University of New Orleans ScholarWorks@UNO University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations Dissertations and Theses 12-17-2010 Wider Than A Mile Natalie Parker-Lawrence University of New Orleans Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td Recommended Citation Parker-Lawrence, Natalie, "Wider Than A Mile" (2010). University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations. 1252. https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/1252 This Thesis is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by ScholarWorks@UNO with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Thesis in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights- holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/or on the work itself. This Thesis has been accepted for inclusion in University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UNO. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Wider Than A Mile A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the University of New Orleans in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in Film, Theatre and Communication Arts Creative Writing by Natalie Parker-Lawrence B.A. University of Memphis, 1977, B.S. University of Memphis, 1977 M.A. University of Memphis, 1980 December, 2010 Copyright 2010, Natalie Parker-Lawrence ii To my parents who always said to try new things even when they knew I might. iii Publication Acknowledgements Some of these essays have been previously published in the following journals, magazines, newspapers, and blogs: "Farm Day," Edible Memphis, Summer 2010: 28-31 (plus photography). "Trained Children," Trainwrite, (Karen Eileen Sikola), May 8, 2010 http://trainwrite.tumblr.com/post/581059058/trained-children-by-natalie-parker-lawrence "Lustoleum," Postcard Memoirs, (Sonja Livingston), April 1, 2010 http://www.postcardmemoirs.com/post/488040586/lustoleum "Channeling Ferlinghetti's 'Autobiography,' The Literary Bohemian, Issue 8, February 2010. http://www.literarybohemian.com/travelogue/ "Dying For Pie," Edible Memphis, Winter 2010: 10-11. "Lust," Tata Nacho, November 2009. http://www.tatanachopress.com/CurrentIssue.htm?exampleUserLabel=null&exampleSes sonId=null "Spain Train," The Pinch 29.1 (2009): 89-90. "The History of Sharing and Not Sharing Comfort Food," World History Bulletin 24.1 (2008): 8- 12. www.thewha.org/bulletins/spring_2008.pdf "Play Something," The Commercial Appeal, January 2006. http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/germantown_appeal/article/0,1426,MCA_15702 _4400918,00.html "A Library Remembered," The Commercial Appeal, January 1995. iv Acknowledgements Thanks to my MFA committee, three important writers and editors, Kristen Iversen, Patrice Melnick, and Kay Murphy, who taught me to take risks in mixing forms and honoring the ordinary and the odd. I thank them for their essential writing and reading assignments, their insightful notes in reading my drafts and manuscripts, their exceptional support, and their friendship. Thanks to the students and professors in the MFA Creative Writing Program at the University of New Orleans for their inspiration to reach milestones, real and literary. Thanks to Barbara Hendrix, Sandra Hawkins, Drenda Tomlinson, Celia Anthony, Steve Leonard, Lorraine Cotten, Karen Garrison, Barbara Hatch, Jamie Kern, Liz Conway, and Julia Finnell, friends and colleagues, for their encouragement, hospitality, and patient editing. Thanks to Steve Malin, Bob Burns, Ryland Bruhwiler, Sonja Livingston, Christine Wettlaufer- Adcock, Karen Sikola, and Marcia Aldrich, writers all: teachers and friends with old souls who happen to be great storytellers as well. Thanks to Margaret Atwood, Ray Bradbury, Annie Dillard, Margaret Edson, David Sedaris, Barbara Kingsolver, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Joan Didion, the most influential living writers in my life whose words never fail to demand that I reconsider the world. Thanks to my book club for regaling me with fiction for seventeen years. Thanks to my students, present and former, who read and write and rewrite along with me. Thanks to my family whose stories bind us together whether we want them to or not. Thanks to Bill DeLoach and Tully Daniel, magicians, now gone from us. I owe a great deal to my loving husband, Cayce Lawrence, whom I have known since first grade. I thank him for being an intense reader, a fast typist, my best friend, and an advocate for those who search for the essence of truth and meaning in the midst of struggle. v Table of Contents Abstract.......................................................................................................................................viii The Breasts of a Tall Woman or Why I Write...............................................................................1 In the Time of Food ......................................................................................................................6 Wider Than A Mile .....................................................................................................................11 Significant Holes .........................................................................................................................17 Pack of Cigarettes .......................................................................................................................19 Lust .............................................................................................................................................22 Seven Eleven ...............................................................................................................................26 Ticket to Paradise ........................................................................................................................28 Blacktop ......................................................................................................................................35 A Library Remembered ..............................................................................................................37 Before the Eulogy .......................................................................................................................40 Eulogy for My Grandmother ......................................................................................................42 What I Learned in Summer Camp ..............................................................................................51 Human Voices Wake Us .............................................................................................................60 Some Talk of You and Me ..........................................................................................................70 Play Something ...........................................................................................................................76 Eulogy for Bill ............................................................................................................................84 Is Anyone Else Coming By .........................................................................................................88 Comfort Food ..............................................................................................................................89 Lunchability ................................................................................................................................99 For Cynthia, One of My Students .............................................................................................105 Spain Train ................................................................................................................................108 Trained Children .......................................................................................................................111 Mario .........................................................................................................................................114 Farm Day ..................................................................................................................................117 Dying For Pie.............................................................................................................................123 FromToInAround San Miguel ..................................................................................................128 The History of Jiffy Pop ...........................................................................................................133 My Sister Mulan .......................................................................................................................139 Not By the Hair .........................................................................................................................163 Thread .......................................................................................................................................165 Channeling Ferlinghetti's 'Autobiography' ...............................................................................168 vi Bibliography .............................................................................................................................176 Vita ............................................................................................................................................179 vii Abstract