by Rachel Toalson | Wing Chair Musings
I used to think I needed to do everything alone.
Everything from my personal life to my professional life. Maybe it was an aversion to asking for help. I still don’t like asking for help.
But over the years, I’ve come to understand that we’re not meant to do everything alone. Not even most things. Even more than that, I’ve experienced the wonder and joy of collaboration.
About a year ago, I began a couple different collaboration projects with some author friends. One is an author who feels stifled by plotting. She flies by the seat of her pants. I joined her in flying by the seat of my pants—a change to my regular brainstormed, organized plots. We are still working on our story, and I am having such fun writing it. Our characters are as different as we are—quirky, confident, and utterly delightful.
The other author is a plotter, like me. I had a spark of an idea for a fantasy story with a hard-hitting emotional core. We spent two hours brainstorming by Zoom. And what we came up with is so much bigger than I might have come up with myself.
There is truth in the saying, “Two brains are better than one.” If that’s a saying. I think it is. Maybe I made it up, though. (Probably not. There’s nothing new under the sun, right?)
That’s not even the whole of collaboration.
Every morning I also meet with a group of writers by Zoom. We call ourselves the Zoombies. We spend the first fifteen minutes of our time together talking about our lives. We spend an hour and fifteen minutes muting ourselves and working on our individual writing projects. And then we meet at the end of that time to discuss how our day’s writing went.
Sometimes we really do talk about how our writing session went. Sometimes we bring each other questions: What do you think about this plot point? What would you do in this kind of situation? Is the way I’ve handled this problem believable?
It’s so helpful to have that real-time feedback, to think with more minds than one.
We have a wealth of expertise and experience at out fingertips. Our friends, our colleagues, all the members of our family, have different ways of seeing the world and unique ways of approaching life and problems and solutions to those problems. I know a lot about writing, environmentalism, and managing squeezed-tight time. My husband knows a lot about technology, philosophy, and how to take an effective break and rest. We collaborate on a daily basis so I don’t have to learn how to fix a broken computer and he doesn’t have to learn how to edit our son’s ELA picture book project.
I even collaborate with my children. (You haven’t experienced real honesty until you’ve asked a 7-year-old, “What do you think of this story?”)
We think bigger together. So I’ve stopped thinking it’s “cheating” to collaborate, to bounce ideas off the people in my life. Instead, I am increasing my own brain power by inviting them into the circle. And I am waiting in the wings, to do the same for them when the time comes.
In the meantime, I get to grow closer to the people I respect, admire, and genuinely enjoy and love. We grow closer in our relationships when we ask for help.
A win-win all around, if you ask me.
I hope you have a fantastic month of collaboration with the people in your life.
Here are some of my favorite ways to collaborate with others:
1. Partner with someone on a creative project
My first novel, The Colors of the Rain, was originally written as photo responses. What I mean by that is a friend of mine, Helen Montoya Henrichs, with whom I used to work at the San Antonio Express-News collaborated with me on a creative project wherein she would send me two photos a week, and I would write poems about those pictures. I had the idea to connect the poems into a story, and my novel in verse was born. Collaborating like this with a different creative form can not only spark our creativity but also help set up a method of accountability. I held my friend accountable for taking creative photos every week. She held me accountable for making consistent progress on my story.
2. Brainstorm solutions with someone or a group of someones
This can apply to a creative project you’re working on or even as granular as a problem you’re dealing with in your life. The people around us have so much expertise and sometimes know more than we do. It’s also helpful to get different perspectives, since we all see things differently. A wise friend of mine has run a business, has a Ph.D. in the psychology of giftedness, and has lived a different life than I have. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked her life advice for something. It’s invaluable having two heads to brainstorm the solution to a problem.
3. Start a podcast with someone else
A podcast is a great form for engaging conversation. And when you do one with someone else, you learn about that other person, and you also might learn some things about yourself. My husband and I have a podcast for creative people, and every week we learn something new about each other, even though we’ve been married almost nineteen years. It’s been fun to discover new things about each other and ourselves.
by Rachel Toalson | Writing tips
What are writing tips? I certainly had an idea for what I wanted them to be—what I planned them to be. Practical things that make us better writers (because you know what they say about teaching—the teacher learns as much as or more than the student). Useful things we could all take into our lives and plug into our stories or essays or poetry or marketing material or…whatever we’re writing. Answers to questions we’ve all had at one time or another.
But lately I’ve felt myself drawn to the more emotional things. Maybe it’s because, in talking with several of my writer friends, I’ve begun to realize that I’m not the only one who’s just…tired.
