Pink and Black

Last Friday, I brought my colored string to street soccer to make bracelets. By now I've made dozens and dozens of box bracelets, and a couple of the guys and girls still wear the very first ones I made for them months ago. Usually the ones asking for bracelets with specific colors will sit with me and watch while I weave the five strings between my fingers, sometimes in comfortable silence, sometimes making light conversation.

This last Friday, Vanessa (age 13) and Kimberly (age 14) sat with me. Vanessa, who is in "fifth/sixth grade," was excited to share some of the English phrases she knows. As I was digging through my bag to show her the color options, she asked me my favorite color.

"Amarillo," I said.

"Yellow," she translated with a smile.

"What is your favorite color?" I asked her slowly.

"Pink and black."

Pink and black. How appropriate is that? I'm telling you, I couldn't invent this stuff if I tried.

This young girl who wants to do arts and crafts with me, who wants to help me organize my colored strings and untangle knots, this girl who bites her fingernails, who wants to show me what she's learned in school and still talks about favorites...

...This girl who lives in an unsafe neighborhood, who lives in a community of rough, aggressive people addicted to pain-numbing drugs and who has seen and experienced things I cannot begin to imagine ...

...her favorite colors are pink and black.