Drop
Towards the end of preschool Parker made a rainbow painting at school with streamers hanging down from the end of each color. My love for rainbows hung it no where but the best place. It sways from a hook up high in our kitchen so we can walk under it often because hanging out under rainbows is important. The streamers have held on as crepe paper affixed by a five year-old’s glue stick do. The first few dropped soon after I hung the picture. Others waved as kids raced by or dangled from a quarter-inch shred because I couldn’t bear to cut them.
I’m sure someone who knows more than me about interior decorating (which would be everyone) would tell me the artwork should be displayed somewhere else in the house. It hangs by a threadbare piece of yarn and I don’t look at it as much as I used to, just like all those other things that make permanent homes in our lives. We pass them or they pass us and our heart doesn’t open up as widely as it did on that first day we decided they were treasures.
We are down to one last streamer. It’s orangish although it might have been red that faded or yellow that darkened and the rainbow tilts to one side a bit from it’s weight. I never reach up to straighten it though for fear the whole thing would crumble.
The weary little picture crafted with lips bitten in concentration and paint-filled sleeves is barely hanging on. I walk more slowly under it now and look up to double-check on the piece left because I know what comes next. I’ve caught each strip as it’s tumbled or found a streamer on my slipper when hitting the biggest coffee button on my Keurig, but the last one needs to stay.
My hands are way too full and far too empty to let it go or put it back or know what happens when there’s nothing left to walk below.
(photo taken when the sun was warm and there was more rainbow to walk under)