There’s a lot going on in our world. It takes emotional and physical effort to navigate everything, from politics to pandemics to winter storms (“I survived the 2021 Texas Winter Storm” is not something I ever thought I’d say in my lifetime…nor is “I lived through a pandemic”) and full houses that used to be empty at some point in the day.
I’m tired. We’re tired. A heart and brain and spirit can only take so much. And, well, we’ve taken enough.
Recently, I confessed to a friend that I’ve felt incredibly unproductive, noncreative, stymied in my forward motion. I walk around with a general sense of malaise, unable to focus like I used to. I waste time. I procrastinate—and those are not typical Rachel things to do. As a highly driven task-oriented person, I’ve never had a problem ticking off items on my to-do list.
Do you know how long it took me to call my dentist and reschedule an appointment that was canceled due to those six inches of snow Texas got in mid-February? Two weeks! The item kept moving to the next day’s list, because I couldn’t even summon the energy to pick up the phone and call.
Bills unpaid, sweet potatoes un-roasted, granola not made, book still not finished, that impulse buy at Target not returned, library books overdue, journal left unwritten in for the last three weeks.
We’re all dealing with this in one way or another. (National Geographic had a great article about it recently). Adrenal fatigue is real. We’re not made to navigate crisis after crisis after crisis, at least not in our comfortable modern lives.
So here’s the deal. In January I talked about writing in the small spaces, finding places to create in 5-minute, 10-minute, 15-minute increments.
But sometimes? It’s okay to take a break, for however long you need to. It’s okay to say, Not this week. I just can’t do it this week.” It’s okay to end a long, trying day in front of a screen, watching “Schitt’s Creek” (that’s currently how I spend my Friday evenings).
It’s okay—as long as we don’t stay there.
It’s important to give ourselves time and space to heal from those challenges. It’s especially important to change our self-talk from, Well, I didn’t create anything today—again, to I gave myself a day off so I can create tomorrow.
And when tomorrow comes? Find your 5, 10, 15 minutes and write your heart.
The world needs your words.
by Rachel Toalson | Wing Chair Musings
Most days I pride myself on being an extremely disciplined person. I make my to-do list, I divvy up my time between tasks, I mark things off with a flourish and a self-congratulatory pat on the back. I manage expectations, I make lists and calendar entries for the smallest of things, I set intentions for every action and interaction (more on this in another month’s newsletter).
This is what it means to be a task-oriented person. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with being a task-oriented person.
But.
There is a dark side to this kind of personality.
A couple of weeks ago my second son celebrated his twelfth birthday. Once our sons reach middle school, we allow them the option to take a day off from school on their birthday—to spend however they want (within reason, of course). When my eighth grader took his day off last November, he spent the entire day live-streaming on YouTube while playing video games. That kind of day-long date with technology is not usually allowed in our home (my middle school sons get an hour of tech per day), but birthdays are yes days. As long as what they do doesn’t harm themselves, other people, or our budget, we try to say yes.
My second son chose a day full of activity. He asked my husband and me to join him.
I had so much to do—editing to finish, chapters to write, emails to send, things to read, research to do…on and on and on. A family dentist appointment had broken up the week, stolen two hours of my time, so I was already operating in catch-up mode, according to my to-do list.
Not only that, but my son’s birthday fell on a Tuesday, in the middle of a regular 36-hour fast for me. He wanted scones for breakfast and pizza for dinner, along with the cake I’d made him the day before.
“You’re going to eat today, aren’t you, Mama?” he said, after we sang “Happy Birthday.” He held up a lemon scone. “You have to taste this one.”
He knows I love lemon everything.
What could I say? I know what I wanted to say. No, I can’t join you today…I have so much to do, and I’ve already lost time this week. No, I’m not eating today; it’s a fasting day, and this is my routine and it will throw off the whole week if I do.
I agonize over discipline-disruptors like this. I think, What if I can’t recover? What if I keep getting farther and farther behind? What if this day off completely obliterates my motivation, which will obliterate my discipline, which will obliterate my forward progress?
It’s a little ridiculous when I see it laid out like that. When did discipline become synonymous with I must do it this way forever and ever and ever or else everything will fall apart?
My husband is the exact opposite. He has no problem shifting into “vacation” mode. He would probably live permanently in vacation mode if he didn’t have a job and family and responsibilities.
Something I’ve been trying to do this year is seize opportunities like this with both hands, as hard as it may be for me to let go of the things I need to do. Who knows how long this son will choose to spend his birthday with his mom and dad? Soon we’ll be replaced by friends. I want to hang out with him while he still enjoys our company.
