Month: June 2018

Looking Beneath the Surface

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

When you first look at the picture above, all you see is a lush, green hanging plant.  But if you looked inside, if you looked down at the soil that is hidden by the leaves, you’d find more than a plant.  You’d find a bird sitting on her nest.  And in that nest, if the bird flew away, you might get lucky to spot the baby birds in there.

A week or so ago, we discovered the nest when I was watering our plants.  I accidentally startled the mama bird, and after she flew away, I saw four small eggs tucked into the nest.

Those eggs have hatched, and now this plant on our back patio is home to a bird family.

Yet when you first walk by, all you see is this plant.  “Our” bird family is hidden.  Just like my autoimmune disease.

It’s funny how the mind works, but discovering this nest, listening to “Tweet Tweet” (my son’s name for the mama bird), has got me thinking about a piece I wrote for MUTHA Magazine. Click here to read my personal essay, “Can Acknowledging My Weakness Actually Be a Sign of Strength?”

Who Is Wendy Kennar?

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

My ten-year-old son enjoys reading the “Who? What? Where?” Series.  If you’re not familiar with these non-fiction books, they are biographies of famous people (both historical and contemporary figures) as well as books about well-known places and significant events.

On the back cover of each book, is a series of questions related to the book’s subject.  This week, I thought I’d borrow that format to share a few things about me:

Who Is Wendy Kennar?

— A little girl who always liked to wear plastic jewelry around the house and pretend she was a movie star.

— A college student who didn’t have a car for half her college years and relied on six buses a day to commute to and from California State University Northridge.

— A mother with an invisible disability.

** All of the above

It’s all true.  And you can click here to read my personal essay “Parenting With an Invisible Disability” at MomsLA.com.

A Doable Dream

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

I am in the middle of reading Eric Maisel’s A Writer’s Paris (though we have no immediate plans for a trip to Paris).  I love how Mr. Maisel describes Paris:  “You feel at home in Paris because the things that you care about – strolling, thinking, loving, creating – are built into the fabric of the city.”

My husband and I first traveled to Paris in the spring of 2005, and along with evoking a desire to return, reading this book has also made me stop and think about the technology we used then compared to what we rely on now.

On that note, I thought it would be fun to share with you some of the ways technology has changed and the ways it impacted our trip.

 

— During March of 2005, the billboards around Paris were advertising Apple’s newest product, the Shuffle, a product that isn’t even made any more.  Now billboards (at least here in L.A.) advertise the iPhone X.   

— We stayed at a small, but clean hotel in the Opera District.  In addition to complimentary breakfast, the hotel also had a computer in its lobby that guests could use for free.  Of course, we’d have to wait our turn, but once the computer was available, we were able to send emails back to my parents in California.

— At some point during our trip, our 35mm camera broke.  I worried that the film inside would be ruined, and the pictures we had already taken would be forever lost.  And I was heartbroken that we wouldn’t be able to continue taking photos of our trip.

— Our first stop in Paris (after finding our hotel) was the Eiffel Tower.  We marveled at the size, at the number of people, at the elevators taking us up this monument.  (We made it to the second level; the third level was closed due to wind conditions we were told).  And on that second level, we found a pay phone.  It wasn’t easy to figure out, but we did eventually manage to make a phone call from the Eiffel Tower to my parents in Los Angeles.

Back then, my husband and I were both twenty-nine years old.  We explored the city relying on my two years of high school French and a guidebook.  No guided tours and no smartphone.  But we did it.  Because as Mr. Maisel writes, “Paris is a doable dream, and your writing is a doable dream.  Both require the same nurturing and the same attention, the same courage and the same perseverance.”

Finding Solace

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

In the last couple of weeks, there’s been a lot going on in our family.  Nothing I want to share here, but in the midst of it all, I found myself thinking of a book I read a short time back.  So this week, I’d like to share some of the gems I discovered in Elizabeth Berg’s The Year of Pleasures.

“Don’t let your habits become handcuffs.”

“Some mornings when I read the newspaper, I wanted to weep or pound my fists on the table in frustration.  Some mornings I actually did one or the other.  But museums offered up the other side of humanity: the glory and the grace.”

“But it seemed to me that this was the way we all lived:  full to the brim with gratitude and joy one day, wrecked on the rocks the next.  Finding the balance between the two was the art and the salvation.”

“I’m not talking about things that happen to you.  I’m talking about things you make happen.  I’m talking about purposefully doing one thing that brings you happiness every single day, in a very conscious way.  It builds up the arsenal.  It tips the balance.”

“Oh, nobody understands anything.  We’re all just here, blinking in the light like kittens.  The older I get, the more I see that nothing makes sense but to try to learn true compassion.”