Within my Shadows, Into my Light

Melina, born in 1974, was raised by her parents with three older brothers, several furry companions, and many farm animals in the arroyos, mountains and streams of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains near Taos New Mexico. She is of Hispanic, Greek, Italian and Native American descent tracing her lineage to the seventeen hundreds with the settlers of New Mexico. A mother of 2 brilliant children and wife to her amazing husband and companion of over 32 years. She attended New Mexico State University in Las Cruces and the University of Nevada Las Vegas for her undergraduate studies where she continued to earn her Doctor of Dental Medicine. She is a successful dentist, sole owner, and practitioner to her dental practice in Santa Fe New Mexico where she resides. Dentistry attracted Melina with the opportunity to love and nourish her patients and in return be gifted with an expansion of her world through every one of them and their shared experiences. Melina herself comes from a diverse background, experiencing poverty as well as tremendous fortune and opportunities to grow. Melina, an avid hiker and jogger remains passionate and easily enamored by all forms of nature, art, and especially music and writing. She desires to leave a legacy of truth, love, and beauty aiming to share with the world what it is to be New Mexican through the depths of her gathered experiences as expressed through her poetry. She has just completed her very first book in a series of many.

Poetry about feeling the dirt generations have worked to scratch a meager living, looking into their eyes and sensing their fear, hope, despair, and love!