So I did take the day off. We rode bikes to the neighborhood park, played an hour or so of tennis, worked on a puzzle, talked, went ice skating (his first time), and picked up his brothers from school together.
It was bliss.
And the next day? I got back to work.
Here is a thought exercise that often works for me when I find myself prioritizing tasks over my relationships:
Step one: Ask, If I take a day off, what might happen?
Most of the time the answer is nothing. Except you’ll probably have fun.
Step two: Ask, What might I miss if I don’t take a day off?
The answers vary, of course. We might miss building a deeper relationship with a friend or getting the adequate sleep we need to be productive the rest of our week or seeing our 12-year-old wipe out on the ice and get right back up with a laughing, “I’m gonna be sore tomorrow!” (Not as sore as me, son.)
Step three: Ask, What is more important: What might happen or what I’ll miss?
Sometimes what could happen might be worse—our job is compromised, we miss an important deadline, we leave someone in a bind. But many times what we’d miss (especially when it comes to relationships) is far greater than a hypothetical disaster.
by Rachel Toalson | Wing Chair Musings
Over the years, I’ve written many words and spent many hours of my time teaching about being kind. It’s so important to me, this idea of kindness, that every day, when my sons leave for school, I hug them tight, kiss the tops of their heads (with the exception of the one I can no longer reach—I get his forehead), and say, “I love you. Remember who you are: Strong, kind, courageous, and mostly my son.”
But you know who got lost in this kindness teaching?
Myself.
I don’t mean to say I’m not kind to people. I work exceedingly hard to be kind, even in my interactions with difficult people. I fail like everybody else, of course, because I’m not perfect and sometimes I’m tired and people can be, well, people.
When I say I got lost in this kindness teaching, what I really mean is I will bend over backwards to be kind to someone else, but I have no problem beating myself up for the smallest, most insignificant things.
Just this morning, I went out for my weekly half-marathon run. I’d had a terrible run yesterday, the slowest 15 miles I’ve logged, ever. A sore hamstring has been plaguing me for the last week (I refuse to consider it might be an injury). So I was already beginning my usually-enjoyable half-marathon with some negativity. Don’t make this one like the last one, I told myself. Pick up your cadence. Work hard.
As if I hadn’t worked hard on that 15-mile run.
My self-flagellation worked for a while. I logged faster miles than I usually do on a Saturday morning 13.1. But that sore hamstring paid the price.
It’s been a week exactly like that. I step on the scale every morning, a leftover from weight-loss days, a precaution against gaining anything that will make me unhealthy, turn my runs into miserable slogs, and make my clothes feel more snug than I’d like…but mostly that last one. All week, I fell short of my goal. All week, I looked in the mirror, analyzed, pinched, turned, wrinkled my nose. All week I told myself, You have to do better.
Distraction ruled my work days. My sons’ school was damaged in the Texas winter storm, and my four elementary children were shipped off to three different elementary schools, one more than thirty miles away. The school district recently voted to lift the mask mandate, so now we had quadruple the COVID exposure, with more than 50% of students not protecting their fellow students by wearing masks. I’d write, think about them, worry, wrestle my attention back, think about them, worry, check my email to make sure their teachers hadn’t sent anything of concern, write, walk around, write, worry. Why can’t you just concentrate? I told myself. Why can’t you still your mind like you used to and actually get something worthwhile done?
Not good enough. Those are the words I tell myself the most. That’s not good enough. Your effort isn’t good enough. You’re not good enough.
Do I do this to anyone else? Maybe, in subtle ways, I do it to the people I live with. My expectations of myself often bleed into my expectations of my sons and my husband.
But I have never done it to friends. Acquaintances. Strangers.
Why? Because they deserve kindness more than I do?
Why are we so hard on ourselves?
I know we’re tired. I know we have expectations that haven’t panned out, for whatever reason. I know we feel disappointed, angry, sad, scared, frustrated, unproductive, unimportant, maybe a little bit hopeless.
But that’s no reason to criticize, belittle, and beat up ourselves.
We deserve better. We deserve love and kindness, too.
I challenge you this month to do one kind thing (at least!) for yourself every day.
Here are some things I’m trying:
1 Loving-kindness meditation.
I lie on the floor and focus on my breath for a minute or so, then begin the mantra, May I be well. Maybe I be joy-filled. May I be healthy. May I be strong. May I be kind. May I be courageous. Maybe I be loving and kind. May I be safe. May I be at peace. I end the meditation sending the same thoughts to someone I love.
