Rainbow Rocks
By Kalen Marquis
Dedicated with love and awe to my mom—the most selfless, loving, and courageous mom in the whole wide world.
Kalen was a chubby boy with summertime freckles. His short, cropped hair was bleached from the sun and his belly and hips were tanned in pudgy, golden globes that would not tuck neatly into swimming trunks. Born on February 11th at Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster, BC, at 11:54 a.m., Kalen weighted in at 8 lbs, 2 oz. and was 20 inches long. Born on his mom’s birthday, he was also her first “non-returnable” birthday gift. “No receipt. No exchanges. No refunds,” as they later joked.
Kalen’s name, like Kalen himself, was taken a little from his mom and a little from his dad. The first two letters of his name were taken from his mom, Kathryne, and the last three letters were from his dad’s name, Len. Together, these letters spelled “Kalen,” a most unusual and easily mixed-up name when he started kindergarten.
Kalen was fairly smart when it came to reading books and learning lessons at school but he was always covered in bruises from trying to do things his plump body just didn’t seem meant to do. Kid things—like riding bikes, jumping fences, climbing trees and balancing on wobbly plank bridges—never came naturally or easily. Still, an awkward, bumbling Kalen would try to keep up with his older, more athletic cousins.
Kalen lived with his mom and baby sister, Lee-Anne, along the banks of the gently flowing Pitt River. They shared a one-bedroom house owned by his big-hearted aunt and fun-loving uncle. Standing on the road that ran along the dike which kept the river from swelling onto their property, Kalen’s small house was on the left while his aunt and uncle’s two-story house was on the right. Both houses were connected at the road by driveways that came together at the mailbox like the bottom of a lopsided “V.”
Inside their little home, Kalen’s mom divided the single bedroom into two for her kids. She scrimped and saved to buy a couple of thick sheets of plywood which she fastened together and braced with furniture to stand up like a wall. She then used bright, happy wallpaper—Kalen and Lee-Anne’s own choice—to dress up each side. Kalen and Lee-Anne may have shared one large room, but their mom made sure that each had their own cozy bedroom.
This meant, of course, that there was no room for her. Each night, after the toys were picked up and they were tucked into bed, Kalen’s mom would pull out the tired fold-out sofa bed in the living room with its blankets and pillows tucked deep inside. She would do this every night and then, sometime early the next morning, tuck them all away again for another day. Giving up her bedroom—like giving up letters from her name or her birthday when Kalen was born on it—was just one of the many things that Kalen’s mom gave up for her kids.
Although his mom could not have known it then, it was this little house with its two half-bedrooms and a fold-out sofa bed that set the scene for the happiest times of Kalen’s life. The times spent in that little house were times that Kalen knew he would never forget.
Like many kids nowadays, Kalen and his sister were between dads. Their own father was gone. Not having a dad was just one of many things that made Kalen’s family different but that did not matter. They had each other. There was plenty to be thankful for and, besides, what the real world had not given, Kalen could always imagine. In his mind, with his love of words, Kalen could make anything real—sometimes better than real!
Kalen was a dreamer. He would sit for hours in the hot sun at the foot of the sunporch and colour rocks with his crayons. He would pick up one rock after another. Flat ones. Smooth ones. Rough ones. Jagged ones. Not a single rock was missed. First, Kalen would roll a rock between his fingers, checking every ridge, fold, curve, or crease. Then he would select the perfect paper-wrapped crayon from the many which stood at sharp attention in their sturdy box.
Flying at the job with his expert eye, Kalen would colour each rock up, down and all around, getting every little corner before moving onto the next. As he did this, he made up silly rhymes like the ones his mom would read to him and Lee-Anne at night. Hours would pass and it wouldn’t take long before Kalen was surrounded by a brilliant, waxy rainbow of crayon-coloured rocks.
In his joy, he would forget his shyness and begin to sing the rhymes which now played over and over in his head:
Red rock, orange rock,
Green rock, black.
Colour each rock
And set it back.
Plain rock, striped rock,
Polka dot rocks.
I’ve made me a rainbow
Of crayon-coloured rocks.
Yellow rock, pink rock,
Purple rock, blue.
Colour me a dream
And let it come true.
