Renee Moody's Blog

“From Away”

In Maine, there is the long standing predisposition to believe that if you weren’t born here, you can never be from here. Even if you’ve lived in Maine for decades, most of your life, you will always be “from away.” I have friends who’ve lived here longer than I’ve been alive. If you ask them where they’re from, they’ll tell you Connecticut or New York. They know better than to ever claim Maine as their own.

Some of our native people, the Abenaki, have a word for strangers, white men, those w...

In Passing

At the end of last year, I began learning Abenaki. A language of my heritage I never really gave much thought to until a conversation with an Italian friend of mine where I said that if my ancestors had a language other than English, I’d want to know it.

Growing up, my family was unquestionably white. Why would we want to question what the generations who came before had assumed? This veil of pale, of indiscriminate European origin.

Real Americans.

My great great grandmothers were ment...

Until day breaks

So much of this year has seemed like endless winter. Or a twilight that can’t quite break into dawn.

I’ve often wondered what goes through the mind of a character in a zombie story years after the outbreak began. What keeps them going when it seems as though there is little hope for the future?

I haven’t gone beyond my mailbox since April. Haven’t entered a store since March. There hasn’t seemed a point on a day when it was an option. I don’t know that there is one.

Today is the first F...

…but more with love.

One night in a not too distant past where MSN chatrooms were still popular and no one revealed their true identity online, I was in a usual haunt when a stranger IMed (old-school DM) me. Soon after, he inquired (in a less than pleasant way) if was black or gay. When I refused to answer a question phrased that way, he took that as a yes and began hurling aggressive racist and homophobic insults. Being all of probably 16, I turned an older and wiser internet friend for guidance of how to respond. ...

Finding Purpose in a Pandemic

When everything youve worked for, fought for, seems within your grasp, and is suddenly torn away with no chance of retrieval, what do you do? What can you do but live in the void it left behind?

This was going to be the year that I finally got out. I had enough jobs lined up to stop worrying that they would all fall through at once. The funds to pay for several trips. Places to go. People to see. It was all coming together so perfectly that I questioned whether a weekend trip for my birthday...

Buried In That Box You’ve Built

Today, I received an email from the editor of an article Ive been working on for a while. A human interest piece for a local magazine. She told me, in no uncertain terms, that if Im not willing to put words in someone elses mouth, shes going to do it for me and put my name on it. Because this is a puff piece, promotion not actual journalism. Its fine to manufacture quotes when no one is fact-checking.

If thats the kind of writer she wanted, she hired the wrong person.

This is what I hate...

The Gift of Health(care)

Earlier today, I was lamenting having to get up at the crack of dawn and go all the way to my doctors office only to have him tell me what I already knew and refer me to a specialist. Great. Just what this year needed, another appointment. Ive spent more time in doctors offices this year than I did in the previous five combined and because of several chronic conditions that require periodic monitoring, I always go more often than most people twice my age.

Then I began to think about all the...

When in Berlin, Don’t Be a Doughnut

The acquisition of a language can profoundly alter the way you view the world. Its not simply learning new linguistic signs, but a new culture and novel way of expressing thoughts and ideas. Its also a great way to avoid inadvertently suggesting that youre a jelly-filled doughnut.

For more than two decades, I only had English (and a few words of French) to inform my world view. Now, I can claim four: English, Deutsch (German), Svenska (Swedish), and русский (Russian). As of today, I have...

Inalienable Emotions

Last week was brutal for reasons I dont need to go into here. Though it beat me, severely, I didnt let it break me. Several times, I found myself thinking There are people in the world with much bigger problems than yours. There are cities full of people losing everything. How dare you sit around feeling bad for yourself?

Yet, I still felt terrible about the situation I found myself in. Guilty and wrong for feeling that way, but I couldnt shake it.

A few nights back, completely by chance, I...

Shattered

Art is using the shards
to create beauty
to place on display
and inquire
Could you love this if it was me?
Could I love this if it wasnt?

I wrote this poem weeks ago and tried to force it into several projects before realizing its strongest on its own.

It was inspired by the backstory to my favorite piece of music, Nimrod from Edward Elgars Enigma Variations.

Elgar was overwhelmingly depressed and wanted to quit composing altogether.
A friend came to him and reminded him that though...