What I wrote for Women's Views on News

Terry Reis Kennedy

I am a feminist at four. Growing up in a paper mill town in the USA, I see for myself that women’s lives are filled with work while men, even the hardest working men, have time off.

I watch my mother work two jobs, as a hotel maid and a sewing machine operator in a clothing factory. My immigrant Polish grandmother is also a hotel maid, a servant to the richest person in town, and she takes home the priests’ laundry—from our parish church rectory—much of which she does by hand. My dad works in the paper mill.

With everybody working all the time, we still just barely make it financially. But no matter what is going on, the men—my dad, my uncles, the priests— always get preferential treatment. By they time I am seven I have run away so many times we lose count. I am determined to find another life.

I do. I am the first “girl” in our family to go to college. In the ‘70s, with three children at home and a successful husband, I am very active in the feminist movement, particularly in the Boston Massachusetts area. I am working as a freelance journalist, an investigative reporter, and getting my master’s degree in poetry.

My writing, which I’ve been doing since the nuns taught me how to construct sentences, is appearing in publications all over the world. My first collection of poems, Durango, is published by The Smith, NY, NY, in 1979. It’s a big hit. However, some men critics bash it as “deranged”, “blasphemous,” and “anti-male”.

The book catapults me into the feminist limelight. I am giving readings and earning my own income from my writing. I receive fellowships and accolades. I become a college faculty member teaching literature. But something is missing. My journals are full of private inner searching.

I get divorced, move to California, travel to other countries for my work and am suddenly struck by the secret truth of my journals—that even writing at my fullest capacity on issues that are most important to me, something is still tugging at my heart, whispering that there is more to life than fame, fortune, and even helping others. What is this ineffable prompting from within? What sort of muse is this?

I find Her. In 1990 I come to India in search of a deeper identity than the perishable body/personality. I stay. I live in a remote village, near the ashram of my Guru. I am definitely in the world, but not of it. The mysterious muse, I discovered, is Me. I am That which I was seeking.

I am still writing every day. My special interests are oppressed women, especially in India, China, and Tibet, sexually traumatized children, and the lack of significant roles for women in world religions. I would love to hear/read your story. Contact me at treiskennedy@gmail.com Google: Terry Reis Kennedy. Check me out at http://terryreiskennedy.blogspot.com or Facebook.