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poet. performer. activist. teacher.
SUSAN STILL on THE OPRAH WINFREY SHOW The Oprah Winfrey show featured a survivor of domestic violence yesterday, Susan Still, who shared her story of both abuse and reclaiming her life, getting safe from the cycle of violence, rebuilding her sense of self, and helping to get a 36-year conviction of her husband for the violence he inflicted upon her and her children. It was a powerful show, on many levels. Most significant to me, however, was Oprah's willingeness to address this issue, to empower a survivor to be on the show and share her story in an effort to reach other women who may be living in the same dynamics of violence that Susan Still fled. Statistics tell us that 1 in 4 women experience partnership violence. That means 1 in 4 homes in your neighborhood have violence happening as a daily experience. As a survivor myself, I know the experience of that violence, and the effects that it has on its victims, witnesses, and bystanders. For years, I thought there was something wrong with me that brought the abuse upon me. I thought my experience wasn't necessarily rare, but not necessarily common, either. I was wrong on both counts: I am not to blame for someone else's violence and abusive beahvior, and I am most definitley not alone in having experienced it. It took me years to come to accept both of these truths, and to reclaim myself fully form the effects of the violence I sustained. I own myself in the world in a way I never could have before, and I feel blessed and honored to be able to do that work I do, suing poetry and speaking and performance to raise awareness around the issues of domestic and sexual violence, and working with victims, survivors and offenders for the goals of healing, and empowerment and healthy choices that build lives based on respect and joy, health and wholeness, and hope and possibility. SO many victims and survivors live with a sense of shame and isolation that the violence itself, and the abusers, breed. Realizing how common domestic abuse actually is allows a survivor to begin to believe she (or he) may not be alone in their experience, or in the choices they make to free themselves from it. If so many people are experiencing violence in their homes, then that violence is not a personal, private matter. On the level that domestic and sexual violence occur in our cultures, it is a public, social and political issue that requires both a personal and a societal response. On the personal level, you can rach out to help someone you think may be experiencing abuse, and telling them you are willing to help them in safe ways to get safe. On a public, political level, you can work with your local domestic violence shelter, write to your Congress-people, or organize a benefit for programs in your community that support domestic and sexual violence services. If you are a survivor, and comfortable with sharing your story, your story may help save the life of another person living in violence because your story tells other victims that they are not alone, and you stand as example of one victim who became a survivor, who became a surpassor. And if you are a victim, you can choose to reclaim yourself and your life and get suppor tto develop a safety plan to maximize your (an your children's) safety as you leave the abuse. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of the safety plan. Call your local resource center or the check out the safety plan offered on the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence website at www.ncadv.org/protectyourself/SafetyPlan_130.html and at www.ncadv.org/protectyourself/MyPersonalSafetyPlan_131.html The safety plan is exactly that: a plan to help you leave the abuse and reclaim your life as safely as possible. You can do this, as terrifying as it may feel to you right now. You CAN do this, and there are so many people waiting to help you do it. I know this from experience, as my poems show. I lived in a cycle of violence, until the only option I had was to try to live differently. And I know form experience that, although a long path, healing is possible. Reclaiming your self and your life is possible. But you do not have to do it alone. The organizations and resources are there to help you, so please take advantage of them, and hold onto whatever bit of hope Oprah's show and Susan Still's story lit inside of you. I am so grateful that the Oprah show addressed this epidemic of violence in our culture, and honored the experiences of so many people struggling with their own experiences of it in thier daily lives. I am also grateful to the survivor, Susan Still, for so courageoulsy sharing her story, and hopefully inspiring other victims to safely leave the abuse. Although years removed from my own experiences of violence, both Oprah and Susan Still reaffirmed my dedication and motivation to helping others through the work I do as a poet, an activist, a speaker, and teacher. I have been blessed with the opportunity to live my life as I do, to offer my own experiences and abilities to others in an effort to effect change, to raise awareness and to offer some hope to those in need of it that healing and living free are possibile. ALL PEACE. DORA
