LINDA C. WISNIEWSKI

Category: Uncategorized

• Get It Down (While You Still Can)

  Posted at 12:15 pm by lindawis, on September 17, 2021

  

  Does anybody but me have this underlying anxiety, this fear of aging, of being unknown? Some days I think it’s the malady of our age. Otherwise, why the popularity of so much “escape” entertainment, TV, movies, the web, video games, gambling, drinking, etc. etc.? What are we escaping from? Facing our feelings, says Dr. Margaret Paul, author of Inner Bonding. We are afraid of facing the loneliness, heartbreak and emptiness of our lives, and our helplessness over others.

  James Taylor sang “the secret of life is enjoying the passage of time.” But how can I do that? It’s passing, tick by tick of the clock. Yesterday, I was in high school, now I’m collecting social security. What happened in between seems like a day, a week, a month at most. The great actress Maggie Smith said, “old age is like having breakfast every half hour.”  

  How do we come to terms with this, if ever? I want to. I don’t want to be an anxious old woman. I want to live with purpose, to do something worthwhile and do it quickly, while I still have time. Maybe James is right: the secret is enjoying every minute as it passes, not because it passes, not focused on the passing, but on what is here, now, this moment.

  And maybe that is the reason for the popularity of memoir writing. We want to record that we were here, that we learned something, that our lives had meaning. Invariably, there is something in everyone’s story that teaches us how to live, reminds us what we have known but forgotten, gives us permission to be whole.

  Now, at the beginning of another season when so much is unknown, unwritten, my heart quickens at the thought of people sitting down at keyboards, or picking up pen and paper, ready and willing to discover the hidden treasure, the meaning of their lives.

  And maybe that’s the cure for our free-floating anxiety. Slow down time. Stop the clock. Face what your life has been and decide for yourself what it all means. Then, adjust as needed.

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

  If you’re local to Bucks County, PA and would like to start your memoirs with likeminded folks, consider joining me in person (Yay!) for a six-week workshop in Harleysville at the Mennonite Heritage Center, from October 12th through November 16th.

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

  This month, I’m restarting book giveaways! Comment on this blog post and I’ll put your name in the hat for a signed copy of Where the Stork Flies, my new novel written as a memoir by a modern librarian whose search for her best life pushes away her family. Lucky for her, time travel connects her with her ancestors and she learns a thing or two about women’s friendship, faith and unconditional love.

  If you don’t want to be in the drawing, just put “No drawing” at the end of your comment. No problem!

  And enjoy this new season, whatever you do.

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  Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments | Tagged aging, anxiety, memoir, reading, writing

• Summer Mornings

  Posted at 2:07 pm by lindawis, on July 16, 2021

  

  Summer Morning by Charles Simic

  I love to stay in bed
  All morning,
  Covers thrown off, naked,
  Eyes closed, listening.

  …

  There’s a smell of damp hay,
  Of horses, laziness,
  Summer sky and eternal life.

  …

  I stop and listen:
  Somewhere close by
  A stone cracks a knuckle,
  Another turns over in its sleep.

  …

  Farther ahead, someone
  Even more silent
  Passes over the grass
  Without bending it.

  And all of a sudden
  In the midst of that quiet,
  It seems possible
  To live simply on this earth.

  The above passages from Charles Simic’s poem – you can hear him read the whole thing here – capture the essence of summer, don’t they?

  They remind me of childhood summers riding bikes too fast down the Lenox Street hill, skidding on the cinders and scraping our knees. In the evening, games of Red Light with Judy, Joanie and Richard on the curb in front of our house because we had the streetlight. Reading under a plum tree in the backyard. Walking a mile to a drugstore for an ice cream soda.

  In my working years, summer was just another season, with weekends spent outdoors as much as possible. Now that I’m retired from the 9 to 5, summer days begin with a look at my schedule, reading and replying to messages online, and a cup of yogurt and some tea in front of Morning Joe. Later, a walk in the neighborhood or a yoga class on Zoom, maybe some writing, volunteering, lunch with a friend, cooking, eating, cleaning up after ourselves and the cat….and in the afternoon, reading time.  No wonder it feels like the season flies by.

  If I stayed in bed all morning with the windows open I’d hear traffic or mowing. How can I recapture those endless summer days? Simic’s last line is a clue: “In the midst of that quiet, it seems possible to live simply on this earth.”

