LINDA C. WISNIEWSKI

Author Archives: lindawis

• When Hope is Hard to Find

  Posted at 11:50 am by lindawis, on January 1, 2020

  

  The title is a quote from one of my favorite hymns, written in 1976 by Carolyn McDade, called “Come Sing a Song With Me.” When she taught the song at a women’s state prison in Framingham, Massachusetts, she said she had to stop singing herself and listen to the women’s voices. “That song needs context—‘I’ll give you hope when hope is hard to find’—and they had context to bring to it,” she says.

  In recent years, hope has felt a little harder for me to find. I long for it. My country and even the Earth itself are in trouble. We have a climate crisis we can’t seem to do anything about. Hate bounces from place to place like an evil stone from a slingshot. Blame is everywhere.

  I think hope means believing good will come even if I don’t know how or when. We live in hope, and would not have lasted this long as a species without it. For dark times have come before us. History is full of them, and inspiring stories of people who overcame that darkness. The trouble is, they’re all history.

  On this New Year’s Eve, the top trending tweets were #itsoktobewhite and #DeathtoAmerica. The dwindling majority of Americans is forever struggling with giving up our privileged position. And the way we handle our differences is not looked upon with favor in much of the world. That’s what I see in those two tweets, but I could be wrong. I long for strong leaders to show me some hope.

  Here are a few who bring me hope today, when hope is hard to find:

  Rev. William Barber, leader of the Poor People’s Campaign and author of The Third Reconstruction, an insightful book on what poor people of all races have in common.

  Elizabeth Warren, U.S. Senator and presidential candidate, former leader of the Consumer Protection Agency

  Greta Thunberg, Swedish student and environmental activist

  Fr. Richard Rohr, Franciscan priest grounded in contemplation and compassion

  Michelle Obama, former First Lady, lawyer, city administrator, community outreach worker and memoir writer

  Who do you look to for hope? Let me know in the comments/reply section and I’ll put your name in the drawing for Listening Is an Act of Love, edited by Dave Isay, from the Story Corps Project.

  The winner of last month’s drawing is Debbie Britt. She wins my copy of Sold On a Monday by Kristina McMorris. Congratulations, Debbie, and thanks for stopping by!

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  Posted in book, hope, peace, philosophy, Uncategorized, Waiting | 7 Comments | Tagged hope, songs

• The Black Madonna

  Posted at 5:40 pm by lindawis, on December 2, 2019

  

  For years, I have been fascinated with the Black Madonna. There are hundreds of images of black Virgins all over the world. The one I know best is Our Lady of Czestochowa in Poland, the homeland of my ancestors. There is a shrine to her there, and also near my home in Pennsylvania. I have read about these Madonnas in Ean Begg’s The Cult of the Black Virgin. Begg describes them as vestiges of goddess worship, pagan images that were taken over by the Church in ancient times.

  And so when my husband and I traveled to Barcelona last month, the Madonna at Montserrat Abbey was on my list of must dos. Our tour guide told us her face and hands were black from soot caused by years of lighted candles, and that after trying and failing to “clean her up” the monks decided to just paint her black. The Matka Boska Czestochowa was also explained to me that way – too many candles, too much soot. She plays a role in my forthcoming novel, Where the Stork Flies, directing and guiding the characters behind the scenes.

  Why is it so hard to accept the idea of a black woman as Madonna? Many stories have been written of black goddesses who became figures of the Virgin Mary to ease the “conversion” of people from their pagan practices to the Catholic faith. It’s very likely the same reason Christmas coincides with the winter solstice, though we have no proof of Christ’s actual birth date on December 25th.

  Change is hard for people, and always has been. One of the reasons we love our holiday traditions is because they remind us of good times past and tie us to people we loved who shared them with us. We decide that the way it was is the way it should always be. What our elders taught us must be true. But what if what they were taught, and passed on to us, has a little more nuance? Wouldn’t it open our hearts and minds to let in some other interpretations? Does it make sense that the robes of the many black Madonnas were not darkened by candle soot, only her skin?

  It’s a custom to touch the Montserrat Virgin’s hand and ask for a favor. Though she is behind glass now, her hand is exposed for the thousands of people who touch it every year. I made a wish too, but for someone else. I have pretty much everything I need.

  What’s your story? Have you ever questioned something you were taught? Share in the comments and I’ll put your name in the drawing for a copy of Sold on a Monday, by Kristina McMorris, the story of a 1930’s newspaperman whose attempt to help poor children causes unintended consequences.

  The winner of last month’s drawing is Emily Labows. She wins a copy of The Heirs by Fran Hawthorne. Thanks for adding to the discussion, Emily!

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  Posted in Black Madonna, Czestochowa, feminist spirituality, Poland, Uncategorized | 6 Comments | Tagged Barcelona, goddess, Madonna, Montserrat

• Letting Go of Happy

  Posted at 12:55 pm by lindawis, on November 1, 2019

  

  The other day, I said to my husband, half-joking, “I’m going to be happy before I die, if it kills me!” For as long as I can remember, there’s been a little bit of sadness sitting in the back of my heart. I wanted it to go away. I read lots of self-help books and practiced gratitude. But then my book club scheduled a memoir I hadn’t picked up since college.

  Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, describes the harrowing years he spent in Nazi concentration camps and the loss of his entire family, including his pregnant young wife. Not an optimist by nature, he still continued to write psychiatry texts while imprisoned and came to the conclusion that a good life is not necessarily a happy one.

  In college, I learned from his book that each of us is responsible for deciding the meaning of our lives, and that it doesn’t come from outside us. This time, so many years later, I understood much more: that a meaningful life has creativity, love and appreciation of beauty, and dignity in the face of suffering. It doesn’t have to be happy.

  Imagine being okay with that: not being happy.

  Imagine a world without books and webinars and lectures on how to feel good every day. Imagine there’s nothing wrong with you if your clothes don’t spark joy or you don’t have a Vision Board. Imagine not trying to be happy but just being glad when it happens anyway.

  Driving home on a sunny fall afternoon, I thought of my kids’ school days, and the struggles they went through. As their mother, I wanted them to be happy more than anything. But what made them the compassionate, self-sufficient men they are? The tough times when they were uncomfortably sad. Given the power today, I’d still smooth their road, and take away their pain if I could. But I’m haunted by the words of a heartbroken woman at the funeral of her young son who died of a drug overdose. “Feel your pain,” she implored his friends.

  In the novel I’m writing now, the main character will struggle mightily before she learns that a good bit of heartache opens up her world. It’s been true for me. I’ve had many years of joy, love, creativity and ease. But if I’d been as happy as I wanted to be, I doubt I’d know what empathy is. I doubt I’d have compassion. And I doubt I’d be able to handle the hard stuff of life.

  How about you? Would you choose, if you could, to be happy every day?

  Comment on this post and I’ll put your name in a drawing for The Heirs by Fran Hawthorne, a novel about buried guilt and family secrets.

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  Posted in anxiety, autumn, balance, book, compassion, Cultural memoirs, life stories, memoirs, pain, peace, philosophy, sons, suffering, writers | 14 Comments

• FOMO

  Posted at 3:34 pm by lindawis, on September 30, 2019

  

  A term popularized in 2004 by a Harvard grad student, the fear of missing out, or FOMO, is the reason many of us can’t stop checking online media when we have work to do.

  Is there something going on we don’t know about and should? Would we be happier if we knew more? Probably not, and deep down, we know it. Studies show that social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and SnapChat can, if we focus on comparing ourselves to others, make us feel depressed. It’s the opposite of the desired effect.

  I understand. It’s not easy to stop refreshing the news feed when something big is going on, and I’ve found it almost impossible over the past few weeks.

  Just what do we think we can do about bad news? Like “gaper delay” on the highway – slowing down as we pass a wreck to see how bad it is – we can’t ignore it, and maybe that wouldn’t be wise, but it sure puts a damper on our day.