Kalen used to colour his rocks with a happy smile or, sometimes, a sad, pouting face as he watched his cousins load coolers of food and boxes of summer gear into their white Volkswagen camper van. They would be heading off on camping trips to Pitt Lake or some other exciting place like Vancouver Island or the Abbotsford Air Show. Kalen knew that he couldn’t go along every time but there was always a chance, if he pressed his elbows into his knees and his palms into his cheeks hard enough, that they might stop the van before it turned onto Kennedy Road and vanished out of sight.
But no, the van with his playmate cousins would leave without him. Kalen would sit on the steps making tight fists and crying but it wouldn’t take long before--eyeing the rocks--he’d plunk-plunk-plunk his way down the steps on his bottom.
With a crayon in his hand, all would soon be forgotten. Kalen would continue to colour his rocks, happy to think that he was somehow helping nature, making each and every stone that little bit more beautiful. Not only were they nice to look at but he pretended that they were shiny jewels like rubies, emeralds and sapphires—precious stones that he might sell one day. Maybe then, he thought, he could buy his mom and sister everything they wanted from the glossy Sears catalogue. Besides, it wouldn’t be long before the hours or days would pass and his cousins would return home. Life on Kennedy Road would go on as usual.
And go on as usual it would. Although really nothing more than an old asphalt road with patched potholes here and there, Kennedy Road started off at the old yellow Crossroads gas station where the Lougheed Highway crossed the Pitt River. It wound along the river, passing by the fields, woods and farms that were their playground. They knew them all like the back of their hands and it seemed that there was always something to do--and someone to do it with--on Kennedy Road.
In the summer, Kalen and his cousins would build castles with roads, bridges, and seeping, water-filled moats in the sand and dirt. In the winter, they built huge indoor fortresses out of sofa cushions or gigantic snow-packed dragons and icy igloos from frozen blocks of snow.
Throughout the year, Kalen’s cousins would tear out of their tall house and up on the grassy dike to catch a glimpse of the old steam-powered paddle wheeler, the Samson V, as it made its way towards the Fraser River where it cleared snarls and snags for passing boats.
At different times, but especially when it was raining, Kalen and his cousins would sneak into the gigantic boat shed out back. In it, they found the towering bandsaw up to its cast iron ankles in sawdust, as well as the long keel of a sailing ship that would—if it ever was finished—sail all the way around the world.
In the summer when they were older, they would sleep outdoors in a huge canvas tent. They would play all kinds of daring games and stay up just late enough to creep inside to sneak handfuls of frozen blueberries from the downstairs freezer or some other scrumptious treat from the upstairs fridge. “Just havin’ a little midnight snack, Mom,”Kalen’s cousin would call when his mom would call, “NOW what are you kids up to?” from her bed.
During the day, they would go into the woods behind the rifle range to collect clay pigeons which were sent flying through the air with a vibrating “THWACK” for the riflemen to shoot at. Kalen and his cousins would wait for the days or evenings when there was no shooting to head off into the trees, loading their arms with the light, stackable disks which were usually painted white on one side. Rumor had it that they could be returned to the gun club for money, but they were usually set on fence posts and smashed with rocks instead.
Kalen, his cousins, and other kids from Kennedy Road would always go blueberry picking at one of the neighbouring farms. They each had a small bucket hung on a string around their necks for dumping into the big bucket at their feet and a punch card for the weigh scale tucked in their pocket. They were to be paid for every fully punched card or every one hundred pounds of berries picked. They started off with fantastic dreams of punching card after card—picking hundreds upon hundreds of pounds—but would always quit after just a couple days and only part way through that soggy, crumpled first card.
Whenever they had blueberry or allowance money, they would ride their bikes down to the Crossroads gas station. It was there that Mr. and Mrs. Jackson sold pop in long-neck glass bottles, soft chewy candy strawberries and bananas, and even the occasional tank of gas or tin of dew worms to adults on the side. Mr. Jackson promised Kalen a job when he was old enough to stand behind the counter, push all those smooth numbered buttons on the cash register and count all that rainbow-coloured money.
The visits to the Crossroads were fun but getting there was great fun too. Kalen and his cousin would ride their bikes together to the corner where the old pumphouse was and then—suddenly—the race was on! One would turn up onto the dike—the high road—and the other would zip along the pavement—the low road. They would race against the wind, each other, and sometimes a thundering train. They would pedal like mad to see who could cross the railway tracks and wind up on the final stretch first. They always reached the Crossroads in no time and Kalen won the race—occasionally!