2. Daily nap.
Between my daily writing sessions, I set a timer for 25 minutes and nap. Even if I can’t manage to still my mind enough to actually sleep, I make sure I don’t beat myself up about it. It’s not wasted time; I’ve stilled my body and the outside world and listened to what’s in my mind and on my heart for 25 uninterrupted minutes.
3. The end.
At the end of every work day, I close my laptop and say out loud, My work is done. Now I can rest. Not only does this send a clear message to my brain that work time’s over—don’t open that laptop or check email again—but it also creates the space to know that what I accomplished during my work sessions was enough.
I’d love to hear what practices you might pick up for yourself.
May you be well. May you be kind and loving to yourself. And may you be at peace.
by Rachel Toalson | Wing Chair Musings
I was halfway through my mile warmup, an easy jog down to my sons’ elementary school and back, hugging the curb of low-traffic neighborhood streets, when it slammed into the quiet morning: the honk heard round the world.
It happens occasionally. Someone will see me—a friend, the parent of my sons’ friends, someone I met recently at a school function. They’ll honk a greeting, short, friendly, if still startling enough to shoot my heart rate into sprint zone. It might not be the sort of sound that startles everyone while out running, but it definitely shakes a woman out running alone.
Maybe they don’t think about it. I can forgive them that.
This honk was different.
The driver, whose face I didn’t see (though I assume it was a man), honked for a good three seconds, maybe longer. It was a calculated honk. A mean-spirited one. A threatening one?
It would be foolish not to consider that possibility, that it was a honk meant to scare me. Or warn me. Or make me feel small and afraid.
Get out of my way, it said. Get off the street, it said. Or else, it said.
Or else what? He’d return to make sure I moved, got off the street, ran through grass and rock and all sorts of dangerous tripping hazards? He’d run me over with his big white truck’s giant tires or his black Ford F-150 with windows so tinted you can’t see inside or his blocky silver Kia Soul (sadly, this is not the first time I’ve experienced this sort of harassment from drivers; I memorize all the makes and models, commit them to memory so I know what to look out for).
Or else he’d do worse?
Who can ever tell? I am, after all, a woman running in the dark, alone.
Running alone’s not safe at the best of times, and these definitely aren’t the best of times.
For a split second, I think about chasing the offending driver to the stop sign less than a tenth of a mile away, demanding to know why he chose such a hostile gesture to express his contempt of me.
But I’m a woman, it’s dark, and no one else, for now, is around.
So instead, I spend the rest of my 7.5-mile run flinching at every passing car; watching for his return; sweeping my headlamp over every neighborhood T at each sound that could be footsteps, which could mean danger; and remembering.
It’s the remembering that burns me up inside.
I run to be free. But no matter what safety measures I take, no matter the precautions I practice, no matter where I run or when I run or what I wear while I’m doing it or the weapons I sneak into my belt, my pocket, between my fingers—
I am not free.
•
Maybe he didn’t mean anything by it.
Or maybe he meant everything I think.
When you’re a woman, you don’t have the luxury of believing the streets are safe, you are safe, a three-second (was it longer? Maybe.) honk meant nothing. It’s not fair, but there it is: every footstep, every car, every person, every noise, every strange sight, every leaf twirling on wind, caught in the peripheral vision, is a potential peril.
There are trails that run through my neighborhood. They would get me off the roads, away from cars. They’d be easier on my joints and bones, too, as I increase mileage and prepare for longer races. I wouldn’t have to deal with drivers honking, disrupting the peace of my run.
But you won’t ever find me back there, removed from civilization, as nice as the experience sounds.
That’s a line I won’t cross, because I want to make it back home.
•
Runner’s World reports that 84 percent of female runners have been harassed at least once while out running. Some of those harassments have ended in death.
We have rules: Don’t run in the dark, don’t run in isolated areas, share your route—but not with everyone, change your routes, ditch the earbuds, carry pepper spray (and whistles and weapons and phones), always stay alert to what’s around you.
I can’t get tired. I can’t drift off into my own world, let my mind wander. I can’t take a single step without keeping my guard securely in place.
It’s exhausting.
I am not free.
•
A few days ago, a friend texted: I dropped off a safety whistle, hung it on your front door.
A woman’s body was found dumped on the highway, in a construction zone, less than two miles from my house. I run a route right past the location where she was found. Rumors say sex-trafficking activity has increased in the area. A man from one of the neighborhoods I pass nearly every day has been apprehended for streaking. Multiple times.
I know you go out alone, she said. Make sure you take the whistle.
It’s another necessary thing weighing me down. Already I no longer go anywhere without my running belt, which carries my water, identification, pepper spray, and a personal alarm. I never leave the house without my phone or an easily-retrievable key in my pocket. Maybe I should get a Tigerlady self-defense claw? A stun gun? A Go Guarded Ring?