  Most of what claims our attention is bad, sad or divisive. My real-life friends post opinions about politics and the angry comments start. Why do we bother? It just makes us feel bad, and I doubt anyone’s mind was changed by reading Facebook or Twitter. It’s the in person contacts that create true connection between people.

  When I was young, jokes about people different from me were uncomfortable but I didn’t think much about them, until I met marginalized people who became my friends and family. It was only then that I understood their pain and wanted to make it go away.

  When we spend less time online and more in person, there can be no FOMO. We’re all in this real world together. Too much time living “virtually” makes us forget that.

  That’s my story. What’s yours?

  Do you have a way to counteract FOMO you can share?

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  Posted in anxiety, balance, Internet | 0 Comments | Tagged Facebook, Social media, Twitter

• Toni Morrison and the “Woman’s Award”

  Posted at 12:35 pm by lindawis, on August 30, 2019

  

  My writing friends and I have been talking about Toni Morrison since her death early this month. Her influence on American letters is gigantic, and many have written about her effect on them personally. I have two small connections myself.

  As a docent at the historic home of author Pearl S. Buck, I point out her Nobel and Pulitzer prizes and say she was the only American woman to hold both awards for 55 years until Toni Morrison won the Nobel prize in 1993. What I don’t usually say, but might from now on, is that Morrison also received the Woman of the Year Award (now called the Women of Influence Award) from the Pearl Buck Foundation (now Pearl S. Buck International) in 1994.

  In her acceptance speech, Morrison said that after reading Buck’s work, she was disappointed to find the honesty and empathy with which Buck wrote about other cultures was not common in American novels. She decided to “fill the void,” she said, remarking with a bit of humor: ‘I’m grateful to her for misleading me in a sense.”

  Pearl Buck wrote what she knew: the culture and lives of the people of China in the early twentieth century. Morrison did likewise, becoming one of the foremost writers on the lives of African Americans. From The Bluest Eye to God Help the Child, she was fearless in portraying the consequences of racism. The long list of her awards on Wikipedia does not mention the Pearl Buck Woman of the Year. A local newspaper at the time called it the Pearl S. Buck Woman’s Award.

  I like the fact that Morrison came in person to accept it, and signed books, programs and even slips of paper for admirers who waited in long lines to meet her. I wish I had been there.

  I saw her in person once, on a street corner in Princeton, New Jersey. The light changed and I started to cross the street when she sailed toward me, unmistakable in salt and pepper dreadlocks and a sweeping long caftan, a half smile on her lips. “That’s Toni Morrison,” I whispered to my husband beside me. She disappeared into the crowd before I could think of something good enough to say.    

  I never met Pearl Buck either, but it helps me to remember how hard they both worked to get it right, and how they tried to find out what they didn’t know so the rest of us could benefit from their stories, and see ourselves in their characters. A good writer transcends time and place and brings us together. 

  What about you? Have you ever been struck speechless by someone you admired? Let us know in the comments section. I’d love to hear!

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  Posted in book, ethnicity, fiction, novel, Uncategorized, writers, writing | 0 Comments | Tagged Pearl Buck, Toni Morrison, writing

• Note It, Name It

  Posted at 1:46 pm by lindawis, on August 1, 2019

  

  “Summertime, and the livin’ is easy…” begins the song from Porgy and Bess. Easy for some, right? In my lucky life, summer really is an easy time, even more so now that I don’t have a regular job. I am more in touch with the seasons because I am not preoccupied with earning a living. From the window of my upstairs writing/quilting/yoga space, I can see cars move along a 35 mph road. I like to imagine the drivers heading to and from work, and remember the years I was one of them. I’m grateful I don’t have to do that anymore, though I’ve had some very fulfilling jobs.

  Summer for this semi-retired woman means farmers’ markets and the CSA, corn on the cob, leafy trees, no sweater, no socks. Ice cream, long evenings, reading outdoors, picnics, baseball teams, hot dogs. Sandy beaches, seagulls, cucumber cocktails. And equanimity.

  
  In summer there is less to do, it seems, though people with lawns to mow and gardens to weed may disagree. My herbs grow in pots on my deck, my tomatoes in a hanging basket.

  
  In summer, equanimity descends on my world. I’ve been listening to a meditation app called Ten Percent Happier. One of their popular teachers is Joseph Goldstein and today I practiced equanimity with him for 15 minutes. He said to observe whatever feeling comes and goes, whether good or bad, happy or sad, uncomfortable or not. Just note it and name it: “Bored. Sad. Frightened. Tired. Content.”
  

  Equanimity is in short supply these days. I don’t see it in the world around me or even in the books I read. A good story needs some kind of conflict, whether external or within the main character. Something to push against. But in summer, I don’t want to push. I just want to be. That’s equanimity. I’ll let you know when I get there.

  What is this summer like for you? I’d love to read your comments.

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  Posted in balance, Buddhism, mindfulness, peace, philosophy, simplicity, Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged meditation, summer

• For My Grandparents in the Train Station: An immigration story

  Posted at 3:15 pm by lindawis, on July 9, 2019

  I worry about my landscapers. Once a week, a white flatbed truck pulls up on our street, delivering riding mowers, grass trimmers, short Hispanic men and one white guy, the obvious boss. They spill from the truck like bees, everyone in a hurry. At different seasons they come armed with gas-powered leaf blowers, jugs of liquid fertilizer strapped over a shoulder, or shovels and rakes to tackle the piles of mulch in the parking lot.

  

  I pay our homeowners’ association a monthly fee for this service, wondering what they are spraying from the bottles and why we need signs that say “Spraying in Progress” at the ends of the street. But mostly I have a bigger worry. I wonder if they are undocumented, if they have families here or in another country.

  A local human rights activist gave me two lists in Spanish: What to Do In an Emergency (when you have to leave home in a hurry) and Know Your Rights (when ICE comes to your door) with a phone number for free legal advice. I make copies and take them home.     

  One day I’m out walking and decide to try something. I look around for the white boss but he’s way down the street. I see a lone guy spreading mulch.

  “Hola!”

  “Habla?” He looks up, smiling?

   “No,” I say with a shake of my head and a rueful smile. He looks puzzled. What does he see? A gringo lady making fun of him?

  Almost all my neighbors are white. Some of them care about the ICE raids, the deportations, the family separation. The kids in cages, sleeping on the floor in silver blankets. We have talked about it.

  My country was unprepared for so many refugees and I fear we have lost our heart. We have tax breaks for the wealthy but not enough room for those willing to work. My busy landscapers look at me with wary eyes. Was it always like this?  

  Over one hundred years ago, my grandfather’s family traveled over land from Poland to Germany, crossed the ocean, then boarded a train in New York City to finally alight at a station in Amsterdam, New York. They came so far because they heard about jobs in the rug factories, the broom and the glove factories, lots of jobs needing workers. They were so poor and oppressed back home that they left loved ones, knowing they were unlikely to ever see them again.

  They sat all day in the train station, hot and tired, with no idea what to do next. They spoke no English.  In the evening, men who spoke Polish came down to the station and led them, on foot, to “flats” for rent. They took them to the factories and introduced them to bosses who taught them jobs. They were needed, if not necessarily welcomed.

  We don’t need migrants in 21^st century America. Our factories are closed. I understand the fears of the underemployed. I remember the layoffs when my parents worried about paying the mortgage and we lost our car and had to walk everywhere. I understand the fear that there is not enough to go around. But I don’t believe it. And I just don’t believe the latest refugees from crime and poverty are here to rip me off.

  I look up what I want to say, and memorize a sentence:

  “No hablo espanol, pero quiero darte esta.”(I don’t know Spanish but I want to give you this.)

