Left on Tenth

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

Left on Tenth: A Second Chance at Life is a powerful memoir written by Delia Ephron.

It’s easy to get caught up in her life, her story, and then feel a bit in-awe of being granted permission to come along for this roller-coaster of a ride. Incredible highs to despairing lows, and through it all — love and hope. 

Here are a few of my favorite passages:

“Writing taught me who I was, because your writing is your fingerprint. When I began to do it, I heard my own voice, my own observations, my own stories, my own gifts.” 

“I think about it all the time. Sometimes very consciously, and sometimes it’s just fluttering in the back of things. For me, that is the most stunning thing about remission — the glorious sense that I have been given back life coupled with the terrible fear that death is behind the next lamppost. This gift could be snuffed out at any moment.”

“… but my relationship to the world has changed. It’s as if I’ve been knocked on the head. I look the same, I think, although there is uncertainty in my reflection that wasn’t there before. Would anyone else notice that? I’m not sure. I am physically, mentally, and emotionally wobbly.”

“Over the years I have seen many people on Tenth Street with rollators and walkers. Old people. Sick people. I have felt sorry for them. I used to look away. I regret, am even appalled, by my previous lack of admiration and empathy. Now I am feeble and they are looking at me, or avoiding looking at me. I have to summon my nerve. I have to ‘own’ it. If you see my vulnerability, I force myself to think, well, I hope you respect my bravery.”

“With transplants, he can follow his patients for years. He is very busy researching cures and saving lives, yet he finds time to read my novel Siracusa. He knows who I am. Not simply because he reengineered my bone marrow. He takes the trouble to know my brain and heart.”

“Everywhere I go, I get greeted with happiness and cheers for my bravery. It’s lovely but I don’t think I was brave. I was a captive on a no-exit journey. One way only. And, simply, I was fortunate that I didn’t die. I got my disease at a time of scientific discovery. I had great medicine and great love.”

Please note: I am including a link to buy the book that I’m highlighting this week. If you use my link, I do make a small commission on your purchase at no additional cost to you. I am working with Bookshop.org which also sends a portion of the profit to support local, independent bookstores.

A Safe Space

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

“I foolishly thought having an autoimmune disease would be no big deal. I thought it was something that would fade into the background, behind more important things like my family and career. I thought Undifferentiated Connective Tissue Disease (UCTD) would be another footnote in my medical history, along the lines of my allergy to penicillin. I disclose my allergy any time it’s relevant, explain about the hives that develop, and when necessary, wear a hospital bracelet identifying “allergy.” But on a daily basis, my allergic reaction to penicillin isn’t a big deal. I don’t give it much thought. I assumed having UCTD would work the same way.

Wrong.”

The paragraphs above are excerpts from my personal essay, “A Safe Space.” And I’m proud to share “A Safe Space” has recently been published in Wishbone Words, Issue 11. You can access the issue by clicking here.  (Just a note – there is a slight fee to download the issue.)

Book Lovers Day!

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

Today, Wednesday, August 9th is Book Lovers Day! (It’s also known as National Book Lovers Day.)

To mark the occasion, I wanted to highlight just a few books which include the word “book” in their titles.

Of course the first book had to be Book Lovers by Emily Henry. Pure delight!

Zibby Owens, who may be the number one cheerleader for books and authors, wrote Bookends: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Literature. 

Allow me to share this paragraph:   

“The cracking open of a book’s spine has always been an exercise in self-discovery, healing, and fortification. That subtle whoosh when words spill out makes me salivate. Then the feel of the coarse pages under my fingertips delights my consciousness, the sudden sprinkling of syllables, the black-and-white letters in various patterns, coalescing to find their way directly to my heart. It’s magic.”

The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman was such a fun, pleasurable read.

The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living by Meik Wiking provided some insight into why candles in our home, among other things, are so important to me.

The Book of Hope by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams is a powerful read with many passages that really stood out. 

Dear Readers, have you read any of these books? What book(s) would you add to this list? Let me know in the comments.

Please note: I am including links to buy the books that I’m highlighting this week. If you use my link, I do make a small commission on your purchase at no additional cost to you. I am working with Bookshop.org which also sends a portion of the profit to support local, independent bookstores.