The old pump house was more than just an intersection between the high road and the low. It was also where they would dangle fishing rods in the water, catching crayfish and smelly, springtime oolichans. Having packed their lunch the night before and set their alarms to get an early start on a long fishing day, they had eaten their lunches by mid-morning and were home again—starving—by noon!
Although growing up on Kennedy Road was the best, there were sad, frustrating times too. There were the years when Kalen used to have to wear chocolate brown or navy-blue fabric pants because they were all he could fit into and all they could afford. There was the warm, shiny metal lunch kit with the red plastic handle that the other kids laughed at. There was the year that his portable classroom burned down. There was the time, on the last day of school before he moved away, when the teacher believed that he had written in the text books and he had cried and cried. While he has made many other mistakes for which he feels remorse, he does not remember ever marking up the math text books. Sure, there were occasional bad times mixed with all the good, but Kalen kept right on dreaming his crayon-coloured dreams.
Once, on a blubbering November night when the wind whipped the rain against the glass, Kalen’s mom tucked his blankets tight around his shoulders and spoke with a quiet, determined voice and far-away look in her eye: “Dreams, however silly or impossible they seem,” she said, “do come true. In their own time. In their own way. Remember, no dream and no dreamer are ever forgotten.”
Kalen had dreamed, long before his first day of kindergarten, of becoming a teacher. He spent hours playing school. He imagined spending a lifetime learning everything there was to learn and then sharing those things with kids. He loved school and later, as he became older, his favourite teachers sent him postcards from around the world and dared him to dream his impossible dream.
Although moved up a grade early on in her school years, Kalen’s mom had not been able to finish school and they did not have much money but somehow, they managed. Kalen studied to be a teacher by day, worked in a store like the Crossroads all night, and volunteered in a classroom every moment he could. His mom continued to sleep on the fold-out sofa bed in the living room and his sister, Lee-Anne, worked to help buy him clothes for school. Together they worked, together they waited, and eventually Kalen’s dream came true.
Now all grown up and having worked for thirty years as both a teacher-librarian and counsellor in many schools not so far from that little house on the Pitt River, Kalen knows that dreams really do come true.
Sitting on the carpet sharing books, thoughts, and feelings in beautiful crayon colours, Kalen’s young students often share their own fantastic dreams and wide-eyed wishes. “You know,” he likes to tell them, “Dreams do come true. Just keep believing no matter what.” Sometimes, when they press him further, he says with his own quiet, determined voice and far-away look, “No dream—and no dreamer—is ever forgotten.”
And still, like his students and all dreamers, Kalen continues to dream. He dreams that that his words, like the ones that he shares with children every day, will wear their own neatly tailored book jackets of every imaginable size, shape and colour. He dreams that they will travel to faraway places, making friends in living rooms, libraries, reading corners, and counseling offices everywhere. Kalen still dreams that one day he will follow them, taking off from airports around the world to meet other dreamers and wide-eyed wishers who love wonderfully wacky, rhyming-chiming words of wisdom, wonder and wellness just like he does.
Perhaps one-day Kalen, while trusting his dreams to lead him where ever dreamer must go, will look out the small, rounded window of an airplane to find, right there, by a gently flowing river, the most precious sight of all. . . a little boy sitting amidst a rainbow of crayon-coloured rocks.
Would he need to crane his eyes down to think back to a time he vowed he would never forget? Would he, if he listened carefully enough, hear a distant sound above the whistling hum of the plane? What would it be? Would it be some other boy dreaming his own silly childhood dreams or would it be a memory of himself, the chubby boy with summer time freckles and short, cropped hair? What, exactly, do you think Kalen would hear? I am not sure, but I think it would soundsomething like this:
Red rock, orange rock,
Green rock, black.
Colour each rock
And set it back.
Plain rock, striped rock,
Polka dot rocks.
I’ve made me a rainbow
Of crayon-coloured rocks.
Yellow rock, pink rock,
Purple rock, blue.
Colour me a dream
And let it come true.
© 1991 & 2023 Kalen Marquis