  It’s possible, even without moving to a farm and staying in bed all morning. Last night, I sat on our deck and watched the pine trees swaying their branches and the bees and white butterflies enjoying our lavender bushes. I watered my basil, parsley, chives, mint and oregano in their clay pots and pinched off some dead leaves. I wrote in my journal. And I saw a little praying mantis walk deliberately along the railing to my petunias. I would not have seen her if I hadn’t stopped to look.

   

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  Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments | Tagged contemplation, home, lifestyle, peace, poetry, solitude, summer

• Good Enough is good enough

  Posted at 2:30 pm by lindawis, on June 17, 2021

  

  Do you ever feel like quitting? Whether it’s learning to cook a fancy meal, brewing the perfect cup of tea, promoting a project, or maintaining a friendship, many things we value take work, and it’s not always rewarded as quickly as we’d like.

  When I was starting out as a writer, I read craft articles and books and attended workshops. I learned a lot, made many good writer friends, and eventually began to see my work published in some well-known venues. And that was good.

  But writer friends who started later are getting published far more often, in more famous places. I could blame myself for that. I choose to go for a walk, read a good book, sew a new quilt, or meet friends for lunch, rather than write for hours every day.

  I don’t want to work that hard anymore. I’m oldish. Sort of. It’s hard to admit. I don’t want to learn how to make an Instagram reel. I don’t want to engage hundreds of followers, because then I’d have to give them something new to read more often. The successful writers I know hustle, and they are younger. They are trying to make a living, while my full time working days are over.

  Now, I do take my writing seriously. It’s not a hobby. It’s my life work. So is teaching others to write their personal stories. Besides watching my kids grow up to be wonderful men, it’s the most fulfilling work I’ve ever done. Readers have enjoyed my stories. Students have enjoyed my classes. And that’s actually enough.

  It’s taken my whole life to understand this. I am good enough. What I do is good enough. And because I don’t need to work for a salary anymore, where I’m published is good enough.

  What about you? Is there something you like to do that you don’t do perfectly? Do you still enjoy it, regardless of what the world thinks? I’d love to know.

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  Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments | Tagged aging, lifestyle, society, writing

• How Can I Keep From Walking

  Posted at 11:09 am by lindawis, on May 13, 2021

  

  In the Mohawk Valley where I grew up, sidewalks mapped my world. In the 1950s, in Amsterdam, New York, Kelly’s Lumberyard, fragrant with freshly cut two by fours, scented my afternoon walk from school to home. Walking, always walking up and down the hills of Amsterdam. From our little white house on Catherine Street, I walked east to the corner of Lenox, then south two blocks to Partyka’s Market on Crane Street for Camels for my father, Lady Betty bread and pimiento loaf for summer lunch sandwiches. I walked west to the corner at Church, then three quarters of a mile downhill to St. Stanislaus Church on Cornell overlooking the mighty Mohawk, its waters sparkling in the sunlight or choking on blocks of winter ice. I walked three blocks south to the corner of Vrooman where Franny waited, books in her arms, then another two blocks to Edson to meet Christine. We three walked south again down Vrooman Avenue to Carolanne’s corner at the lumberyard, and west to Jay Street where Rita, the last in our group, lived. All of us trooped downhill on Church past the mills already half empty. Mohawk Carpet Mills had closed down just a few years before, and the buildings were now a hodgepodge of companies producing swimming pools, fiberglass, basketballs, and men’s uniforms. My mother still worked there, and we would too, in the summers through high school and college. Of course, we walked to work.

              I walked to the corner mailbox at Church and Catherine to mail letters to boyfriends in college, my cousin in the Army in Vietnam, birthday cards to friends and relatives. The mailman walked down our street at noon every day but Sunday, his big leather bag over his shoulder, his face and arms tanned year-round.

              Walking was not an exercise, then, but a necessity. Then, in the Sixties, almost every family owned a car (just one), and walking was for people who couldn’t afford to drive.

  No one really preferred to walk back then, but I longed for it when I lived in the country, on a 45-mile-an-hour state road with no shoulders. I drove to town for groceries, appointments and all the errands of daily life, but I always left time for a walk on the way home. My husband and I retired from full time jobs, and I longed to start walking right outside my door.

              You see, I find beauty in the walking as well as in the place. I love the way my body feels moving, my feet pressing down on the earth, comfortable shoes supporting me. My breath deepens in gratitude as I inhale the healing, clean air and the smells of the outdoors. In the park, I inhale the moist fragrance of the pond with its ducks and turtles, the meadow grasses left un-mowed to attract herons and water birds.  

