Dierdre Wolownick: Stewardship, Traveling and Listening to Yourself
“Just say no. I mean, if you want to be a climber and you’re a little girl, so what? Just do it. I’ve never understood why people acquiesce to that and accept the roles that are forced on them.”
— DIERDRE WOLOWNICK
Dierdre Wolownick is an unstoppable force when it comes to an understanding of who she is and what she is capable of.
Since 1971, she has taught five foreign languages on three continents and recently retired from the American river college near her home in Carmichael, California. And she's also done freelance writing and appeared in magazines worldwide. On top of already this list of accomplishments, she has been a musician all her life and founded the West Sacramento community orchestra.
And the cherry on top of all of this is at the age, 55 She became a long-distance runner, and your career includes marathons and half marathons and other races. At age 58, she began rock climbing and at age 66. She became the oldest woman to climb Yosemite's El Capitan.
And if this story wasn't already crazy enough, she is the mother of Alex Honnold. The world's most prolific rock climber. He is the star of the film Free Solo where he climbed El Capitan with no climbing equipment. It's incredible. This conversation shows why or how someone can be as incredible at what they do.
Dierdre is fascinating in what she provides to people, her outlook on the world. Being able to push back on norms of how people assume you should be. The power of writing because she believes that what you tell yourself informs what you're capable of doing. When you say, Oh, I'm supposed to be this or I should be that that's another person value. She says, write your own story. Please enjoy this conversation with Dierdre Wolownick.
Read Dierdre’s book the Sharp End of Life (Website Link)
Read Dierdre’s Blog
Learn more about Dierdre’s son Alex Honnold by watching the documentary Free Solo
Show Notes:
[00:05:00] Who is Dierdre Wolownick?
[00:06:12] Thoughts on wide ranging interests
[00:07:26] New experiences and activities
“But I always loved trying stuff and like, that's, you know, that's the main part. I just love trying new stuff, learning new stuff, new places and, and, you know, when I went to college, I did a junior, my junior year in France, and kind of got a taste for seeing the world and experiencing different things.
A different area. I grew up experiencing different cultures in New York City. I grew up in New York. After world war II, New York was filled with people from all over the world escaping the war, you know. and it was, it was largely on, on, on our side of the continent. It was largely a European war. So, you know, I grew up using many different languages and, and eating, give them food.
You know, all different cultures. So, it was just sort of like you said, yeah, I guess progression is a good word for just getting bigger and bigger and more diverse. I hate that word. Diverse the way they use it nowadays, but, but yeah, it was, it was a gradual progression.”
[00:09:24] Experiencing life post World War II
[00:10:56] What was the first thing that captured your interest?
“I become a teacher, you know, but not because of what they said, but because I loved teaching. You know, I just loved it. And, I was originally going to go into music cause I'm a performing musician. I always have been and I always love it. And but, but they always, they hammered away at this, this thing that, you know, every, every high school or whatever, wherever you're going to teach, every school has one music teacher.
But you know, four or five of everything else. I mean, your job possibilities are better somewhere, you know? So, I went into languages, which also fascinated me. And because I had been speaking and hearing many languages all my life. And so once I did that, once I became a language teacher, I started, started out teaching high school.
And every summer for my progress my professional betterment. I would go to Europe and practice all my languages. I taught French, Spanish, and Italian. And I was also, and I was also the musical director at the high schools. We put on musicals at the end of the year, and I would conduct the orchestra, you know?
So I really needed to go to Europe for my job and, you know, to make myself more. Better at what I did. So I would, and I met all kinds of people and I had all kinds of experiences that opened the world to me in so many ways. And it was so exciting. And, you know, I started to get glimpses of other things that I might like to do.
And it just, it was like you said, it was, it was a progression, very slow progression.”
[00:13:40] Elaborating on language and how to learn one
[00:16:26] How do you help people become a world citizen?
[00:17:55] Recommendations to get people outside of their comfort zone
[00:22:24] Seeing the environmental impacts of human activity or lack of it
[00:23:24] Being drawn to nature
[00:24:49] Gifted or Influential books
Albert Payson Terhune - Lad, A Dog
[00:29:26] The power of fiction
[00:30:59] Climbing El Capitan
[00:38:08] Make your own choices
“I never thought about that. Yeah. I never considered, I mean, age is just a number. It ages, whatever you. Tell yourself it is. And I, even when I was a kid, I never believed that I would, you know, follow the big boys, climbing up on the garage roofs and stuff. I would follow them up the trees.
And even though I was a little girl, you know, I wasn't supposed to be able to do all that stuff. So I never believed that. And, and it's really a shame that television and the internet, but mostly television really pounds that into us, that you're supposed to do this at this age. You're supposed to look like this.
You're supposed to dress like this. That's all nonsense. I don't know. I've never understood why people buy into that, why people believe it. I just never understood. I never believed it when I was a kid. I still don't believe it.”
[00:39:57] Who should you listen to?
[00:40:12] The Power of Journaling
[00:42:52] Understanding the stories you tell yourself
[00:44:34] Specializing doesn't mean crystallize
[00:47:09] Sharing stories unfiltered
[00:47:56] Dealing with struggle
“That's a big question. Once you've read my book, you'll understand what I mean by how big a question. Yeah. a large part, a big key, if you will, in my own arsenal to fight too. Fighting against upheaval, you know, in life was the journal. Yeah. Really. I would've gone crazy without that.
I mean, I was in a nonmarriage for many years. My husband was probably autistic. I don't know what the problem was. He just ignored everybody and had nothing to do with anybody. And I was his wife. I thought I would say wife are supposed to talk to him and you know, but I wouldn't talk to you. It was a crazy time.
And at the same time, I was raising my two wonderful little kids, and I had just like a dichotomy going on, you know, trying to deal with him. That was crazy making. Then I'd turn around and I'd want to be mom, you know, a loving mom. And it was just, that was crazy times. And so I wrote out of desperation. I wrote in the journal all the time.”
