red

Doesn't this look like Marley's ghost in a Christmas Carol movie? It's the back door lion knocker in today's constant blowing snow - making me crazy since I live with a man who gets restless and unhappy on snowy winter days and keeps inserting the words Arizona and palm trees into our conversations. I deal with days like this by knitting. As a kid, when I heard it was going to snow I persuaded my father to take me to a store where I could buy a craft item to work on. That habit lasted into my adulthood and I'd often find myself shopping in the middle of a snowstorm, eager to get home. It even happened a few years ago when my granddaughter was young. I was visiting and a storm was coming. We drove in snow to Michaels. It must have something to do with survival. Food and yarn - all one needs during a storm. As a result of the last two days of snow and snow showers, I now have two more new projects going! Besides the red socks I started another Lace Shawl in red cashmere. The primary word here seems to unintentionally be RED.

I have never been big on red. Don't really love knitting with it. Once in a while during the holidays I may don a red sweater, but it's not me and I end up feeling uncomfortable and removing it pretty quickly. But this year the color seems to be invading my psyche. I wear a red leather Pandora bracelet, yesterday I repainted my toenails Stiletto Red, the only sock yarn I was drawn to at the shop was red, and the Lobster Pot cashmere is red. Did I mention that I'm dreaming about a red handbag?

In Deborah Bergman's book The Knitting Goddess (Hyperion, 2000) she writes about red being a gift from the Egyptian goddess Isis. Beneath her veils "people could glimpse a brilliant red sash that curled around her hips...the sash was said to be a clue to a deeper source of [her] powers". From other sources it is said that the first knitted or woven socks (for royalty) were made from red thread. Bergman goes on to say that "red thread or yarn...helps to retrieve souls, and memories, and energy". Didn't someone in a fairy tale unwind a red thread through the woods so she could find her way home again? There's no doubt that the color is powerful and I'm sure it appears in many cultures in many other guises. In art therapy it is supposed to stir action and the person wearing it infuses others with energy. That does seem like a lot of responsibility for one color. By the time I finish my projects I may have changed.

I tell you, the liberation I am after is
     the liberation of red.  
                        Stephen Beal