The Rainbow Connection

The song "The Rainbow Connection" was written by Paul Williams and Ken Ascher for "The Muppet Movie" in 1979 and sung by Kermit the Frog... I never saw the movie... but one of my best friends at the time did and it was her favorite song... after I heard it the song became one of my favorite too... as a matter of fact it still is. But the day I met my new friend was at the book store at The University of Hawaii... The University's football team adopted the name the Rainbow Warriors in 1974 that dates back to an upset game when a rainbow appeared over the football field... the name was dropped in 2000 from the men's teams who simply became The Warriors and because of public reaction was reinstated in 2013.

We were both there to buy a rainbow pin... me because I wanted to use it to cover up the alligator on Lacoste polo shirts... my new friend wanted one because she loved rainbows and wanted to wear it with everything. Over the course of the next year our friendship developed as we drank coffee out of rainbow coffee mugs and while I drove around I had a rainbow sticker on the rear window of my car. As fate would have it we both wound up in the New York area and she and her brother and I went to the Olympic Games together in Lake Placid... I made her a batik of a rainbow and was told by her brother it still hung in her house up until she died... I'm bringing all of this up because as fate brought us together in Hawaii it pulled us apart but we still kept in touch and I thought of her often especially the days I wore the rainbow pin... and I'm assuming she did as well whenever she looked at the batik.

If you have ever visited Hawaii you know that a rainbow in certain places is a daily occurrence... and after many years I have never taken them for granted or become cynical or blasé. To me they are magical in their own way and they always will be because of what they represent to me... They are very simple really and are caused by a reflection, refraction and dispersion of light  in water droplets in the air directly opposite of the sun. 

In our dreams our unconscious defines them as the end of troubles followed by happiness and unconditional success... In symbols Iris is the Goddess of the rainbow and the messenger of the Olympian gods, the rainbow represents her path between the heavens and earth. The Navajo see it as sovereignty of all tribes joining together as one nation. The rainbow serpent in Australian Aboriginal myth is linked to the seasonal shift of humans reliance on water. The seven colors in the rainbow symbolize wholeness and the dream of life.

The LGBT pride flag has represented gay pride since 1978, it has also represented the International Peace flag since 1961, The International Cooperative Alliance adopted the rainbow flag in 1925 and a similar flag is flown in Peru and Bolivia to represent the legacy of the Inca Empire.

For me it represents all of these things but mostly it is a symbol of a  friendship that started about 40 years ago and the skill set I have developed since then of having a friend and being one. Because of that rainbow pin and a single friendship that started I have found  my way to people who we pushed each other to do better and aim higher and be better people in that we simply bring out the best in each other... in all of this I have been able to recognize the people who are all in and separate them from those who are just there at their convenience; by that I mean that it's a matter of the quality of the friendship and not a quantitive amount of time spent together... One of my favorite people in the world and I do not get to spend as much time together as we once did but we never miss sending each other a birthday or holiday card and we speak on the telephone several times a year... but when we are together it's as if no time has passed and thousands of miles have not separated us. Sometimes we fall away from people for whatever reason but if it's a real friendship we find our way back to each other eventually unaffected my time and distance.

My feelings about who we become friends with and those we fall in love with are really quite simple... we want to be with these people because they make us love the person we are or what we have become from being with them.

True love and real friendship are not always as easy to find and recognize as a rainbow... I feel like we find each other when the time is right in our hearts and somehow all the stars and planets are lined up just so... Don't give up if you have not found the person, place or thing or you that you are looking for... It takes time...but your circumstances, you, me and the world can all change overnight.

Meanwhile  if you look closely you can find some magic almost everyplace you are in the world... it's sometimes just a matter of looking at the world or your circumstances from a completely different perspective.

Tulip Fiends--- The Netherlands 

I had the song Rainbow Connection rearranged ages ago and used it as an audition for a show and got the part and subsequently I think of the song and that friendship as one of my good luck charms .. I recorded it and it's still on my demo CD. "Someday we'll find it... the rainbow connection... the lovers, the dreamers and me!"

Sometimes we make a connection with rainbows and/or people for reasons we won't understand for weeks, years, decades... or ever...See you in two weeks!