by Rachel Toalson | Wing Chair Musings
Lightning illuminates the window, like a scary film’s opening. Husband and I look at each other. We can already tell it’s going to be a bad one. Which means…
Knock knock knock
It begins.
Over the next half hour, they are in and out of our room, racing between the gaps of lighting and thunder. The rumbling crashes and echoes across the canyon in a way that makes it sound much worse than it actually is. The rain hisses and whips against the window, the wind picking up into what sounds like a dragon roar.
They are, predictably, scared. And though the knocking followed by kids announcing they’re scared (as if we don’t already know) starts to get annoying when my husband and I are ready to go to bed ourselves, I know that the announcement, the communal nature of this safe place, this bedroom where a mom and dad recline with books open on their laps, is a comforting place. I remember how terrifying storms could be when I was a kid. My mom would let my sister and brother and me sleep together in the living room, which was in the center of our house. I remember once sleeping in boxes, like we were camping in our own personal tents, but that memory might be inaccurate, something I constructed over an experience less exotic.
I used to dislike storms, and I still dislike driving in them. When I was a teenager I used to check the clouds to make sure there were no funnels, because I was terrified of tornadoes. Now I rarely worry about that sort of thing; San Antonio is not known for tornadoes. I’ve grown up, and storms are, if not calming, at least tolerable. But I remember enough to empathize with my sons, so patience does not feel like it asks too much tonight (though a sleep-deprived tomorrow might tell another story).
Eventually our sons go to sleep and my husband and I lie awake in our bed, the storm roaring and flashing outside our bedroom window. Both of us toss and turn, finding sleep close to impossible.
But maybe storms are not meant to be slept through.
Maybe they are, instead, meant to be enjoyed.
by Rachel Toalson | Wing Chair Musings
He languished by the lamp, head drooping, book in his hand. I sat beside him. “You feeling okay?” I said. I already knew the answer, but I wanted to hear it from him.
He didn’t even speak; he only shook his head. I could feel the heat radiating from his skin; he had all the outward signs of the flu.
I took him in my arms, let him rest his head against me. The possibility of contagion doesn’t bother a mama whose son is battling sickness. So though I was the only one in my house who hadn’t gotten a flu shot this year, I rocked my son because he needed me.
I read stories. I rubbed oils on his chest. I let him sleep in my arms—because he is getting bigger and he will not always allow me to do this. I held him as long as I could, as long as he needed.
And though I am glad my son does not suffer from sickness often, or sickness that is terminal, I enjoyed the time I had with a four-year-old who didn’t feel like bouncing out of my arms before I was ready.
I soaked up the moment, which lasted only two days.
Today he is racing in and out of rooms, flinging flowers at me, trying to find where he put his shoes so he can go out back and sword fight with sticks.
The smell of him clinging to my shirt.
by Rachel Toalson | Wing Chair Musings
After my traditionally published book released last September, once the dust settled, I was feeling depressed and out of sorts. Part of it could be explained away by the demands on my time and the fact that I am an introvert who gets somewhat annoyed when my schedule is interrupted with out-of-the-ordinary activity. When my calendar gets crammed, as it tends to get during book launch season, I feel stressed and overwhelmed (which is also why my sons have not yet joined sports, though I have one in orchestra this year).
At the same time, lists began to greet me at every turn—favorite books, best books for the holidays, best-of 2018, awards lists. There is a book list for practically everything. And comparison loves lists. I fell hard into the sticky web of I guess I’m just not good enough.
But it was, of course, more than that.
The writing life isn’t an easy one. It’s especially not easy when you’re the mother of young children. At the same time I was recuperating from the busy launch season I had a son struggling with middle school, another upset about the necessity of speech lessons, and two others who were having behavioral issues at school.
When there are crises in my home, my first now-predictable response, as a mother, is to question whether I am doing the right thing to pursue a career and work outside the home (even though I technically work from home). Maybe it’s because of the pressures that exist in modern motherhood, but when my sons struggle, I feels as though it’s a direct reflection on the time I spend doing anything other than caring for my family.
I know I was made for writing. When I write, I feel as though I am doing exactly what I was brought into this world to do. I feel free and hopeful and alive. When I’m talking about writing or new projects or ideas I feel shaky with the bound-up energy of this knowing.
What would happen if I were to give that up?