An Unplanned Path

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

I am pleased to share that my personal essay, “An Unplanned Path,” has been published in the most recent issue of Cosmic Daffodil Journal. You can click here to read the essay in its entirety. (The theme was “NATURA,” and nonfiction submissions had a 300-500 word count limit.)

In addition, Cosmic Daffodil Journal has created a free e-book, which will soon be available for download on the website, so you can read all the fine pieces of writing included in NATURA. 

Nora Goes Off Script

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

It should come as no surprise that I am a reader who likes a book with a happy ending. (You did read my post last month titled, “The Need for Romance Novels,” didn’t you? If you missed it, click here to check it out.)

So it really should come as no surprise that I thoroughly enjoyed reading Annabel Monaghan’s novel Nora Goes Off Script. Yes, it’s a romance. But it’s also more than a romance. I just couldn’t help but root for Nora, and I couldn’t help but see bits of myself in her — she has a weekly meal plan (Tuesday Tacos, Friday Pasta) and so do I (Tostada Tuesday, Pasta Thursday). 

Here are just a few of my favorite bits:

“Pink ribbons, then orange creep up behind the wide-armed oak tree at the end of my lawn. The sun rises behind it differently every day. Some days it’s a solid bar of sherbet that rolls up like movie credits and fills the sky. Some days the light dapples through the leaves in a muted gray.”

“You live for your kids, and they live for you. There’s something almost sacred about what you have.”

“It’s possible that growing up watching the fantasy of this marriage is what makes writing romance movies so easy. My parents make me believe that some people really are made for each other and that a joyful, easy marriage is possible. Two people who love each other and are looking in the same direction can build a wonderful life.”

Also: this book was super popular last year. This year, the talk is about Ms. Monaghan’s most recent novel Same Time Next Summer. I have added it to my ever-growing want-to-read list.

Please note: I am including a link to buy the book that I’m highlighting this week. If you use my link, I do make a small commission on your purchase at no additional cost to you. I am working with Bookshop.org which also sends a portion of the profit to support local, independent bookstores.

An Anniversary and a First

Posted on by Wendy Kennar
This photo was taken at the National Museum of American History.

Everyone has defining moments. Moments you may not realize are monumental when they’re happening. But later — days, weeks, months, or even years later — you look back at that moment, that significant event and see it for what it is — a distinct, neon-yellow line dividing your life into before and after.

Thirteen years ago, I woke up on a Sunday morning, but I couldn’t get out of bed. My left calf had ballooned, and I suddenly couldn’t do the thing I had done for years — stand up. Next came a visit to the emergency room, a hospitalization, and what would become the beginning of my life as a chronic illness patient. 

Last week, on the anniversary of that defining day, my family and I were on a summer trip visiting Washington, D.C. 

It was a vacation of firsts — the first time we had visited our nation’s capital, and the first time I rented a wheelchair for the duration of our stay.

As I told my son, I don’t know if all future trips will require use of a wheelchair. But this year, it was an absolute must. (I also requested wheelchair assistance in the airports.)

Initially, I didn’t think I would need a wheelchair at all. Then I thought I could just borrow one of the wheelchairs most museums have available for guests. Finally, I admitted the truth — my pain has been incredibly intense, my leg incredibly weak. If my family and I wanted to take this trip, I had to use a wheelchair.

There was one part of me that was heartbroken. All I could think of were the negatives — I’m 47 years old and, for this trip anyway, an ambulatory wheelchair user. My mind went down that scary, dark path — thinking ahead to future trips, picturing myself with increasingly limited mobility.

I made an effort to reframe how I thought about the facts — I’m 47 years old and not letting this chronic illness and my chronic pain stop me from living my life the way I want to live it. I wasn’t going to stay home because I needed a wheelchair. I adapted and figured out how to make this trip work for my body as it is now.

I don’t know. Maybe we’ll look back at this D.C. trip as one of those defining moments — the start of travel requiring a wheelchair. 

But maybe not. 

We’ll have to wait and see next year.

P.S. Lots more to come about this incredible trip. We spent 6 days, 5 nights away from home. We visited museums and memorials. We admired and appreciated. We listened and learned.  

Write For Your Life

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

I read for many reasons. To be entertained and inspired. To learn and grow and find comfort in someone else’s words.