  My heart pounds when I go outside, hold out my two paper lists and say my sentence to the man trimming my shrubs. He looks at them and nods.

  “Gracias,” he says, shoves them in his pocket and goes on working.

  That’s my immigrant story. What’s yours?
   

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  Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments | Tagged immigrants, immigration, refugees

• Quitting Time

  Posted at 6:11 pm by lindawis, on May 30, 2019

  

  A few days ago, I ran screaming – in my head – from a quilting class. It all started last winter, when I signed up for three classes at my favorite quilting store. The first, on machine applique, was fun. I made a small wall hanging for my kitchen, three chickens cut from scraps of vintage-style fabric. But I needed help loading my heavy sewing machine into and out of my car, and onto the table at the store, where I noticed a couple of women using lightweight machines they bought “just for class and travel.”

  It was obvious. I needed one of those, and the next day, Amazon delivered. I put in a few hours practicing with my new portable, because one of the class requirements is “a sewing machine you are familiar with using,” and god forbid I should look “unfamiliar” with my own machine. The next class, “binding basics,” was fun until one student’s hands were covered in blood – I’m not sure how that happened – and I nicked my ring finger on my rotary cutter blade. Otherwise, it was a good session with tips about “un-sewing” and cutting a bias binding and…okay, I won’t go on because this isn’t about sewing. It’s about quitting. Which I did in the middle of the third class: Paper Piecing Primer.

  It seemed like a good idea last winter, when I envisioned myself happily sewing in my “spare” time. Or the time I would have if I didn’t keep signing up for things. Maybe the bloody binding class was a sign of how this would end. By the time paper piecing came up on my calendar, I didn’t want to go, but I’d already invested in the portable machine.  

  In case you don’t know, in paper piecing, you sew small bits of contrasting fabric to a piece of paper. Simple, right? All you do is “take piece #1 and lay it right side up on the wrong side of the paper piecing template paper. Then take piece #2 and lay it right side down over piece #1 such that when you sew, fold over and iron fabric #2, it will cover the space on the pattern labeled #2 when you hold it up against the light.” If you understand that, I bow before you. It’s a lot like origami, which I tried years ago. And quit.

  Everybody in class got the hang of it, with few mistakes, but me. I needed the instructor to stand beside me and go over each step as I worked. Nearing tears, I took a break, got a cup of coffee, and went for a walk in the park, where I realized I was done with paper piecing. Forever. “It’s not you, it’s me,” I told the instructor, packing up my machine, travel iron and pad, fabrics, pins, rotary cutter and mat, rulers, seam ripper, binding clips and scissors. Quilting requires a lot of supplies, and there’s always a new tool on the market, many of them fun and labor-saving. Unlike this class.Besides paper piecing, I have quit knitting socks, swimming the breast stroke, and yoga headstands, all things that sounded good at the time but were just too hard. I’d rather go for long walks, swim the backstroke, do the corpse pose and sew table runners, totebags and placemats for my friends. 

  So no more fancy classes for me. Except for the one I signed up for next month on how to use my Instant Pot. What could possibly go wrong?

  Tell me I’m not alone here. What have you tried to learn and quit before attaining mastery, with no regrets?

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  Posted in anxiety, balance, quilting | 9 Comments

• Howareya

  Posted at 2:06 pm by lindawis, on April 25, 2019

  

  Hey, how ya doin’!

  How are ya!

  How are YOU!

  It’s not really a question. My neighbor says Heyhowyadoin every time he sees me. The man washing his car in his driveway says Howareya whenever I walk by. The cashier at the convenience store says HowareYOU.

  How do we answer this nonquestion? Like most people, I say Finehowareyou or just nod and smile. Nobody seems to feel they have time to give a real answer or that it’s even expected. But really, how long would it take?

  Once a month or so, I get fed up with the throwaway question at the cash register. Instead of grabbing my change and making room for the next person in line, I take two seconds and make eye contact. I have to wait for the cashier to look at me. Then I say, “I’m fine. And how are YOU today?” And I wait. They always say something back, usually Goodthankyouforasking. Then I tell them to Haveaniceday and leave because, you know, there are people in line.

  The other day, something different happened. A short woman with salt and pepper hair and a black uniform stood in line before me at the coffee counter. She asked How I was. Fine, I said, and waited as she ordered iced tea and paid for her seeded sesame bagel. I paid for my decaf hazelnut coffee refill to take back to the upstairs café, where four other women wrote on laptops as we do every Thursday morning, a hedge against the loneliness of writing at home. The short woman was in front of me again, at the row of coffee urns. She made deliberate eye contact and asked me again, How are you? Very well, thank you, I responded. How are you today? She mumbled Oh and some other words I couldn’t make out. Not good, I said? She told me she had a pinched nerve. I said I hoped she felt better. It’s not fun, she sighed. I told her to take care, and she said you too. Then she went back to work at the prepared food and beer checkout.

  All that took maybe 60 seconds out of my day but it added something important to me: connection to a real human being. Not that I think the neighbors or the cashiers aren’t real. Just that it’s rare to really think about what we’re saying. And when we do, what happens? We see someone. We remember them. I wrote this encounter down in my notebook. The short supermarket cashier with the salt and pepper hair is now in your mind too. Maybe you have a pinched nerve. Maybe your day is not so fine. Or maybe it is, and you could spread a little fineness with a smile, a sincere question, an eye lock. Just for a minute today. Imagine what could happen.

  Do you ever answer truthfully when someone says Howareya? Tell me about it in the comments and I’ll put your name in the hat for a copy of White Oleander by Janet Fitch, a mother-daughter novel about foster care and obsessive love.

  The winner of this month’s drawing is Gary Bennett. He will receive a copy of The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George. Congratulations, Gary and thanks for your comment last month.

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  Posted in compassion, mindfulness, Uncategorized | 4 Comments | Tagged connection, convenience store, eye contact

• Near Miss

  Posted at 11:54 am by lindawis, on March 27, 2019

  

  One spring morning when I was four, I had a brush with death. My mother had just walked me and my little sister to “The Butcher’s,” a corner store two blocks from our house in Amsterdam, New York.  Its real name was Partyka’s Market, after the family who owned it, but we never called it that. To me, The Butchers meant Bill and Ray, two nice men who worked behind the big white case with kielbasa, pork chops, and cold cuts inside, the men who smiled at me and gave me a slice of cheese. Many of my earliest memories are images inside and around that neighborhood store.

  Besides Bill and Ray, I knew the family who lived above the store: the tall silent father, the house-dressed white-haired mother, and the childlike middle-aged sister who tended the zinnias, snapdragons and sweet peas climbing white string in the garden behind the store. I see three cement steps to the front door, big windows with cardboard ads for Lucky Strikes, and inside, three or four aisles of canned vegetables, cellophane wrapped loaves of bread, jars of pickles and sauerkraut.

  I don’t know who gave me the Lifesaver that day. The hard candy with a hole in the middle is supposed to keep you from choking on it should it become lodged in your throat. My mother said that in a split second after she saw me choking, a salesman who happened to be in the store picked me up by my heels and while I was hanging upside down, slapped my back hard with his free hand. The candy popped out onto the hardwood floor.

  I’ve been thinking about how long I have lived since then, and of friends who have passed away, some years ago and some more recent. I see, these days, how fragile life can be.

  My mother told this story many times, so I know it made a big impact on her. But I don’t remember it actually happening to me. Decades before the Heimlich Maneuver was posted in grocery stores, supermarkets and restaurant dining rooms, how did the salesman know what to do? What if he hadn’t been there? And why don’t I remember it? Why do I remember all those details of the store and people but not the traumatic event that scared my mom and almost killed me?

  I believe we all have near misses when we might have cheated death. Do you remember yours?

  Tell me about it in the comments and I’ll put your name in the hat for a copy of The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George. No choking incidents, but a good read.

