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The Cross-Cultural Memoir Series introduces original, significant memoirs from women whose compelling histories map the sources of our differences: generations, national boundaries, race, ethnicity, class, ability, and sexual orientation. The series features stories of contemporary women’s lives, providing a record of social transformation, growth in consciousness, and the passionate commitment of individuals who make far-reaching change possible.
THE CROSS-CULTURAL MEMOIR SERIES
I Dwell in Possibility
Toni McNaron
Under the Rose: A Confession
Flavia Alaya
Come Out the Wilderness: Memoir of a Black Woman Artist
Estella Conwill Májozo
Life Prints: A Memoir of Healing and Discovery
Mary Grimley Mason
A Lifetime of Labor
Alice H. Cook
Juggling: A Memoir of Work, Family, and Feminism
Jane S. Gould
Among the White Moon Faces: An Asian-American Memoir of Homelands
Shirley Geok-lin Lim
Fault Lines
Meena Alexander
The Seasons: Death and Transfiguration
Jo Sinclair
Lion Woman’s Legacy: An Armenian-American Memoir
Arlene Voski Avakian
Published by the Feminist Press at the City University of New York
The Graduate Center, Suite 5406, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Copyright © 1992, Part IV 2001 by Toni McNaron
Foreword copyright © 2001 by Louise DeSalvo
All rights reserved. First edition 1992
Second edition 2001
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McNaron, Toni A. H.
I dwell in possibility: a memoir / by Toni McNaron; with a new foreword by Louise DeSalvo. Rev. and expanded ed., 2nd ed.
p. cm. –(The cross-cultural memoir series)
ISBN 978-1-55861-417-8
1. McNaron, Toni A. H. 2. English teachers—United States—Biography. 3. University of Minnesota—Faculty—Biography. 4. Alcoholics—United States—Biography. 5. Feminists—United States—Biography. 6. Lesbians—United States—Biography. 7. Alabama—Social Conditions. 8. Racism—Alabama. I. Title. II. Series.
PE64.M38 A3 2001
976.1’781063’092—dc21
[B]
2001050127
Epigraph on page vii reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College from The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Ralph w. Franklin, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1998 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © 1951, 1955, 1979 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Excerpt on page 299 from Circle on the Water by Marge Piercy, copyright © 1982 by Marge Piercy. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.
Quotation on page 199 from Toni Morrison, “Memory, Creation, and Writing,” Thought 59, no. 235 (December 1984): 385, © Fordham University. Quotation on page 200 from Donald McQuade et al., eds., The Harper American Literature, vol. 1, 2d ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 1994): 122–23, © HarperCollins College Publications. Quotation on page 209 from Webster’s International Dictionary.
This publication is made possible, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. The Feminist Press would also like to thank Janet E. Brown, Mariam K. Chamberlain, Johnnetta B. Cole, Florence Howe, Joanne Markell, and Genevieve Vaughan for their generous support.
Text design by Paula Martinac
Text composition by Dayna Navaro
06 05 04 03 02 01 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Theresa Louise Hurley and Erskine Lamar McNaron
And to all the students who have enriched my life over so many years
I dwell in Possibility —
A fairer House than Prose —
More numerous of Windows —
Superior — for Doors —
Of Chambers as the Cedars —
Impregnable of Eye —
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky —
Of Visitors — the fairest —
For Occupation — This —
The spreading wide my narrow Hands —
To gather Paradise —
Emily Dickinson
Contents
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
Part I
Out of the Nest
First Lessons
Child’s Play
My Mother, My Muse
Part II
Men Come and Go
Into the Cauldron
Awakenings
Sure and Certain Knowledge
Advanced Studies
Alone
Part III
Finding Self, Finding Words
Everyday Magic
Part IV
Memory Bridges
On the Cusp
Feminisms and Friendships
Coming Full Circle
Coda
Making the Possible, Probable:
A Long Overdue Thank-You to Toni McNaron
July 11, 2001
Dear Toni,
This is the letter I should have written years ago when I first encountered your miraculous I Dwell in Possibility. At the time, I was reading as many