I write for many reasons, too. Which is why I was curious to read Write For Your Life by Anna Quindlen.

While many people might not consider themselves writers, Ms. Quindlen believes everyone has a story worth writing down. I agree. 

In addition to Ms. Quindlen’s words, the book also has some writing-related quotes as well as some prompts for writing exercises. Here are some of my favorite bits from Write For Your Life:

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” — Anaïs Nin

“While you have to mentally re-create what happened on a phone call — ‘Did she really say that?’ — you can actually reread a text. But much of that tech prose online felt so spontaneous as to be slapdash, unexamined. It’s why people will often say, when reminded of an email or an online post, that they can’t really recall writing it. Every day, unthinkingly, our lives can slip through our fingers in a cascade of computer code. Texts are like footprints in sand. By evening the tide has come in, and we are left alone.”

“The urge to get it exactly right often stands between you and beginning. ‘Don’t get it right, get it written’ demands composition first, cleanup later. The paralysis of perfectionism is a terrible ailment that can seep into so much of our daily lives. In writing, what it leads to is an empty page, and an empty page is neither good nor bad. It’s nothing. Honestly, if the choice is between an imperfect something and nothing — well, that’s easy, isn’t it? Get it written. You can get it right later.”

“Something written by hand brings a singular human presence that the typewriter or the computer cannot confer. There’s plenty of good writing done that way, but when you simply glance at the page, it could be the work of anyone. But when you’ve written something by hand, the only person who could have done it is you. It’s unmistakable you wrote this, touched it, laid hands and eyes upon it. Something written by hand is a piece of your personality on paper. Typed words are not a fair swap for handwriting, for what is, in a way, a little relic of you.” 

“I’m not sure writing about things always makes us feel better, but perhaps it sometimes does make loss, tragedies, disappointments more actual. It can turn them into something with a clearer shape and form, and therefore make it possible to see them more deeply and clearly, and more usefully turn confusion and pain into understanding and perhaps reconciliation. On paper our greatest challenges become A Real Thing, in a world in which so much seems ephemeral and transitory.”

“Butt in chair. That’s the piece of direction I give to anyone and everyone who wants to write, who is thinking about writing, who is asking how it’s done, who is fearful of and intimidated by the act. It’s not poetic, and it doesn’t bespeak inspiration. What it does suggest is a way into what is not a mystery but a process, a way into the story of yourself.”

Please note: I am including a link to buy the book that I’m highlighting this week. If you use my link, I do make a small commission on your purchase at no additional cost to you. I am working with Bookshop.org which also sends a portion of the profit to support local, independent bookstores.

A Look Back at Six Months of Books

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

Since it’s the first week of July, I thought now would be a good time to pause and take a look at some of my favorite reads from the first half of the year. 

January:  Katherine Center’s The Bodyguard. I LOVE Katherine Center’s books. When she publishes a novel, I know I’m going to purchase it. She writes books that make you feel. Books that make you laugh. Books that are about people who experience hard times and then find a way to get back up. Books that you know will all end up okay in the end. (Side note – Hello Stranger will be published next week on July 11th. I have already pre-ordered it!)

February:  At the end of February I started reading Claire Cook’s Walk the Talk, the fourth book in her The Wildwater Walking Club series. There’s something so pleasing, so reassuring about coming back to characters you know from previous books.

March:  Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved by Kate Bowler.  Ms. Bowler is … a force. Of grace. Of compassion. Of humor. Of authenticity. Of heart.

April:  Thank you to Tara Schuster and her first book, Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies: And Other Rituals to Fix Your Life From Someone Who’s Been There. It was the book I needed to read and I didn’t know it. And now, her newest book — Glow in the F*cking Dark — sits on my bookcase, waiting for me; a gift from one of my closest friends.

May:  This Time Next Year by Sophie Cousens – a fun, super-enjoyable read! (I also recommend her novel Just Haven’t Met You Yet and in my to-be-read pile is her other novel  Before I Do.)

June:  I finished reading Braided by Beth Ricanati at the end of June. It’s a book I’m still thinking about. In fact, I admit to checking out a couple of videos on YouTube featuring Ms. Ricanati not just discussing her book, but baking challah at the same time. 