  The winner of this month’s drawing is Nancy Taylor. She wins a copy of Kate Atkinson’s Transcription, a story of espionage in WWII England. Congratulations, Nancy, and thanks for adding to the conversation!

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  Posted in Amsterdam, children, life stories, memoir, memoirs, NY, Polish American, Uncategorized | 10 Comments | Tagged 1950s, Amsterdam NY, childhood, mothers, New York State, Partyka's Market, safety

• Give and Take

  Posted at 4:08 pm by lindawis, on February 26, 2019

  

  My neighbor is a terrific cat sitter. The first time we went away, I brought her back a little souvenir, some soap or candy, I forget what. She was so upset, waving her hands and shaking her head, saying she didn’t want “payment,” that I felt like apologizing for insulting her.

  “It is more blessed to give than to receive” is a popular quote from the New Testament. But can we take that to extremes, taking away the giver’s joy by not receiving well?

  When this same neighbor got sick, I brought her a carton of soup from a nearby Italian deli. I might have known, when I caught a cold, she would come to my door with a carton of soup twice the size of mine plus fresh rolls. This winter, she was sick again. Not wanting to compete for the title of most generous neighbor, I brought over the original size soup. The next day, she sent her husband over with a tin of Italian cookies. Each Christmas, she rings our doorbell and offers a bottle of wine and a box of fine chocolates, says Merry Christmas and runs away waving her hands. A day or two later, so as not to appear to be paying her back, we deliver cookies or some other small treat, and she tells us it was not necessary. Which of course, it wasn’t. We’re just trying to be as nice as she. And it feels like we’re losing.

  All this to say, her giving annoys me no end, which is a clue she’s manifesting something I don’t like about myself.

  Once a friend asked me why I didn’t hug her back. I hadn’t realized I had been standing with my arms weakly around her. Another friend said she had to concentrate to receive a hug, because she wasn’t used to feeling loved. Hmmm. I have plenty of love in my life, but suspect my childhood taught me not to see it. I want to change that.

  Why is it so hard for us to receive? When my neighbor keeps trying to top me with her gifts, I feel pushed. So, I’m going to practice letting her be the way she is. When she brings our recycling bucket back from the curb, along with all the others in the neighborhood, I won’t try to stop her, or beat her to it. I’ll just say thank you.

  What about you? Is it hard to receive a gift or good deed from someone without immediately “giving back?” Do you believe we need to repay the good we receive from others?

  Comment on this blog and I’ll put your name in the drawing next month for a copy of  Kate Atkinson’s novel, Transcription,  set in the World War II offices of the BBC, and full of intrigue and second guessing.                        

  The winner of last month’s drawing is mystery writer and blogger Sandra Carey Cody Take a look at her website for some good reading. She wins The Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton. Congratulations, Sandy, and thanks for commenting on my blog.

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  Posted in anxiety, balance, cookies, gifts, mindfulness | 10 Comments

• Little Things

  Posted at 11:12 am by lindawis, on January 29, 2019

  

  In 1954, the Number One song on the U.S. Billboard chart was Kitty Kallen’s recording of “Little Things Mean a Lot.” (Yes, I was alive back then.) It’s stood the test of time, and was even recorded by Willie Nelson. I’ve always loved this song about the little kindnesses we do and maybe don’t value enough.

  According to Goodreads, it was Kurt Vonnegut who said “Enjoy the little things in life because one day you`ll look back and realize they were the big things.” Why big? Because they are the touchstones of who we are, who and what we love, and who we want to be. They warm our hearts even as a long ago memory.

  On this cold winter morning, I’m pondering some little big things.

  Last weekend, a foreign student told me her loneliness eased when a girl she didn’t know helped her find her way across an unfamiliar campus. She won’t ever forget that day.

  A surprise of daffodils blossomed in the front garden our first spring in a new house, planted by the previous owners. That splash of yellow is now something I look forward to as the days lengthen.

  My high school crush got us both out of a boring party without embarrassing me or the awkward, unpopular girl who was hostess. Though we grew up far apart on the political spectrum, I’ll always love him for that moment of kindness.

  On a Sunday morning when the national news was shockingly horrible, a guest minister at my church led a chant of Om, shanti, shanti and my gaze went to the round window far above his head where the bare tips of a branch reached upward to the sky, to the light, and even as I sat among the congregation, I saw my self as observer in the larger scheme of things.

  The poet Mary Oliver, queen of seeing beauty in little things from a blade of grass to a grasshopper, died this month and many people have been reflecting on her words. Check out any of her poems if you don’t know her.

  We do need to be present to enjoy these little things, not anticipating the future or reliving the past. Neuroscientists say that taking in the good, letting ourselves really savor it, can even rewire our brains to look for more of the same.

  What little things have enriched your life?

  Leave your reply in the comments and I’ll put your name in the drawing for a hardcover copy of The Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton, just the things for a long cozy read on a winter’s day.

  The winner of this month’s drawing is  Linda Hoye! She wins a copy of The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. Congratulations, Linda, and thanks for stopping by!

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  Posted in Uncategorized | 14 Comments | Tagged meaning of life, positive

• 2019- Ready or Not!

  Posted at 2:47 pm by lindawis, on December 29, 2018

  

  As the old year ends, I feel an urge to finish what I started, as if I need a clean slate to begin 2019. And then I laugh. As if that’s ever going to happen.

  Just last month, I stopped reading a book I hated. It was for my book club. Which I’m dropping out of. I didn’t like the story or the characters or the writing. Or the members of the club. Or the hard wooden chairs we had to sit on. Can I quit now? It wasn’t worth my time, but I don’t like to leave anything unfinished. 

  I have a half-done quilt on my sewing machine, wrinkled clothes waiting on the ironing board, and a Christmas tablecloth with stains I haven’t managed to remove. And then there are all the short stories and essays in progress on my computer.

  My kids grew up before I was finished raising them. Wait, I wanted to say, I’m not done. I forgot to teach you to ice skate…or to make a pie…When they walk away, I still want to wrap my arms around their ankles.

  My parents died before I understood them. I didn’t ask my dad what his childhood was like. I forgot to ask my mom if she ever doubted her faith.

  I dropped freshman organic chem. I didn’t care about the experiments, my grades were awful, and a boy said I was taking the place of someone who had been drafted to fight in Vietnam.  

  I dropped friends who moved away. Staying in touch was too hard in our busy lives. Or maybe they dropped me.  

  It’s okay. If we hold on to everything we start, our lives would be a spaghetti-ball mess we could never untangle. Life is about choices.  

  A new year is about to begin, a turn of the calendar’s page, opening more possibilities. What will I choose to start this year? What will I finish? And what can I quit in the middle of, knowing full well that “enough is enough,” that forcing myself to complete something that is no longer important is just a waste of my precious time? Time I could use for the things that matter.

  Do you always “finish what you started?”

  Comment on this post and I’ll put your name in the drawing for a copy of The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer, a practical book about inner peace and freedom.

  The winner of last month’s drawing is Susan Berrodin. She will receive a copy of Old Friend From Far Away by Natalie Goldberg. Congratulations!

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  Posted in book, life stories, memoir, memoirs, mindfulness, philosophy, Uncategorized | 14 Comments | Tagged 2019, lifestyle, new year

• Not About Gratitude

  Posted at 2:23 pm by lindawis, on November 27, 2018

  

  Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com

  My friend is 95. She is dear to me, a sweet woman who is frail but feisty. Can you be both? I think so. She is kind and hospitable when I come to call, and offers me food: an apple, an orange, a cup of tea. The feisty part comes out when she argues with her caregiver about what to wear, and when to stop talking and get dressed. Over the last year, I have seen her mental sharpness fade. On the phone, she asks me over and over what time I am coming. She cries easily, missing her husband who died years ago. She talks to a life-sized photo of him propped on a chair in her living room, facing the couch where she sits. I know it’s not him, she says with a smile, but it makes me feel better when I talk to him.

