after a few e-mails,

a small envelope arrives.

inside are samples

different widths,

different to the touch,

all silk.

i can pick three,

& then the colors that

each will be dyed.

i’ve stood at

many a yarn shop

and had certain colorways

call out to me.

          i usually know what i like and what i don’t.

but, this time i can choose any of the colors shown here.

my mind is speechless.

my ability to choose freezes in the waves of the near endless possibilities crashing

again and again inside my head.

i head to rocks (me and my thing for rocks) for inspiration.

but should i choose the colors in turquoise, or lapis or one of the agates?

i stumble across this ring on etsy.

this is it.

i know it.

wow, ruby agate.

when applied to the silk strands i chose,

it looks like this.

now the hunt begins: to find,

or to plain old make-up,

a stitch pattern of some sort

that will do it justice.

nothing else feels like silk.

nothing.

it has its own personality,

its own flair.

most of my cousins were ready to tear the needles and skein from my bare hands

as i worked three or four inches of one idea after the next,

each was frogged.

they were not quite right.

not for this yarn…

until finally, intertwined cables

(the result of graph paper

paired with more

than a few sharp pencils)

fit the playbill. ahh,

corriente‘s ‘born’.

‘different’ taken from 4:7 in first corinthians.