Readers, any books you’ve read during the first half of 2023 that you loved? Enjoyed? Learned from? Please share!!

Please note: I am including a link to buy the books that I’m mentioning this week.  If you use my link, I do make a small commission on your purchase at no additional cost to you.  I have chosen to affiliate with Bookshop.org, which also sends a portion of the profit to support local, independent bookstores. 

Braided

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

I am not a baker. Meaning, I’m not a multiple-ingredients, multi-step-recipe kind of baker.

I’m more a Ghirardelli-Dark-Chocolate-Brownie-Mix (which only requires three ingredients) type of baker. 

However, I was so intrigued by the premise of Braided: A Journey of a Thousand Challahs by Beth Ricanati, MD. (And I was tickled to learn that before her challah-baking, Ms. Ricanati counted her brownies, made from a Ghirardelli brownie mix, as her specialty.)

Here’s part of the description from the back cover:

“What if you could bake bread once a week, every week? And what if the act of making bread — mixing and kneading, watching and waiting — could heal your sense of being overwhelmed? It can. This is the surprise that physician-mother Beth Ricanati learned when she started baking challah: that simply stopping and baking bread was the best medicine she could prescribe for women in a fast-paced world.”

And here are some of the passages I marked while reading:

“Actions always speak louder than words: our children absorb and learn by watching us, not necessarily listening to us.”

“This was a big lesson for me. It took making challah again and again to realize that when something goes wrong, it is not always because I did something wrong. ‘Sorry’ used to be one of my favorite words. A guy friend of mine bet me in high school that I couldn’t stop saying sorry. ‘Sorry,’ I replied. Alas, reflexively, I still want to blame myself first, to assume that I must have done something wrong.”

“Waiting for the yeast to proof exercises more than patience. Waiting also exercises humility. It’s the greatest of all character traits, according to the Talmud. Humility supplants the ego, pushes away the tendency for self-centeredness. With humility comes the ability to have empathy.” 

“We can’t always be happy. Sometimes happiness is taken from us. Sometimes terrible things really do go bump in the night. While painting challah with a red-tipped brush may seem childish, may seem frivolous, I look forward to this with almost too much glee. In fact, whenever possible, I insist on doing this step myself, instead of handing it over to a child or a friend or anyone else. I want the reminder. I want the physical reminder that when we have the choice to be happy, we have to grab it. We have to take it and own and cherish it. It is not always ours to choose.”

“I found in making challah that the magic for me is in the process of making challah. No ends-justify-the-means here. What happened as I went through the eleven steps each Friday in this challah recipe is where I really learned to be present. To slow down for a moment each week. To appreciate the here and now. To reconnect with women. I found through these eleven steps that challah is the ultimate soul food for me.
“It was here all the time, I just didn’t see it. I was so concerned with doing the right thing all the time, being the right person at the right time, that I had unknowingly lost the enjoyment, the fabulousness of the here and now.”

Please note: I am including a link to buy the book that I’m highlighting this week. If you use my link, I do make a small commission on your purchase at no additional cost to you. I am working with Bookshop.org which also sends a portion of the profit to support local, independent bookstores.

Still Going

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

One year ago, my family and I were in Maui. (If you missed it, you can read my post about our fantastic trip by clicking here. My son took this photo during our zip lining adventure.)

This year, we’re in the almost-done-planning stage of our summer trip, happening later this summer. (I’ll be writing about this summer’s trip in a blog post next month. Stay tuned!)

If I’m being honest, I do have to admit that I am a bit worried.

The truth is I’m very good at keeping it all together, of making my life, my family’s life, look like everything is under control. Because it is — in many ways. But I’m also dealing with incredible amounts of daily pain. I’m trying to get through my days while struggling with high levels of fatigue, unexpected muscle twitches, and knees that make bending painful.

Will I come home feeling more intense pain than I did before the trip? Maybe. But also, maybe not. 

Will I have hours during our trip when my left leg will feel wobbly and shaky like Jello on a dessert plate? Maybe, but maybe not. 

Two family members have voiced their concerns about the trip. “Won’t it be too much for you?” I was asked.

“Probably,” I answered.

But we’re still going. I am not going to let my chronic illness stop me.