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nmazca.com
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The Rainbow and The Sky
When they grew up, the mountain and the sky fell in love with the rainbow and wanted to marry her. The mountain told the rainbow how he felt. "Rainbow, I am in love with you and I want you to marry me." The rainbow asked the mountain, "If I marry you, what will you do for me?" The mountain said, "I will take care of you and put a roof over your head. If you don't want to marry me, then we'll still be good friends." So the rainbow agreed to marry the mountain. The sky loved and wanted to be with the rainbow, but he was English and very shy and he didn't tell the rainbow how he felt. The mountain, who was Italian, told the sky, "Well, I made my move first, you had your chance, and now the rainbow is with me." This made the sky feel sad. This caused problems between the mountain and the sky, and they argued a lot. This made the rainbow upset. She said, "I'm tired of this. I want to be divorced from the mountain." So the rainbow went to the end of the universe. This is like city hall, where important people go to take care of their business. The important elements of the earth go to the end of the universe to take care of their business. The rainbow asked to be divorced from the mountain. She said that she was tired of the fighting and that she wanted to be free. After awhile, the sky thought that he would tell the rainbow how he felt. He told her, "Rainbow, I really like you. I've liked you since we were small children together. I want to know if you want to be with me, if we could be more than friends." The rainbow told the sky that she liked him, but that she had to be cautious. She did not want there to be problems between the mountain and the sky. She had to be cautious because she did not want to be hurt or feel tied down like she had with the mountain. The sky said that he knew how she felt, because when he sent the rain down, it washed all across the land and he knew what the other elements were thinking. He knew that when the rainbow shined so bright on top of the mountain, it made the mountain happy. But the sky also knew that the rainbow was sad when her light faded as it tried to go up into the air. The rainbow still said that she would have to be cautious. She did not want to be rushed to make her decision. She said that the sky would have to wait for five years. After many months and weeks, the sky told the rainbow how he felt again. The rainbow said that she still wanted to be cautious... but as things were, her answer would probably be yes. The rainbow still wanted to be friends with the mountain. When you see the rainbow between the earth and the sky, they're sharing the happiness that they had when they were young.
I sat down with two girls who felt ill today, and one of them asked me to tell stories about the photos in my book, nmazca. The older girl, a 9-year-old, suggested that we make up stories about each picture. The preceding was her take on the image above, delivered more or less as I typed it, without any part having been written down. She ad libbed from the ether.
Kind of stunned (and very touched) by the mythic and romantic theme, I asked this girl how she came to tell such stories. She said that when she began to learn how to read but couldn't read too quickly, she would instead make up stories about the pictures she saw. She continues to do this and sometimes writes down those tales, because she likes her stories better.
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Fast forward a year and a half, and that 9-year-old is almost 11. She'll be in middle school next September. I gave her a collection of indigenous Mexican folk stories and a thick binder for her own work before the school year ended. If I ever hear or read more of her work, I'll make note of it in this space.
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