Personal Narrative: My New Mexico Family
The tapping on the wood door was enormous in the silence. Shocked out of my solitude, I pushed myself up from the couch and heaved open the door. Silhouetted against the light was a dark-haired woman with a girl clinging to her skirt. I knew who she was. My landlady had told me about the woman I had seen picking up mail at the post office. She'd called her "The Prize."
My New Mexico village, though determinedly and anciently Hispanic, had a minority of Anglo immigrants seeking a simpler life. Within this group, this woman was agreed to be the most beautiful and accomplished. Her handsome husband had found her when she was working as a paleontologist in Africa and had enticed her back to her native America, and to this village. The Prize. …show more content…
While we waited for this development, we discovered the peculiar difficulties of our love. My energy was in short and irregular supply, and any physical or mental effort could lead to a crash. Priorities formed in me. First, Zoe, through ages 5, 6, 7, must be shielded from any sense of my limitations. I must carry her giggling to her bath each night—blessedly, no distance in the one-story house—regardless of the cost to me. She would always have my attention when she needed it, and be provided with protection and nourishment when Mary was off excavating …show more content…
She never complained. But the truth was that we were in a triangular relationship with an imperious third party, ME disease. Fickle and changeable, it was the tyrant among us—deaf to entreaty, insistent on the priority of its needs.
We continued in this way for three years, our family completed by the arrival of Arthur, a lovable mutt. I'd never settled easily, and this was as settled as I had ever been. My health was calmed but essentially unchanged, and money was becoming short. Mary hinted that it was time I played my part more fully. Any hint from Mary, who hated to ask for anything, carried force. So, persuading myself that time was healing me, I recklessly took a job at a university in San Francisco. Mary and Zoe would join me once I became established.
But I never did. Instead, I became progressively more disabled from the effort of work, and the job ended three years later after a physical and mental collapse. Long before then, Mary had found a far more promising lover.
She'd called, saying, "I can see an alternative future. It's not like when I left my husband. I'm not
My New Mexico village, though determinedly and anciently Hispanic, had a minority of Anglo immigrants seeking a simpler life. Within this group, this woman was agreed to be the most beautiful and accomplished. Her handsome husband had found her when she was working as a paleontologist in Africa and had enticed her back to her native America, and to this village. The Prize. …show more content…
While we waited for this development, we discovered the peculiar difficulties of our love. My energy was in short and irregular supply, and any physical or mental effort could lead to a crash. Priorities formed in me. First, Zoe, through ages 5, 6, 7, must be shielded from any sense of my limitations. I must carry her giggling to her bath each night—blessedly, no distance in the one-story house—regardless of the cost to me. She would always have my attention when she needed it, and be provided with protection and nourishment when Mary was off excavating …show more content…
She never complained. But the truth was that we were in a triangular relationship with an imperious third party, ME disease. Fickle and changeable, it was the tyrant among us—deaf to entreaty, insistent on the priority of its needs.
We continued in this way for three years, our family completed by the arrival of Arthur, a lovable mutt. I'd never settled easily, and this was as settled as I had ever been. My health was calmed but essentially unchanged, and money was becoming short. Mary hinted that it was time I played my part more fully. Any hint from Mary, who hated to ask for anything, carried force. So, persuading myself that time was healing me, I recklessly took a job at a university in San Francisco. Mary and Zoe would join me once I became established.
But I never did. Instead, I became progressively more disabled from the effort of work, and the job ended three years later after a physical and mental collapse. Long before then, Mary had found a far more promising lover.
She'd called, saying, "I can see an alternative future. It's not like when I left my husband. I'm not