Should I brush up on my self-defense training?
Before I leave the house, I text my husband my route. If I get out on my run, feel good enough to tackle some higher hills or log more miles that day, I stick to the pre-planned route anyway, because, well, you never know.
I wear a headlamp, reflective gear, neon shirts, shoes with reflective pieces, a vest, a belt with all the above-mentioned items. How many extra ounces do I carry just so I can return home to my husband and sons, safe and sound?
•
My husband runs with two Apple earbuds, the world completely blocked out by whatever podcast or audiobook or Amazon playlist he’s listening to. I wear one Apple earbud, if any at all, because I have to be constantly, diligently aware of my surroundings—that car moving suspiciously slowly, seeming to follow me; a man on a bike about to pass…or stop?; a figure stepping unexpectedly out of the trees, right in my path.
Maybe they’re all innocent people, out for one innocent reason or another. But believing everyone’s innocent doesn’t keep a lone woman safe on a run.
My husband doesn’t even wear a headlamp in the dark.
“I don’t know how you run without a light,” I said during a recent Saturday morning recovery run, when my pace slows enough for him to join me.
“I wish you could experience it,” he said. “Feeling the ground underneath you, feeling one with nature, getting away from the lights. It’s like you can just fade into the darkness. Be, I don’t know. Free.”
Just the thought of that kind of darkness makes my skin crawl.
How many dangers wait for a woman out in the dark?
I am not free.
•
I deserve to feel safe when I run. I deserve to start and finish my runs focused on my breath, my steps, the way I feel, whatever’s on my mind, not anxious about the loud whipping wind and the dangers it might mask during the seven miles, twelve miles, twenty miles I’ll log for the day. I deserve to be free.
But that is not the world I live in. I’m reminded of that every time I text my route to my husband, every time my pepper spray thumps against my thigh, every time someone blasts a three-second honk in the middle of a still-sleeping neighborhood.
“Maybe you should stick to the treadmill,” my ten-year-old son said tonight at the dinner table.
For sixteen miles? Torture.
He nodded. “Yeah. That would be hard.” He sighed. “It’s not fair.”
It’s not, I agreed.
Maybe you should run with your husband, you might be thinking.
He runs at a slower pace than I typically do, and he doesn’t log nearly the mileage I cover. His longest run of the week is my shortest one. He prefers Camp Gladiator, high intensity interval training, strength sessions, not long meandering runs through our side of the city.
Well, maybe you should stop, then.
I won’t. I won’t let them make me.
I shouldn’t have to.
I deserve to feel safe when I run. I deserve to enjoy every minute of my chosen activity. I deserve to be free.
•
So what, then, is the solution?
I wish I could say I had a solution. But I don’t. There are no simple solutions to this problem.
But changing the conversation would be a start. Instead of asking, What can she do to protect herself better when running, ask, “What can we, as a community, do to help keep her safe when she’s out running? How can we make our streets safer for women who choose to run alone? What can I do to look out for female runners out on their own?”
Well lit streets help. Looking out for each other helps. Men being aware of the dangers women face, committing to doing their part in making sure they feel safe helps.
Beyond that? Let us run.
Let us run in the streets. Let us run in the middle of the road, if we want. Let us run on shoulders or in bike lanes or hugged up against curbs (did you know it’s safer for a woman to run on streets than on a dim-lit sidewalk flanked by trees? Attackers don’t usually venture into the middle of the street; they step out of sidewalk shadows).
Just…let us run.
•
I finished my morning’s 7.5 miles faster than I’ve ever run them before. A bright end to the less-than-bright beginning? Maybe. Maybe not.
I didn’t run alone today. But I could have done without the anger and fear that kept pace with me the whole seven laps through my neighborhood. I would rather have spent my energy on giving everything I had to that run, instead of checking over my shoulder, bracing myself for the honking driver’s return.
I run to be free.
I am not there yet.
by Rachel Toalson | This Writer Life
When I visit kids at schools, someone usually asks me if I just write my book and that’s that. It’s a humorous question to me; a book is hardly ever finished the first time it comes out on paper (there is, of course, the very, very rare exception). But students are often surprised to know just how many drafts my books require.
It’s impossible to say, when I’m first starting a book, how many drafts it will take to perfect it (in my eyes, at least). Drafting is like starting with a big block of wood that has little shape and whittling it down to something artistic and beautiful. Sometimes that can be done in five drafts, sometimes it takes twenty. Most of my books take seven or more—intentionally. I have a process that infuses time and space into the workflow, and that is necessary, for me, to write the best book I can. Time and space allow me to approach my manuscripts with the impassivity of a reader reading it for the first time.
