Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Happy..

New Years. It is two hours and twenty minutes away. This Midnight, which is usually just a blanket separating moon and sun, represents a celebration of another year. A celebration of breath and movement. Here. Now.

I am not as excited as others about that Mr.New Years . That strike of clock when the hands of time embrace.

My heart thumps for another.

Her name is Mississippi.

She leaves her songs and stories in the chest of man, and if you listen carefully you can hear her feminine tremble in every Blues song. I have been studying her curves for months now.

And although I have been discovering more about her each day, She is still a complete stranger. I have been only hearing the “rumors” of her mystique in articles and statistics. Never have I witnessed her in person.

That will change on January 2nd.

Those articles say she got some problems. That she is poor and uneducated. But I see things on a different color spectrum. from what I have read she is a beautiful struggle; she is the manifestation of New Years. For her, every morning is a celebration of oxygen stretching over lungs and running through veins. She does not need a year to rejuvenate her ideals on how precious life is; 24 hours will do.

Here I am again! Detailing a beauty I don’t know. I won’t know until January 2nd. And I am scared, of course. This will not only be my first time flying, it will also be my first time outside the east coast.

During our first meeting for the trip, the first article we read about Mississippi said “The abandoned shells of buildings along the main drag here serve as a glum backdrop for the youngsters who sit in front of them for hours.. A liquor store and convenience store are he only places to shop. The little work available is a seasonal or at casinos 25 miles away.” To me this reads like fantasy, like poetry. This is the main reason why I decided to do participate in this trip. I want to and expect to go out the bounds of my comfort zone. Me and ten others are going to explore a fantasy is someone’s reality. In college, it is easy to live inside of a metaphoric bubble where your whole existence revolves are grades, concepts and theories. January 2nd will be my true “new” year. A year where I gain a fresh perspective.