              Often, my walks become a meditation. I breathe and step consciously, watching the earth, the grass, the birds, the houses, the people and their dogs. As I observe and move along, awareness grows that I, too, am a part of it all.

              Ten years ago this summer, we moved close to town in a development with a trail beside a wide creek often visited by geese, ducks and a Great blue heron. Has it come full circle, all this walking? When I was young, I walked to get somewhere. Always on a mission, the end was the reason.   

              Sometimes a hymn comes to mind: How Can I Keep From Singing. Or even the Shaker hymn, Simple Gifts: “’tis a gift to come round where we ought to be.” As I walk consciously, I come round to where I ought to be, and find it is where I have been all along. I have come, at last, to the here and the now. And I dare to say, it is good.  

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  Posted in Uncategorized | 16 Comments | Tagged Amsterdam NY, meditation, Neshaminy Creek, walking

• The Knitting Life

  Posted at 1:49 pm by lindawis, on April 15, 2021

  

  I bought a 3.5 ounce skein of Merino wool at Woolyn, a little shop around the corner from my son’s Brooklyn apartment. It was pricey but oh, so beautiful, a subtle blend of white, black and grey. I had the perfect hat pattern but I needed to wind the yarn into two separate balls because the pattern calls for knitting with two strands of yarn at once. I estimated wrong and cut it before half the yarn was wound. Then, the last bit got tangled. I had put the big loop of the skein across my lap and on the two arms of my rocker. Watching TV, I must have been distracted. I went to bed. The next day I worked on untangling while on a Zoom call. With still more to do, I saved it for evening TV, because I never just sit and knit. Or sit and untangle, whether it’s a bit of yarn or my thoughts. If I could focus only on my knitting I might make fewer mistakes. And if I could meditate more often, I might untangle those thoughts.

  So many mistakes in my knitting life! A pattern I don’t like after all. A dropped stitch I missed during Grey’s Anatomy. Yet I knit and knit. I have knitted for at least 50 years. When I was 25, I knitted a tie for my father in law who, God bless him, wore it to work at the post office. I knitted an intricate bunting with a zipper for my baby, and now I can’t imagine how I did it. Nor do I want to try that again. Yet when I broke my hand a few years ago and couldn’t knit, I felt bereft. I adore the feel of yarn, and the look of it, especially locally spun alpaca. Especially variegated colors. I buy small amounts when I travel without knowing how I am going to use it, to have a stash when I’m ready for a new project. A soothing, relaxing project, with a new ball of yarn from Ireland or New York or North Carolina, a skein, to unwind, unravel, untangle. A long strand of wool to twist and loop, over and over, making a lovely design, bringing comfort to the maker, and comfort for the wearer. Hats, scarves, afghans, socks, I’ve knit them all. Once a psychic told me that I work too hard at getting to the end and miss the process of getting there. Probably because I’m watching TV instead of being present with what’s in my hands and on my needles.

  I have a book about mindful knitting called The Knitting Sutra, in which author Susan Gordon Lydon writes about craft as a spiritual practice. God knows I could use more spiritual practice these days. To that end, I’ve sworn off knitting socks and fancy baby buntings and stick to simple but lovely scarves and shawls, hats and blankets… The other day, I picked up my latest project – a soft grey shrug – and sat in my rocker, holding it. Breathing deep, grateful for just that moment.

  Do you enjoy a mindful craft that soothes your soul? I’d love to read your comments.

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  Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments | Tagged craft, knitting, meditation, mindfulness, yarn

• Only You Can Tell Your Story

  Posted at 10:59 am by lindawis, on February 15, 2021

  

  

  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 on our mental health. And the stories of heroism and love give us strength to carry on. You see, I believe it’s all about stories. Our history is our stories, and the stories of ordinary people are most important of all. We know about the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, but do we know how our parents and grandparents felt that day? How they coped with their fear and anxiety? Only if they told us, or wrote it down in letters and diaries.

  So here’s what I want you to do: tell your story. Better yet, write it down, so the ones who come after you have a record to go to when they wonder what 2020 was really like for people like you.

  Here are two good anthologies to show what I mean: Living on Covid Time and Alone Together. Take a look inside one or both and get inspired to jot down your own thoughts about this time in history. Your time. Because no one else can tell it like you can.

  If you’d like some company while you write, consider my memoir class starting March 3rd. I’ve been doing this for over 15 years. Sharing personal stories with others, crafting them into a work of art – for that’s what a good story is – is a great way to spend your time.

