So, here I am blogging in the year 2013. I have roughly twelve journals (you know, the paper kind) in a box in my garage dating back to 1993. They detail everything from long winded tales of teen angst to buying my first guitar, to writing my first songs, to meeting my husband, to the birth of my son, and everything in between. The first few are very narrative and they gradually turn in to books of abstractions – pages of poetry, set lists, shopping lists, to do lists, and then more poetry – something that forms a narrative only in my mind. The past few years these abstractions have been mainly in my mind, not even making it to paper because of lack of time and disillusionment as a writer.
I released my first solo album in 2003, and my second album in 2008, which means I am due for a new one in 2013 if I continue my pattern of every five years. 2013 is also significant because it is the Year of the Snake – meaning that it is my year. What the hell was I doing all those other snake years? 1989 just sucked (because being 12 generally sucks). 2001 was wonderful and intense. I had just graduated from college and was living with an actor friend in Chicago. I was recording my first demos, writing new songs, exploring the open mic scene in Chicago, and playing my first shows. Not owning a computer or a cell phone was still considered to be very normal. I was gloriously self absorbed – too self absorbed to be aware of the cosmos. In other words, too self absorbed to notice that the sixth sign of the Chinese zodiac had come around for the third time in my life. Last year a writer friend of mine who is a Dragon mentioned that it was her year and it dawned on me that mine would be next – and this time I would be ready for it.
I am writing a blog because, to quote R.E.M., my favorite band of all time, I wish to “collapse into now”. In the years that I have been pursuing this dream of mine the world has changed a lot and my life has changed a lot (I’m sure I will get in to both of those subjects in much more detail later). That said, it seems that keeping a blog is appropriate for the time I live in – which is the present.
It has also occurred to me that we live in a time where people are more concerned with process than product. Just look at all the reality TV shows that are on now. As a person who watches Project Runway religiously I can tell you that I have fallen in to that trap too. The story behind how a garment is made is often more interesting than the garment itself. You can apply the same thinking to any of the reality cooking shows that are on . As an artist, other people’s creative processes have always interested me, but it seems like now-a-days the creative process is as interesting to the consumer of art as the product itself. I have long analyzed my own creative process, so why not blog about it in this process centered time? (Of course, one lesson always learned on Project Runway is that art needs to speak for itself. Any contestant that needs a long verbal explanation for his or her work to be understood is sent packing.)
So, this blog takes over where my rotting books of deep dark secrets, tears, fears, hopes, juvenilia, and sketches of my potential masterpieces leaves off. This year I will slither, hiss, shed my skin and unhinge my jaw to devour prey three times my size. Namaste.
Year of Snakes 