An excerpt from my unpublished memoir-in-progress
Sunshine cried so hard she lost her voice
Our interstate move from one rental home to another transported our family-of-four—five, if you count Sunshine the cat—from Flagstaff, Arizona, to Albuquerque, New Mexico, 325 miles due east on U.S. Highway 40, formerly Route 66, that iconic highway through the American Southwest. Sunshine meowed and cat-screamed most of the way. A month later, August 1994, I sat in a graduate Native American Literature seminar, having received a coveted “yellow card” as a late-add student. By some stroke of magic, the professor, Louis Owens, had read my master’s thesis on the voices of the landscape in Luci Tapahonso’s poetry.
“I know your work,” he said, signing the over-enrollment waiver.
For the next several years, I studied, wrote, taught, ate, slept, and moved through marriage and motherhood (and one more rental)—all toward the goal of completing the PhD in English while my then-husband cycled through professional jobs and both of us recovered from several years of Christian-affiliated ministry.
My academic life, and increasingly my social life, revolved around the University of New Mexico campus and environs. As it happened, St. Mark’s-on-the-Mesa Episcopal Church—our Sunday morning home—afforded convenient parking within walking distance of the Humanities building, a feature I treasured long after I stopped attending services. I remember the last sermon I heard there only because I took notes in my journal as Rev. Kathy preached on the wedding at Cana, when Jesus turned water into wine.
“What do we do with the signs we see?” she said. “What are we seeing that we’re not seeing?”
That was the last time I received communion, there or anywhere, and participated in the comforting ritual exchange, Peace be with you…And also with you, before devoting myself to studying for three comprehensive exams and diving into the depths of dissertation research. For years, I deeply missed that blessing, the act of someone granting me peace I couldn’t find within and my attempt to bless them in return. The church had offered stale encouragement when we sought pastoral counsel about our dying marriage, but the admonished more prayer, more Bible study, and more faith wasn’t working. Our struggles were real. While I appreciated the large grocery bags of non-perishables left at our front door, peanut butter and canned tuna were going to get us only so far toward healing the family. My planned five-year timeline for completing the PhD was stretching beyond some infinite horizon. Finishing it and finding a job were economic imperatives.
I cut my finger and scratched my eyes in Albuquerque
The river of circumstances set in motion years ago when I applied for doctoral programs now cascaded onto my shoulders and threatened to sweep my children into its fluvial current. To stay afloat, I often called my childhood friend, Mandy, and saw my therapist, Carol. Thus buoyed, I passed all three comp exams, but self-doubt had become a habit. More than doubting my choices, I doubted my ability to complete the degree. Anxiety stemming from doubt worsened after the initial euphoria of my husband’s having moved out of the house. I called it a “controlled separation,” borrowing the term from Lee Raffel after reading her book, Should I Stay or Go?
I asked Carol that same once-and-for-all question months into the separation. Instead of answering, she pointed to my bandaged right index finger.
“Oh, this? Sharp knife, soapy water, and stitches. And remember how my eyes felt like I had sand in them? Scratched corneas! The doctor gave me drops and told me to stop reading.”
“What do you think your body is telling you?”
I took a deep breath. “I don’t know. ‘Don’t self-sabotage your success’?”
“See, you do know. What else?”
“Slow down. Pay attention.”
Keep reading, or listen to Andi read the rest of this excerpt from her memoir.
I walked home and made a decision
A few days later, after taking both kids to school, I parked in our driveway and set out on foot, walking north on Moon Street until I turned right at the concrete ditch. The uphill arroyo trail headed east toward the Sandia mountains through the temperate Albuquerque morning. Glancing at my watch, I picked up the pace and thought about that pile of books on the kitchen table. Keep going, Andrea. Walk away from the marriage and stay on the dissertation path. You can do this. You will finish.
Wildflowers shot out of cement cracks in scraggly outbursts of purple and orange. I identified them aloud with each step—NIGHT-shade, PEN-ste-mon—the same way I had committed facts to memory before taking my comps. As I named them, I thought about how important it is to emerge and grow according to one’s nature. PAINT-brush, GLOBE mallow. Even under duress.
After a mile, I headed back downhill. The black escarpment of the city’s west mesa and the distant three sisters, Albuquerque’s inactive volcanoes, on full display. Mindful of sharp objects like GOAT-heads on the path, I noticed something brown and white nestled in an asphalt crevice. I stopped. My brain registered an instantaneous, powerful craving. Listen to your body. But I don’t smoke!
I picked up the stale half-cigarette and held it close to my face, inhaling the scent of cured tobacco, and placed the stub safely in my pocket. I jog-walked home, indecisive. In the kitchen, I found a book of matches next to bamboo skewers and birthday candles. Before I could talk myself out of it, I unlocked the sliding glass door to the back yard and stepped outside, Sunshine following. Our small covered patio was dusty, dirty, and un-tidy. An overgrown split-leaf philodendron dominated the brick planter onto which the cat jumped and perched. I took the stub out of my pocket and sat in the aluminum lounge chair, careful to avoid the ripped webbing.
The three sisters held their breath when I lit a match
After two unsuccessful strikes, I produced a flame and held it to the end of the cigarette. I savored the bitter nicotine taste. Your body is telling you something. Lips tight around the speckled filter, I knew better than to inhale that first draw into my unpracticed lungs, so I opened my mouth to release the smoke cloud. Sunshine yawned.
Before my teenage Christian conversion, smoking was never a habit, just a rebellious novelty—Mandy and I shared menthol cigarettes purloined from Mom’s purse or, when we had one, a joint. She’d go home afterwards and I’d do my homework until Mom came home from her 8-to-5 clerical job at the same hospital where my step-dad worked in credit and collections.
But life changed when Mom underwent her first neck surgery and my step-dad went to jail for embezzlement. I washed dishes, dusted the living room, and fed my cat. I carried laundry to and from the coin-operated machines. I fielded phone calls from bill collectors. When Mom recovered enough to return to work, she sometimes stayed late to type my high school English papers. On those evenings, I stretched the long, kitchen phone cord to talk to Mandy while I baked a dinner casserole and made the salad. Mom and I were both tired by the time she came home.
Those dormant adolescent scenes had never left my body. Muscle memory prevailed.
Why smoke now? Should I stay or should I go? Sunshine hadn’t a clue.
I stubbed the cigarette into the planter’s dry dirt. Afraid the cat would dig up the evidence if I buried it there, I threw the filter into the garbage disposal, shredding it with hot, soapy water.
After a quick shower, piece of toast, and second cup of coffee, I sat at the table with my books, pens, and sticky notes.
I slept well that night
After dinner, homework, baths, pajamas, and good-night kisses, the kids settled into bed with books and dreams. Once they were asleep, I called Mandy and told her the story: “I felt like I was back on that cinderblock wall!”
“Do you remember that time we poked the tobacco out of one of your step-dad’s unfiltered cigarettes and stuffed it with dried rosemary from your Mom’s spice rack?”
“God, we were desperate ninth graders!”
“But you’re not desperate now, honey, just stressed. I get it—you’re the mom, you’re the grad student, but the next time you need a cigarette, buy yourself a fresh pack!”
P. S. I finished the dissertation, earned the PhD, and still don’t smoke. Sunshine lived an exceptional nine lives over nineteen years.
Thank you, Andi!
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