  To register or for more information, please contact Cindy Louden at 267-421-6203 or clouden@pearlsbuck.org.

  Have you started writing your pandemic story? Have you read a good one? Share it in the comments! And stay safe.

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  Posted in book, life stories, memoir, memoirs, Uncategorized, writers, writing | 2 Comments | Tagged covid-19, history, pandemic, stories, story

• Eyewitness to History

  Posted at 3:27 pm by lindawis, on January 15, 2021

  

  We didn’t always have television, as I’m sure you know. Some of us remember the day that big box was carried into our living rooms and the screen lit up with the faces of people in “black and white.”

  And so it was on November 24, 1963, that a black and white TV console in pride of place in my family’s living room broadcast a live murder. “They shot Oswald!” my father yelled, leaping from his easy chair. My mother rushed in from the kitchen. My little sister and I stared in horror, frightened by our parents’ faces as much as what the TV showed. At 12:20 p.m., Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of President Kennedy, was shot in the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters by nightclub owner Jack Ruby. We had been glued to the screen for days, watching images from Dallas. It was a national trauma shared by everyone we knew, and now another was added. For the first time, I saw a scene of horror repeated day after day.

  On May 4, 1970, at 12:24 p.m., four students at Kent State University were shot and killed by the National Guard during a protest of the Vietnam War. I was at work that Monday and watched the TV coverage that evening. More national trauma on repeat.

  On September 11, 2001, we had color TVs on the morning America was attacked by 19 terrorists. Some watched morning news shows at 8:46 a.m. as, in real time, terrorists flew two planes into the World Trade Center in New York City. Once again, the scene repeated over and over each day. It was hard to avoid and hard to look away.

  Just this past Wednesday, January 6, 2021, at 2:11 p.m., rioters broke into the U.S. Capitol to stop the certification of the election of Joe Biden as President. We watched this one live as well, having seen the buildup over the preceding hours. And again, in the ensuing days, we are confronted with the images of an angry mob resulting in four deaths.

  Watching these events repeatedly always makes me anxious, but it’s hard, at first, to tear myself away. To turn off the TV. I watch to convince myself that yes, this is real, and to look for something to change, to make it better.

  But that never happens right away, in real time, on TV. No, the hard work that makes it all better is taking place even now, off screen, in hearts and minds and actions we cannot see. The scene of harmony I long for would not be good for TV. It would lack drama. But that, too, is history – the change-making, justice-rising, love-sharing that is the reason we survive. Would anyone watch it, over and over, on a repeating loop? If we could, it might balance out the trauma.

  May it be so.

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  Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments | Tagged 9/11, assassination, history, Insurrection, Kent State, television, violence

• It’s Just Christmas

  Posted at 10:21 am by lindawis, on December 10, 2020

  

  Yes, it is. December, that time of year when all around the Western world, people party and shop for pretty things and sing and eat delicious sugary goodies. But not this year. Not if we want to survive. The Covid pandemic has put a big wet blanket over the holiday season.

  Which has me thinking about all the less than perfect Christmases I have seen. My mother must be speaking from beyond, because I am thinking of her stories about Christmas during WWII, a lonely and bleak holiday clouded by anxiety over whether her husband and brothers would ever come home again. I am also thinking of my single parent years, and the December night, dark and cold, when I drove after work to Toys R Us to get a boy astronaut Cabbage Patch doll. I had called all the toy stores to find one (no internet back then.) Those were the years we drove, my boy and I, two hundred miles up the NY Thruway to spend Christmas Day with my parents and my also divorced sister and her three kids. Nobody seemed particularly happy. Her tearful little son threw his new cowboy hat on the floor in disappointment. I longed for the week after Christmas, when back at work, we could eat cookies and nothing was as urgent as it seemed the rest of the year. More recently, we all came down with norovirus. Nobody cared much about presents that year, or even eating.

  All this reminiscing is meant to make me feel better about not getting together with friends and family as we hope to ‘stop the spread’ of this deadly virus. But really, it’s reminded me that the best Christmases were quiet. The year I spent the day alone with my new boyfriend. The year I was living in Ann Arbor, Michigan, pregnant with my first child, as my husband earned a master’s degree. We went out for dinner in a restaurant lit with twinkly lights, just the two of us.

