Arriving Again and Again Without Noticing by Linda Gregg

I remember all the different kinds of years.

Angry, or brokenhearted, or afraid.

I remember feeling like that

walking up the mountain along the dirt path

to my broken house on the island.

And long years of waiting in Massachusetts.

The winter walking and hot summer walking.

I finally fell in love with all of it:

dirt, night, rock and far views.

It's strange that my heart is as full 

now as my desire was then.

Going Vegetarian

I have been struggling between what my tastebuds desire and what my heart and mind want.  So, I am posting pictures of the animals I have been eating to remind me why I do not want to eat them anymore.  When I look at these images I see creatures of intelligence, beauty, innocence, vulnerability, and trust.  I am not asking anyone else to stop eating meat...these images are for me.  I don't want to eat these little guys.  I think I'll stick to tofu and vegetables and fruit.

Happy Birthday

Today is my 32nd birthday.  I remember when my Uncle Glenn turned 30 and we had an "Over the Hill" party for him.  I must have been about ten  years old.  At the time I thought a person in their thirties was old.  I was wrong.  I feel like I am just starting to figure out this thing called life. I'm finally back in school with some idea, some focus of what I want to do with my life.  I am a writer and a theologian-in-progress.  I want to help people heal their spiritual wounds and heal my own while I am at it.  I like this birthday cake picture.  It is celebration in fondant and cream!  Today I celebrate my life, the life of my mother (it's her birthday too) and the life of my cat (Phoebe is nine today).  Happy day to all of us and many blessings on all of you!

The Pain of Writing

When I look at this picture I want to cry.  I want to be back there.  On Pueblo land in Taos, New Mexico.  I want to stand on the mesa and stare at Taos Mountain.  I want to climb Her slopes and dive into her secret lake because I know that at Her center is God.  Not God the Father, distant and frightening, but God the Mother.  Comforting, loving, nurturing, safe.  I know that in the center of that sacred mountain I would be able to write.  At home, on my couch, I am so distracted.  My pen feels like a snake in my hand, ready to strike.  My heart refuses to open up, afraid of the memories lurking inside.  I do not want to put them on the page, but I do not have a choice.  I became a Divinity student because I knew it would force me to write my life.  I have been afraid to tell my truth.  Afraid to write about adoption, anorexia, abuse.  Those are not safe topics.  My monkey mind starts up before the pen even touches the page, "Don't write that.  No one will love you if you write that.  Everyone will abandon you if you tell the truth.  Don't do it.  No. No. No."  And I drop my pen for a chocolate chip cookie or a 16 oz peppermint mocha or a pint of beer.  What am I doing?  When did writing become so hard?  When did my thoughts move from joy to despair?  When did I go from writing fairy tales and love poems to the hard truth of my life?  And why, now that I am paying an obscene amount of money for a graduate degree, am I unable to write?  The truth is I have been unable to write for a long time.  When I began writing about divorce and the death of my birth mother I wanted to quit.  Every time I pick up my pen it is these words that fall out:  Karen died three days before her 47th birthday.  She had been diagnosed with lung cancer only ten days previous.  In the hospital, while she was being kept unconscious with morphine, I saw for the first time that we had the same hair, the same fingers and toes, the same shoulders.  See what I mean?  This is why writing is hard.

A Poem for Today

Being 

by Linda Gregg

The woman walks up the mountain

and then down.  She wades into the sea

and out.  Walks to the well,

pulls up a bucket of water

and goes back into the house.

She hangs wet clothes.

Takes clothes back to fold them.

Every evening she crochets

from six until dark.

Birds, flowers, stars.  Her rabbit lives

in an empty donkey pen.  The sea is out

there as far as the stars.

Always quiet.

No one there.  She may not believe

in anything.  Not know

what she is doing.  Every morning

she waters the geranium plant.

And the leaves smell like lemons.