Gold @ End of the Rainbow

I love my cell-phone, but do not want to tell it that. You know…keep it in its place, before it gets ahead of itself and starts interfering with my life more than normal kind of thing. So, I bemoaned the constant need for the cellphone that fell on deaf ears because the husband was on the cell-phone and I went out for a walk with the infant. Just the stroller, baby and I.

The day was beautiful. The temperature was just right, the rain-bearing clouds had parted just enough for some sun rays to peep through, and put some rainbows our way. A few birds were tapped on their shoulders to cheep and the snails were up and about. All in all magical.

I passed a corn field and I stopped. The clouds were still gathered rather low over the fields and the farmer, being a hard-working sort of bloke, had started harvesting in a haphazard manner. He had just cut a path out in between some pretty tall corn plants. The rain had done its bit of good work and left a muddy, sloshy trail. Just looking at that made the heart come down a notch. The gloomy clouds, the muddy slippery path that one has to walk through…. But ….behind the fields, the hills provide a backdrop. The hills were flooded with sunshine – the golden beautiful kind of light that comes at dusk. I was admiring the whole ‘dark-difficult-path-leads-to-light-later’ thing and reached for my cell-phone. The picture was perfect. I didn’t have it on me. I tried cooing to my baby, but he had taken in the beauty of the thing and fallen asleep.

The need to expunge this profundity engulfed me and I found the first man walking – a wizened old Mexican man, who, I am pretty sure did not understand what I was saying. I got cracking.

“You see the symbolism of the whole thing?”
“Si…Si”
“A hard path, sometimes hard to navigate, but at the end of the road, beautiful sunshine just waiting to shed its light on you.”
“Si…Si.” Smile.
“Lovely huh?”
“Si…Si”. That is what I was telling him. “See..See” and he kept repeating it back to me. “No..no..you see…”

Seeing this was going nowhere, I smiled once more and passed from his life only to come back into it a mile later as I stood mesmerized by a beautiful rainbow. The whole arch – perfect colours and bent right over the neighboring houses. Picture perfect was putting it mildly and of course I did not have the cell phone on me. Damn!
“See the rainbow?”
“Si…Si…”
Now, I had to stop and see this Si-man and saw a tiny hint of gold glinting through his side teeth. In that evening light when everything looked magical, the golden tooth looked sinister. Was this what people meant when they said you would find gold at the end of a rainbow?

Raindrops came on without warning and the Si-man and I parted ways. Me ,running helter skelter with a baby sleeping peacefully in the stroller, and he, making a mental note to take another road next time. I passed the corn field and the whole outlook was gloomy – I saw that I had not the time to make it home without soaking the infant, and found refuge in a friend’s home nearby. Counting my blessings as I sipped gratefully at her tea.

I loved the spontaneity of the evening, but may just carry my cell-phone next time.