Just Breathe Normally american live s | Series editor: tobias wolff Just Breathe Normally peggy shumaker university of nebraska pre ss | l incoln and london Lines from “Otro Mas,” are from El Corazón Amarillo, by Pablo Neruda. Copyright 1974 Fundación Pablo Neruda. Used by permission of Fundación Pablo Neruda. English translation: Lines from “Another One,” are from The Yellow Heart, translated by William O’Daly. Copyright 1990 by William O’Daly. Used by permission of Copper Canyon Press. Lines from “Oda a Los Calcetines,” are from Nuevas Odas Elementales, by Pablo Neruda. Copyright 1956 Fundación Pablo Neruda. Used by permission of Fundación Pablo Neruda. English translation: Lines from “Ode to My Socks,” are from Neruda and Vallejo (Beacon Press, 1971), edited and translated by Robert Bly. Used by permission of the editor. Lines from “Sixty,” “Before the Sky Darkens,” “After,” and “A Post Mortem Guide” are from Different Hours, by Stephen Dunn. Copyright 2000 by Stephen Dunn. Used by permission of W.W. Norton, Inc. Lines from “Anniversary Sonnet” are from Days of Awe (Copper Canyon Press, 1989), by Maurya Simon. Used by permission of the author. Lines from “For the Anniversary of My Death,” are from The Lice (Macmillan, 1967) by W. S. Merwin. Copyright 1967 by W. S. Merwin. Used by permission of the Wylie Agency. Lines from “The Purpose of Altar Boys” are fromWhispering to Fool the Wind (Sheep Meadow Press, 1982), by Alberto Ríos. Used by permission of the author. Additional acknowledgments for previously published material appear on pages vii–ix. © 2007 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America. ’ Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Shumaker, Peggy. Just breathe normally / Peggy Shumaker. p. cm. — (American lives) isbn 978-0-8032-1095-0 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Shumaker, Peggy. 2. Cycling accident victims — Alaska — Biography. 3. Convalescence — Psychological aspects. 4. Reminiscing — T herapeutic use. I. Title. rc1045.p78s48 2007 362.197'10092 — dc22 [b] 2006101195 Set in Bembo. Designed by A. Shahan. for joe In memory of my parents hanna zoe moen June 12, 1933–February 2 1969 and john marshall howe January 3 1932 –November 2 2006 Acknowledgments Material from this book, sometimes in different forms, previ- ously appeared in the following publications. Many thanks to the editors, publishers and staff members who welcomed my work: journals Alaska Quarterly Review, The American Poetry Review, Ascent, Bellingham Review, Blackbird, Brevity, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Iowa Review, Iowa Woman, The James River Review, The Louisville Review, Manoa, Nimrod, Phoebe, West Branch “The Apple” first appeared in verse form in The Agni Review 13 (1980). “Camouflage” first appeared in The Gettysburg Review 15, no. 3 (Fall 2002), and is reprinted here with the acknowledgment of the editors. “The Inside Story” first appeared in verse form in the Women’s Review of Books 16, no.3 (December 1998). “Just This Once” first appeared in Crab Orchard Review 8, no. 1 (Fall/Winter 2002). “Landfraud Nosebleed” first appeared in verse form in Crazyhorse 61 (Spring 2002). “Naming What We Hold In Our Hands” first appeared in verse form in The Seattle Review 28, no. 1. “You Should Know Better” is reprinted from Prairie Schooner 78, no. 1 (Spring 2004) by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. Copyright 2004 University of Nebraska Press. vii antholog ie s A Road of Her Own, edited by Marlene Blessing (Fulcrum, 2002), Looking North, edited by Aldona Jonaitis (University of Washington Press, 1998), Short Takes: Brief Encounters with Contemporary Nonfiction, edited by Judith Kitchen (Norton, 2005), Trappings: Stories of Women, Power, and Clothing, edited by Tiffany Ludwig and Renee Piechocki (Rutgers University Press, 2007), This Delicious Day: 65 Poems, selected by Paul B. Janeczko (Orchard Books/Grolier, 1987), Under Northern Lights, edited by Frank Soos and Kesler Woodward (University of Washington Press, 2000) books Blaze (Red Hen Press, 2005), The Circle of Totems (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1988), Esperanza’s Hair (University of Alabama Press, 1985), Underground Rivers (Red Hen Press, 2002), Wings Moist from the Other World (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994) Thank you to the doctors, nurses, and staff of Fairbanks Memorial Hospital. Thank you to my whole family. Thanks to Ginny Draves, Sue Montoya, and John Howe, my siblings who shared much of this story. Special thanks to Amy Nettles and Hanna Cordova, the aveng- ing nieces. Thank you to John Howe, my father, and to Connie Howe, his wife. Thank you to the Usibelli clan. Many people helped during my healing. Thanks to everyone who brought food, flowers, music, poems, stories. For help with the spelling of words in Norwegian, thanks to Professor Claudia Berguson. viii Thank you to the capable and highly professional staff of the University of Nebraska Press. Thanks always to my students. For their sustaining friendship, thanks to Marion Baker, Christianne Balk and Karl Flaccus, Steve Berg, Marlene Blessing, Jennifer Brice, Derick Burleson, Anne Caston, Stephen Dunn, Jim and Karla Elling, Kate Gale and Mark Cull, Cynthia Hogue and Sylvain Gallais, Aldona Jonaitis, Margo Klass, Bill and Eloise Kloefkorn, Connie and Steve Kuusisto, Jan and David Lee, Susan McInnis and Joy Morrison, John and Nancy Morgan, Paul Morris and Becky Ross, Naomi Shihab Nye, Ed Ochester, W. Scott Olsen, Hilda Raz, Tito, Lupita, and Joaquín Ríos, Rachel Rose, Stan Rubin, Eva Saulitis and Craig Matkin, Glen and Melissa Simpson, Sherry Simpson and Scott Kiefer, Maurya Simon and Robert Falk, Carol Houck Smith, Ron Spatz, Virginia and Mark Spragg, Carol Swartz, Susan Thierman, Kes and Missy Woodward. Four trusted readers helped me shape this book: Ladette Randolph, who saw a “long essay” and kindly informed me I had a lot more to write. Frank Soos, who read fragments early on. Dawn Marano, who helped me with clarity and precision. Judith Kitchen, who suggested an order for this book that would never have occurred to me. Thanks beyond measure to Joe Usibelli. ix