A quick post to let you know that Chris and I have been working on edits to my site, and are almost done with the endless project of updating. This winter was a hard one for me, and yet spring has offered me an opportunity to regain a sense of possibility and hope. I am finally writing again, after sporadic writing brought on by the challenges of the winter in losing my father, my attempting to accept that loss, and with my mother's illnesses. So, I begin again. One step of that is updating the site. So, check it out. And thank you to every single person who offered me and my family so much support, assistance, prayers and love through this time period. Gratitude does not cover the depth of my appreciation. ALL PEACE. DORA
ONE HORSE Here beneath this mountain, I rest. I am alone in this field, her to the north of me, searching scrub for anything that might sustain me through the heat of this day, day after day. I feel myself alone, although there is the raven, the crow, the red-tailed hawk who hunts mornings here just beyond me, eyeing me in her arc. At dawn, that mountain spears a sky of welted red. By noon, she glimmers beneath the blue that holds me here. In the heat, all that I carry within my bones and hair surfaces. There is the dust, dried grasses, foxtail, this thin memory of rain. The heat and the blue hold me. The mountain looks on. In late afternoon, when the clouds roll and build their staircases above me, the pool of shadows at the mountain’s base whisper across the crippling haze to me: Forgiveness. Forgiveness. Until they are enough to move me, until I stand among them, until they are as gentled hands in my mane. This day’s searching over, my head, finally, just hanging. I rest. At dusk, the wind calls the clouds. The sun loses her fierceness, and then the light is silver, sideways across the mountain to me, thrumming sparks along my outline as I leave the shadows for the open again. You, in a car passing me on the road alongside this field, stop and park. I raise my head to face you. You come to the fence line, struck and staring and stand until this light from the mountain reaches from me to you. © 2007 Dora E. McQuaid This is a brand new poem, written earlier today. I sat on the back porch of Billa nd Elaines's in State College and read it to them and Bill B. after I'd edited the first draft of it. Forgiveness. Seems a good thing to offer these days. The poem goes with Lenny Foster's photo called Moody Horse. The image will be up on the site soon, so check back. Chris and I are talking about the edits to the site, getting it updated here soon. Spring is upon us. Enjoy it. Be well. ALL PEACE. DORA
ENTHUSIASM MEANS TO BE FILLED WITH GOD For James C. McQuaid, my father May 17, 1938 - January 1, 2007 When I write, all these words swim back at me. From my vocabulary lessons with my father, at the kitchen table, late in the evening… Learn the word, Dora… Now, use it in a sentence. Show me how it works, he said. My father, who studied Latin in the seminary, and knew the origins of the words, loving them, and me, and the words, themselves. © 2002 Dora E. McQuaid _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ My father passed away on January 1, around 7:30 in the evening. I was with him when his spirit rose up out of his body, and although one of the most diffcult experiences of my life, I feel honored to have held him as he left us. There are no words for any of this, only a vast silence inside of me. I am posting this poem that I wrote for my father several years ago to honor how very much his influence has shaped me, the woman I have become, and to share it with the people who were, and could not be, present at his graveside while I read it as his funeral on January 5. My father was a truly incredible man. He was often referred to as "The Great Communicator", and "Irish" and "The Leprechaun". He stood for fairness and justice, for helping other people, especially kids, and had a love of language and a faith in the mysteries of spirit that he passed on to me, and that have guided many of the choices I have made to be who I am and do the work I do. For his family's benefit, as I said at my father's graveside, I had researched the name MCQUAID several years ago, when my dad adopted me in Orphan's Court. I had waited most of my life to rightfully own his name, the name McQuaid, because he was the only father I ever truly knew. One of the worries that plagued me over the years of activism was that people would assume the "father" I had written about in the scorched earth was Jim McQuaid. In the opening of that book, I explain that I was not writing of Jim McQuaid, but of my biological father, of whom I have known little since my earliest years. Jim McQuaid, my heart-true father, married my mother when I was almost 4 years old, and his love and care of my mother, brothers and myself is well-known. My father made a family of us, and raised us as if we were his blood children, with no regret, and always with his typical enthusiasm. He married my mother in November of 1971, and adopted me in September of 2004, after being my father for all of those years. It was one of the proudest and happiest days of my life, to finally, fully legally be Jim McQuaid's