  People I know are today grieving the loss of loved ones. Most of us are making it through this time with varying degrees of worry and longing for better times. But it’s just a day, this Christmas. A day like any other, if we wish. Or a day made special if we like. This year, I hope for a soft, relaxed and quiet Christmas Day, a hearty meal shared with our two sons, a card game or two, and if the weather cooperates, a nice long walk. Comfort and love, nothing more or less than that.

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  Posted in Uncategorized | 14 Comments | Tagged anxiety, Christmas, family

• The World in Rehab

  Posted at 2:51 pm by lindawis, on November 5, 2020

  

  “The world is in rehab, taking a breather from business as usual.” – Lissa Rankin

  I’ve never been in rehab, but I’ve seen it on TV, so I have some weird idea of what it’s like. Isolation from the world, a long hard look at yourself. Your life. Who’s to blame for what went wrong: you. Lots of self-recrimination.

  What I see in the real world today is just the opposite: blame somebody else. The political division in this country is caused by “the other side.” That guy was wearing his mask wrong. The pandemic was caused by China. He went the wrong way down the one-way grocery aisle. She touched the glass at the fish counter when the sign said hands off. Okay, the last two were me.

  And that’s just my life. What I read online and see on TV is even worse. Yes, there are good news blogs and even two minutes at the end of a national newscast that focus on what people are doing right. It’s always somebody quite ordinary, never a celebrity or politician, though I’m not knocking those. We need them too. Just maybe not so much. I’d like to send some of them into rehab.

  So…if I were in rehab with the rest of the world…which I am…what would I like to change in myself, and my life?

  My laptop screen saver is a photo I took on my favorite beach on Maui. It’s my happy place. I go there in my mind during MRIs or dental surgery. But it’s not my home, where I can be found most days and nights. And do I even have the right to go back there, burning fossil fuel that destroys my planet? Do I deserve a happy place so far away, where most people will never go?

  I had heart palpitations the other day because my local Starbucks reopened for curbside pickup and the mobile order app didn’t have decaf. I got the espresso. I know better, and can’t even blame myself for that one. I just have to laugh at how hard it is to stay “on the wagon” when Starbucks is right around the corner.

  We read about all the great projects people are doing when stuck at home during this pandemic. Do they do projects in the real rehab? I don’t know. I have plenty of projects to keep me busy. But maybe busy is the wrong thing right now. Maybe a time out for a long hard look at what to get rid of might help us heal, change us, burn away the nonsense and make us ready for the better world coming some bright new day.

  What about you? Is there something this forced rehab has taken away from you that you don’t want back?

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  Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments | Tagged busyness, covid-19, maui, pandemic

• White Tube Socks and Apple Pie

  Posted at 4:14 pm by lindawis, on September 30, 2020

  

  I have been married to Steve, my current husband for 31 years. I like to joke that he’s been married for 31, while for me it’s been 41. My first marriage of ten years ended in divorce. We were too young, and incompatible in many ways, but that’s another story.

  In my second, happier marriage, I have discovered a few tips I’d like to share.

  First, marry a 40-year-old bachelor. He already knows how to do everything. Steve loves to grocery shop. He’s a pretty good cook, but his apple pies are to die for. He does his own laundry, and sometimes mine. In other words, whatever happens to be in the hamper on the day he decides to do the wash, it goes in the machine. He loads and unloads the dishwasher, and scrubs the dirty pans.

  But: he already knows how to do everything. If you go this route, you may have to re-educate him. And yourself. His way, your way – which is best? It doesn’t help if both of you are only or oldest children in your family of origin. You are both used to being “the boss.”

  Second, pick your battles. How important is it to load the dishwasher “your way?” This has been hard for both of us. We now ask ourselves “What’s the worst that can happen if we do it differently?” If nobody dies, and the dishwasher still runs, we take a deep breath and walk away.  No lectures on why it needs to be different. See how grownup that feels?

  Third, don’t invest your self-esteem in how others see your spouse. As long as he’s not wearing clothes with food stains down the front, let it go. Steve likes to wear white tube socks. With everything. The only time he doesn’t is to a wedding or other formal occasion. Winter, summer, spring and fall – white tube socks.  I used to hint. Look at that guy with the nice dark socks, and the short ones in his sneakers. No dice. If you know us, you’re probably surprised by this. After 31 years, I finally realized – nobody notices Steve’s socks but me.

