COUNTRY♀WOMEN #11: Older Women

from Ageism in Paradise

  Caledonia Watson

I live on top of a ridge, overlooking a river, in sheep country. The land around me is still green from the late rains. As I drove hoe from work the other evening, through a light mist, I saw a rainbow with each color clearly, brilliantly standing out against a bank of dark clouds. The rainbow stretched from the river below me, over the road and into the next valley. Above it was another, much fainter one forming a double arch under which I drove, marveling at the sight. I won’t say I found a pot of gold at the end of it. After all, a funky house, two kids, five cats and a baby donkey don’t constitute a pot of gold or maybe even a brass ring. But the fire was going and dinner was started, my son’s latest invention was whirring away and winter is over; it’s time to get the garden in and anyway I’m too tired at night to cry the unshed tears of loneliness behind my eyes before I fall asleep. Besides, I am never afraid of the dark out here. My door is unlocked.