Stories

Meet Linda Neal

BIO:

Writer, meditator, teacher, wife, mother, divorcee, widow, dialysis and transplant patient, Linda Neal is the daughter of an engineer and a pin-up model. She grew up under the spell of The Wizard of Oz, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean and The Bomb. She began writing poetry as a teenager. Her poems dive into questions of society, family and self in her five chapbooks and first full collection, Dodge & Burn. In her new book, Not About Dinosaurs, Linda travels the arc of life to contemplate matters of death and extinction. She lives near the beach in L.A.’s South Bay. She’s editor-at-large for ONTHEBUS a journal of poetry and art. Over the years, she’s run several reading series, led support groups, writing and meditation workshops and co-founded an ongoing women’s writing group. Linda holds a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from Pacific University. Her poems have appeared in many journals, including Calyx, Chiron Review, Crosswinds, Lummox, Prairie Schooner and Tampa Review.

“There is a sense of wonder that is possible when we survive those things we think we could not”

Every experience becomes perspective, a piece of the wisdom we get to tap into as quality of life.

Who we think we are and who we think we will become is not always true or accurate
Facing one’s own mortality does not have to cause a breakdown but you do have to deal
Faith is the greatest determining factor of the outcomes we create from all potentialities
Life has so much meaning and the contrast gives you another layer of application and appreciation

Linda’s Journey Through Art

Liz's Symbolic Interpretation

My Lover, My Hal: Linda’s journey was so powerful that I wanted to capture the essence of her kidney dialysis and transplant. Her words were so moving, represented in her poetry which she recited in her interview. I interwove her poetry into the kidney as well as framed the edges of the canvas. Linda’s love of words and poetry so touched me that I wanted to incorporate them into my painting.

Self Art Expression

Whimsical Freedom: Linda was feeling loose and enjoying the art expression experience of her journey. Maybe enough time passed from her dialysis and transplant allowing her to emote feelings of peacefulness and freedom.

Liz’s Final Interpretation

Into The Light: My art summarized her journey from the pain of losing her health and enduring for so long, going through the ‘bridge’ of life to get to the other side toward the light. The brilliance of the light symbolizing a movement into a life worth living.

Poetry by Linda

My Hal
Sits in the corner of the room,
Waiting. Doesn’t talk, his metal body holding Linda’s Kidney
To filter my toxic blood.

Each time I think I’m ready
For him, for blood
To flow from my arm, through him,
Back into my arm, rinsing. Each time I think
I won’t vomit on my blouse. Each time
The nurses, frozen in place, their uniforms as stiff
As their words. Tell me I’m normal,
The acrid smell of dialysate, blood and vomit
And the moans from the bodies in the chairs float on the air.
Ambulance attendants remove the woman
Who just writhed into coma-code-blue.

After three hours with Hal, I stand up straight enough
To say good bye to the twenty lounge chairs
And their prone tenants, wave to the empty wheelchair in the corner,
To the whirring washing machine that holds
My proxy kidney in its cold metal arms.
In the hospital cafeteria I eat the only meal
That won’t taste like salty, pungent piss, for the next two days

All the rest will be nausea followed by nausea followed by sleep
And waiting for my next date with Hal.
In the cafeteria, a man sees my bulging, bandaged arm and says,
Isn’t it a miracle – dialysis? I nod, say nothing.
The cafeteria lights are too bright, the floor rises and buckles
Under my feet. I take my tray to the linoleum-topped table;
Zucchini and chicken, No tomato. No potato. No coffee. No walnut-studded cookie.

I want the machine that binds me to this life
To lift me like a bird—fly me away from this surreal diorama of days.
A murky scrim hover around me,
An ocean of dirty blood flows through me.
I set my fragile body down in the chrome and plastic chair.
The cheerful woman at the corner table cackles a platitude about how lucky
I am to be alive. I don’t know about luck right now, just sitting down
To my plate of roast chicken and buttered squash.

After the Transplant

I thought I would be different. I thought I would be the same. I thought I would stop thinking about the transplant stop dreaming of white rooms orange juice and pee

I would forget about death filter my life down to what matters

Sift and name

Yet here I am talking to myself to everyone

to this fleshy new being stitched into my belly. He’s memorizing me I’m learning

what he likes for breakfast how to pamper him

Because we are on intimate terms like any woman with her lover

any mother with her child we exchange fluids and feel

our mutual pulse We sleep together him just under my skin and together

we’ve dreamed the surgeon placing him just so lining up the sutures

molding our fleshes together giving us to each other

in this ritual of marriage in this ritual of rebirth.