“Little does Ryan know that when I drive to school to pick him up, I’m usually rocking out. If I can’t find a good song on the radio (I like the spontaneity), I’ll play one of our mixed CDs. Ryan says the fact that our car plays CDs and doesn’t have an auxiliary jack for my phone makes it old – another faux pas.”
The paragraph above is taken from my most recently published personal essay, “Singing Out Loud Helps Ease My Chronic Pain (At the Risk of Embarrassing My Son)” which was published at Moms Don’t Have Time to Write.
As I continue working on my own memoir-in-essays, I find myself reading more memoirs. Partly because I’m curious about other people’s lives. But also because I’m curious to see how other writers did it. How did they structure their memoirs? What does their table of contents look like? Does their book include photos?
I discovered Cancer and Fishnet Stockings: How Humor Helped Me Survive a Life-Threatening Disease, the Loss of My Favorite Nail Polish… and Other Calamities by Maryann Grau when our family spent a few days in Cambria (one of our most favorite places, along California’s Central Coast). The book was for sale in one of the shops in town, and when the cashier told me it was written by a local author, I knew I had to buy it.
While reading the book, it’s impossible to miss Ms. Grau’s positive outlook and spunk.
Here are a few gems:
“A few of the patients aimed weak smiles in my direction. My heart ached for them and their predicament, as though I wasn’t facing initiation into the same club. The question Why me? flashed through my mind followed immediately with the obvious answer …Why not me?”
“Thinking back on the past hour of excruciating pain, I was reminded of an Ayn Rand quote I had read many years ago in her novel Atlas Shrugged. In discussing emotions, Rand begins with the premise that ‘joy is not the absence of pain.’ I understood and accepted the concept immediately, but never was it more self-evident to me until now. To not feel pain, physical or emotional, is a good thing, but it is a neutral feeling at best. Joy comes when you awake to find yourself wrapped in the arms of someone you love.”
“Just a little more than a year after the operation, and I sometimes think, my cancer may be back. The thought hits me hard. Not the cancer itself – the revelation that I used the word my. The acceptance of it, the familiarity with it, the ownership of that dreaded disease by referring to it as ‘my cancer.’ “Don’t we hold things that belong to us as good, desirable, worthy, or even cherished? Does the word ‘my’ presuppose that the things that belong to us are good for us; things like my home, my career, my garden, my child, my love? Shouldn’t cancer belong in the category used to describe words that distance themselves from us, like ‘that thief, that scoundrel, that crummy movie, that poison, that killer disease’?”
And from her last chapter, where she offers “words of wisdom”:
“Every one of us will face death…eventually. But why help it along by standing still? Instead, learn something new to keep your mind active, to grow intellectually.”
“Keep moving! Especially outdoors. That’s where most of life happens.”
“Let others help you. If you’re stubbornly independent like I am, get over it!“
It’s mid-November. Which means there are weeks, mere weeks, until kids will be home on winter break (for weeks!). For many families, it can be an uphill battle to get the kids to do anything academic, anything that even hints at school.
Which means you need to get creative and disguise it as fun!
I’m pleased to share that Moms Don’t Have Time to Write has recently published my article 5 Ways to Ensure Your Kids Don’t Forget Everything They Learned in School While On Winter Break.
To read it, and maybe become inspired to try multiplication volleyball, click here.
(I may be in pain, but it’s fall, and a star-shaped leaf in my yard makes me smile)
The other day my next door neighbor asked, “How are you? How’s your health?”
I really wasn’t sure how to answer her. The short answer, and what I told her, is “Okay,” because I am okay-enough. I’m getting things done on my to-do list, keeping up with all my obligations, meeting all my writing deadlines, making dinner each night.
But the truth is it’s been a rough couple of weeks.
And sometimes I’m not so sure I really am “okay.”
The pain has been pretty intense. The other night when my mom and I were chatting on the phone, she asked me if I had done something that might have contributed to the bad pain day I was having. (I think she meant something like take a long walk or gardened for an extended period of time.)
I told her the truth. “I woke up.”
I woke up with bad pain. It stayed all day. Totally out of my control.
I’m also awaiting test results which is never an easy situation to be in. On the one hand, I never want doctors to find something new – which in my head means something scary, something bad. But on the other hand, if something did show up, maybe it would alter my treatment plan which would then maybe lessen my pain. Maybe it would give doctors an answer, so I wouldn’t have to hear, “We don’t know why…”
I received my booster for the covid vaccine. Which leaves me feeling oh-so-grateful to the researchers and scientists and medical professionals who made that possible. (And I feel badly, because I forgot to bring the nurse a snack. Each time our family has gone in for a covid vaccination shot, we’ve given the nurse a snack – a granola bar or bag of chocolate-covered almonds. It was a small way of saying “thank you,” and “we appreciate you.” But I forgot the snack at home on that Friday morning for the kind nurse who gave me my booster and chatted with me about books.)
