| college essay |
[Dec. 14th, 2009|09:05 pm] |
Figured id upload this for kicks
"You always knot it twice."
"Why?" I asked, being an obnoxious seven year old.
"Because I said so. Just do it."
And thus began my love of friendship bracelets. My parents had shipped me off to Girl Scout Camp the summer after the first grade hoping I would make new friends and maybe, just maybe, find my knack. Every kid has to be good at something, be it baseball or ballet. But, alas, after a few failed swim tests and a near miss at archery, I was assigned to Arts and Crafts.
Cross hitch, chevron, double zipper, Chinese staircase. The names of each design captured my imagination, tempting me to try just one more pattern before it was time to board the long bus ride home from Girl Scout Camp. Simple colored string had a million possibilities. Chains of every shade and tint were tied around my wrists and ankles. Friendships were marked by the colorful bracelets, cliques formed according to color. I left camp that year with a new hobby, new friends, and a lot of new accessories.
My stitches started out clumsy and messy. The color schemes were atrocious, featuring putrid lime greens and vibrant pinks. Like the clumsy stitches, I was unsure of who I was, unsure of where I fit in. I was shuffled through various activities, from Irish step dancing competitions to being the only girl in my basketball league. The location and activity changed but one fact remained the same: I always carried string around with me for those long hours between swim class and Girl Scouts.
After a while, my bracelets became tighter and more professional. They were far from perfect, but were more recognizable as jewelry and less questionable as some strange art experiment. My color palette calmed in intensity, excluding a brief burnt orange phase in middle school. The bright, popping colors of my childhood were replaced by relaxed blues and greens. I entered high school favoring white; plain, simple, and open to anything. My mother's untimely death and my struggles with the doldrums of Mono were reflected by the dark grays and solid blacks that overtook my wrists during the first two years of high school. But in Junior Year I bounced back, once again weaving colorful chains for myself and my friends.
Today, I sport four bracelets. At first glance, my red, white, and blue diagonal stripe may seem patriotic, but it actually represents my love for another country: France. My exchange trip left me with a love of the language, the country, and of course, the baguettes. A faded blue and white chain reminds me of the hours put into planning a benefit concert at my high school, how much my fingers hurt after whipping up sixty bracelets to support the cause. A yellow and black arrow pattern commemorates the car accident that nearly killed my friend this summer, and took the life of another one.
All of my bracelets are important to me, but my favorite one is not the prettiest, or the most well made. It might even seem ugly at first glance, with the odd color combination of orange, blue, and green. There are holes in the pattern, places where it was triple knotted or a stitch was dropped. It is haphazardly tied around my wrist, held together by wisps of strings that are always threatening to break. It was given to me by one of my campers during the last week of summer this year. After four weeks of day camp, hundreds of intensive snack break tutorings, and thousands of yards of string, she had produced something vaguely resembling the menagerie of bracelets I had made her as her counselor. She looked down at her bracelets compared to mine, defeated.
"How do you get yours so perfect?" she asked me.
"You just have to practice," I answered.
"Why?"
"Because I said so. Just do it." |
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