the summer i was fourteen years old,
i spent two weeks immersed at language camp.
this meant only french
spoken, all the time.
the thing is,
most of us campers
knew very little french.
we’d whisper
in english
in our bunks at night
or behind
the counselors’ backs
trying to stave off
the deep feelings of homesickness
that were only intensified by the language gap.
in an effort to connect 
(and to calm us down),
our cabin leader ingrid
would quietly sit
humming
while she brushed
our hair until it shined.
she would then
do different
braids each day.
french braids (of course),
dutch braids, pigtail braids and my favorite, fishtail braids.
four of us had long hair then and became known for our daily locks.
we loved our matching braids and we ate up the attention.
we were so far
from home and from
our own sweet mamas.
even now,
braids
make me feel hugged.
this piece
of my history
is the inspiration
for today’s
new pattern.
‘water under the sky’ feels to me like a warm hug around the neck
and the fishtail braids are like emotional comfort food.
don’t you dare let
the braids scare you.
there are clear
step by step directions.
if you want more,
is easy to find
on youtube,
and tomorrow you can
to enter to win
enough yarn to knit and braid, your own ’emotional comfort’.
see you then…
1st and 3rd pics: julie asselin’s ‘yotta’.
‘water under the sky’ taken from 1:9 in genesis.
2nd and 4th pics: camaj fiber arts ‘boheme sari ribbon yarn’.