memoir

Crying in H Mart

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

I picked up my copy of Crying in H Mart from a Little Free Library in my neighborhood. I had heard of the book, I knew it was a best seller, and I knew the author was a musician. But I didn’t know much more than that. 

Yet I wanted to read Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner for two reasons:

1. As a reader, I believe everyone has a story worth sharing.

2. As a writer, I’m always curious to see how other writers structure their memoirs. 

Here’s what you should know about me:

I am not an adventurous eater. I have a pretty sensitive stomach so most, if not all, the food mentioned in this memoir was unfamiliar to me. 

And here’s what you should know about the book:

It’s beautiful. Quite simply it is a tender love letter from a daughter in honor of her mother. 

Here are just a few of my favorite passages:

“Ever since my mom died, I cry in H Mart.”

“Food was how my mother expressed her love. No matter how critical or cruel she could seem — constantly pushing me to meet her intractable expectations — I could always feel her affection radiating from the lunches she packed and the meals she prepared for me just the way I liked them. I can hardly speak Korean, but in H Mart it feels like I’m fluent.”

“I remember these things clearly because that was how my mother loved you, not through white lies and constant verbal affirmation, but in subtle observations of what brought you joy, pocketed away to make you feel comforted and cared for without even realizing it.”

“The cowboy boots arrived in one of these packages after my parents had vacationed in Mexico. When I slipped them on I discovered they’d already been broken in. My mother had worn them around the house for a week, smoothing the hard edges in two pairs of socks for an hour every day, molding the flat sole with the bottom of her feet, wearing in the stiffness, breaking the tough leather to spare me all discomfort.”

“I wondered if I should try to explain how important it was to me. That cooking my mother’s food had come to represent an absolute role reversal, a role I was meant to fill. That food was an unspoken language between us, that it had come to symbolize our return to each other, our bonding, our common ground.”

“I talked about how love was an action, an instinct, a response roused by unplanned moments and small gestures, an inconvenience in someone else’s favor.”

“She was my champion, she was my archive. She had taken the utmost care to preserve the evidence of my existence and growth, capturing me in images, saving all my documents and possessions. She had all knowledge of my being memorized. The time I was born, my unborn cravings, the first book I read. The formation of every characteristic. Every ailment and little victory. She observed me with unparalleled interest, inexhaustible devotion.”

“The culture we shared was active, effervescent in my gut and in my genes, and I had to seize it, foster it so it did not die in me. So that I could pass it on someday. The lessons she imparted, the proof of her life lived on in me, in my every move and deed. I was what she left behind. If I could not be with my mother, I would be her.”

Readers, have you read Crying in H Mart? What did you think of it?

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.

Everyone But Myself

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

It is absolutely appropriate to judge a book by its cover, especially when it comes to Julie Chavez’s memoir, Everyone But Myself. 

Between the title and the illustration on the front cover, you have a strong sense of what this book is about. This memoir is another example of an author writing the specifics of her life, and in doing so, making it universally appealing to others who “get it.”

In her note to the reader, Ms. Chavez writes: 

“Although the details vary, I’m not alone in this story. Many women ask the same questions I did: How do I respond to all the asks of the world without losing my sense of self — my interests, my desires, my dreams — in the process? How do I remain whole so that, underneath all the repetitive and the annoying and the boring, I can revel in the privilege and miracle of a perfectly messy life?”

Many moms, and I think women in general, experience this struggle; the need to care for others around us while not caring for ourselves. 

These are just a few of the passages that resonated with me:

“Since those early newlywed days I’d discarded heaps of useless advice and ideas, and I’d also learned the difference between distance and space. Distance grew from the accumulation of tiny resentments, the swallowed frustrations that are an inevitable part of coexistence between two imperfect humans. Space, on the other hand, was a necessity, creating room for our deepest needs: respite, rest, recovery.”

“I believed that I would be most fulfilled by being indispensable, that I was loved because I was needed. Protecting space for ourselves may be an issue for those around us, those who are accustomed to our endless availability. But it’s an act of self-care, of self-love, to say, ‘No, this space — this time — belongs to me.’ ”

“It was quiet. I found momentary respite from my world, from its loss and need and upheaval. It was just me, there with myself, the part of me that exists outside of my disparate pieces and roles and obligations and imagined obligations.
I’m enough, I thought. And I’m okay.
One step forward.”

“ ‘You’re handling a lot right now,’ Kim said. ‘I’m not surprised you’re feeling sad.’
These basic affirmations from Kim were invaluable. It was reassuring to hear her observations that my plate was indeed full, that hard things were justifiably hard, that what I was feeling or experiencing was normal. I’d done years of unappreciated work, and the person who appreciated my efforts least had been me. Kim was training me to see this invisible load, to count it as valid and worthy of attention and accommodation. She reminded me that it was normal to have bad days and normal to be an emotional, feeling person in a fucked-up world. Feelings weren’t an early warning sign I was an unbalanced nut. I was merely responding to the ups and downs of life.”