  I bring food because it gives us something to do together, and is easier than trying to hold a conversation as she repeats herself, asking me the same question over and over, and generally making me crazy. I bring two cups of coffee and bagels with cream cheese. She enjoys them after she gets up and down for sugar, milk, and paper napkins for us both. I give up trying to get her to settle down and just wait her out. She’ll get there.

  We had a visit scheduled for the morning after the 2016 presidential election. She had the TV on when I walked in. How can Donald Trump be president? she screeched. I was in tears but she didn’t seem to notice, or maybe she did and understood.

  She likes to tell me about her childhood, growing up black in New Jersey. I asked her how she could stand it, being always put down, even by so-called friends, and told you were second class. She said you have to decide you’re not going to be angry all the time.

  I think a lot about what she said. I’m a little bit angry every day since the presidential election. I hate what I see – the incivility, the overt racism, the ugly nationalism. In my youth, there was hate and violence too. But I was white, and young, and sure the country would get better, more egalitarian. More compassionate. It did, for a while. I worked for the state government in the Great Society; I was a bureaucrat in the War on Poverty during the Lyndon Johnson administration. Sure, there was waste, and too many rules. But now, the subject of poverty hardly comes up in the public sphere, and not because poverty is gone. 

  Some days, it’s hard holding on to hope. I’m older too. Will I live to see a better day? My friend is getting ready to leave this life, and talks about where she’s going next. She’s not angry, that’s for sure. I almost envy her.

  ***************************************************************************

  Do you have hope for our country? How do you hold on to it? Comment below under “leave a reply” and you might win a copy of Old Friend From Far Away, a book on memoir writing by Natalie Goldberg.

  ****************************************************************

  The winner of last month’s drawing is Carolyn Ferris Gombosi. She gets a copy of Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala, a beautiful story of grief and resilience. Congratulations, Carolyn, and thanks for sharing your thoughts here!

  .

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  Posted in compassion, elderly, memoir, Uncategorized | 10 Comments | Tagged aging, election, hope, Trump

• Boo! What Scares You?

  Posted at 12:27 am by lindawis, on October 26, 2018

  

  Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com

   It’s almost Halloween, and in my corner of the world, you can take a haunted hayride, visit an abandoned penitentiary, or dress up like the walking dead. You can, not me. I don’t like to be scared. Come October, I’m all about comfort. Hot apple cider, knitting in my rocker while I watch the Hallmark Channel, curling up by the fire with a cozy mystery.

  I like the way lighted windows look on a fall evening, as if the people inside are safe and warm. When I walk through a neighborhood, my eye is drawn to the windows on the top floor. I think of the nineteenth century poet Emily Dickinson, writing in solitude in her upstairs garret. Comfortable, safe and out of sight. I can’t even begin to tell you how much that appeals to me.

  When I was small, my home was an anxious place. I carried a fantasy of safety around all day like a little purse. In my imaginary future, I would read and write all day, gazing down at the people in the street below. Maybe I’d sew a little – doll clothes, or pretty skirts. And I’d have a handsome boyfriend who’d come to visit.

  Emily Dickinson seems prune-like now, in her white shirtwaist and long brown skirt, a black ribbon tied around her neck. She sits ramrod straight, unsmiling, her whimsical poems her only voice. I don’t think I’d like her. If I had her cloistered life, I’d want to run for the hills. Escape the self-imposed prison and travel the world, or at least a few hundred miles around my home.

  But I realize I don’t know anything about her. Maybe she had a boyfriend, maybe she liked scary stories, maybe she was nothing at all like I imagine her. Maybe she took a risk now and then.

  Risk is the thing that scares me, Halloween or not. Calling strangers to ask them to support a cause. Walking alone to my car at night. Waiting for surgery. Watching the nightly news.  Risk of harm to my physical or mental state. And fear of the unknown – cancer, dementia, a storm, a war.

  But fear is a funny thing. When shared, it seems to lessen. Maybe that’s what Halloween is all about. Scaring ourselves together, to make the goblins run away. Shall we try? What scares you right now?

  **********************

  Be brave and comment on this post, and I’ll put your name in the hat for a copy of Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala, who lived through a tsunami that killed her entire family. It’s a terrifying and beautiful story of grief and resilience.

  *************************

  The winner of last month’s drawing is  Judith Heffernan Elmy. She wins a copy of Mary Jo Doig’s new memoir, Patchwork. Congratulations, Judy, and thanks for your comment!

   

   

   

   

   

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  Posted in anxiety, autumn, home, memoir | 8 Comments | Tagged anxiety, home, knitting

• Dizzy Time

  Posted at 2:21 pm by lindawis, on September 25, 2018

  

  Photo by Artem Bali on Pexels.com

  It’s been one of those days. My usual treatment for benign positional vertigo doesn’t feel like it worked. I’ll give it 24 hours. The crystals in my inner ear have been slipping out of their little vestibule, off and on, for something like twenty years, and when they do, I get dizzy. Since I discovered a great PT practice that specializes in this, my episodes are shorter and less debilitating. For a few days or even weeks, I feel off balance walking, get dizzy when I first get out of bed, and when I turn around too quickly. After the PT moves my head and upper body this way and that, poof! All better! Today, not so much. My at home instructions say don’t go to the dentist or hairdresser today as tilting your head back can knock the crystals out of whack again.

  My hair appointment was for an hour after I left the PT office. What to do? I asked my stylist not to wash my hair (sigh, that’s the best part!) and to just wet my hair and cut it. She took a long time, and when I finally walked out, my hair was too short. I should have been paying attention, but I was worried about getting dizzy again. It will grow out, but darn it. My hair is way too short.

  I turned on the TV at lunch to see old men who don’t believe or let’s face it, care, that some women have been sexually assaulted. What they care about is installing the accused on the U.S. Supreme Court so he can help overturn a woman’s right to choose. I realize I have been angry about this case ever since it started. At first, I thought “I’m not a #MeToo survivor.”  But I get dizzy when I’m anxious, and today it’s all coming back.

  The grad school adviser on the phone with a department head, leaning around his desk to check out my legs. “Yeah, she has nice ones.” Why didn’t I get up and leave?

  The relative who rubbed himself against me from behind at a cocktail party, then asked if it was good. “You men, always asking if it was good,” I joked. Why didn’t I smack him?

  The college boy who did the same at a kegger, shouting “I humped her!” to his friends. I kept on walking. Why didn’t I turn around and kick him?

  Report it? In those days, we pretended it hadn’t even happened. Why? Did we think it would stop? That it “wasn’t so bad, if we weren’t raped?” And why bring it up now, after all these years? Because I remember it as if it happened yesterday.

  It’s making me dizzy to think about this endless trashing of females, this excusing of bad male behavior. And mad as hell. I’m glad the conversation is happening, but damn it, let’s move it forward this time. Let’s not make it worse.

  What do you think? Women, men, #MeToos and not #MeToos. I’d love to hear from you.

  ******************************************************************************

  This month, I am offering a review copy of Mary Jo Doig’s powerful memoir, Patchwork, the story of one strong woman’s journey from abuse to a life of her own choosing.  Comment on this blog and you could be the lucky winner!

  ******************************************************************************

  Cathy Lamb’s novel,  The Language of Sisters. goes to last month’s commenter, B. Lynn Goodwin, author of the memoir, Never Too Late,  and manager of the Writer Advice website. Take a look at both, you’ll be glad you did. Congratulations, Lynn!

   

   

   

   

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  Posted in anxiety, balance, BPPV, BPV, feminism, memoir, vertigo | 10 Comments | Tagged anxiety, healing, society

• Eye Contact

  Posted at 5:07 pm by lindawis, on August 27, 2018

  

  Photo by Lum3n.com on Pexels.com

  Going to physical therapy reminds me of the nail salon. The manicure clients don’t look at each other and prefer to gaze into space, pore through a People magazine, or stare at the TV mounted high on the wall.

