Chasing rainbows

I don't know what I'd do if I didn't live five minutes from the beach, a stone's throw from the water. I don't know what I've been doing all this time, my head buried in work, minutia, exhaustion rather than feet buried in the sand.

I'm there all the time now. On evenings with a book. At night alone, with friends. On weekends, windows down.



The dawn is breaking
A light shining through
You're barely waking
And I'm tangled up in you

I'm coming over the bridge and there's a rainbow to my left. I'm headed home and I'm driving straight into it. Only I don't want to go home, I want to find out where it ends. I pass the driveway.

I don't know where I'll be in five years. Five years ago I didn't know I'd be here. This is what life is: change, uncertainty, pain, seduction, questions, contentment, gifts. Life is five years from now. And five years after that. Life happens tomorrow in a tense newsroom.

When I'm open, you're closed
Where I follow, you'll go
I worry I won't see your face
Light up again

My finger's on the dial button, like it's been for the past few weeks. It's easy. I can call, invite him for a casual dinner, a night on the rocks, a night on me. But I don't. I slide the phone shut. It's his turn. But I forget, we don't have turns anymore. And that's OK.

I've always loved living alone.

I decide to head south. It's where the rainbow is. I wonder how far I'll have to go, if this fading coloured giant is just leading me on down a road with no end, only to disappear.

The arrow light turns green and I swerve, make a screeching U-turn to head north again. Fuck the rainbow.

I look in the mirror a few minutes on and it's already gone. It's not often I know so soon that I made the right decision. But that's OK.

Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the wrong words seem to rhyme
Out of the doubt that fills my mind
I somehow find You and I collide.

-- "Collide": Howie Day


Photo "Lioness Lying in Grass" courtesy Corbis