The house, lifted and tossed in the tornado, crashes, but Dorothy and Toto are unscathed. She gathers him under her arm, like any loving dog owner, and slowly opens the grey-scale door to reveal the technicolor landscape.
Shiny hollyhocks the size of pie plates with leaves as long as her arms. A tiny bright blue stream that winds and bubbles. A paved path and, because we have seen the movie a thousand times, we see the gold and we know. We are both anxious and happy for her. She is only, in this moment, awed.
“We aren’t in Kansas anymore, Toto.”
And since that moment, Americans will always know what it means to not be in Kansas. Things are different now. We are stunned. Blue birds, ordinarily emotionless at best, are suddenly happy. Flying over rainbows when normally they just flit, from branch to branch. The blue in the skies calls to them and they cannot resist. Beauty like this appeals to all species.
We have only good hope here.
We sang this song to Rainer. I hadn’t thought about it, but Keith loves the song and had imagined bringing him home one day, holding him early in the morning when babies wake up too soon and have to be rocked back to sleep. Days went by and then weeks and still we couldn’t take him home and so it seemed best to start singing it now. The song is nothing if not comforting and though we could do nothing to help repair whatever cellular damage had been occurring since conception, we could sing.
Before, I always thought of the song as an alternate reality, a place you could, like Dorothy, travel to and back from. Before, somewhere over the rainbow was us at our best selves, our world minus indecision and loneliness and pain.
But why would you come back? If the dreams, the ones you have to dare to dream, if those dreams come true, what could possibly pull you back? Wouldn’t you fall into Glenda’s arms and feel her holding you, finally?
Of course, Auntie Em would have to grant that permission. At least say it’s ok. You can go. Don’t worry about us, little one.
If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow...
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