The above picture is my workflow. I spend the bulk of my time researching and brainstorming characters, plots, locations, emotional arcs, and character relationships. Once that’s finished (and sometimes I have 20,000 words of brainstorm during this stage), I write the first draft. I don’t self-edit, don’t change anything, try not to even backspace for this first draft. I just get all the words onto the page as fast as I can. Then I set the manuscript aside for a month or two.
Draft two is for deepening scenes, focusing on the emotions and descriptions, bringing settings to life. Once finished with draft two, I again set the manuscript aside for one or two months. Before draft three I read through the manuscript and make notes—what are the confusing places? Are there any plot holes? What needs more research to really come alive? Are there inconsistencies? I make a triage list of what needs tweaking in the next draft.
Other drafts focus specifically on language. One draft includes multiple “passes,” reading through the manuscript for specific things—one pass for characterization, one for dialogue, one for beginnings and endings of chapters, one for symbols, motifs, and epanelepsis (returning to something later that was introduced earlier but changed).
My process differs between picture books, poems, and essays, but at the heart of it, it remains the same. Books and poems and any piece of writing takes time, and we can’t rush the process. I find that every draft I do—some of them complete rewrites, some of them just tweaks—brings me closer to the heart of my story.
How do you know you’re done? I don’t have a definitive answer for that. Every story is different, and the truth is, you likely could go on revising forever and ever. I could revise my published books, if my publisher permitted me. At some point, in order to get our work out into the world, we have to type, “The End.” You’ll know when it’s the right time.
Don’t be afraid to let it go.
by Rachel Toalson | Poetry
crack it open
there are worlds within pages
adventures and mysteries
and the essence of life
contained in history, science, story
teaching, widening memory,
affirming identity, all gathered
in a single spine
in a small collection of paper
so when a day has given
all it can give and there is nothing
left to do or see or glean or learn or try,
there is still
the book.
This is an excerpt from Textbook of an Ordinary Life, Rachel’s fourth poetry book.
(Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash)
by Rachel Toalson | Wing Chair Musings
I was an avid reader as a child. My mother would take us to our county library that was a fifteen-minute drive down two highways, and I’d stack the books as high as I could carry and take them all home and read them in less than a week. I read every Ramona book, Anne of Green Gables book, Pippi Longstocking book, every book by Madeleine L’Engle and Scott O’Dell. I was an obsessive reader; when I discovered an author I loved, I read every single book they wrote, told everybody about the author, passed books along to friends, hoping they would enjoy them as much as I did.
So many books—or authors, rather—shaped me in my formative years.
Madeleine L’Engle: I loved the science in her books, seeing a strong female character take center stage, reading the compassion and love and truth that flowed through her stories. Later, in my adult years, I would finish everything she wrote, including her adult novels and her memoir series, The Crosswicks Journals.
Scott O’Dell: The history in his books captured me, along with so many of his strong female characters (in Sing Down the Moon, Island of the Blue Dolphins, and Streams to the River, River to the Sea, among so many others). I loved reading about the culture of Native Americans, lives that were far removed from my own (though my great-great-great grandmother was Choctaw—and one day I will write about her).
The Brontës: How I loved Emily and Charlotte Brontë, the dark Gothic world of Wuthering Heights, the tragic world of the governess. Looking back on these books, the women protagonists weren’t necessarily strong, but they did everything they could in their limited circumstances during a time when women were not allowed much freedom.
Jane Austin & Virginia Woolf: I loved how they defied convention directly (Woolf) and indirectly through humor and satire (Austen). Their books still hold an important place in my heart today.
L.M. Montgomery: I loved the spirit of Anne, the way she approached life with joy and gratitude, her quirkiness, and how she defied convention in a charming, innocent way. She was brave and wild and free. I read every one of her books, with a relish I still remember.
Lois Lowry: I loved her fantastical worlds, the characters who broke free from oppressive societies, the way they found their place through struggle and their own resilience. Their journey was like a metaphor for my own life, and their victories made my own seem possible.
Toni Morrison: I still, today, read and re-read Toni Morrison, but I first discovered her in high school and read her obsessively in college. I read her for her expert use of beautiful language, the literary quality of her books, the strange threads she wove together, what she could teach me about not only the black experience or the poor experience (this latter of which I was familiar), but also the human experience.
Books told me who I could be, showed me my potential, and taught me how to write. They certainly became part of my multitude. It’s a privilege to think that maybe I can be a small part of someone else’s multitude.