daughter, and to bear the name McQuaid, which I will carry for the rest of my life. In my research, I discovered that MCQUAID is of Irish and Danish origin, and means: Son of The Poet; a series of ancient, narrative, lyrical poems, and represents the element of air. Fitting, for me and for my father, who also wrote poetry, and encouraged my own pursuit of it. My dad was as Irish as they come, could silence a room with his stories, and extended himself to people in ways that calmed and gentled whoever was in his presence. I miss him terribly. I am praying to learn how to live without his presence, and how to live in ways that would continue to make him proud of me. The world without him is not right to me, and yet, I can hear him saying to me: Dora, this is life. Just live it. Do the best you can, because your best will always be enough. ALL PEACE. DORA
James C. McQuaid of West Chester James C. McQuaid, 68, of West Chester, died Monday, Jan. 1, 2007. He was the husband of Dora Fanucci McQuaid, with whom he celebrated 35 years of marriage. Born in Sugartown, he was the son of the late George Joseph and Elizabeth Agnes Phelan McQuaid Sr. He was an executive for many years with Grocery Store Products and Sartomer Co., both in West Chester. He was very involved in teenage sports as a PIAA referee, coach and adviser. He was a strong believer in athletics as a character builder. In addition to his wife, he is survived by three children: Bobby McQuaid in the U.S. Army, Christopher McQuaid of Gap and Dora E. McQuaid of Taos, N.M.; six grandchildren: James, Theresia and Emily McQuaid, Daniele Klinger, Allen and Ana Sandor; two brothers: Billy McQuaid of Garrett Hill and John McQuaid of Washington, D.C.; and three sisters: Jean Bascome of Garrett Hill, Judy Reynolds of Norristown and Joan Aquillante of Berwyn. A funeral Mass will be celebrated at 10 a.m., Friday, Jan. 5, at St. Agnes Church, 233 W. Gay St., West Chester. Friends are invited to a viewing from 7 to 9 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 4, at the Founds Funeral Home Inc. High and Union streets, West Chester, 610-696-0134. Interment will be in Birmingham-Lafayette Cemetery, West Chester. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to The James C. McQuaid Scholarship through The Jordan Foundation, 564 Woodside Ave., Berwyn, PA 19312. Online condolences may be made at www.foundsfuneralhome.com. ©Daily Local News 01/04/2007
DORA MCQUAID AND LENNY FOSTER ANNOUNCE THE RELEASE OF THEIR 2007 CALENDAR: THE WAY OF THE HEART This 13 month calendar features 13 images from acclaimed photographer Lenny Foster's Black and White series of SUNFLOWER images, and excerpts from poems from the forthcoming collection of poems by award-winnning poet/activist Dora E. McQuaid. The 2007 calendar 1. Is 7 1/2" squared so opens to 7 1/2" by 15", 2. Includes the month of January 2008, 3. Are in stock now, and ready to be shipped! They're priced to please, only $ 15.00 each. Three images of the calendar are available to view, as are a few of the poem excerpts, on my website at www.doramcquaid.com/calendar In Lenny’s gallery in Taos, people have been coming to buy them as Christmas and Chanukah gifts for family, friends, and clients, so if you are looking for an original gift, these calendars offer a year of beautiful photography and poetry that depict Dora and Lenny’s impressions of The Way of The Heart. To order calendars, you can: 1. Call Dora at 814-880-8757 2. Email Dora at doramcquaid@doramquaid.com 3. Call Lenny at 505-737-9150 4. Email Lenny at golenny@laplaza.oorg 5. Drop by the Living Light Gallery, 246-A Ledoux Street, in Taos, New Mexico, 6. Drop by Webster’s Bookstore Café on S. Allen Street, in State College, PA. Please check it out! I wish EACH ONE OF YOU THE BEST OF THE HLIDAY SEASON, and hope that you are well, happy, and graced with many blessings. PEACE. LOVE. DORA
I hope this finds each one of you doing well, and having enjoyed the fall wherever it found you. With the Holidays almost here, I realized an entry was (long) overdue. Many of you have emailed me over the last seven months, but since May, I have had little to no access to email, and so have had no chance to try to catch up with any of you until now. Thank you for the emails, and your efforts to keep in touch with me. I apologize for the long delay, and ask for your patience as I try to wade through the 7 months of back-logged emails in my two inboxes. Bear with me! I'm getting there, but wanted to offer a quick update before the holiday season is upon us. This past summer, I served as Poet-In-Residence at The Harwood Museum in Taos, New Mexcio, where I worked on my next collection of poems. I had planned to return to Penn State for the Fall semester but upon my return, found myself unexpectedly having to leave my position at the university due to ongoing health challenges from injuries I sustained in the car accident I had in May of 2004. For the last two years, I had tried to manage healing from those injuries, along with fulltime teaching and some limited activism work, but by this fall, I was no longer able to meet the demands of the fulltime teaching. I realized then, in discussion with my doctors, that I had to make my heath the priority, and so needed to