I know myself. I know what would happen. I know I would not be the best version of myself that I could be. I would not fulfill my full purpose. I would waste potential and talent and opportunity. I would lament and resent.
Around this time, my husband and I were about to visit New York for the first time, a late fifteen-year anniversary celebration of sorts. He had a work conference, I was set to meet both my agent and my editor in real life, and we had planned a day to ourselves, for pleasure and touristy things. I didn’t even know if we could afford the trip in terms of both money and absence from our children, but there it was, already booked.
So I went. I had a lovely visit with my editor, who told me she absolutely loves my work and wants as much from me as she can possibly get. And the hope began to peer in at the edges.
At all junctures of my life I can feel hope peering in, no matter how bad things got. My parents divorced—there was hope. My father left in totality—there was hope. My sons and I are struggling with anxiety and depression—there is hope.
Hope is a powerful force, the kind of force that can lift our heads and whisper, Get up, you’re still alive, you were made for more than this.
You were made for more than this burden you carry, this disappointing setback, this scary circumstance. There is still hope.
There are so many people in our world who think and feel that they are without hope. It is up to us—the hope-filled ones (at least today)—to find them and tell them: Life’s an unpredictable thing. It can change in a moment. The night never lasts forever.
Go out into the world and shine your light of hope.
(Photo by Daniele Salutari on Unsplash)
by Rachel Toalson | Wing Chair Musings
He said, “For someone who knows so clearly what you want, it’s annoying to me—someone who doesn’t have as clear of an idea—that you have a hard time asking for it.’
Maybe I’m too careful. Maybe there are times I need to step out of my accommodating, forgiving nature and assert myself.
“What’s the worst that can happen?” he says.
I’ve never liked answering that question.
•
Being the owner of an overactive imagination, there are plenty of worst things that can happen. They all come creeping in at the slightest invitation—like the question, “What’s the worst that can happen?”
I don’t want to look any one of them in the eye, lest I lose my nerve.
•
I’ve typed the email a dozen times, and it still doesn’t feel right. Have I really asked for what I want, or is it just another soft, kind, accommodating note that doesn’t really say much?
I send it off to a writer friend.
She sends it right back with confirmation: It’s just another soft, kind, accommodating note that doesn’t really say much.
•
My sons are young, and my husband and I have tried to raise them in an environment that values good communication skills. “Use your words” is something we say often when they feel upset or angry or sad. They are learning in ways their father and I—a generation that was taught to hide more than it revealed, to suck it up, get over it, life’s got a lot of hard knocks, kid, take what’s handed out without complaining—never did.
Maybe in their future, they will be able to use their words to ask for what they want.
Maybe they will be better than I have been.
•
I’m standing at my computer again. I sort through the questions: What do I want? What do I expect? What is the problem that keeps me from getting what I want or expect?
It all makes sense in my head, but when I get ready to write it down, my fingers feel stiff and uncooperative.
But I flex them, and the words, clunky and patchy at first, spill, stain, solidify.
•
We ask for what we want, because if we don’t, the person on the other side of our asking won’t know what we want. We ask to clarify, to make aware, to say that my needs and goals and desires are important, too, and we should work together to make sure we’re both happy and reaching our full potential and doing what must be done.
We ask because we are important enough, too, to have our needs and goals and desires met.
•
I’m a woman. I’ve been told, in one way or another, my whole life, that I shouldn’t have needs or goals or desires. I’ve been tricked into believing, by immersion in a patriarchal society and faith or simply by an encounter with another individual, that my needs are not as important as others’ needs. I’ve been shamed for my aspirations, my expectations, my dreams.
It’s not an easy legacy to discard.
•
I send the email this time. Who knows if it will make a difference or if anything will change, but at least I know I’ve tried. At least I know that the next time I must ask for what I need I will be marginally better at it. At least I know I have said what needs saying, bared a small piece of myself, moved toward becoming something more than a passive spectator to my life and career.
And the whisper grows, if only by a hair: I matter, too.
(Photo by Dan Gold on Unsplash)
by Rachel Toalson | Wing Chair Musings
He is late.
He usually calls or texts when he’s going to be late, but lately we’ve been more strangers than lovers, passing each other in the hallways, smiling, dropping quick kisses, breezing out the door.
He didn’t even tell me where he was going today.
