my search.

i am searching for my yellow bird, a metaphor i stumbled across in 2006. a yellow bird is an icon symbolic for the one specific thing that inspires inside a person the will to live and to do so in a healthy manner. in essence, a yellow bird is what one lives for, whatever keeps you going. it's an evolution of the relationship between the canary and the coal miner, i suppose. to me, the yellow bird has come to represent the opportunity to truly live. i am unsure which i will enjoy more: the search or the realization.

in 2007, i arrived at the frightening conclusion that my yellow bird could never be a person, as i would only be left with an empty cage. so, thus began my search.

i needed something concrete, something substantial and meaningful to me. something that no other person could take from me, something dependent solely on me. as art has always commanded a rather significant portion of my life, i decided to start there. i experimented with pottery, painting, and photography. i bought a guitar and a piano. i wrote every day for a month. however, in all my art, there was a common theme: birds. and even though i would become completely enveloped by every project, every song, every page written, and though i truly enjoyed each endeavor, i found the fascination they held for me was in their role as a conduit, a means to an end. in fact, none of these outlets were what i thought about in those brief but revealing moments before sleep. so, although i will continue to pursue these interests, i was no closer to my yellow bird than when i started.

so, naturally, i have turned to the only constants in my life: knitting and traveling. in 2003, i first learned to knit while visiting the green towns of rural ohio, so unlike the desert where i grew up. every year since then has been spent either knitting or traveling. they inspire the plans and thoughts that lull me to sleep and preserve my sanity. they are the closest i have come yet to my yellow bird, although i am still looking.