  At physical therapy, it’s much the same, except for the magazines. There is no TV and we are too much busy to read. Our determined looks and occasional winces remind me we are all in this together. Everybody is trying to do something physically difficult if not impossible.

  The husky fortyish guy prone on the table with his knee wrapped in a huge white bandage looks like he’s about to break into a sweat when all he is doing is lifting his leg a couple of inches. The old woman across from me furrows her brow as she oh-so-slowly climbs up and down a little step-stool.

  I make faces when my therapist forces my fingers down toward my palm to encourage my hand to make a fist. “Just two more times,” he says and pushes hard on my knuckles. “It’s hardest the first time. It gets better after this.”

  The woman at the next table with her hand wrapped in an ice pack says “That’s not true.” Not what I want to hear. I just can’t do it and it hurts. But I can’t scream here. Nobody else is doing that. I can’t cry either.

  The little boy across the room looks about eight or nine and he is doing the exact same hand exercises I am. All by himself. He looks serious but he’s not crying or wincing. I can be as brave as this little kid.

  I catch his eye, smile and ask, “What did you do?”

  “I fell off my bike,” he says with a shy smile, then goes back to work.

  I’ve been coming here twice a week for over a month. In all that time, I engaged a couple of other patients in a sentence or two, but the kid is the only one I’ve asked about his injury. Now I want to poll every patient in the room: “What did you do?” I want to tell them I broke my hand. I don’t know why. Maybe I think I can forge some kind of bond over our shared pain and misery. Maybe I think we can encourage each other.

  Fast forward a few years, and I’m doing therapy again, this time after shoulder surgery. Different, smaller office, same silence. No TV but they do have magazines nobody reads. Everybody’s working hard. I still try to make eye contact with the other patients but I quickly see how hard that is while you’re trying to focus on a nearly impossible task. I say a silent prayer for us all and get back to work.

  ********************************************************************************
  Have you ever been in a situation where you want to make eye contact with someone? Did you succeed? Tell us in the comments section and I’ll put your name in the hat for a drawing to win a copy of Cathy Lamb’s wonderful novel, The Language of Sisters, about family secrets and communicating beyond words.

  The winner of this month’s drawing is Judy Mitten! She wins a copy of Styx and Stone, by James W. Ziskin. Congratulations, Judy, and thanks for your comment!

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  Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments

• Big Girl Pants

  Posted at 2:26 pm by lindawis, on July 25, 2018

  

  Photo by Burst on Pexels.com

  It was raining lightly when I got to the Borough Hall Station. I saw the sign on the street; all I needed was to find the entrance. People walked snappily by, like they knew where to go, and I wanted to look that way too.

  When I was young, New York City was my dream place to live and work, the apex of my career girl life. In the 1960s, we called grown women girls and didn’t think anything of it. You could count the career girls in my upstate New York mill town on two hands: teachers, nurses, one doctor. Was a “private secretary” a career girl? My parents wanted me to go to Mildred Elley Secretarial School in Schenectady. But like Richard Russo’s mom, who lived in a nearby town, I longed to be Elsewhere.

  It took a while. After college, there were business trips to midtown on the train to and from Philly, and whole days in big convention hotels with other librarians. Post-career now, I write and teach. I want to write well, to learn how it’s done, and so I travel to writing conferences in the literary city, sophistication town, like the big girl I want to be.

  Sometimes I’m still the scared Catholic schoolgirl inside, remaking herself late in life. After two times crossing the street in drizzle, I found the subway staircase from the street. A young black man held a door for me as I deliberately stepped down. I thanked him, pleased that of all the busy people, he stopped for me, because he saw me looking uncertain. My son who lives in Brooklyn said, take the 2 train uptown, it’s best, to Times Square, then the 1 right across the platform to 50^th Street. On the 2, a young Hispanic woman offered me her seat. I smiled no thanks, then saw the sign: Please give seat to the elderly or disabled. Okay, fair enough. I feel slow, unsure, and frazzled by the rain, the confusion, the tangle of people in every direction. My son was right; I got off the 2 and the 1 was right across from me, waiting. It all seemed to work for me that day. It has to, my son’s girlfriend says, in a city this big you have to be civil.

  At 50^th, I walked upstairs and took out my foldout laminated map, walked to 6^th between 53^rd and 54^th  and laughed as I spotted my conference hotel.

  People around me paid no attention. Cars, buses, and taxis clattered by. Storefronts glittered, the rain stopped, and my heart lifted like the red one on the T-shirt I refused to buy because it’s too tourist hokey. I heart NY. I really do.

  *********************************************************************************

  Have you done something you were scared to try? Big or small, share it in the comments and I’ll put your name in the hat for a copy of Styx and Stone: an Ellie Stone mystery by James W. Ziskin. Ellie is a career girl in 1960s New Holland, New York, a thinly disguised version of my home town of Amsterdam, who travels to New York City.

  **********************************************************************************

  The winner of this month’s drawing is Cheryl. She gets a signed copy of Dorothea Benton Frank’s By Invitation Only.  Visit her terrific blog, Mind Kind Mom. Congratulations, Cheryl, and thanks for your comment last month!

   

   

   

   

   

   

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  Posted in Amsterdam, anxiety, book, conference, elderly, feminism, fiction, memoir, NY, writers, writing | 10 Comments | Tagged aging, Amsterdam, anxiety, memoir, NY, society, writers, writing

• The Comfort of Words

  Posted at 4:17 pm by lindawis, on June 27, 2018

  

  Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

  I read today that Joyce Carol Oates describes sitting down at her writing desk as “low dread.” Hmmm. Just how I see America today: “low dread.”  What new horror will our president and his enablers bring upon us? Crying children torn from their parents, closing the door on immigrants because of their country’s majority religion, taking healthcare away from millions who cannot pay out of pocket…I could go on. But I won’t.

  Low clouds cover the sky as I write outside on my deck, as if someone unrolled the batting I sew into a quilt and spread it over the world I see. Birds chirp, but is that a happy sound or a frantic cry for help, like the sparrow under attack on my porch last month? I think I smell something burning, go inside and search my house, but no. It must be outside, or in my head. “Low dread.”

  I know somewhere the sun is shining. I know it’s above those batting clouds. But how far? I know they will part, even here. But when? What comfort is here for me now, on a day with a lowering sky?

  I turn to this poem from my writing teacher, the late Judi K. Beach.

  No Matter How Dark

  There is always the possibility
  of light. The deepest forest spills its
  leaf to leaf like rain, falling.

  At the far end of the tunnel,
  light dilates as you drive closer
  and darkness falls behind.

  No matter how dark, the light
  finds a way in. The night of no moon
  is sequined with stars.

  Even this blackness, this treading
  in ink, this ebony residence, this
  vulnerability to the opiate of despair

  has light, though your eyes
  have not yet adjusted to it, looking
  as they do to the well-lighted past.

  There is always a time of blindness
  moving from bright into black.
  Remember the sun

  is making its way to you and remember
  how far light must travel. Somewhere
  the sun is rising and somewhere

  it is high in the sky. In your house
  this night, this fortnight or year,
  the sun will find the loose clapboard,

  the east-face of your sorrow.
  Your world is
  turning toward the light.

  p.107, How Far Light Must Travel, 2007, Fithian Press

  ************************************************************************************

  What words do you turn to for comfort? Share them in the comments for a chance to win a signed hardcover copy of by invitation only, the new novel by Dorothea Benton Frank. Family drama, comedy and a Lowcountry landscape – great for beach or poolside reading.

