LINDA C. WISNIEWSKI

Tag: memoir

• 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

• 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 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

• A Phone Call Brings a Nice Surprise

  Posted at 3:30 pm by lindawis, on March 22, 2014

   

  

  St. Stan’s Elementary School in Amsterdam, New York

  Recently, my friend from kindergarten called. I hadn’t heard from her in several years, and we had a nice long chat, exchanging addresses, emails, cell numbers and news. Her name is in my memoir, Off Kilter, in the chapter about a field trip to the Shrine of Martyrs. As we talked on the phone, a few hundred miles apart, we remembered, together, our emotionally fraught upbringings. Neither of us could talk to our parents, and our teachers were strict and frightening nuns. Maybe not as bad as the ones in the movie, Philomena, but you get the right idea if you picture them.

  Was there something in my horoscope about “women from the past” contacting me this month? I’d believe it. It was so nice to talk to someone who knew me when I was five, who remembers what my world was like back then, who shared that world. There is nothing like it. And for just about an hour, a part of me was back there, five years old again, with someone who wanted to hear everything. Who wanted to tell me everything.

  Is there someone you have known since kindergarten? Are you still in touch? What if you gave them a call? Like, right now?

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  Posted in Amsterdam, memoir | 0 Comments | Tagged aging, friends, friendship, memoir, Off Kilter

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• Blog Posts

  • You Lift Me Up July 27, 2020
  • Let’s Make a Racket July 2, 2020
  • WRITING, DRAWING, LOOKING, SEEING June 3, 2020
  • The Darning Egg May 12, 2020
  • Hot Steam on Cotton April 8, 2020
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