Astounded—Discovering More of My Story

By Margaret S. Mandell

Pay attention, wrote Mary Oliver. Be astounded / Tell about it.

It had been months since I submitted my manuscript to the publisher for developmental editing, proofreading, cover design, and interior layout. I knew the manuscript would ping-pong back and forth through these stages of production, and I was determined to reread it out loud each time, practicing for what would become an audiobook recording in my voice. I was sure I knew my own story.

With each reread, I paid close attention. The time was nigh when I would have to tell people, out loud and in public, what my book was about. This was my last chance to get it right, to know my own book.

I had a working title that I thought encapsulated my story: Two Lovers.  My dead husband, Herb, and new boyfriend, John, the main characters. I did indeed love them, wanted to honor them both, but my title said nothing about the arc of the narrative, what impelled the other main character, the memoirist herself to move steadily and inexorably from widow to wife.

One day I astonished myself by finding a new title that contained within it the engine that moved my story forward: trust. Rereading, I realized I had quoted my favorite poet, Maya Angelou, who said, Have enough courage to trust love one more time, and always one more time.

The floodgates opened. And Always One More Time: A Memoir, had to live up to the title’s promise. Now I understood that I was writing about my own transformation, reluctantly, ambivalently letting go of one man, and reluctantly, ambivalently trusting love again. I knew that husbands die (unless you die first) and there is no love without loss. It would take twenty-one chapters and 130 pages of storytelling to overcome my own resistance to both separation and re-attachment.

While settling upon the new book title catapulted me into a heightened awareness of the essence and arc of my story, the work of choosing cover art sent me reeling back to the question, what is my story? I would be astounded, in the end, by my own selection.

My publisher’s art director had me scrutinize the one-hundred best cover designs from 2022 and send him my ten favorites. He asked for themes from my manuscript, key words and phrases. A summary. Weeks passed. One day, four designs appeared in my inbox. I had told the art director I loved simplicity; pen-and-ink drawing or watercolor. I had shared three photos: me dancing with my first husband at our 1974 wedding, me practicing yoga alone, and me dancing with my new husband at our 2023 wedding. A gifted illustrator had created two versions of a pen-and-ink collage of those three images, expressing my story magnificently. I was certain that one of these would be the winning design.

I did not make this decision alone. For two weeks I sent around copies of the cover options to over fifty trusted mentors, friends, and family for comment. Buffeted by the winds of opinion, I changed my mind with each new response. Most people chose one of two designs depicting the dancing figures.   

Another, less popular cover design was a watercolor in sepia tones with black, white, and shades of gray, of a swan floating on water—splashing, feathers ruffled, having just landed or about to take off, the S-curve of its long, graceful neck inclined towards the water, contemplating its own reflection. Love, death, ambiguity, metamorphosis, all contained in an image that did not tell my story but, rather, evoked it. When I chose the evocative over illustrative, my real story—its emotional core—materialized on the cover.

I was given one last chance to read the printed proof, an opportunity to find any errant typos. I wasn’t looking for typos. I was looking, one more time, for my story. Paying rapt attention, I asked, what is this book really about? I started with my dedication: “To John Crothers Pollock III, Ph.D. / Who loved me back to life.”

I began reading, as if I were reading it for the first time, as if someone else had written the book. This new guy, John, is all over these pages, bigger than life, I thought, startled by his idiosyncratic, quirky charm. It had not always been thus. Early on, coaches kept pushing me to “put him on the page.” “Where is he? I can’t see him.” Finally: “I could pick that guy out in a crowded restaurant.”

Now John is my husband. I have wondered often if I truly would have known him had I not been compelled to put him on the page. Would I have become the patient, compassionate life partner I am today? I had written this guy into my life by truly seeing him, loving him back to life as well. He had said on our wedding day, “I have never felt so seen.”

It had taken months of production, cover design and proofreading to know my own story and tell itfully.

Astounding, isn’t it, how interrogating your own writing, titles, and graphic depictions during the publishing process is so deeply revelatory, and how the writing itself changes you, maybe even your decision to marry again, and the kind of person you become?

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Margaret Mandell’s life story is one of adaptation. Earning her BA and MA in History at the University of Pennsylvania, she has been a doctoral candidate and college teacher, mother of two, entrepreneur, independent school admissions director, triathlete, and certified yoga instructor. When her husband of many years passed away, she became a widow, a woman still in the midst of becoming. Her debut memoir And Always One More Time: A Memoir, to be released March 12 by Atmosphere Press, tells the story of her next act and new, sustaining love. Excerpts have appeared in The Metaworker, NextTribe, Oldster, and the Daring to Tell podcast.