Author: Wendy Kennar

Invisible Forces Can Be Scary

Posted on by Wendy Kennar
We’re all waiting for the rainbow. Hang in there!

Lately I’ve been thinking about this invisible disability of mine that has changed my world (and by extension, my family’s world) and this coronavirus that has changed the entire world.

My autoimmune disease is invisible. Just by looking at me you couldn’t tell I have a blue handicap parking placard in my car’s glove compartment. 

When I was still visiting doctors and specialists trying to figure out what was going on with my legs (it took over a year to receive a diagnosis), my biggest concern was the possibility I may have passed on this mystery illness to my son. Ryan was two years old when I first became ill. He was described, by some, as a “late walker.” I was experiencing pain and inflammation in my legs. Was there a connection?

Thankfully, my autoimmune disease is mine; it is limited to me. There is no family history, and there is no fear that I have passed this on to my now twelve-year-old son. 

COVID-19 doesn’t work that way. It’s a scary, invisible, powerful force lurking just outside our home. On things we could touch. On air we could breathe. 

The most scary thing to me, in regards to this coronavirus, is that it is possible to be infected and yet be asymptomatic.

My autoimmune disease isn’t fatal. 

But COVID-19 can be.

Wear your masks. Keep your distance. Wash your hands. 

Please, continue to be safe and careful out there.

 

In Honor of Mothers and Teachers

Posted on by Wendy Kennar
When he was in preschool, my now twelve-year-old son made me this necklace for Mother’s Day.

Long before I became a mother, I celebrated Mother’s Day.

And I don’t just mean by honoring my amazing mom.

Each May, my students created Mother’s Day gifts for the special woman in their lives. For some students, that woman wasn’t their mother but their grandmother, aunt, older sister, or step-mom.

In honor of Mother’s Day, the special women who make a difference in a child’s life, and the teachers who help children honor these women with forever-treasured mementoes, I’d like to share a recently published personal essay. Click here to read “How Teachers Help Make Mother’s Day Special” published on motherwellmag.com

A Few Ideas to Get You Writing

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

I’m a writer. Yet during this coronavirus shut-down, I don’t find myself writing much about the immediate world around me.

Instead, I’m writing about my life with an invisible disability; writing that will eventually become my memoir-in-essays.

I’m writing in response to calls for submissions.

But the bottom line is, I’m writing.

And I’m also reading.

I recently finished Natalie Goldberg’s Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir.

Whether you’re a writer, or someone like my dad who, during this unprecedented time has begun keeping a journal for the first time in his life (he jots down a couple of sentences about each day), here are a few writing prompts from Ms. Goldberg’s book I’d like to share with you this week:

“What have you waited a long time for?”

“What do you no longer have?”

“What I can’t live without – “

“Where did you always want to go but didn’t?”

“Memoir is taking personal experience and turning it inside out. We surrender our most precious understanding, so others can feel what we felt and be enlarged. What is it you love and are willing to give to the page? It’s why we write memoir, not to immortalize but to surrender ourselves.”

 

Who Else Misses Libraries and Bookstores?

Posted on by Wendy Kennar
Ryan (age 3) and I reading at the library.

I was thinking about the things I miss because of this coronavirus pandemic and the shutdown of the world as we knew it. 

I miss being able to hug and kiss my parents.

I miss stepping into a grocery store without fear. (And I miss finding eggs and toilet paper on the shelves.)

I miss public libraries. 

I miss bookstores.

Because shopping for books online just isn’t the same.

My son received several gift cards for his recent birthday. (On a side note, Ryan is such a trooper. He celebrated his 12th birthday at home, with the largest chocolate cake we’ve ever had for the 3 of us, and promises of a major “do-over” when all this is done.)

He’s shopped for books on amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com. 

But it’s not the same.

I miss browsing. Wandering the aisles, discovering a book I didn’t know I’d want to read. 

And you just can’t do that online. 

During the shutdown, our reading habits haven’t changed. I’m reading library books that I had checked out before they were closed down. I’m re-reading books from my personal library, some of which I don’t remember having read the first time. It is during this re-read, that I make a decision to either keep the book or donate it (when the libraries re-open).

And Ryan?

He’s reading everything. Maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but it certainly feels that way. (Often we read together, during the day, and always at bedtime.) In the last month, we have read a fictional book about a zombie apocalypse (and he ordered a few more in the series). We have read inspiring biographies on people who make me proud to be a member of the human race – people like former President Barack Obama, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., former First Lady Michelle Obama, and Rosa Parks.

What about you readers?

What are you missing?

And, what are you reading? Feel free to share in the comments section.

 

Because of Ryan

Posted on by Wendy Kennar
Ryan, age 8. Strong enough to lift the truck that towed the space shuttle Endeavour. California Science Center, July 2016

I first became ill when Ryan was just two years old. He has grown up knowing me like “this.” “This” meaning pain in my legs, prescription bottles on the counter, doctors appointments written on the kitchen calendar.

“It breaks my heart that Ryan has learned a powerful lesson at such a young age. People get sick. All different kinds of sick. Through no fault of their own. And sometimes there’s nothing you can do to make the illness go away. The only thing you can do is learn to live with it as best you can. 

