Strings [January 25, 2006] -- Ruth Steinback
Thoughts of all sorts of things have been busily muddling through my brain. Perhaps reading through the archives of Red String was the greatest source of inspiration. Perhaps its just my own thoughts attempting to come to turns with the world, as I build my own knot of threads.

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There are stories that tell how two destined lovers are tied together by fate through an invisible red string so that they can find each other always (the practical implications of which we will not delve into).

There are stories that tell how this string can be lost, or broken.

There are many stories of the dreams of the perfect love.

There are stories that advise how the lovers might recognize each other once they chanced to meet, as is the ambiguity of fate.

However, there are few stories of the other strings.

Those of the stories told through the strings that we twine ourselves, born of past experiences and dreams, around the red string. These that become braided, entwined with that blood thread, surrounding it with misconceptions and past hurts, strengths and learnings. Hope. And fear.

Where are the stories of these threads when the two lovers finally meet, these masses of threads that wrap around each other to tell the stories of our lives? What of when they collide in the center, over the frailty of that red string bridge?

Where are the stories of the potential? Potential to build a bond greater than its parts, bond the colours into a rope that strengthens them both. Potential to snarl instead and tangle into a knot of lost opportunity and miscommunication.

The stories of the time and care needed to untangle these knots, and build a bridge over time. A rare coiled mural of trust and sacrifice forged not simply, but through trials and hardships under the guidance of determination. Or instead how the weight of these snarls of misunderstanding and frustration, those lost paths, can weigh down even that fated red thread and snap the fates back into two.

There are stories.

There are always stories.

But which of these stories is you?