  Fourth, marriage is a commitment to another person. The whole person, not your childhood idealized version of your perfect mate. I don’t believe there is only one soul mate for each of us. There are probably many people we could be happy with. When you find one that you can’t bear the thought of living without, get it legalized. When they annoy you, or accidentally hurt you, or fail to remember something important to you, take a breath and think of living without them. If that’s unthinkable, talk it out, then let it go.

  Those are my four top tips for a happy marriage. Not happy every minute. Nobody is. But contentment and security in one another’s love and support, that’s everything to me.

  Do you have any marriage tips to share? Let’s hear!

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  Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments | Tagged commitment, companionship, love, marriage

• They Call Themselves Indians

  Posted at 3:48 pm by lindawis, on August 27, 2020

  

  Do you miss summer vacations? I do. We can’t travel much these days, due to restrictions caused by the pandemic, so I thought I’d share my essay about a trip to a faraway state, published last year in Little Rose Magazine.

  Our busload of senior citizens came to a stop on a dirt road in New Mexico, unsure of what to expect. After the balloon fiesta in Albuquerque, and a couple of days in Santa Fe, we were bound for lunch in Tesuque pueblo, at the home of Louie Pena, a Native American conservationist and river guide.   

  One of New Mexico’s smallest pueblos, with a population of about 400, Tesuque has been in its present location in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains for over 800 years. Louie would meet us in the road, because the bus was too big to travel down his street. No photos were permitted, a tribal decision. We would see the place framed only by our preconceptions, and I knew I had a few of those.

  My Polish grandparents came to North America in the 1890s, welcomed for their labor if not for their ethnicity. They were, in fact, recruited to work in rug, broom and glove factories. Louie’s people have been here much longer. We stood on what is left of their land, most of it taken from them by white settlers before my own people arrived. An oblivious little white girl, I watched Tonto and the Lone Ranger on a black and white TV. I didn’t learn about the genocide of Native peoples – not at school, at home, at church, or in the news. Not anywhere. But I know about it now. History is being rewritten to include the uncomfortable truth, and I knew it as I stood on that dirt road in Tesuque, squarely between an ancient unfamiliar culture and the dominant one I know so well.

  Standing tall in the bright October sunshine, Louie described the traditional feast his wife had prepared, then led us down a path through a small field. We walked over a dry ditch on a makeshift bridge of boards, passing an old TV tube and other unrecognizable-to-me appliance parts in the weeds. The neighborhood lacked the type of landscaping my friends and I spend bundles of money on each spring and fall. We passed no ornamental plants in pots, no hanging baskets on porches. Dogs who might be German shepherds sniffed our legs and hands, tails wagging. No leashes, no barking. Though people give them names, Louie said, and feed and pet them, they stay outside. We filed past a trampoline and a toddler’s plastic riding toy in the yard, and Louie joked the toys were “not for me, for my grandkids.”

  Native art adorned the walls inside his home – baskets, paintings, rattles and feathers – and Native objects – dolls, pots, and dishes – filled a glass curio cabinet in a corner near the TV. Louie said he liked to watch the Boston Red Sox, and we all relaxed a little.     

  An enormous bear head looked down from the living room wall. Louie told us how he killed that bear as it stalked the village when he was only 14, while we devoured forkfuls of shredded chicken, potato salad and a hot corn dish I wish I had the recipe for. As he talked, his wife Serena served the food with quiet grace. Two of her thirteen grandchildren, a boy and a girl, moved expertly and quietly around the large open kitchen, emptying pots and filling serving bowls.   

  We sat on picnic benches in rapt attention as Louie passed around jars of dried herbs, his medicine. He talked about his classes in sustainable living, encouraging us to love our “Earth Mom.” I’ve forgotten most of what he said, but I remember the sense of comfort he and his family created. I didn’t want to leave.

  Before meeting Louie’s family, I believed indigenous Americans lived sad and poor lives, confined to reservations. I thought they were mostly alcoholic, starving, and ineffective protestors against oil and gas pipelines. But in the pueblo, I saw self-confident people promoting a healthy future while teaching their children to have pride in their culture. Louie and his family take tourists on Feast and Float rafting trips, teaching about ecology and serving natural Native foods. I thought of them later as I made my own soup and sorted laundry at home, doing the little things that make up my comfortable life.

  I live as an elder Anglo woman in an increasingly diverse country, and I am determined to stay awake and aware. I want to know more. On the internet, I read about the tension between the Natives and Anglos over a plan to build a casino near the Santa Fe Opera, and about Indians charging access fees to Anglo people with homes on Native land. I read about the protests at the Santa Fe Plaza where I posed for a photo, and where the Spanish conquest of the Indians is celebrated every year.

