Heidi MacDonald – Writer + Artist

I came up with a new paradigm for the universe at this moment: a jigsaw puzzle. And we are each a piece of the puzzle. You may not be on the cutting edge, or anchor a corner, but know that without your participation, the whole will never be complete. We all feel the blank spot […]

Writing

Falling While Living

I began the day by making coffee, stirring in a bit of sugar and a scoop of protein powder, thinking about the possibility of the day, anticipating meeting a guy for the first time. As I approached my chair to sit with my feet on the windowsill, holding my coffee, my foot was stumped by […]

Writing

My Sexual Miseducation

I’ve been thinking a lot about abortion lately. Whenever I think about abortion, I think about how lucky I am that I never needed one. But it wasn’t luck that kept me from needing an abortion. It was Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood gave me free birth control when I was fifteen. But how did I […]

Art

Cards vs. Christmas

Christmas just hasn’t been my bag since my mom died of breast cancer in 1987. Around 1992, I was enrolled in the sculpture program at University of Houston and came up with a way to express my anti-Christmas sentiments. In my previous post, Anti-Christmas Show, I posted some photos from that show. I’d set out […]

Art

Anti-Christmas Show

December 19, 2022

These are images from an Anti-Christmas art installation I did at River Oaks Theater, Houston, TX, c. 1992. I installed three Christmas trees with the themes of Money, Time and Death, and Family. I hung a fourth tree from the ceiling by the trunk and jammed it into a black velvet dress; it was about […]

Art

Work

Writing

Committing to My Commitments

I’m Resisting Change, but I’m Doing it Anyway Really, I am too hilarious. I can see it. I’ve listened to several encouraging audiobooks over the last year, all of them cheering me on to commit to the life I want. But as I listen, I notice the self who is pushing back, the one who […]

Work

Writing

Starting Somewhere

August 21, 2022

My first post on Medium https://medium.com/@heidimacdonald5000/starting-somewhere-f7a7f0ea758f I didn’t realize I could post it here, and link to Medium. I did that for the next one.

Political

Writing

We Don’t Need No Stinking Heroes

No matter which of the many addresses my sister and I lived at as we grew up, we always lived under my mother’s punishing roof. We were subjected to our alcoholic mom’s cruelty and humiliation when she managed to notice us; the rest of the time, we were merely neglected. (It wasn’t all bad, but […]

Writing

My Side of the Moon

July 24, 2022

With my eyes closed and head tilted back against the top of my seat, under the dome of the Flandrau Planetarium, I remembered myself. I was sitting in the almost dark listening to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon in surround-sound with the laser light show flickering across my eyelids. Oh yes. This is […]

Political

Writing

Win an Assault Rifle at the Cochise County Fair!

Last September, I was walking with my friend through a tent at the Cochise County Fair, just outside Douglas, Arizona, about five miles from the US-Mexico border. We were celebrating my birthday a couple of days early. Some group was raffling off an AR-15. As we walked by their table, they gave us a bit […]