  Congrats to this month’s winning commenter, Linda Hehn! She will receive a signed copy of Boardwalk Summer, Meredith Jaeger, whose mom also happens to be my cousin. Set in California in 1940 and 2010, it has #MeToo, racism, single motherhood and a whopping big family secret.

   

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  Posted in anxiety, fiction, mindfulness, nature writing, philosophy, suffering, Waiting | 10 Comments | Tagged anxiety, healing, society, writing

• Quiche and Old Friends

  Posted at 12:26 pm by lindawis, on May 31, 2018

  

  Photo by Tim Mossholder on Pexels.com

  This week, three longtime friends and I met for breakfast at a newish café. We’ve been getting together for at least twenty-five years – no one remembers exactly how long – and I guess you might say we’re “set in our ways.” But things have begun to change.

  For many years, we got together at a diner midway between our homes, each of us ordering our favorite breakfast special – the #2, two eggs with bacon and toast was most popular. Then the business started going downhill. It changed owners and the food and service weren’t as good as we were used to. We tried a new spot down the road, owned by a young couple, and were pleased at the fresh nutritious breakfasts and the friendly service at a reasonable price. All natural, nothing frozen, local produce, because we were now into the twenty-first century and conscious of healthy eating. Fast forward just a couple of years – and I do mean fast –  and the couple opened a branch farther away in a sweet little town. It sits beside a creek in an old mill reclaimed for office space and our new breakfast spot.

  The food is upscale and we’ve changed with the times. Instead of the bacon and eggs special, we have a choice of quiche and fruit cup, scrambler of the day, lattes and cappuccinos and other good stuff that feels so trendy. We sit at a high-top table and don’t mind climbing into the chairs because we have other things to complain about: our aches and pains, to be sure, and our spouses’ health issues. We share concerns about life and politics and church activities. And we’re still the same friends who love and support each other. We’ve had our problems: marital strife, job loss, deaths of parents, diseases and broken bones. The hassle of  “customer service” is a frequent topic.

  So why do we still meet? Yes, it’s therapeutic to vent, but even better, we share and rejoice in our joys. One friend moved to Florida a few years ago, but she joined us this morning on her way to her summer home in the Adirondacks.  Because she still misses us and online doesn’t feel the same. Gray haired, grandmothers, retired, we are still active, vital women doing good work in the world. We try new things. We ate quiche. And we talked for two hours, just like always.

  *************************************************************************************

  Do you have old friends? Tell us about them in the comments for a chance to win a signed copy of Meredith Jaeger’s novel, Boardwalk Summer. Set in California in 1940 and 2010, two young women generations apart follow their dreams, unraveling a family secret and a love story.

  *************************************************************************************

  This month’s giveaway is a signed copy of The Gardener by Irish novelist Thomas Dunne. And the winner is:  cyclinggrandma! Check out her blog too!

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  Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments

• The Irish Complaints

  Posted at 3:28 pm by lindawis, on April 27, 2018

  

  Puffed up Irish pigeon, St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin, on a cold April day

  I’m just back from a week in Ireland. The brogue is still in my ears, and this morning’s gentle rain and greening lawns remind me of the island I left yesterday. I’m in that jet-lagged head-space, neither here nor there and moving around in a kind of daze. With that in mind, I’ll share a few impressions and ask you a question at the end.

  Our group of 45 American tourists traveled by bus from Galway to Dublin, viewing a wide range of landscapes and getting a taste of the history, the people, and the charming pubs, snug and cozy in the April chill. Our first three days were sunny, with temps in the low 60s. “It’s like this all the time here,” said a young barkeep with a wink that made me smile.

  I come from a culture notorious for complaining, often with good reason. Polish people had it tough in the old days with all those Cossacks invading and now it’s stuck in our DNA. And let’s face it, Americans have taken up the cause in recent years. It was a nice break to get away from CNN and MSNBC. I marveled at the cheerfulness of the Irish people, friendly and laughing despite the gloomy weather.

  And I wondered about Americans, the ones on our trip, and the ones I encounter in my daily life. Me too, of course, for I’m a complainer raised by complainers, and I struggle to rid myself of the habit, not with a faked rosy outlook but by re-framing.

  My husband would surely say I saved my negative comments for his ears alone, but I really noticed, this past week, how many little things people turn into catastrophe. One lady “hated” the breakfast at our hotel. Another “couldn’t stand” the heat in the dining room. Two people at dinner said the Polish people collaborated with the Nazis, the proof being “all the camps were there” and the world was a mess because of “radical Muslims.” My husband and I politely disagreed, but they weren’t really listening. The service was slow, the waitress “didn’t need or deserve” a tip. Can you imagine the look I got when I tipped her anyway?

  Our flight home was cancelled, and we found out at 5 a.m. in the hotel lobby, with suitcases gathered around. Worst-case scenarios spread but, in the end, we were rescheduled on a flight that brought us home just three hours later than planned. I watched two good movies on the plane and had a nice long nap.

  The line at immigration in Newark was long, so more doom-saying ensued. “Have you ever seen it like this?” “This is ridiculous!” Etc. Etc. Etc. In fact, we were only in line for 20 minutes or so. Not bad for re-entering a country where we aren’t refugees and have good homes, our own cars to drive there, and people we love waiting for us.

  Yes, this blog post has been a big complaint about complaining. I haven’t changed, but I did try to re-frame. Or, writer that I am, rewrite!

  How do you handle negative experiences? Tell us your tips in the comments section and you’ll be in the drawing to win a signed copy of The Gardener by Seamus Dunne. This paperback was a happy discovery at Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop in Galway. It’s a perennially relevant novel about a former German soldier living in Ireland and how he handles his town’s reaction to a band of gypsies.

  This month’s winner of the anthology containing my story, “Dinner for Five,” The Collection: Flash Fiction for Flash Memory, is Bobbi Smisko. Congratulations, Bobbi and thanks for your comment last month!

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  Posted in Ireland, Irish, Uncategorized | 26 Comments

• Lipstick Print on a China Cup

  Posted at 1:19 pm by lindawis, on March 23, 2018

  

  Photo by Pexels

  Coffee doesn’t like me anymore. It upsets my stomach. But whenever I see someone walking down a city street, lidded paper cup in hand, I want one.

  In my early 20’s, coffee and a cigarette started my day. On the way to work, I stopped in the lobby of the Erie County Welfare Department to buy a coffee and a buttered roll before stepping into the elevator. In college and away from home for the first time, coffee made me feel alert, ready for anything. Safe. An anxious kid, holding and sipping that hot dark cup of Joe made me feel sophisticated. Like I belonged to the tribe of grownups.

  This thread winds back to my two aunts at our family’s Formica kitchen table, talking and laughing. Their coffee was light and creamy, and the rims of their cups held the print of their red lipstick. Cigarette smoke plumed from an ashtray. They cared about me and I loved them back.

  Follow the thread even farther back to an open house at Bigelow Sanford Carpet Mills, my Uncle Clarence standing beside a loom so high it reached far above his head, or so it seemed to me. Laughing, he offered me a cup of coffee and I was mute, serious. My father said it was a joke, my uncle was only kidding. I was too young for coffee, for sophistication.

  I grew up to love the bitter taste of strong black coffee, but now it bothers my stomach. I switched to decaf then tea in the morning. I thought I’d build up a ritual with tea, evoking England, gentility, scones….

  But old habits are hard to break. Once or twice a week, at coffee hour after the church service, or during a morning of writing, I treat myself to a cup of Joe. Because I’m forever captured by the image of red lipstick prints on the rims of china cups. The stamps of women who loved me when they were younger than I am now.

  *************************************************************************************

  What about you? Is there a habit you can trace to your childhood? Comment here and I’ll put your name in the drawing for a copy of The Collection: Flash Fiction for Flash Memory. One of my stories is included in this beautiful anthology of stories for the memory impaired (or the short of reading time!)

