Ringing in the new year was especially significant for me since it marked the beginning of S(t)even Years. Shortly after midnight, I put on a red leather bracelet. My intent is to wear one item of red clothing everyday for the next year. This external part of S(t)even Years is to serve as a reminder of the year's focus on Security. As with anything, once we put our attention on something, it grows. An immediate manifestation of this was my awareness of red. Before leaving the New Years Party at my good friend Eddie Hibb's house I realized: the punk rock guy I kissed to ring in the new year had flaming red hair, Eddie's favorite color is red and his walls are red, I drank deep red cranberry juice all night, and the song on my drive home was "Red & White" from the soundtrack "Before the Rain."
Slightly after Christmas I started to feel anxious about the project. I likened it to a marriage; the commitment, the love, the nervousness and excitement, the foreseeable life(style) changes. Any feelings of retreating from the project were about cold feet and acknowledging the immense commitment of a 7-year project.
Please check back here for more photos and updates throughout the year.
At the start of 2007, I began a 7-year endurance performance inspired by and mentored by Linda Montano. Each year is a meditation on each energy chakra of the body.
Part of the project is my commitment to several things—one was writing a chapbook of poetry each year focused on the theme of that chakra.
The first year I was to write about Security, Survival, and Self-preservation.
It was six months into the year and I hadn’t. I was feeling pressured and guilty for not being disciplined. Then one morning, while getting dressed for work, I thought of Tyke, a circus elephant in Hawaii that escaped. I hadn’t seen footage of the incident in 15 years and it came to me that morning. I remembered she was shot down in the street by police but kept going back to the scene of an elephant bounding down the boulevard. I kept thinking about her running down the street and thought, “It must have felt good to run.” It was then I became obsessed with elephants.
I kept reading about them. I’d get books from the library, complained to my local video story for only have one video on elephants, and went to countless websites. I could tell you their gestation period and diet, about ivory poaching, and just by a photo, I could distinguish the difference between an African and Asian elephant.
I started writing elephant poems, even when I knew I should have been writing about the first chakra.
It was while flying on a plane when I was underlining and writing in the margins of stack of elephant articles that the woman next to me asked, “What’s with the elephants?”
I thought it was a good question. What was with the elephants?
I got home and discovered elephants are the animal associated with the first chakra. That is how In The Room, the first chapbook of S(t)even Years, came into being. By following my passion, I was aligned with the work I initially intended.