leave the Penn State position after being there since 1999. Although I was disappointed to leave teaching, and the students who inspired me to keep teaching, I realized that my health had to come first. So, I have spent the last several months focused on getting stronger, and working, as my health permitted, on the next book of poems, as well as collaborating with acclaimed photographer Lenny Foster on two projects. Lenny and I are working on a book and a 2007 calendar, combining his photographs with new poems of mine, many written during the last couple of months after leaving Penn State. Check back again for updates on the calendar, as well as (finally!) updates to the site. New poems, new pictures, new gigs and a new direction, which will become obvious after you read a new poem or two. There have been big and unexpected changes in my life, and yet, I remind myself daily: Change is GOOD. This Thanksgiving, I hope your life offers you many things and people for whom to be grateful. ALL PEACE. DORA
THE ROAD TO DORA I was in the backseat of the Rodeo, leaning forward, trying to catch the arc of Elizabeth’s laugh with my hair whipping around in the wind tunnel four open windows made in late August gravel road travel through Southern Colorado. The sky was such a swatch of open that my shoulders, chest, and spine lifted. Pike’s Point was the only thing looming, immoveable enough to make me breath deep in the knowing that nothing in this vastness could crush me. Bill had his crazy giggle going as he drove the Rodeo down divot and bump, and Elizabeth was laughing, full-throated loud. They were laughing between them, about something the tire grip and wind wouldn’t let me catch into, their voices lifting out of all of those open windows, lost in the dry air. My skin was scorched. My hair was a shadow of straw the same shade as the mane of the horse a man bought me once, in the New Mex desert. When Bill stopped the truck, Elizabeth went quiet and turned around to watch me take in the sign of the ghost town he’d driven us into. So small, so simple: DORA: population 223 before desertion. I was the first out of the truck. My throat so dry that laughter caught a match flick and sizzled, caused my heart to hitch and my skin to prickle. I walked that road, Bill and Elizabeth trailing a few feet behind, quiet now as dusk even though the sun hovered. I looked at my boots coated in silt, my hands as brown as they’d ever been, silver rings and cuffs like lanterns along the way. We walked that road into Dora, banked with desert grass and broken rock. I heard Elizabeth behind me, talking obsidian and pottery shard. Bill was quiet. I led the trio in, and then I led us out. After the look around, the goose-bumped shoulder to wrist crawl in dry grass at the basin of what used to be a town, I left. I walked out, first, alone, boot heels in the dust, my body heaving, my hair like a veil. This is Dora. This is a ghost town. And Dora doesn’t live here anymore. © 2005 Dora E. McQuaid For Bill Cobb and Elizabeth May ALL PEACE. DORA
RECKONING Adobe dusk lapping drenched purple, my skin is indigo-edged along white cotton cloth. Lemon zest rising moon, she is full and trembling. A sing-along hum in the doorway, on the wooden-slat skeleton of the back porch, on the hip-rounded edges of the hacienda. My lungs sputter in her promenade of desert blend and magicism. I exhale. Inhale. Sigh. Twice she flushes full above me, Summer night sojourns returned. By her third arrival, I re-teach myself to breath until my lungs are glider pilots, until the ossified clench and catch-all carry of my spine tinkles and returns from bone twist to natural brocade. Whistling: Libre, poeta. La luz, bendecida. As the moon mirrors, you, too, are living light. 2006 Dora E. McQuaid The Harwood Museum Taos, NM ALL PEACE. DORA
S.O.M.O.S. SUMMER WRITERS' SERIES Next Reading: Friday, July 28, 7:30 pm at the Harwood Museum Joint Benefit for Community Against Violence DORA MCQUAID Descendant of traveling gypsies, Irish Golden-gloved boxers, and strong women, Dora McQuaid combines passion for language with activism, using poetry and performance as a means of empowerment. Winner of the Pennsylvania Governor’s Pathfinders Award and Vagina Warrior Honoree, McQuaid is also the subject of Kate Bogle’s short film, “One Woman’s Voice,” and current Artist-in-Residence at the Harwood Museum. SUSAN BERMAN Singer-songwriter Susan Berman performs with indigenous instruments native to the southwest and Mexico. In Mexican tradition, the songwriter’s duty is to give voice to those who cannot speak for themselves. Berman’s world-folk music gives voice to the heart and soul as it confronts universal issues of peace, justice, and authentic relationship. MICHELLE HOLLAND Michelle Holland’s poetry has been anthologized in The Practice of Peace, Written with a Spoon: A Poet’s Cookbook, Mirror Mirror: Reflections on the Way We Look, and published in Puerto Del Sol, Manzanita Quarterly, and Journal of New Jersey Poets. Slam poetry coach for the Espanola Valley Youth Slam Team, Holland also coordinates New Mexico Culturenet’s Poetry in the Schools Program in Santa Fe, and is co-poetry editor of Sin Fronteras Journal. Admission is $5 for S.O.M.O.S. members / $7 non-members
