”

the song is tennessee trees, and later I would put it on the album, but not because I believed it was especially good. I included it because it’s the only song that names my faith and alludes to the doubts clouding my vision in this season.

the song closes with a final verse: jesus christ wants my soul, and I can’t say no.

the original lyric includes “I’ve tried, I can’t say no.”

june 24

8:52 p.m.

in adversity, my truest colors are revealed. things even I don’t understand come to the surface, and I want to hurt the ones who love me the most. it is a strange and sickening feeling.

gray tenderness sticks to the soles of my feet. deep wounds leave me hollow, like a little girl who has given up on brushing the gum out of her hair--but only after the cantankerous, cacophonous struggle.

spring stumbles into summer and the rains are back. I’ve scraped until I bleed brown and screamed through the downpour until my place of pain is now a picnicground.

picnic is not the word I am looking for. we eat homemade sourdough and becca solemnly unfolds a fraction of my weakness from the soles of my feet. un-accordioned, it begins to tell a story that I am not old enough to read.

the sun comes out and she takes a comb to my hair as we watch the clouds advance. the rain is not warm, and it isn’t heavy, either. it is a sparse and delicate honeydew.

we slip on our shoes and faithfulness follows--that’s what faithfulness does. even when looking Faithfulness in the eyes feels like swallowing peanut butter too fast, feels like betraying your own mind, body, heart. it follows.

rainbows after rain. bloom—after the break.

august 5

6:25 a.m.

I wake to a gentle rain. the drops kiss my face with such a delicate touch that I’m surprised I woke at all. later I would conclude that trust feels like falling asleep without setting an alarm.

I breathe in the dainty, rainy air and fix my eyes on the sunrise. It’s going to storm today. I turn my head and gasp in delight. a hazy pink rainbow etches its way across the sky.

later I would remember that pink is the color of prayer, but for now my exhale is jesus, savior.

I’ve spent the night here, listening to the not-so distant sounds of the highway, turning this way and that in my blankets. I’d brought a few questions to push around like a dust mop but here they melt away. the linoleum floor of my mind doesn’t need sweeping so much as it needs rest. we both know that.

it’s going to storm today, Faithfulness reminds me. it’s time.

I know it, but I don't want to endure it. almost every storm since the spring has happened sparsely, happened overnight, didn’t happen at all.it was my dialogue and my victory. the rains had been banished to midnight graves where they couldn’t collect the taxes I owed them.

I take a sleepy video for naomi, becca, and clara, lucky to capture what I could but knowing I would never do justice to the divine beauty lapping like the tide at my just-opened eyelids..

later I would realize that this banner was my admonition, a loving warning. something like redemption was on its way, I would have to trust that.

I let the rain fall on my face and watch as the rainbow fades, gone within minutes. I close my eyes and sleep until nine. It rained steady for the next two days.