  Louie and all the tribal people we met in New Mexico called themselves Indians, but I wanted to distance myself from the Cowboys and Indians ethos of my youth, when we thought we knew who the bad guys were: not us. I continued to use the term I believed to be politically correct: Native Americans.

  Back home, I discovered that the U.S. government coined the term in the late 20^th century and that 50% of tribal people in the American West call themselves Indians. Many prefer the name of their particular tribe: Pueblo, Navaho, Ute, Zuni, Apache, Comanche. Louie Pena is Tewa.

  Like many others, I often feel compelled to form a strong opinion about matters I don’t fully understand. I don’t know how Louie and his family feel about the protests or the casinos or the access fees. Or why they don’t care about landscaping their neighborhood. I don’t know how much I have assumed about them. I only know my visit to Tesuque changed my perception of tribal peoples and reminded me to listen and learn and prepare to be surprised. Now to sign up for that rafting trip…  

  What about you? Have you taken a vacation that opened your eyes? I’d love to read about it in the comments section.

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  Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged Indigenous people, Native Americans, vacation

• You Lift Me Up

  Posted at 11:51 am by lindawis, on July 27, 2020

  

  I lost one of my cheerleaders this week. Judy was a high school classmate who became a friend 45 years after we graduated. In 1962, we were majorettes together, marching in parades and at football games in short white uniforms, twirling our batons. When I got the message that she had passed away, I remembered her note: “I wish I had known you better in high school.” My first thought, after a few minutes of reminiscing, was to “shake it off,” “move on,” go about my day. After all, we weren’t close, I told myself. Not really. She did write nice comments on my blog and shared my writing on her social media: “Our classmate, bringing the memories (and tears) back through her majestic writing,” “Classmate and author Linda Wisniewski’s new piece… “Loved it. My classmate … can always touch my heart…”

  I couldn’t “shake it off.”

  Judy was one of the popular girls, from the top tier of kids who lived on Market Hill. Back then, our neighborhoods defined us. She offered me, after 45 years, acceptance into her circle, or maybe our ages and common memories broke through it.

  My cousin Pat was also my cheerleader. She had a good life, was well-loved, and loved my writing, too. She was proud of me, laughed and forgave me when I gave her the wrong car in my memoir. No matter how busy at the restaurant she owned, she took my calls, like the older sister I never had. I still think of calling her but I can’t anymore. She died a few weeks ago at 80.

  And then there was Janice, who died just over a year ago. She lived in assisted living, used a wheelchair, and threw her arms wide when I walked into her room. “Look at you!” she’d exclaim, then offer me a chair. She wanted me to tell her everything about my life, my family, and of course, my writing. We met at a writer’s workshop in Philadelphia, and it was Janice who kept the friendship going at first. It wasn’t just me she cheered for: she had writer friends all over the world.

  Some people, if we’re lucky, are the “wind beneath our wings,” the ones who cheer our every accomplishment. They leave a big empty space when they’re gone, one we might attempt to fill with their stories.

  Who are your cheerleaders? Share their stories in the comments. And then let’s go out and be cheerleaders for someone else.

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  Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments

• Let’s Make a Racket

  Posted at 5:11 pm by lindawis, on July 2, 2020

  

  When the world gives me a headache, I withdraw for a bit, but it doesn’t always work. Sometimes the only cure is letting it all out – the rage, the pain, the unrelenting despair. I wonder if you feel that way too.

  In her wonderful poem called “Dragons,” Sarah Kaye, says: “Your racket will wake the dragons.”

  Today there’s a racket inside me. When did it start? Not this week or last month or even November 2016…

  Mr. Belmont, my gray-haired boss at the state employment agency, put me in charge of an essay contest for high school students. The topic was “Hire the Handicapped,” which is how we used to talk back in 1970. The young man to whom I awarded the top prize had surveyed local companies and found one in particular to be especially lacking in the number of its “handicapped” employees. Unfortunately, the CEO of that same company was the sponsor of the contest, giver of the prize money…and not at all pleased. When Mr. Belmont ordered me to disqualify the winner, the racket in me woke up a real firebreather.

  “I’ve never seen you so upset,” he said, calling me into his office.

  “So what?” I demanded through angry tears. “This is not about me being upset!”