June 23, 2006 Poet & Activist: Dora McQuaid Presents Reading Press Release For Immediate Release Contact: Lucy Perera-Adams, Curator of Education 505/758-9826 x 105 Dora McQuaid, Harwood poet-in-residence 814-880-8757 (cell in Taos) Poet, Activist - Dora McQuaid to present Reading at the Harwood Museum Taos, NM – The Harwood Museum of Art in Taos presents a special reading event with current Poet-in-Resident, Dora E. McQuaid, on Thursday July 6th at 7pm. McQuaid a poet, activist, performer and teacher comes to Taos from Pennsylvania where she serves as a faculty member of Communication Arts and Sciences at Penn State. McQuaid’s reading at the Harwood is free to Harwood Alliance Members, students & UNM Community, $7 non-members. Curator of Education, Lucy Perera-Adams explains: “For her July 6th event, Dora will present recent poems and discuss her work as an Artist-in-Resident here at the Harwood Museum. Another exciting program, which McQuaid is involved with is the SOMOS Summer Writer Series which will be held this summer at the Harwood on a weekly basis, beginning Friday July 7th through August 25th featuring different writers, poets, and performers. The special project McQuaid is working on for this Series is the July 28th Joint Benefit for SOMOS and the Community Against Violence, which will include readings from McQuaid along with Susan Berman, Singer and Songwriter and Michelle Holland, Poet.” Dora McQuaid is descendant of traveling gypsies, Irish Golden-gloved boxers, and strong women, whose stories and the telling of them prompted her fascination with the written and spoken word. In addition to teaching in the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences at Penn State, Dora combines her passion for language and performance with her dedication to activism, using poetry, performance and speaking to raise awareness of the issues of domestic and sexual violence, and teaching writing and performance as means of empowerment.
THE HARWOOD MUSEUM OF ART, TAOS NEW MEXICO SO! I have arrived at The Harwood for my Poet-In-Residence position. I got in yesterday around 4:30 in the afternoon, after spending the night in Amarillo Texas, at a Best Western, synchronistically named The Sante Fe Inn Best Western. I left State College on Saturday, and drove to Columbus, OH, where I was welcomed by two women working the desk at another Best Western, celebrating Mother's Day together on their shift. Sweet as could be, and after watching me unload crates of journals to use while working on the next collectionof poems while on this residency, one of the women, named Mary, asked me what was in the sketchbooks. I told her writing. She asked if I was a writer, and I said, yes, a poet, and an activist. That led to explaining that I use poetry and performance to raise wareness around doemestic and sexual violence, and she called the other woman out to meet me. They thanked me for doing the work I do, telling me too many people do not realize what survivors go through. I went to my room, and 10 minutes later, there was a knock at my door. Standing in the doorway, with a plate of food from their party, was the second woman, who offered me the food and started crying, thanking me for working for survivors of abuse. She hugged me, said god bless you, and left me with pizza, chicken salad, crackers, and gratitude for being able to live my life the way I do. I left Columbus on Mother's Day and drove to Rolla, Missouri before stopping for the night. then a long day on the road Monday got me from Rolla to Amarillo. Once I hit Oklahoma, the sky opened up to that expanse of blue, and the speed limit jumped to 75mph. And then from Amarillo yesterday to Taos, where I got my apartment ket at The HArwood form my girlfriend Janet, who's picked it up earlier in the week form Lyn, who directs the Residency program here at the Harwood. The apartment is beautiful - I can see Taos Mountain from it, and the flowers are all blooming, and last ngith it was cold, but the sun has been huge all day. I feel so blessed to be here, am so excited to be able to spend the summer here working on the next collection of poems, before returning to PEnn State for the Fall Semester. Today is my father's birthday. So, I'm going to go call him, unpack the rest of my stuff and make some tea to take out to my back porch, and sit in the sun. Be well. Thanks to everyone who showed at Bill and ELaine's for my send off party last week. You all left me feeling loved and supported, and I'm grateful for that, too. ALL PEACE. DORA
