Dorothy’s run-in with Almira Gulch is the beginning of a series of progressively worsening events. No one at home understands why she’s so upset. They’re too busy and they brush her aside with shallow, disjointed advice. She falls into the pig pen and is threatened by the pigs. Then, to top it off, Almira Gulch comes to take Toto from her.
As things go from bad to worse, Dorothy wants to run away. She wants to escape the mounting heaviness of her difficult sepia existence. She wants to go somewhere “over the rainbow” where things are peaceful and non-threatening. But when she starts to run, her guilt and the needs of others call her back.
So she heads back to the life she’s known, sadly resigned to being stuck in sepia forever.
Have you ever felt things were going from bad to worse? Have you ever felt like you were overshadowed by a mountain of difficulties and one more problem would bury you in the rubble?
Your first reaction might be to run. To find a place where things are better and stress is lower. To find that place “over the rainbow.” But no matter where you try to go (physically or emotionally) you still feel unsettled and even guilty. So you go back and try again, and the cycle starts all over.
This building unsettledness is a sign that things are coming to a head and you will not be able to put off the journey much longer.