Category: life stories
-
The Last Witness
There is a poem I love called The Last Uncle by Linda Pastan. It captures the feeling I had when my own last uncle died. My mother’s brother John was the last person I knew who had witnessed the Great Depression and WWII. Everyone who knew me as a child had now left the planet. […]
-
Are You a Dangerous Woman ?
Did you know the FBI kept a 300-page file on Nobel-prize winning novelist, Pearl S. Buck? Or that civil rights organizer Pauli Murray was openly transgender? For Women’s History Month, Pearl S. Buck International, where I volunteer, is offering a virtual exhibit entitled “Dangerous Women.” You can view it here. When I took a look, […]
-
Carol Ann and the Lumberyard
Today I started to write a post about my love of the smell of fresh lumber, but the words felt familiar. I looked up previous blogs and saw that I wrote about this same exact thing in May! Of this year! Covid brain? Maybe. But what about this: Coming out of the shower at my […]
-
Only You Can Tell Your Story
The Covid 19 pandemic has changed lives all over the world, and we cope in different ways. Often, we look for distraction from it. But I’m a big believer in the saying, “The only way out is through.” The isolation, lack of hugs from best friends, missing restaurant meals and movie theaters, takes a toll […]
-
Letting Go of Happy
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 […]
-
Near Miss
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 […]
-
2019- Ready or Not!
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 […]
-
When Things Were Not So Different
We’ve been through tough times before. The world is like that.
-
A Veterans’ Day Salute
My cousin Wayne rode into town with his mother on the Sunday afternoon train and arrived at Grandma’s house wrapped in a whiff of danger. My sister and I were good little girls who knew how to behave. We sat on Grandma’s porch glider, careful to push off gently, toes to the floor, rocking slowly […]
-
My Weekend as a Travel Guide
This past weekend, I got to open a window and peek into other people’s lives. For the memoir workshop I taught at the Philadelphia Writers’ Conference, attendees submitted pieces a few weeks in advance for critique. And as always, the stories were heartfelt, moving and inspiring. A little black girl and her family traveled through […]
-
Speaking About Writing
This afternoon, I drove through rainy Bucks and Northampton Counties to Westminster Village, a retirement center in Allentown, PA. The activities people invited me to talk to residents on National Letter Writing Day about The Healing Power of Writing. A small group of women had spent the morning making greeting cards with scrapbooking materials. I […]
Linda C. Wisniewski 