When I was younger, rainbows always popped up as surprises: the colours appearing in the sky out of seemingly nowhere, spotted by someone who happened to look up at the right moment. They felt rare, and fleeting.
Now, I’ve grown talented at finding them. Hunting them, even. Something inside of me recognises the conditions that make for a rainbow, and when those conditions converge I’m already looking up. I’ve learned to recognise, and look.
This learning does not take place by accident, or within ease. It happens when there have been enough rainstorms for a new pathway to be forged in my brain, and soul, and once the light has shone through the clouds at just the right angles, and once all that has happened, it comes down to me, finally deciding to pay attention. To turn my attention.
There are patterns that are only formed through difficulty and repetition and then, they show up just everywhere, always. Only brains that are different can see them.
I’m reading a book that looks–and at times reads–like a manual, but is actually turning out to be a key. A doorway, into The Kid’s neurology and my own, into understanding and empathy. Things that do this aren’t just books, or manuals, they are new pathways. This one, in particular, is unlocking the barrier between myself and so much I didn’t know, and in this way it is freeing me–and, I hope, TK, and all of us. (If you love anyone who’s different, I can’t recommend it enough. If you love TK, I may require it.)
One of the lines in it that made me laugh, though, was this: “A rigid and inflexible child meeting a rigid and inflexible adult is a disaster.” YA THINK? I muttered to myself, and remembered (not far back, more like…that same morning?) all the times that disaster had occurred in our own home. And how much conversation, and understanding, has unfolded since, and is yet to unfold. Because this is the pathway that is forged: we don’t understand, and there is Different. Then we do understand, and the Different becomes six colours in a perfect sequence against an azure sky, and we know those colours also reside within ourselves. There are no lines between them, only a gradual and glorious blending.
Or there are lines at the bottom of a pool that become musical notes that we sing the words to on our way to school. And once we get there, Little Brother either spots a friend to cross the gate with or sprints in on his own, growing ridiculously too fast but still stopping for a kiss before heading toward his future. And the two of us left, we become the greeting crew, to the point that my friend, who stuck around this morning, said, “Well this is nice. You get to see everyone!” And my post that started in TK’s anxiety is now–well, still that, but also one of connection. And at some point, every morning, there is someone who shows up–a friend, a teacher–and takes the reluctant TK under their arm (even when they have to reach up to do it, as he is also growing ridiculously too fast) and walks him toward his own future, or the next six hours of it at least.
Breakdowns at the school gate are transformed into gatherings, and separations tumble toward reunions, and this new pathway becomes our regular one–a perfect convergence of storm and light.