  I was a shy, girlish woman at 25 and working at my second job after college in the 60s, back when we believed we would change the world. I could not let a corporate cover-up take away this prize without a fight. No way. Not if I had anything to say about it. Which I did. I let Mr. Belmont have it, and he listened. And when I finished, he asked me what to do. I told him to figure it out. That was his job.

  The corporate sponsor accepted my choice after the teen added a sentence to his essay acknowledging the company’s efforts to be more inclusive.

  That was a long time ago. Releasing the dragon is no guarantee I’ll get what I want. But letting him sleep is no longer an option. Not today. Not any day. Not any more.

  What’s your “dragon” got to say? Tell me in the comments!

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

  The winner of last month’s drawing for Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye is Mary Jo Doig. Congrats, Mary Jo, and thanks for your comments!

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  Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments | Tagged ethical dilemma, memoir, rage

• The Darning Egg

  Posted at 12:33 pm by lindawis, on May 12, 2020

  

  On a cold spring morning, not too long ago, I dug an old pair of socks from the back of my drawer, admiring the purple, black and olive-green stripes I had knitted. Though oversized and lumpy at the heel, they felt warm and cozy as I put them on. Later in the day, I noticed holes in the toes and went upstairs to toss the socks onto the floor of my closet.

  Later that week, with time on my hands and a need to feel productive, I sat on the bed, socks in hand, debating my choices. My husband watched, amused. How long have you had them? Throw them away.  

  But how could I toss them aside, after struggling so hard in sock-knitting class, wielding four double-pointed needles in my two hands until I finally finished these trophies?

  My mother taught me to knit, but never socks. She did not have the patience. She was always in motion: cleaning, cooking, sewing. Sometimes she’d sit down to read a McCall’s or Good Housekeeping magazine.  I see myself in her, or is it her in me? Reading, knitting, and sewing can easily become just one more thing to accomplish.  

  I can do this, I thought, holding my holey socks in my hands, I can do this one little thing. I can mend the socks. I turned the first one inside out, tucked my fist into the toe – and remembered I still have my mother’s wooden darning egg. I took it down from a shelf and turned my sock over it. With quick small stitches, the way she taught me, I closed the hole, ending with a knot, a snip of the thread – and a deep connection to another time.

  How is it that such a small, unnecessary task satisfies my soul? I wonder what else I can mend.

  How about you? Have you resurrected a craft during this strange housebound time? Comment here and I’ll put your name in the hat for my copy of Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani, a novel of a small town pharmacist on the brink of self-discovery.

  The winner of last month’s drawing is Jeanne Kane. She wins a copy of Michael Ondaatje’s Warlight. Congratulations and thanks for commenting on my blog.

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  Posted in crafts, home, knitting, Uncategorized | 10 Comments | Tagged crafts, homemaking, knitting

• Hot Steam on Cotton

  Posted at 11:45 am by lindawis, on April 8, 2020

  

  This is not another post on how to cope with pandemic anxiety or how to best manage your time in social isolation. I have nothing new to say about that, and frankly, the online “noise” is getting to me. So I’ll keep this short.

  Away from my normal life, I find myself looking at homemaking in a different way. No longer just troublesome chores, I embrace their quiet safety. I push the vacuum through sunlight and shadows in the corner where stripes of light pass through the blinds and slant over the rocking chair. I feel the goodness of simple work.

  Ironing, the smell of steam on cotton takes me to my mother’s muslin-covered ironing board and the sprinkler bottle she kept nearby. The whir of my sewing machine comforts me.

  One long ago afternoon, I passed a little shop on the side of a hill. The door was open to the spring air and half a dozen women sat before small black machines, turning the wheel with one hand, guiding fabric with the other. The hum of small motors made me stop and look. I feel at one with them now, doing what I know how to do, what my mother did, and her mother too.

  A line from a Mary Oliver poem is on my fridge: “why should I not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside, looking into the shining world?” She goes on to say that delight inspires action. We are not to sit on the hillside all day. But for now, in this holy moment, let me pause. Let me look.

  Have you found, while at home, a small moment of delight? Does it remind you of someone or some other time? Share it below and I’ll put your name in the drawing for Michael Ondaatje’s novel, Warlight, a book set in 1945 England with some very mysterious characters.

  The winner of last month’s drawing is Jeanne Guy. She wins a copy of This Book is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All. Congratulations, Jeanne, and thanks for your comment!

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  Posted in anxiety, home, hope, Internet, mindfulness, peace, simplicity, Uncategorized | 16 Comments | Tagged homemaking, ironing, sewing

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

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