Red

Fierce anger, fiery red, who I was, and what’s needed now.

About a month ago, while I was rummaging through my tall studio cabinet in search of a particular paper, I got lost. I forgot exactly what I was looking for, and then I saw so many other things — other papers, old experiments, forgotten art. All those things were different paths and lifetimes, pulling me back and backwards, until it all sprang out, spilling onto my studio floor. It was as if the cabinet spat it out, forcing me to look.

But I didn’t want to. A mess, a memory, a mountain of papers — it was overwhelming. I sat there, the energy of it all encircling me, vying for my attention to attend to whatever was in each pile.

I leaned in to lift a familiar big flat box, of which I couldn’t remember what was inside. But I knew I had asked it to hold very precious things from long ago. That box had seen so much, had moved so much. It had seen darkness in storage units, had been pressed to the bottom of heavy stacks on top of the cabinet, and had been ignored. I gently dusted off its top with a damp paper towel, peeled back the dried-out tape, and opened its two flaps. There were big papers — decorative ones from India and Japan and elsewhere; tissue paper from old wrappings; newsprint sheets with worn, yellowing edges; a sample calligraphy piece for a client which I never liked; large manila envelopes, a few meaningless posters, and sheets of mediocure drawing paper; and about ten pristine sheets of Arches fine art paper, still in its plastic covering. It must have cost me a fortune thirty years ago. That was the most precious thing.

I went through the decorative papers. Why were so many of them red? Maybe they all weren’t, but that’s all I could see. It’s all I could feel, and it was too much. Even if I closed my eyes, I could still feel the intensity. I had to leave my studio.

My friend Color said that maybe the red was opening my root chakra too much, and perhaps that’s why my body was repelling it.

See, a week prior, I had experienced such fierce anger, a kind that I couldn’t express. It seemed like such a small thing, and yet it wasn’t. It was deeply significant, and I became physically and emotionally unwell because of it. I was sharing all this with Sweetie, as he listened and probed a bit more, sensing there was something more, something underneath all that was coming up for me – my plummeting confidence, my stomach aches, and feeling unworthy and ugly.

And then he said it, and it was so clear because he had understood this pattern for himself in therapy. He understood the psychology of my anger towards him. “When the person you receive love from is the same person you depend on for your security, the anger feels like it cannot be expressed to the other for fear that love and dependency will shatter. So the anger is turned back on oneself, and that anger is dispersed and chaotic, like a shattering, landing everywhere.”

The root chakra connects with one’s sense of safety, security, and belonging, and the color is red. But all the big red paper was too much! Why did I have all this? It was when I came back from the Peace Corps in 2007, and later when I met Sweetie in 2008, that red became my color. Fiery, bold, sexy. And needing safety and stability, too. Sweetie proposed eight months later, I said yes, and in 2010 we were married. My wedding dress had a broad red band at the bottom, and I wore red shoes! Our wedding invitations, too, which I made by hand, used beautiful red decorative paper in the design.

I found a big sheet of that paper from our wedding invitations, staring at me with intensity from years ago.

But now? The red papers were too much, even though I needed to see them. And also resist them. Resist the too muchness of the red, the too muchness of lack of control (what can I control?), the too muchness of uncertainty (Sweetie’s next job), and instability (the state of this country). I needed a gentler red, in smaller doses —only what I need and can tolerate right now.

“So then cut up the papers!” my friend Color exclaimed. “That makes them smaller, right?” Like the colorful cut-up squares that I used in making collage cards and boxes years ago (which I ended up giving to Color, then taking it back a few years later!)

And so I did, cutting up the beautiful red paper from our wedding invitations into little squares and incorporating them into my newest banner.

“I also wonder if it is about the woman you used to be, who you are not anymore… and let her meet who you are now, and bring some of her energy to you now,” Color went on.

I wondered. The woman I used to be, the one who wore red, and who even had a red rug for quite some time, and then I cried madly when I finally had to trash it. The one who wore red wedding shoes and ruined them at someone else’s outdoor wedding.

Where is the fiery, bold, sexy one? She’s still there, though faint, and I miss her. She was independent, made her own way in the world, and said what needed to be said. What would happen if that vibrancy emerged, not as performance, but as presence to myself? This is what someone else told me a few months ago.

I realized, holding that red from our wedding invitations, that the paper is just as pristine as it was then, fifteen years ago—no fading, no wrinkling, no torn edges. She is still fiery, bold, and sexy.

She’s reminding me not to be muted, but to be vibrant; not to be silent but to voice what matters; not to be afraid, but to be audacious. Because that’s what’s needed now.

LouLou