What are the books that shaped you?
(Photo by Ed Robertson on Unsplash)
by Rachel Toalson | Crash Test Parents
Husband and I have been eagerly awaiting the time when we will be able to leave our sons at home without parental supervision. The oldest just turned ten, but I’m thinking this rite of passage is still quite a way off. The other day, when he offered to watch his brothers for half an hour so Husband and I could go for a quick walk and I asked him what he would do with his brothers if we took him up on his offer, he said, “I’ll just lock the twins in their room and then no one else is really a problem.”
Clearly he doesn’t understand what “babysitting” means.
He’s a fairly responsible kid, but he’s not all that observant. If his attention is stolen by anything—a bird in the backyard that he wants to identify, an idea that he has to act on right this very minute, a really good book—then the entire rest of the world is left to its own devices. He becomes efficiently and completely immersed in his own world.
The thought of having some time away while this son watches his brothers is very tempting. We don’t get many date nights. And this kid is the one who once told my mother that he wished he could figure out how to clone Husband and me so that one set of us could watch him and his brothers while the other set got to go out on a date. He knows we’re starved for dates and time alone, and he’s sweet enough to care.
Still, I’m too smart to sign off on Temporary Head of Household just yet.
The problem isn’t really him, either. The problem is that all six of my children are BOYS. Husband had a brother. I’ve heard insane stories about what brothers do together, and this does not help my son’s case at all. My sister’s husband had a brother, and his stories are even worse than Husband’s. What their stories tell me (and what I know to be true already) is that the things boys do are impulsive and careless and, I hate to say—I really do—stupid. Every now and then Husband, my brother, or my brothers-in-law will provide me with a glimpse of the little boys who still live inside them.
Take the Fourth of July in 2011, for example. These fine grown men of my family—all of them fathers, mind you—decided that year that they would drop some cash on fireworks—but instead of setting the fireworks off at night, they would do it during the day, using a PVC pipe as a homemade bazooka. This ended almost as badly as you might imagine—a fire started in the field behind our home. Thankfully, my stepdad, at the time, was a volunteer firefighter, and he managed to get it under control before anybody else knew of their prank. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him move that fast before, and I’ve known him since I was twelve.
This is exactly what leads me to believe that it’s quite possible I will never be able to leave my sons home alone.
Recently I asked this question on social media: What age is old enough for children to stay home alone? I got a variety of answers. None of my friends had a definitive one, because it’s really up to the parents and the kids. I know this. I remember staying home alone when I was eight, my brother was nine, and my little sister was five—but I was an old woman trapped in a child’s body. Also, there was only one boy.
Here’s what I imagine would happen to my house if my sons stayed home alone for any amount of time:
1. Someone would surely get hurt.
This is because someone would most likely decide to do something ridiculous, like climb to the top of the deck covering, which isn’t as high as the roof, and jump off with a trash bag they still think can make them fly; that someone might break his leg. Or someone would decide it might be fun to sword fight with butcher knives, since Mama and Daddy have always forbidden it and they’re the worst parents ever and only want kids to not have any fun; this someone might have his nose lobbed off. Or someone else would try to walk on the roof with their roller blades strapped to their feet because the slope of it makes the perfect ramp. That someone might break every bone in his body.
Boys think they’re invincible. Especially when they’re alone with no parent to talk any sense into them.
2. All the food would vanish.
When my sons are home, the most frequent phrase I repeat, besides, “You’ve already asked that question and I’ve already answered it,” is, “Get out of the refrigerator.” I suspect that as soon as Husband and I were to walk out of sight or drive away (one day), our boys would immediately open up the fridge and binge on the rest of whatever’s there.
We’d likely either come home to a completely empty refrigerator or a bunch of boys in prone positions complaining their stomachs hurt because they ate ten pounds of bananas on a dare or they found my hidden chocolate reserves or they drank a whole gallon of milk to see who could drink it the fastest without puking out their insides—which is what the boys in my church youth group used to do for fun on the weekends. They always did it at night, when their milk vomit practically glowed in the dark. Night or day, it was still stupid.
You’ll notice a recurring theme here.
3. They’d fight and one would threaten to run away—and actually accomplish it.
Since this happens often when Husband and I are home, I imagine that the same would happen if we were away for any length of time. The missing variable is Parent, but if there’s a Substitute Parent, I foresee it still being a problem.
And my sons don’t just threaten to run away: they do.
We live in a relatively safe neighborhood, and they have friends living all around it, so when they say they’ll run away, they’ll usually just go hang out at a friend’s house up at the top of the cul-de-sac. They’re easy enough to find; I let them have their momentary victory while observing their imagined escape.