  The winner of last month’s drawing is Marielena Zuniga. She gets a signed copy of Anna Quindlen’s novel, Miller’s Valley. Congratulations, Marielena!

   

   

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  Posted in anxiety, home, memoir | 18 Comments | Tagged aging, anxiety, family, home

• The Space Between Stories

  Posted at 5:02 pm by lindawis, on February 24, 2018

  

  I’ve heard that writers write to make sense of the world. That’s certainly been true for me. And yet, the world seems to have become even less understandable over my lifetime. Aren’t we supposed to become wiser with age? What is the reason for the interpersonal division in our country? We seem to be on ever more opposing wavelengths.  We can’t even talk to people we disagree with without insulting them, in person or online, so we mostly just give up.

  Author and speaker Charles Eisenstein says our world looks so crazy because  we are in “the space between stories.” The old story said our society was sound, our ecology was fine and our economy was just. But that old story is falling apart, and many of us are afraid. We want to go back , when life was safe, stable. As progressive as we like to think we are, a friend and I recently shared a longing for the “old days” when folks aspired to work in a shoe store or deliver milk on a truck. It feels as if the world is falling apart around us. We feel alienated, unsure of our place. We are in what Eisenstein calls “a period of true unknowing.”

  We are between stories.

  Who knows what the next story will be? I am hoping for one called “We Are All In This Together.”

  Many of us have rejected the old duality of this or that, one or the other, Republican or Democrat, us or them, liberal or conservative, male or female, East or West, cat people or dog people….okay, just kidding. But really, haven’t you noticed the breakdown of the old story? The old roles bind us no more. Women are now empowered in fiction and movies, men in the programs we watch are stay at home dads with real feelings, and even gender can be fluid. Voters give up, feeling alienated from our leaders. Young people are calling BS. We’re all restless, looking for a new story to explain our place in the world.

  “We are the one’s we’ve been waiting for,” said the poet June Jordan, the author Alice Walker, and the lyrics of a song by Sweet Honey in the Rock.

  Looking for signs of the new story gives me comfort. Maybe this is the time I was meant to be alive. What do you think? Are we really “in the space between stories?” Do you like that idea?

  Comment on this blog and I’ll put your name in the hat for an autographed copy of Miller’s Valley by Anna Quindlen. Set in a small town in the 1960s, it’s the story of every woman who has had to leave home to find herself.

  *************************************************

  The winner of this month’s drawing is  suppressionisminart. She wins a hardcover copy of The Moment of Truth by Damian McNicholl, the tale of an American female bullfighter who travels to Mexico to follow her dream, a great example of the story for women.  Congratulations!

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  Posted in anxiety, book, feminism, philosophy, simplicity, Waiting, writers | 12 Comments | Tagged society, writing

• The Not To Do List

  Posted at 2:00 pm by lindawis, on January 24, 2018

  

  Image by Pexels.com

  It’s the end of January, and according to businessinsider.com, 80% of New Year’s resolutions have been broken. I’m no longer a “business insider,” if I ever was, having left the corporate world 27 years ago, nor did I make any New Year’s resolutions. But like most people, I have lists of things “to do.” They are useful reminders, and so satisfying to check off when completed. But what takes their place? Another to do list! It’s an endless daily process, and while it certainly helps me remember what I need to do next, that list can get overwhelming. Recently I came across the idea of a “not to do” list. Business writer Michael Hyatt writes here about how and why you need one to succeed at work. https://michaelhyatt.com/do-you-have-a-not-to-do-list/

  Since I’m not reporting to anyone but myself these days, my not to do list is aimed at getting out of my own way so I can be happy, a lifelong quest I’m getting pretty good at. Since I believe it helps to write these things down, here’s my 2018 Not To Do List:

  1. Spend time with people I don’t like.
  2. Watch TV every night.
  3. Eat anything that doesn’t taste delicious.
  4. Compare myself to someone else.
  5. Take the best parking spot.
  6. Ignore my feelings.
  7. Say yes when I want to say no.
  8. Silence my voice.

  What do you think? Is a “not to do” list is a good idea? What would be on yours?

  Comment here on my blog and I’ll put your name in the drawing for my next book giveaway: The Moment of Truth by Damian McNicholl. Based on true events, it’s the story of a female bullfighter in 1950’s Mexico faced with all that the machismo culture can throw at her.

  **********

  The winner of last month’s drawing is Mary Lou Baldwin. She gets an autographed copy of The Promise of Pierson Orchard by Kate Brandes. Congratulations, Mary Lou!

   

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  Posted in balance, book, fiction, mindfulness, novel, philosophy | 10 Comments | Tagged lifestyle, society, writing

• The In Between Time

  Posted at 3:53 pm by lindawis, on December 28, 2017

  

  This is the week in the year when I feel most in-between.  Thanksgiving and Christmas are over and a New Year waits in the wings. I feel like the director of a play in which I hold back the actors for just another moment. Not yet, it’s not quite time, we’re not ready, please wait.

  This is the week I launder the tablecloths from Christmas dinner, recycle dented gift boxes and toss out leftovers nobody wants to eat. It’s the week to relax and enjoy the pile of new books I received and to binge watch The Crown and A Place to Call Home, an Australian drama my husband and I both love. We’re both retired from our careers and enjoy artistic pursuits and volunteer work, but this week even those things take a back seat to just lounging and reflecting, reading…and eating.

  As a writer of creative nonfiction, I’m a “reflector” by trade. This in-between time seems made for me. No rush, nowhere I have to go. I’m preparing for a party in the New Year, but even that feels relaxed, checking if we have enough wine, beer, plastic ware and ice.

  I journal every day, but this week I read about other people doing the same. The newspapers, internet, and even TV all offer stories about new resolutions and looking back. It’s quite a lot of pressure to do something.

  But not right now. I took a year off from teaching to finish my first novel. The second one is outlined, but I just can’t get into it yet. I have a new memoirs class coming up in March, so I need to plan. I’ve published four essays this year, and I’d like to write more. I finished editing A Woman of Worth, a project I’d been working on for a couple of years.  I have an idea for another book-length memoir. But none of these projects is calling me right now.

  I could be anxious about that, but I feel lucky I can stay here a while. The kids are grown and living their own lives. Whatever I choose to do or not do is up to me. The weather is freezing cold and we’re in between snow storms here in southeastern PA. I know another one is coming but we’re not sure when.

  So, this is the week I ignore the inner urge to “do something productive.” I read over the Christmas cards and newsletters, remember the leisurely conversations shared with family and friends by the fireplace, and allow gratitude for the love, warmth and companionship that graces this time of year.

  There is a certain pressure to make a “to do” list for 2018. I know I work best when I choose one project to put most of my energy behind. This in between week feels a bit uneasy, but I’m going to stick with it. If we hurtle from project to project, we don’t fully appreciate what we’ve accomplished. We don’t allow ourselves to enjoy having written, being published, hosting a dinner party, receiving gifts. I’ll meditate every day and let myself off the hook for productivity for now.

  What about you? What do you do when you’re not sure what to do next?

  Comment and I’ll put your name in the drawing for my next giveaway: The Promise of Pierson Orchard by Kate Brandes.  Written by an environmental scientist, it’s the story of what happens when fracking comes to a rural community, told through the eyes of a family already breaking apart. Speaking of what to do next! You’re sure to enjoy this balanced look at both sides of the environmental debate.

  **********

  The winner of last month’s drawing is Nannette Benson-Nicol. She gets an autographed copy of An Uncertain Path by Sandra Carey Cody. Congratulations, Nannette!

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  Posted in anxiety, balance, book, compassion, fiction, home, memoir, novel, philosophy, simplicity, Uncategorized, Waiting, winter, writers, writing | 16 Comments | Tagged anxiety, home, lifestyle, memoir, writers, writing

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