I Abandoned My Son in a Toronto Subway Station
We were in Toronto visiting the ROM. Wanting to avoid downtown traffic and the expensive nightmare of parking in TO (IYKYK 😏) we parked at Kipling and bought a two-way subway pass. We were a group of six: my husband and I, our three children, and the girlfriend of our eldest who was visiting us from Florida. We all live country lives and are comfortable with the slow nature of small town living. It’s a thrill to visit the city, but everything moves a little faster, and if you’re not careful, it can leave you spinning.
We did just fine on our way to the museum. I suppose that made us cocky. When we slipped through the subway car doors to get back to our vehicle, it was with the farm-strong confidence of rural warriors. We all sat. I looked up at the map that lights up the station names. “Wait,” I said. “Is this the green line?”
“Yellow,” a young Asian woman said kindly.
“We need green!” I announced. We all stood and moved back towards the doors. The closing chime had already started - that distinct three note Toronto anthem that keeps everyone on schedule: G ♩ C ♩ E ♩. My son slipped out onto the platform. The doors closed. The train pulled away with five of us still inside. We were going the wrong direction, leaving one of our own behind.
I have a vivid memory of leaving my middle child with his kindergarten teacher. It was his second day of school and he was over it. The pain written across his face as she held him in her arms so I could escape the gated play yard and get to work is a look that is forever seared into my mind. His mouth wide open, his sobs so wrenching he couldn’t even make a sound, his little fingers straining for me as I abandoned him. This is what I though of as I stared through the glass at my other son, his eyes wide as he understood we were being pulled away from him.
Stations are only minutes apart on the Toronto line. We were able to disembark at the next stop, navigate stairs and passageways to get to the other side, catch a new train back the direction we came from, navigate more passages and stairs to get back to the side we left him on - where we found him sitting on a bench, the Tim Hortons hot chocolate that he got when we left the museum still warm. We’d barely been separated more than fifteen minutes.
“Were you worried?” I asked him.
“No,” he said. “I knew you’d come back for me.”
Navigating the world of publishing can be a lot like navigating a subway system. What looks straightforward on a map doesn’t show you the tunnels or the broken tile where you might trip or the spot where the bulbs are burned out. It keeps quiet about the sticky turnstiles and the bored gatekeepers. Once, while taking the New York subway to the West Village, I had to step over human waste. None of the brochures warned me about that either. The system is a mess. A fascinating, beautiful, terrifying mess with potential for both great success and great heartbreak.
What sets Chicken House Press apart is that I won’t shy away from walking those trenches with you. In fact, I will lay my own coat down on the path so you don’t have to see the mess on the way to where you’re going. Every single project I embark on is a partnership. It’s stepping onto that train together, and you know what? If you get off at the wrong stop, you just need to sit and wait. I will come back and find you.
For many, self-publishing is a fulfilling and profitable choice. So can be the pursuit of a traditional Big Five deal. That’s wonderful. I wish nothing but success to those paths. But for many more, they’re full stop in front of those subway doors, watching them open and close, afraid to get on because the uncomfortableness of the unknown is much less frightening than the firm platform beneath their feet.
G ♩ C ♩ E ♩
G ♩ C ♩ E ♩
G ♩ C ♩ E ♩
So, if you’re tired of the same old song, and you’re ready to take a chance on that lifelong dream of putting a book out into the world, maybe it’s time to step onto that train. Take a risk. And if this is the wrong station, we can find the right one together.