I’ve been working on a memoir about meeting the woman who broke up my parents’ marriage, along with her two kids—my half-brother and half-sister—who were kept a secret from my mother during my parents’ marriage, except for the answering machine message I still remember, forever imprinted on my 9-year-old brain.
I’ve been dreaming about my mother, feeling her humiliation, sweating drops of regret. Today I could be her for the worry and fear that wraps around my throat and squeezes.
My thoughts seesaw between the two: What if he’s with someone else? What if something happened to him?
Both are equally irrational; this has happened before when he’s going to be late and he forgets to call and I work myself up into an agitated state and call him a few times, text him a few times, look up every highway he might have taken today to see if there were any fatal accidents reported, and if there were, I panic and make lists of police department numbers I can call if it gets too late and he’s still not home.
And then the door opens and it’s him. Standing. Smiling. Bending to kiss me. My tears are embarrassing then, as are the messages I’ve left on his cell to call me, I’m worried, is he still alive? As though he could answer if he weren’t.
He’s also never given me any reason to believe he would be unfaithful, but when you grow up with the trauma of learning your dad—the man you trusted to love you—has a whole secret family you didn’t know about, you grow up knowing anyone in the world can let you down. Anyone.
Even him.
I search for his location on my “locate iPhone” map. He’s right down the road. I remember now, about the business lunch, the workout. It’s a good sign that he’s late.
I breathe. I survive. I overcome.
One more victory against the past that stretches on.
(Photo by Anton Belashov on Unsplash)
by Rachel Toalson | Wing Chair Musings
I was walking my sons to school the other day when the woman crossing them said, “I looked up your book yesterday.”
I never know what to say in situations like these, so I just said, “Oh, yeah?”
She said, “Yeah.” She didn’t say anything else about my book (I can’t say I wasn’t glad). She moved on to tell me that she’s been urging her husband to write a book for a while. She said, “I think he would write it well, but he just doesn’t have the time.”
I can empathize with this completely. My first traditionally published book was written in short bursts—half an hour here, fifteen minutes there. Time—or the lack thereof—is one of the largest reasons more people don’t write.
But having found the time, I know, too, that there is another, larger reason that more people don’t ever finish their book, and it’s this: writing demands much of authors.
That “much” includes, of course, time, but even more than that it includes everything a writer gives. What I mean by that is both simple and complicated: a writer gives herself.
There is not a book I have written yet that does not contain large pieces of me. I split open my heart and my soul and my brain and meet the page in the most vulnerable place, disrobing family secrets (even if they are hidden behind fiction or metaphor), examining the darkest places of my mind, telling stories I might rather forget. There are projects that have nearly broken me—a current one is a memoir I’m working on about the first summer I went to see my dad and his new family after my parents divorced. It took me three years to write down a fictional story about a suicidal teenager because within the story are pieces of myself, my teenage years with my brother, and a current ongoing struggle with my pre-teen son. I cried through the final draft of a picture book that just went out on submission—because it contains so much raw, unbridled pain and extravagant hope.
Writing a book is not as simple as choosing an idea, doing research, carving out the time to put words on a page. Writers give themselves, too.
This is partially why, when an author’s book is finally released to the world, there is so much elation mixed up with fear and unease. We are known more fully by our work. And we know that not everyone will be kind to those pieces of us out in the world, threading into our stories or essays or poems. We hope they will be, but we don’t live in an ideal world, and the words of others sometimes sting in our most vulnerable places.
Before I get started on a new project, I always take a deep breath, close my eyes, and repeat to myself these words from Maya Angelou:
“My wish is that you continue. Continue to be who you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness.”
Though I know it will be difficult to peel off those scabs that have grown over verbal abuse and use the old wounds to tell a story about the pain and confusion of a boy, I know I must—because other children live in a situation exactly like that, and they need to know they are worthy of acceptance and a future and the greatest of love. I enter into the ache, I let it blast through my chest, and I give all of myself to the storytelling, to the examination of difficult things, to the redemption of what has been broken. Tikkun olam.
I give because I love my readers. I give because I desire to see a world in which every person realizes their worth and significance. I give because it is my purpose, because it is the way in which I meet people and leave a part of myself with them. Because I take seriously the words of Fred Rogers: “If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.”
I hope I never hold back.
Next time you pick up a book, remember: authors don’t merely give time and money and hope and creativity to the project in your hands. They give, too, themselves.
(Photo by Ewan Robertson on Unsplash)
