Not it is Knot it

Man is the only animal capable of tying a square knot.

~ Dr. Richard Selzer

Knot differs from the “Not it!” we screamed as children in the game of Hide-and-Go-Seek. Knots are a puzzle, a perplexity.

As 4 year old, with the family dog leaning into my side in the pasture, I cried when I could not knot the lace to tie the shoe. A knot in a shoe lace or a draw string requires an undo;

Drawn tight can break a finger nail. We tie a knot with string, ropes, ribbon, cords, and loops, or loosen tangled strangled hairs. Knots ball up like kitty-barf and the snarl in Doggie’s tail.

Knots are a measure of nautical speed. The regulation navy neckerchief has knot protocol.

Knots are a node on a tree.

There are haves and have-nots and me not in bonded knot to a man, intertwined or fastened.

Have not microwave nor hand-held device nor junk food, nor soda pop, meat, salt nor ice cream.

Not debt. Not cigarettes, alcohol or brain teasers, nor shaving legs or pits; not elevators, cosmetics, a blow dryer, hair dye nor padded bra.

Vruska in the Slavic means everyone is in need of ties, a knot. Knotty pine, it’s naughty to pine, Nottingham. Teach your son to Windsor Knot the tie.

It’s not what you are, it’s what you’re not.“Not it!”

Elizabeth Wadsworth Ellis was an outside child, conceived outside marriage, wed outside her culture, served outside her country in Serbia, Sofia and St. Petersburg, Russia, holds beliefs outside her upbringing and jumped outside airplanes.