“The changes I had made were small but impactful. I asked for help slightly more often, and I said no far more often. I embraced rest and put some items on my to-do list purely because they brought me joy.”

“Even though I’d occasionally painted them as insatiable leeches, the people who loved me wanted me to take time for myself. They wanted me to balance my needs with theirs, to be well and whole. I was allowed to hand off responsibilities to my husband, my kids, and others, and I was even allowed to phone it in if that’s what was best for my overall balance and wellness.”

“Therapy with Kim helped me rewrite some of the stories I had grown accustomed to telling myself. She taught me that worrying didn’t necessarily make the future brighter, but it did make the present darker.”

“I was learning to ask myself the question I’d ask someone I love: What do you need? And then whatever answer arrived — be still, exercise, meditate, lie on the couch with a book, text Kim some depressed-looking bitmojis and ask if she has appointments available — I did it.”

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.

Something to Endure

Posted on by Wendy Kennar
My memoir is divided into three parts.
The final essay in this part, and the book, is
"Something to Endure."

Super exciting news:  my manuscript is complete, and I will now be entering a new stage of the writing process — the querying-agents phase. 

But before I got here, when I was revising and rewriting my manuscript, I had to make a decision regarding my final essay. I had three essays that my book coach and I agreed were all possible candidates for that all-important last essay in the book.

It is my hope that my memoir will be read by those living with chronic illnesses, as well as those who know people who are living with chronic illness. I’m hoping that my story can serve as an example. Though the medical specifics may vary, the emotions may be quite similar. So someone who lives with diabetes, for example, could give my book to a loved one, point to one of my essays, and say, “Here. Read this. This is what I feel like sometimes.” 

For far too long, terms such as “disability” and “disabled” have been too narrowly defined. I really want my memoir to broaden those definitions, and I would like my story to serve as just one example of what a disabled life looks like.

When I started working with my book coach, I told her I was writing the book I needed to read when I became ill. I hope after reading my memoir that my chronically ill readers feel less alone and more understood. Along those lines, I want my final essay to give readers a sense of comfort, a dose of good-feels. 

Before making my final decision, I stopped to reflect and think about how I want my readers to feel when they’re done reading my memoir-in-essays. 

These were the adjectives that I came up with:

Hopeful.

Enlightened.

Inspired.

Comforted. 

With that in mind, I made my decision (and my book coach agrees). My final essay is titled “Something to Endure.” Because basically that is the bottom line when it comes to chronic illness. You have to endure the illness. You need to stick it out and figure out ways to handle it, to be with it day-in and day-out for the long haul.

But you don’t have to do it alone. Books, including my own, connect us.

The Book of Annie

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

Maybe you’re a Seinfeld fan and you remember Annie Korzen from her role as Doris Klompus. Or, you’re on TikTok and you’ve seen Annie’s humorous videos there.

I know Annie Korzen, but not because of Seinfeld or TikTok. On multiple occasions, we have sat and chatted. And though I knew many things about her, reading her memoir The Book of Annie: Humor, Heart, and Chutzpah from an Accidental Influencer has helped me learn even more about her.

The Book of Annie is described as “wildly funny musings from an 83-year-old TikTok sensation.” 

This week, I’d like to share just a few of my favorite passages:

“I hope these musings will not only make you laugh, but also make you a better human being, because, wonderful as you already are, we can all benefit from an occasional upgrade.” (From the Author’s Note)

“I admit it: I am often guilty of being a nagging wife. I constantly remind Benni to watch his diet and do his exercises. I guess I’d rather be a nag than a widow.”

“Being a parent is a Catch-22. Your main job is to prepare your kids to separate from you, while your main instinct is to keep them as close to you as possible.”

“The great irony is, my first serious love was a Black guy I went to college with. But if I had married Billy, I would have been part of an interracial family, and who needed that challenge? It’s tough enough just dealing with all the Jew crap.
“Isn’t life strange? I thought I didn’t want to be a grandmother, and I thought I didn’t want to be part of an interracial family. But when those things actually happened, everything fell into place. So, just like with that Jewish wedding, maybe what we think we want or don’t want has very little to do with what really makes us happy. And who knows? As the world keeps evolving, maybe by the time my precious Max grows up, he might be able to walk down a dark street without anyone feeling threatened — or anyone threatening him.”

“But my favorite kitchen time-saver is my husband. Several years ago, I announced that I was retiring from all food-preparation duties and that it was now his turn. I’m proud to say that Benni has stepped up to the (dinner) plate. He will throw together some grilled salmon, roasted garlic potatoes, and a tossed salad without complaining, and will even sort of clean up afterward. Sometimes you just get lucky.”

