An Iridescent Life

My entire bedroom was decked out in rainbows when I was in high school. My mom had bought a rainbow comforter and matching rainbow sheets. Two pillowcases shared the duplicated arc of the rainbow, blending in perfectly with the comforter. My mom even bought an extra set of sheets and made matching curtains out of them.

. . . I really should be a nicer son to her.

I had a little rainbow bathmat at my bedroom door. I had a ceramic rainbow on my dresser, something I had hand painted while helping out at Vacation Bible School ('God promised with a rainbow,' I had painted underneath the arc, in purple).
On the wall, above my bed, was a paper rainbow, an actual photograph of refracted light. I had attached clouds at either end of my paper rainbow. On the right cloud sat Kermit the Frog, strumming a banjo.

How my parents never suspected . . .

I even had rainbow suspenders from my junior high school years, just like Robin Williams wore on "Mork & Mindy."

This was all before I even knew about the gay pride flag, or pride colors, I swear to Buddha!

First Girlfriend Erin and I made rainbows 'our thing,' during the eighth grade, and it grew from there. Erin also had rainbow suspenders, but thinner than mine, dainty and petite. Her mother had hand-stitched a rainbow-on-clouds, on a tee shirt for each of us, complete with our names. We wore our matching tee shirts and suspenders on a date to Disneyland. We wore them in her church talent show, singing "The Rainbow Connection," while my younger brother hid behind a rainbow striped facade, animating a Kermit puppet with a paper banjo taped to it.

When I retire, I will spend part of each year in Hawaii, the Land of the Rainbows!