And I almost fell. Twice in one week. Both times at night. Both times in my son’s bedroom – once before we read and once after we had read. I kind of flopped onto my son’s bed the first time and grabbed onto my husband’s arm the second time. But the incidents left me feeling shaken and scared.
1. Our future is in good hands. Capable, creative, competent, compassionate, female hands. Women who acknowledge problems and situations that need to be changed, fixed, resolved. Women who don’t just talk about making change; they actively make the change.
2. I have a lot to learn. While the book did include some familiar names (including Malala Yousafzai, Geena Davis, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Amanda Gorman, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg to name just a few), most of the women featured in this beautiful book were unknown to me.
The book highlights 100 women from around the world; women who are working in the fields of education, the environment, politics, healthcare, and more.
All of these women deserve to be highlighted, so how to choose who to write about for a blog post? In a very unscientific way, I made my decision by flipping through the book and randomly selecting these four women:
Kakenya Ntaiya of Kenya. “Founder and president of the Kakenya Center for Excellence, an organization committed to ensuring that every girl in her community has the opportunity for a different future, armed with education and free from violence.”
Michelle Bachelet of Chile. “Dedicated her life to achieving equality and human rights for all as a public servant, at the United Nations and as Chile’s first female president.”
Priti Patkar of India. “Co-founder and director of Prerana, an organization committed to ending the cycle of intergenerational sex abuse and human trafficking in the red-light district of Mumbai, India.”
Christelle Kwizera of Rwanda. “Founder of Water Access Rwanda, an award-winning innovative social enterprise offering tailor-made solutions for the collection, distribution and purification of water.”
I got it from Carolyn See and her fantastic book Making a Literary Life: Advice for Writers and Other Dreamers. (If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. I’ve read this book several times, and each time, I find something new that touches me. Each time, I also laugh out loud.)
Here’s what Carolyn See said in Chapter 4 – Charming Notes:
“…you write one charming note to a novelist, an editor, a journalist, a poet, a sculptor, even an agent whose professional work or reputation you admire, five days a week, for the rest of your life. Then after you write the note, you address it, put a stamp on it, and mail it out. These notes are like paper airplanes sailing around the world, and they accomplish a number of things at once.
“They salute the writer (or editor or agent in question). They say to him or her: Your work is good and admirable! You’re not laboring in a vacuum. There are people out in the world who know what you do and respect it.
“The notes are also saying: I exist, too. In the same world as you. Isn’t that amazing? They can also say: Want to play?”
I don’t write “charming notes” five days a week. But I do make an effort to contact a writer and let him/her know their words touched me. Sometimes, I look up their website and fill out the “contact me form.” Sometimes, I write them an email. Now that I’m on Instagram (@wendykennar), sometimes I comment on one of their photos related to what I just read.
Sometimes I hear back — a simple “thank you,” a longer, several-line email.
And sometimes, I receive no reply. But that’s okay.
Because I know I wrote the notes, and I like to think my “charming notes-paper airplanes” are out in the world, flying about, spreading bits of goodness and positivity.
“As Ryan pierced a slice of cucumber and pushed it around the puddle of French dressing forming at the bottom of his bowl, he said, ‘This is the first time I didn’t miss you when I went back to school.’
I smiled. I knew exactly what he meant.
No parent really wants to hear they’re not missed, but I also knew the larger significance of Ryan’s words. I realized the importance of his statement.”
I’m thrilled to share my personal essay, “I’m Proud My Son Said He Didn’t Miss Me” was recently published on Moms Don’t Have Time to Write.
Sometimes you read a book, and long after you’ve finished it, and read the acknowledgements, and re-visited the author’s note at the beginning, the book stays with you.
You can’t seem to get the author’s voice and story out of your head.
While the specifics of Ms. Jaouad’s life vary greatly from mine — her travels, her leukemia diagnosis, her epic road trip — so much of what she wrote really touched me. So much so, that my library copy is full of sticky notes.
Allow me to share some of these passages with you:
“How do you react to a cancer diagnosis at age twenty-two? Do you break down in sobs? Do you faint, or scream? In that moment, a feeling flooded through my body, unexpected and perverse: relief. After the bewildering months of misdiagnosis, I finally had an explanation for my itch, for my mouth sores, for my unraveling. I wasn’t a hypochondriac, after all, making up symptoms.”
“While my medical team was intent on saving my life, preserving my chance to be a mother someday hadn’t seemed to be on their radar. It was my first indication that, no matter how brilliant and compassionate my doctors might be, I would have to be proactive and learn to advocate for myself.”
“I understood now why so many writers and artists, while in the thick of illness, became memoirists. It provided a sense of control, a way to reshape your circumstances on your own terms, in your own words.”
“We were both forging unlikely careers: Melissa painted self-portraits from bed; I wrote self-portraits from bed. Watercolors and words were the drugs we preferred for our pain. We were learning that sometimes the only way to endure suffering is to transform it into art.”
“As a patient, there was pressure to perform, to be someone who suffers well, to act with heroism, and to put on a stoic façade all the time.”