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.

The Light We Carry, Part Three

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

This is my third and final post about Michelle Obama’s book The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times.

(You can read my post about part one by clicking here.)

(And part two is here.)

There were parts of this book that read so smooth and easy, as if I was fortunate enough to sit down and have a conversation with Mrs. Obama. And there were parts that just stopped me in my reading, passages I re-read and marked with a highlighter because they really resonated with me.

Here are just some of those passages:

“When someone chooses to lift the curtain on a perceived imperfection in her story, on a circumstance or condition that traditionally might be considered to be a weakness, what she’s often actually revealing is the source code for her steadiness and strength.”

“When we share our stories with fullness and honesty, we often discover that we’re less alone and more connected than we might ever have believed.” 

“All I can do is try to draw closer to your uniqueness, to feel linked by the small overlaps between us. This is how empathy works. It’s how differentness starts to weave itself into togetherness. Empathy fills the gaps between us, but never closes them entirely. We get pulled into the lives of others by virtue of what they feel safe and able to show us, and the generosity with which we are able to meet them. Piece by piece, person by person, we begin to apprehend the world in more fullness.”

“For me, the process of writing can be an incredibly helpful tool when it comes to going high. It’s a means through which I am able to move through my emotions, filtering them into useful form.”

“Joy and pain often live in close proximity; they intermingle. Most of us exist in the in-between, following that most innate of human impulses, which is to hang on to hope. Don’t give up, we tell one another. Keep working.
“This matters, too.”

“Kids, for me, are always a reminder that we are all born loving and open-minded, free of hate. They are the reason the rest of us maintain a thick skin and keep trying to clear the path. Watching a child grow into an adult, you understand both how mundane and profound the process can be, how it happens slowly and quickly all at once, in steps and also in strides.”

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.  

The Light We Carry, Part One

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

I am currently reading Michelle Obama’s The Light We Carry: Overcoming In Uncertain Times. And let me say, I am about halfway through the book and have many pages flagged with sticky notes. 

So rather than have one super-long post, I decided to share some of my favorite passages one part at a time. (The book is split into three parts.)

(Last week I wrote about buying a wheelchair and referenced a little bit from Mrs. Obama’s book. If you missed last week’s post, you can read it here.)

This week, allow me to share some of my favorites from Part One:

“That’s what tools are for. They help keep us upright and balanced, better able to coexist with uncertainty. They help us deal with flux, to manage when life feels out of control.” 

“What does it mean to be comfortably afraid? For me, the idea is simple. It’s about learning to deal wisely with fear, finding a way to let your nerves guide you rather than stop you. It’s settling yourself in the presence of life’s inevitable zombies and monsters so that you may contend with them more rationally, and trusting your own assessment of what’s harmful and what’s not. When you live this way, you are neither fully comfortable nor fully afraid. You accept that there’s a middle zone and learn to operate inside of it, awake and aware, but not held back.”

“Our hurts become our fears. Our fears become our limits.”

“Because what my mother showed me is that if you try to keep your children from feeling fear, you’re essentially keeping them from feeling competence, too.”

“The unknown is where possibility glitters. If you don’t take the risk, if you don’t ride out a few jolts, you are taking away your opportunities to transform.”

“What [Toni] Morrison was doing for her kids is what my own parents did for me: She was giving them a simple message of enoughness. She was validating their light, that unique bit of brightness inside each of them — literally showing them it was there and it belonged to them, a power they could carry for themselves.”

“My father, whose shaky demeanor and foot-dragging limp sometimes caused people to stop and stare at him on the street, used to tell us, with a smile and a shrug, ‘No one can make you feel bad if you feel good about 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.

Everyone Has a Story

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

I am currently reading Words to Live By: 50 Inspiring Quotes by 50 Inspiring Women illustrated by Jade Purple Brown.

I bought this book back in July, on our last day in Washington, D.C. We had spent the morning exploring the National Portrait Gallery, and I found this book in the gift shop. (Truth be told, several books in the gift shop caught my eye. But I had to consider our limited luggage space.) 

I just started reading the book this past week. A few pages a day. Thought-provoking quotations accompanied by vibrant illustrations.  

This week I’d like to share a quote attributed to Frances Hodgson Burnett:

“Everything’s a story —

You are a story —

I am a story.”

I believe that everyone has a story to tell. It’s one of the reasons I read memoir. And it’s one of the reasons I’m writing a memoir. I can no longer teach in a classroom, but hopefully, I can continue to teach through my writing.

Question, dear readers:  Have you read any memoirs lately? Any recommendations?  

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.

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.

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.

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.