But when a brother is in charge, he would probably not be quite so inclined to watch and “find” his missing brother, since the impetus to running away was the fight they just had. Brother In Charge despises Brother Who Ran.
The problem is not so neatly resolved.
4. Something terrible would befall the house.
Everywhere my sons go in my house, they leave their marks behind. There are fingerprints on windows and holes in the walls and ski marks on the carpet (don’t ask). One of them the other day “accidentally” slammed the back door too hard, and a picture frame fell off the wall and shattered at his feet. He was shocked to know that he had such power.
Boys, as any parent knows, don’t think about the fact that if they climb onto a bookshelf full of books, it might actually fall over (if it’s not bolted to the wall—and sometimes even then). If they try to stack two chairs on top of each other, even when the makeshift “stool” is propped against a wall, they will still fall and, for their efforts, punch a new hole in the wall. If they try to do a pull-up on the open cabinet, that cabinet will rip from its hinges.
They don’t think about what they’re doing until there’s a gaping hollow in the door where they thought it would be funny to kick it closed. They don’t think about what they’re doing until there’s a shower curtain bent in two, because they wanted to see if it could actually support their weight. They don’t think about what they’re doing until the mirror is shattered in front of them because they thought it would be funny to throw a metal car at it.
Without parents at home, all my house’s protection vanishes.
If my sons were left alone, the chance that they would do something stupid and irresponsible increases, by default, by about one thousand percent.
Everybody knows that boys need the loving hand of a wise parent to keep them from doing something reckless. They only have the capacity to consider how cool the idea would be. You want to see what it would be like to jump from the roof to the trampoline? I’m game. You want to ride a skateboard down the stairs? Yep. Me too. You want to set off firecrackers from a PVC pipe? Let’s do it.
What could possibly go wrong?
Every now and then, my ten-year-old will try again. He’ll tell us to go ahead and go out on a date. He’ll take care of his brothers—for a price (ten dollars. He has a cheap going rate). We thank him for his kindness and consideration and politely decline for now.
And, possibly, forever (but I really hope not).
This is an excerpt from If These Walls Could Talk,the fifth book of humor essays in the Crash Test Parents series.
(Photo by Stephen Radford on Unsplash)
by Rachel Toalson | Wing Chair Musings
It’s time to go!
We were on our way out the door, running late as usual, because two of them couldn’t find their shoes. One of my least favorite activities, when we’re running late anywhere, is spending time on the Shoe Search—mostly because I can’t get deeply enough into my sons’ minds to imagine where they might have left their shoes. Where would I leave my shoes if I were, say, the four-year-old? No idea (They were under a towel in his older brother’s room, along with the swim trunks we couldn’t find last night).
We finally had everyone clothed and shoed and were now ushering them out to the car. We have only recently arrived at the stage where every kid can buckle himself and my husband and I can simply slide into our seats and go, provided everyone does buckle.
But my four-year-old was taking an unusually long time to actually get into the car. He is one of the most compliant children in the bunch, doesn’t fight us on most instructions, so I reminded him it was time to get in the car, come on, we were late.
“But look, Mama.” He pointed up to the sky, and I saw it: a rainbow. Two of them, really, one arcing over the other.
Maybe I would have seen it, eventually, once we got on our way. Maybe we would have driven right into it, maybe it would have been just as bright and magnificent, maybe we would have all shared that moment with a breath and an exclamation of awe. But who is to say? Maybe I would have, instead, been staring at the clock, lamenting about how we should have left half an hour ago, I hate being late, we better not miss anything important. It’s impossible to say which track my mind would have taken.
But what really mattered, in that moment, was to stop and stare and marvel—which I’m happy to say I did.
The bottom rainbow was glowing—you could see every color as though shaded with a marker. The top one was opaque but still colorful. The air smelled musty, like rain, and I felt a drop on my hand. But it didn’t matter—I remained, staring at beauty.
So much of my life is rushing between one thing and the next—finish the laundry before heading up to work in my bedroom, washing up the dishes before beginning story time, racing out to the car to beat the clock so we can make it on time to wherever we’re going.
How much do I miss in this constantly rushing state?
Fortunately, my children move at one speed: slow. That means they often require me to move slowly as well. And rather than be annoyed by that, I want to be glad.
So I picked up my four-year-old (he won’t be picked up for much longer), and we named the colors we could see: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink. He laughed about how this is the same way he draws rainbows. I laughed about how he was right.
Everything else, for that moment in time, could wait.
(Photo by James Wainscoat on Unsplash)
