What's With The Red Socks?

Had a little insight about my old photos recently -- especially those particular ones of myself where I can still cringe a little -- where the camera caught me just between my best moments and snapped the least flattering poses of all. Hey, that's not the way I look. There are extenuating circumstances why my hair looks like that today. I don't normally wear these pants but....
 
I've been realizing that a good way to let go of any vestiges of embarrassment or shame -- even the tiniest remaining crumbs of it -- is to just bless her with love and release that moment or event in my memory and accept her just as she was in that frozen frame. After all she is me, warts, bad haircuts,  fashion slip-ups, and all.

So which one in the class photo is a former self of mine? No doubt the post title gives it away, but if you peer closely, you will see a slip of a girl who went to school on Photo Day in Grade Seven to find herself perched on the front row (not her idea!) dressed in a pale green top, light blue pants and bright geranium red socks b-l-a-z-i-n-g out for God and ever'body to see forevermore in schoolmates' dusty old photo albums.

You see, she'd forgotten it was photo day. Her less boldly coloured socks were in the wash and it was wear them or go sock-less. Now, the question that begs an answer is who would ever buy red socks in the first place unless one had something red to match. Obviously this girl didn't or she would have worn it that day, wouldn't you think?

The comforting thought in all this memorabilia... or maybe it isn't all that comforting... at least she's not the only one to wear red socks in odd combinations. She's in famous company, for in Ken Burns's recent PBS documentary on Mark Twain, we learned that the famous author would don red socks to go with his white tuxedo, and author Garrison Keillor says he owns so many pairs of red socks now (sent by people who read somewhere that he wore red socks) that it's a shame to waste them so he wears red socks to this day.

Changing the subject, do you notice that she was just a slip of thing in those days? It's too bad she 'slipped' off somewhere, never to be seen in that svelte size ever again. Thankfully, at least, the geranium red socks disappeared forever.

That, dear blogging girlfriends, is my story and I'm socking sticking to it.

"I think there is beauty in everything. What ‘normal’ people would perceive as ugly, I can usually see something of beauty in it." ~ Alexander McQueen

Here's to finding the 'beauty' even in red socks,