But there is a flip side to all this. 

There has to be.” 

Those lines were taken from one of my personal essays, “Because of Ryan” which was recently included in the fourth issue of Please See Me. 

Click here to read the full essay. 

 

Dressing Up During the Shut Down

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

How are you handling the world-wide shutdown?

Are you starting a new project? 

Cleaning? Organizing? Cooking? Painting? Reading?

I’m doing a bit of everything.

Teaching – while my son now completes the rest of his sixth grade year through online assignments.

Cooking. Every day. 

Reading. Nothing has changed there.

And there’s one other thing I’m doing. 

“I’m getting dressed each day. And for me, dressed doesn’t merely mean clothes. Getting dressed also includes my jewelry.”

The quote above was taken from my most recently published personal essay, “Why I’m Dressing Up While the World Is Shut Down.” You can read it on The Mighty by clicking here. 

And, readers, I’d love to know how you’re handling the shutdown. Feel free to leave a comment below.

 

A Shout-Out to Classroom Teachers

Posted on by Wendy Kennar
The library corner in my fourth grade classroom, September 2010. (The cozy rug hadn’t yet arrived.)

Our family’s world changed on Friday, the 13th. March 13th, when the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) announced that all schools would close for two weeks due to the spread of the COVID-19. 

My son was supposed to return to school on Monday, March 30th. 

Since then, LAUSD has amended its original plan and called for all schools to remain closed until May 1st. But even that date is tentative. Rumors are swirling that our children will not return to a classroom for the remainder of this school year.

In the meanwhile, teachers scramble to put together lesson plans and instructional programs that children can access online. Which means parents are now being called upon to serve in the roles previously held by the schoolteacher – taskmaster, cheerleader, supervisor, tutor, coach.

Now, many parents are taking to social media, claiming “that being with their child day-after-day helping them with assignments is giving them a taste of what it’s like to be a teacher.

“And to those parents, I want to say, ‘No it’s not.’ “

Those words begin a personal essay I wrote  and that was published last week at Motherwell Magazine. You can click here to read the essay in its entirety.

 

 

What Do You See When You Look in the Mirror?

Posted on by Wendy Kennar
The many family photos on our refrigerator. There is a reference to these photos in my essay.

How would you complete this prompt:  “When I look in the mirror, I see…”?

My latest publication is a personal essay answering that question. As I wrote in my short biography for Ailment – Chronicles of Narrative Illness, “My personal essay describes all the different “Wendy’s” I see when I look in the mirror. Living with an invisible disability, an autoimmune disease called Undifferentiated Connective Tissue Disease, has changed the way I look at myself and changed the way I see myself.” 

Click here to be re-directed to Ailment – Chronicles of Narrative Illness to read the essay as well as other pieces exploring lives with chronic mental and physical illness.

 

Who Else Needs Some Encouraging Words?

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

“Unprecedented” is the big word in our house. It perfectly describes what our city, our state, our country, our world is going through. 

As I tell my almost-twelve-year-old son, no one really knows. Everyone is making it up as we go. Trying to figure out what needs to be done to keep people healthy and safe.

I recently read Michael J. Fox’s slim memoir A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Future…

They say that sometimes books come into your lives when you most need them. Well, there was one part I most definitely needed to read. It helped me, and I share it with you this week in hopes that it will also help you during these uncertain times.

“Don’t spend a lot of time imagining the worst-case scenario. It rarely goes down as you imagine it will, and if by some fluke it does, you will have lived it twice. When things go bad, don’t run, don’t hide. Stick it out, and be scrupulous in facing every part of your fear. Try to be still. It will take time, but you’ll find that even the gravest problems are finite — and that your choices are infinite.”

Worries and Promises

Posted on by Wendy Kennar
Now is a time for art projects, reading, and homework. My little artist when he was just 2 years old.

It’s a difficult time in our world right now.

It’s scary. And unpredictable. And more scary.

And in the midst of all this uncertainty, all this toilet-paper-buying, all this hand-washing, I’m trying to remain calm and reassuring, both for my son and myself.

No one prepares you for difficult conversations with kids.

I remember when I was still teaching. Having to talk to my fourth graders the day after the Sandy Hook tragedy. They were scared. They wanted reassurances and promises. And I could only promise them so much. I promised them that my number one job each day is to keep them healthy and safe. And I promised them that everyone at our elementary school felt the same way.

Now I’m having to talk to my almost-twelve-year-old son about a virus I have difficulty spelling. 

For my son, the coronavirus became more real when the NBA cancelled games and suspended the season. And on the same night we got that information, we found out one of our favorite actors, Tom Hanks, had contracted the illness. 

Though Los Angeles schools are now shut-down for at least two weeks, our family is managing. We’re lucky. I write from home, and thankfully, we’re not reliant on the meals provided by my son’s school. We’ll get through this, because really, what other choice is there.

But what do I tell my son? What can I promise him during these unprecedented times?

The same thing I told my students. My number one job is to keep him healthy and safe.

Wishing you all health and safety and hope you surround yourselves with things that make you feel good and cozy. For us, it’s hot chocolate, good books, microwave popcorn, and the reassurance that we have plenty of toilet paper stashed away.