For bits of string...

Last night, my friend Emily (and her mother) took me to a crafts store.

This is dangerous.

The Ritchie side of the family is very crafty. I remember Grandma's quilting room from her house when I was little--a place of magic and color and fabric. This Christmas, the grandkids received our choice of watercolors that Grandma had done (she picked up watercolors I guess sometime when she was in her 70's? and is phenomenal), and one of my cousins gave incredible hand-crocheted doilies as gifts while she sat there SPINNING HER OWN YARN. Knitting, crocheting, beading, painting, sewing, even down to cutting your own hair, are all standards in the Ritchie household. I strongly take after that side of the family. There were the beaded lizards that I made (like every other 12 year old girl). Painting rocks. The cake decorating class I took with one of my cousins (to this day I have a hard time eating a certain kind of icing because I made so much of it). Knitting, starting in high school because our ENTIRE show choir learned to knit my freshman year (I seem to remember a show choir lock-in where one of the guys, Sam, snuck into the girls-only sleeping room to join our knitting circle). I started painting recently, more out of necessity from having abstract colors in my head and needing to tell collaborators, "It looks like THIS." Then there was first year Design class, where we would have a lot of crazy assignments and everything became potential art materials. (I remember using paint, posterboard, duct tape, string, saran wrap, a dried rose petal, these metal prong fasteners I found at Staples and I still have no idea what they're actually for but I used them for everything, electrical tape, a hairbrush, scarves, a violin, water, a water bottle (used separately), towels, various articles of clothing, rope... and there were others with far more creative materials.) I still have a box of things with interesting textures or colors that I call my "design box". I remember it was to the point where none of us threw anything away and if we saw something that could POSSIBLY be used for a project discarded on the side of the street, we grabbed it. (This is how not one, but TWO of my friends, have mannequins.) I remember walking with my friend Lauryn by Washington Square Park in winter and finding a frozen, dead squirrel, and both of us admitting to the other that the first thing that went through our heads was, "...I should save that and use it in a Design project." (We didn't.) The summer after my first year, I had the hardest time adjusting to life outside of PHTS, so I would stay up until 3am and then make random art projects out of whatever I could find, because that was my idea of "normal".

Crafts stores are DANGEROUS places for me to be. I'll find some texture or shape and say, "I HAVE TO USE THIS FOR SOMETHING." Or I'll see kits and say, "Look! I can make a WINTER SCENE. With SNOW." "Why, Colleen?" "I DON'T KNOW, BECAUSE IT'S SNOW. AND IF I GET THIS OTHER KIT I CAN ADD A WATERFALL TOO." If it were up to me, I would buy the entirety of Ben Franklins and fill every inch of my life with these projects.

I mean, all of this is theoretically wonderful until I realize I also need to buy textbooks.

I left last night with my wallet fairly intact. I splurged on a Willow Tree ornament of Mary, Joseph, and child, as a bit of Christmastide decoration since creches are so expensive. (Before next Christmas, I'm making myself a creche. Out of what? I have no idea. Probably found objects, like we at PHTS do.) And I got a packet of various cheap silver crosses. (Crafty AND religious? Nail in the coffin.)

LEFT TURN: I am sometimes jealous of Catholics.

I participate in many different Protestant denominations. I was born Baptist, raised Methodist, spent the summer the the Presbyterians (and Calvinists!), and go to an Episcopalian church when in New York. There are doctrinal and political reasons I don't move over to Catholicism. Catholicism is a different ballgame. I'm FASCINATED by it, but as a searching practicioner, the Catholic door seems rather closed to me. (Epsicopalian is the closest.) But I am sometimes jealous of Catholics, because Catholicism is so PHYSICAL. Transubstansiation, the idea the the communion elements actually physically becoming the body and blood of Christ. Rosaries. Holy water. Incense. Catholics engage physical sensation more than any other branch of mainstream Christianity I can find. Protestants do it occasionally. But even in Catholic theology (which I admittedly know little about), there is a focus on the physical. The physicality of the miracles. There's a lot of Catholic art that puts a HUGE emphasis on the physical body.

(slight tangent: and something I find so fascinating is the sensuality encouraged in Catholic practice. Because I think often people equate sensuality with sexuality even though the two are NOT the same thing. And Catholicism seems to deny sexuality as much as possible while encouraging sensuality. Whereas I think Protestantism links sensuality as always having to do with sexuality and is slightly uncomfortable with both. Also, why is there a huge link between asceticism, which is about denying the senses, and mysticism, which is THE MOST SENSUAL THING EVER?)

I like physical representations of things. I like things that are sensual. I tend to feel so much that I need something to express it physically. And Catholics get all of the physical repsentations.

No fair.

SO.

I decided to make myself a set of prayer beads.

Beads and prayer have often been linked. There's the obvious with Rosaries, but I remember doing crafts in Vacation Bible Schools of making a bracelet with different colored beads to represent different things to pray for, Emily had a thing of prayer beads from being raised Episcopalian, that kind of thing.

I like beads.

I mentioned the lizards earlier, but I've been making things with beads all my life, and got into beading big time in high school because I was getting so tunnelvisioned into theater that even Becker (King of Tunnelvisioned Into Theater In High School) suggested I get a hobby.

I have about eight people who I consistantly pray for, for various reasons. All are close to my heart. Some I worry about a lot. Some are huge figures in my life. Some I've encountered rarely but feel a kinship with. Some, I don't know if they have anyone else praying for them. They are the people I generally pray for without words, but actually pray with pure emotion. And when things get to a "pure emotion" place, that's when I want something physical (since I don't have words to hold on to).

So I chose a different cross for each person, and put together strings of beads that represented them to me, and affixed them together via some larger beads at the top:


I'm rather pleased with how they came out. They also make great sounds.

And thus, the potentially monetarily dangerous trip to the crafts store turned into a devotional exercise.

And to tie it all back in... my grandmother came in while I was making these to ask if I was interested in making a beaded necklace. Finding me clearly beading already. Ritchie family.