It’s 2010, in a small ranch house outside Cincinnati. The living-room carpet is well-worn and strewn with toys. A tall four-year-old with dark button eyes points at the TV. But he doesn’t want any of the four network channels; he’s already a hard-core train kid. “Momma...I wanna watch Coast Starlight.” The mother pops in the DVD, and 1990s footage unfurls a tale of an Amtrak train that runs from Los Angeles to Seattle, with all the ocean, mountains, and picturesque towns in between. “Mom, can we go on the Coast Starlight train?” The mother’s throat tightens. She can’t tell her child that she has tens of thousands of dollars in student-loan and credit card debt, so there’s no money for a train trip, especially one that involves hotels and plane tickets. Every grocery dollar is scrutinized, and even visits to the children’s museum have to be rationed for the gas money. Seattle is where a beloved cousin lived, but she’d never been able to visit her there. California is a place she’d read about in books, with an ocean she’d never seen. “Maybe someday,” she says, a little too brightly. But in that moment, ‘someday’ is entirely too far down the tracks. The years rolled on for that young mom, the little boy, and his brother, two years younger. She found a teaching job with Ohio’s third-largest school district, but money was still tight. She divorced, she remarried, she started graduate school, and she and her new husband continued to plug away at those credit-card bills. Most of the travel was to visit the young mom’s mother and stepfather in Florida. Once, they met on the North Carolina coast.The young mom talked about planning trips jointly with her mom and stepdad, but no definite plans were made until Covid shut everything down. The stepfather passed away, and the young mom grieved with her mother. Yet 2021 brought a redeeming ray of sunshine. Reduced airfares. A vaccine to make travel more safe. Two Sunday nights ago, that young mom got her someday. And a few days after their flight to LA, that dark-eyed boy, now fifteen, still a railfan, sat next to his grandmother and gazed out the window for three whole states’ worth of scenery. A trip eleven years in the making. I am that young mom, though less young now, blinking back tears, struggling to find the words for my gratitude. Some things are worth waiting for. In most of the Western world, travel is a privilege, saved for and planned. I am keenly aware of my privilege, reminding my sons that most Americans wouldn’t get to take a trip like this. Some live a lifestyle of travel, dictated largely by profession. From what I’ve heard, the vagabond path has its good and bad points. For the refugee, “travel” is what happens when a cartel threatens you, and you must flee in the middle of the night. Travel means thirst, walking by foot, scarce food, and armed guards. Whether traveling is a choice or a necessity, the traveler misses those whom they’ve left behind, whether through geography or through death. For years, I wanted this trip, unsure of when it would happen. And I’m so grateful it did. I’m also grateful the trip was taken under circumstances that made it fiscally responsible (rather than being impulsively charged on a credit card). There’s something else I’ve waited for for many years, and I am hopeful that when it finally arrives, I will have the same sense of fulfillment that I have reflecting on this trip. I wrote my first screenplays in 2007 and 2008, falling in love with the creative process, but also hooked by the glamour of the movies. I worked to make connections in the filmmaking world, but hit wall after wall, since I didn’t walk in those circles of influence. Writing went on the back burner while I worked to re-establish my education career, and while I struggled to recover from a life-threatening illness, but my graduate studies in literacy lit a fire in me for children’s fiction. I completed my first novel for young people in 2016, my second in 2019, and am working on a third. Traditional publishing with agent representation is the path I have chosen, as opposed to self-publishing. This path requires submissions to agents and entry into pitch contests. As of this writing, I am unsigned, and my books remain unpublished. I’ve heard that persistence—keep writing new work, keep submitting—is the key to success. Yet I question, “How much longer?” It’s not just the brass ring of “being a published author.” It’s the reason I am writing. I write stories about working-class white kids, particularly those from the Appalachian region (for those who are not aware, it’s not recommended that white authors pen stories with minority main characters, so that cultures are most accurately depicted and POC authors get much-needed representation). I write these stories because this demographic group is underrepresented in children’s literature. I write these stories because I lived that life. And what’s more, the book I have queried for the last three years is about the impact of addiction on a family, something I’ve experienced first-hand. I am persuaded that someone needs to read this story. The trick is finding someone in the industry who believes in this story the way I do. So many people want to see their books in print. But it takes more than want to make it happen. As I resume writing my WIP (work in progress) and continue to seek a home for Rock Unsteady, I stare down these figurative train-tracks, the same way I stared down actual tracks last week. How far down is the realization of my goal? It’s unknowable. But I haven’t lost faith yet. And I’ll never lose my gratitude for those cheering me on. If you’d like to see photos of our trip, check out my Instagram: @elenavalewahl.
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Elena Vale WahlI blogged much more when my kids were small. Hoping my quality supplants quantity. Archives
June 2022
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