“To be a patient is to relinquish control — to your medical team and their decisions, to your body and its unscheduled breakdowns.”
“I used to think healing meant ridding the body and the heart of anything that hurt. It meant putting your pain behind you, leaving it in the past. But I’m learning that’s not how it works. Healing is figuring out how to coexist with the pain that will always live inside of you, without pretending it isn’t there or allowing it to hijack your day. It is learning to confront ghosts and to carry what lingers. It is learning to embrace the people I love now instead of protecting against a future in which I am gutted by their loss.”
Missing from the photo – March’s book (I read a library copy) and June’s book (Another library copy, though I plan to buy it and add it to my almost-full bookcase.)
I tried to think about how to commemorate the month. So in honor of National Book Month, I’m taking a look back at the books I have read during 2021. I’m sharing one stand-out book from each month. Maybe you’ll find yourself adding to your “want-to-read” list.
Or maybe you’ll find yourself adding to your holiday gift list. Because October also means the holiday season is just around the corner.
A true test that I really enjoyed a book? When I order my own copy after reading a library copy. And that’s what happened with this novel. I just found myself really caring for these characters. And, it’s another good reminder that people are often not what they seem at first glance. You can’t know what someone is really dealing with just by looking at them.
For most of my childhood, actually until my junior year of high school, my career goal was to become an astronaut. And all these years later, I’m still incredibly curious and interested in learning about astronauts’ lives. This isn’t a dry memoir at all. You’ll find lots of humor and fun observations.
Such a delight to read about these two authors and go along on this journey with them. This was my first novel by Ms. Henry, but certainly not my last. (People We Meet on Vacation was published in May and is on my ever-growing want-to-read list.)
I was reading a copy of Bravey I had borrowed from the library. But, I found I was putting sticky notes on so many pages, that I ordered my own copy before I had even finished reading this powerful memoir. Honest, raw, touching.
Mixed within this sweet, original love story are some serious topics – emotional abuse, wrongful incarceration. It’s a story I didn’t want to end. And now I’ve added Ms. O’Leary’s other novels (The Switch, The Road Trip) onto my want-to-read list.
When a patient is given a chronic illness diagnosis, they should also be given this book. It’s an important, valuable resource that would have been so helpful when I first became ill.
Wow! This book is everything — heartbreaking, funny, touching, devastating, enlightening. I didn’t realize how little I knew about South Africa and Apartheid. Just an incredible read.
There is no one quite like Anne Lamott. It’s that rare combination of what she says and how she says it. She writes with such warmth and honesty about the big things (climate change) and the small things (like pants not fitting).
October:
I’m still reading the first book of October. Stay tuned!
Readers, have you read any books that blew you away? That touched you? That made you smile? That you can’t stop telling your friends about? Please, do share.
I’m not a coffee drinker. I’m a blended mocha (on warm days) and a cafe mocha (on cool days) drinker.
Yet several years ago, while waiting at my local Coffee Bean, I took a look at their shelves displaying bags of coffee and realized my personality was written on those shelf tags. I can be succinctly summed up using the same adjectives that describe international coffee beans.
Since today, September 29th is National Coffee Day, I thought I would re-visit this post. Just keep in mind, these were the descriptors used a few years ago for the bags of coffee sold at Coffee Bean. While those terms may be different now, I think they still apply to me.
Light and subtle. I hope I am subtle in many ways including my sarcasm and my fragrances. Generally, I think less is more on both counts.
Light and distinctive. You won’t see me wearing any bright red lipstick or blue eyeshadow or black nail polish. I prefer lighter hues. However, I strive to be distinctive. I really don’t mind standing-out and not looking like everyone else walking in and out of Coffee Bean. Which is when you should take a look at my jewelry. Rings on eight of my ten fingers. Earrings and necklace to match the day’s outfit. Three bracelets, a watch, and my anklet complete the ensemble.
Medium and smooth. I am of medium height at 5’6”. I achieve smoothness, hopefully, by my daily application of body lotion but also I hope I’m smooth (as in fairly easy-going) and not prickly (as in irritable or disagreeable).
Dark and distinctive. I am not a blonde-haired, blue-eyed California girl. I am a brown-haired, brown-eyed California girl. And while my jewelry may make the top part of me distinctive, my footwear takes care of the bottom part of me. I am a person who is all about comfort. Which means Birkenstocks and not high heels.
Decaffeinated. I pride myself on being rather level-headed, sensible, and down-to-earth. I am not overly hyper or overly loud. Which is why during my teaching years, I was told I had a calming way with my students. Those students, who threw chairs in other classes or got into fights in the previous grade level, were put in my classes. And year after year, they made me proud with their progress as they blossomed.
Flavored. My body lotion, shampoo, and body wash are a mix of “flavors.” You’ll find scents like “country apple,” “rose water and ivy,” and “sweet pea and violet.”
(By the way – Coffee Bean is offering 25% off today on their coffee products. Details are available on their website.)
WendyKennar.com 