Off Kilter
Linda suffers from scoliosis. Marked physically with the seemingly “off-kilter” framework of her body, it was difficult for her to deny her external “imbalance.” She railed against it, using yoga, stretching and meditation to “untwist” tight and rigid body parts, and continues to have success managing the affliction this way.
Wisniewski employed other techniques like writing and networking with friends, to unravel her rigid, sometimes unforgiving past. Trapped and disappointed in the relationship she had with her mother and father, she worked diligently to make peace with both, finally arriving at the notion that “perhaps it is not our mothers who have let us down so much as the yardstick by which we have been measuring them,” as stated by author Monica McGoldrick.
She reached to embrace her Polish heritage and Catholic upbringing even though it was the latter that frequently surrounded her with a guilt that dampened her spirit. Wisniewski weaves a pleasant story of the task of accepting all the pieces of who we are and the peace that ensues when we do.
