Mom died a year ago today.
I should be able to say something, words should pour, but no, it's just too much, there's too much to say and too many emotions and...No. These feelings are mine, and I don't feel like sharing. Not now.
I was going to write about her love of music, how she once astutely compared P-Funk to Spike Jones, or the fact that I thought she was crazy for claiming Dinah Shore as her favorite torch singer until I finally, much later, heard some vintage Shore recordings and realized she was right, or the time when I was six or seven and I rode along as Mom drove up to the bank in Rippey; listening to a bootleg eight-track of the White Album, she kept trying to cue it up to hear Rocky Raccoon again but somehow it kept replaying Happiness Is A Warm Gun instead, thus giving birth to my life-long John Lennon obsession. I could write thousands of things about the thousands of different styles of music she loved, and how that love changed and evolved every day. But I won't. Maybe someday.
Instead, I'll give you this, the words to a song written by Paul Williams and Kenny Ascher, and originally performed, of course, by Kermit The Frog, Mom's idol and role model. This was one of her favorites, and though at times she could be cranky and cynical, it probably sums up her philosophy of life as well as anything. And everytime she heard it, she'd cry:
Why are there so many songs about rainbows
And what's on the other side?
Rainbows are visions, but only illusions
And rainbows have nothing to hide
So we've been told and some choose to believe it
I know they're wrong, wait and see
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection,
The lovers, the dreamers and me
Who said that every wish would be heard and answered
When wished on the morning star
Somebody thought of that, and someone believed it--
Look what it's done so far
What's so amazing that keeps us stargazing
And what do we think we might see?
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection,
The lovers, the dreamers and me
All of us under its spell,
We know that it's probably magic...
Have you been half asleep? And have you heard voices?
I've heard them calling my name
Is this the sweet sound that calls the young sailors?
The voice might be one and the same
I've heard it too many times to ignore it
It's something that I'm s'posed to be
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection,
The lovers, the dreamers and me...
