HI, HELLO, WELCOME!
I’m so glad you’re here. THIS TOO is a monthly-ish newsletter where I explore the rough edges and impossible mysteries of disability, parenting, and living life in a body. I find myself most drawn to the parts that don’t make for good sound bites or fit easily into check-boxes.
ABOUT ME
I am a Kansas City writer who lives in a house full of half-finished art projects, loud music, and a fussy family of tenderhearted snugglers. I earned my PhD from the University of Kansas, run the Instagram platform @sitting_pretty, and authored the bestselling memoir Sitting Pretty. After almost a decade of teaching in the traditional classroom, I’ve pivoted to full time writing and speaking. I also co-write Roadmaps – a disability advice column that isn’t really interested in giving anyone advice – with the magical Hannah Soyer. (Send in your questions to messyroadmaps@gmail.com!)
Image Description: Rebekah sit in her wheelchair holding a 35mm camera up to her face pointed at her reflection in a giant window. Her lap is full with a brown purse and a sweater. Her chair sits on an empty blacktop parking lot. Behind her are telephone poles, a couple of businesses and cars, and a blue sky sprinkled with a few clouds.
I am also and forever the restless daughter of Good People. A scrappy misfit. A daunted optimist. A teacher without a classroom. A poster child for imposter syndrome. A mother bewildered by the idea of Mother. A storyteller who can’t stop herself from turning the thing over and over and over, looking for the parts that are hidden, hiding, holy. I peek over the edge with wonder and terror. I live in a body that announces its difference, its misalignment with the world. A body that suggests it has no secrets, while holding a whispery trove. I listen to crime podcasts and make angel food cakes, hold onto anger and clothes with holes to mend. I can’t see the either without the or – can’t hold onto one without reaching for the other – always both/and. My body feels life as bleak and beautiful, a ragged edge with a deep inhale of joy. Always the same, always always shifting.
I write to understand, to reclaim, and to participate in changing the cultural narratives we have around disability, motherhood, and what it means to live in a human body. I believes storytelling can change the world. Literally.
ABOUT THIS NEWSLETTER
I am weary of a world that runs on faster and faster, more and more — poppy personal branding and juicy soundbites, relentless hot takes and tidy check boxes. I want to hold up the pieces that don’t fit and study them together – to say, THIS TOO. This is part of the story – of disability, of womanhood, of childhood sickness, of motherhood, of living in a body – too.
So that’s what I’m doing here – carving out a digital space to explore THIS TOO together with intention and open hands. To pay attention to the stories we tell ourselves, the stories we put on other people, the stories we’ve inherited, and the stories we’re passing on. I’m here to move slowly and steadily, see and be seen, hear and be heard, stay connected, build some kind of belonging upon relentless curiosity, learn together how to tell a story that can continue to evolve, deepen, expand as the world inside and outside of us changes.
Logistically speaking, I’m starting with one essay a month. This newsletter is still a little baby discovering her own feet, so as I get into the groove, I’d love to expand – maybe a Q&A once a month, reflective videos, interviews, polls, collaborative playlists, blackout poems from old medical charts? – I don’t know yet. But I’d love to hear from you – what offering could I bring to this space that you would value?
SUBSCRIPTIONS
Right now, there is an option for folks to send financial support, but it’s not required to receive any content. I’m grateful for anyone willing and able to support me in that way. I also know even $5 a month adds up fast for some of us. Longterm, I don’t know exactly how to navigate the money piece. It may be that, eventually, parts of my Substack space will only be available through a paywall. I feel a lot of tension around this – wanting my writing to be accessible, wanting to build a life for myself that allows me to live on the work I most want to do. It’s a lot to think through. I will, of course, update you as things unfold.