It is Friday, September 30th. I'm sitting in my office on campus at Penn State, listening to Chris Whitley's first release, Living with the Law, editing a poem, catching up on email, and generally winding this past week down. It's been since December since my last post, the anniversay day of the massacre at Wounded Knee in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, when I was visiting my family outside of Philadelphia. The yard was full of deer in the early evenings, and red-tail hawk and crows throughout the day. The posts have been long delayed by the necessity of healing from the injuries I got in my car accident last May. This past spring and summer, I was told by my doctor and physical therapist to limit computer work, writing (can you imagine?!), etc. to give my arm and neck more of a chance to heal. This time, I listened to them all, and took a long hiatus. Taking a long break was a strange experience for me. I've been keeping myself so busy for so many years, between teaching and performing and the activism, that to actually come to a full stop was a little jarring for me. Admittedly, it only took a few weeks to adjust to, and once I actually got accustomed to moving slowly, sleeping a LOT, and reading in the sun between appointments, I enjoyed myself. Immensely. And learned a lot about resting, about going easier, and gearing down. Sometimes the most simple of realizations take on the proportions of epiphanies. I'm back to teaching full time at Penn State. And performing again, solo and otherwise. The Neo-Spinsters (Pat Payne, Reina Prado, Evie Shockley and myself) had one show at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island for the Performance Studies International conference on April 1. The four of us on stage together was great fun, big energy, and I was grateful that we were all able to travel together again, as we did last summer for our show at Stilring University. There are photos from this show about to be added to this website, so check back for them. Last week I traveled to Scranton, PA, to join the Barbara J. Hart Justice Conference, organized by The BJ Hart Justice Center, the Women's Resource Center, and Marywood University. The focus of the conference was on keeping children safe. As I said during my talk, awareness of the experiences and challenges of children living in violence always cuts me deepest, seems the most brutal of experiences of violence. I was more than willing to join this conference, and felt honored to be a part of it, to close the day out with poems from the first chapbook, the scorched earth, and the 25th anniversary poem I wrote for the PA Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Last Friday was my first solo show in many many months, and doing it felt good, especially for such a good program and the inspiring women and men who run it and who participated in the conference itself. Pat and I have been asked to join the first Nairobi Poetry Festival: The Imagination Of Poetry in the AIDS Pandemic in Kenya on December 1, which is World Aids Day. Reina will be traveling elsewhere, and unable to join us, but Pat and I are figuring out the details with the amazing woman who invited us, Pamela Ateka, from Nairobi, whom we met after the Stirling, Scotland, show. I've always felt drawn to Africa, and Kenya, in particular. If the show happens, I'll keep you posted. Mcuh has changed in my life since December. I moved to a farm outside of State College, complete with 4 beautiful horses (one is almost albino, but for pale blue eyes!), sheep, goats, dogs, cats and hollyhock flowers that grew to 12 feet high this August. Hollyhocks always remind me of northern New Mex, so I felt right at home at the farm with them growing up toward the second storey windows. Last night was our first freeze, a killing frost, and everyone at the farm was out late, trying to harvest every last thing possible before the temperatures dropped. I woke to mist in all the fields as the sun came up, and my own breath like smoke in the air before me. Since the summer off, I've definitely been improving physically, the injuries less a daily issue for me as I've gotten stronger. The physical therapsit, Craig, tells me that I could actually train to run a marathon next summer, if I keep improving at this rate. We'll see. After where I was last year at this time, I'm just grateful for the difference bewteen then and now. Thank you for all the emails over the spring and summer, and bear with me as I find my way through the them and get to responding. I aprreciate all of the good wishes and kindnesses that came to me through email - thank you to each one of you who took the time to post. Chris and I are working on edist to the site, finally, so check back. The bio has already been updated, and there are new poems coming, too. I'm working on the next collection of peoms, looking forward to finally releasing them and getting on to some of the other projects that are calling. Again, thank you for all the emails over these last months, and all best wishes to each one of you. PEACE. DORA
Christmas has come and gone, as has the Winter Solstice. The moon was full 2 nights ago, and I slept with the window shades open, so the room was full of all that glow through the night.
It's been since November 1, the day before the US presidentail election, since I last posted. The month and three weeks since then have been full. I've written, but have not posted, a number of entries, but have decided to hold then until I am ready to share.
Between Solstice and Christmas and New Year's, however, I did want to thank everyone who has emailed me since the last post, and sent so many well wishes, and shared so much. Gratitude to you, and for you. I hope that each of you is standing in a cirlce of light. Even if winter feels like the dark season, remember that since the Solstice, the sun is gathering itself and returning.
Be well.
PEACE. DORA
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