1842 On a Midwestern tour to drum up support for a second presidential run, Martin Van Buren had the bad fortune of passing through Plainfield, Indiana. A year and a half before, Van Buren had been swept out of office. The Panic of 1837, the worst economic depression in the country’s short history, had so frightened and upset voters that they’d elected the sixty-eight-year-old war hero William Henry Harrison, sending Van Buren out into the wilderness, political and otherwise. The people of Plainfield had a local beef with Van Buren. Tucked away in in what … Continue reading Stop the Car by Scott Weaver→
I have always been sensitive to smells and tastes, but this was too much. On a four day getaway with my husband in NYC, the city of my girlhood, I sat down to a sesame bagel with scallion cream cheese. I took the first bite–soft, chewy, crispy, nutty, creamy, tangy, sharp. I burst into tears. Covering my face with my hands, my sobs alternated with laughing. Shock. Shame. To be so flooded with memories at 9 a.m. on a Monday morning in midtown. Fresh bagels were the central experience of my childhood. At least once … Continue reading It’s Not a Madeleine But by Rachel Lutwick Deaner→
I’m sweeping up a pile of sand from the hardwood floor. It’s everywhere. Under each throw mat and area rug. In the corners of the room and hiding beneath the wicker chair nearest the front door. In the folds of the couch and the crevice of the doorjamb. As I sweep, I begin to gently cry. Big fat tears hitting my cheeks, rolling down my collarbone. I’m taken aback. The spool of emotion wound tightly inside of my chest unfurling. My mind is a carousel of slides from this summer and those before it. Sunburns … Continue reading Stolen Summers by Lauren Dunn→
Quincy Gray McMichael has earned an Honorable Mention in Streetlight’s 2024 Essay/Memoir Contest As I stretch my shoulders, arms aloft, the Monongahela Forest yawns through a narrow split in the trees. Across the road from where I sit, the tranquil understory draws my eye past the weathered porch railing, my ever-growing grass, baby blueberries, high-tensile farm fence, and the last lilac bush. I spot a fiery flash among the scrub and shadows, a thin flag of tabby-tail above the green. Shredder, the orange cat, shoots from the underbrush and across the gravel—a one-lane road … Continue reading Cicadian Rhythm by Quincy Gray McMichael→
My mom died sometime last year. And it’s funny, I couldn’t tell you exactly when it happened. Well, it’s not so much funny as it is strange. Because I wasn’t expecting her to die at all. And what you should also understand is that she’s not actually dead. Not physically at least. She’s still kicking up dust. Texting. Breathing. But she’s somehow also gone; or at least for me she is. She’s dead in a way I’ve found excruciatingly hard to pinpoint and to process. It happened some time after my Dad died. He did … Continue reading Death Reprise by Lauren Dunn→
I know a story they left out of her obituary. In the late 1970s and early 80s I worked in the Development Department at The Franklin Institute, the Philadelphia science & industry museum. Stanley Pearson worked in the same department. We were an odd pair. I was in my twenties, liberal, struggling to support my wife and me while she was in grad school; for fun, I spent my free time programming an early CP/M microcomputer. Stan was in his sixties, conservative, a part of the network of Princeton alumni who ran Philadelphia business and … Continue reading Slugger by Walter Lawn→
HEART OF GOLD The calendar waves its pages, and announces it’s time for our annual tradition of tapping trees and sugaring. Oh wait: not you! No more plates full of sticky, sweet, heart-shaped pancakes drenched in homemade maple syrup, surrounded by sausage patties with a heap of cheesy potatoes. It’s against the new rules. My strong, healthy, hard-working, and big-hearted husband has Congestive Heart Failure. HEART THROB Frank Sinatra sang, “Each day is Valentine’s Day around here.” Ironically, it seems Ol’ Blue Eyes was singing our theme song. Our house is full of heartfelt reminders. … Continue reading My Funny Little Valentine by Lucinda Guard→
Studio by Katy Nicosia. CC license. When we first enter the Robert Rauschenberg retrospective at the Tate Modern, my parents’ eyes brighten as if they’re greeting old friends. Before they suggested we spend their last day in the UK here, I had no idea who Rauschenberg was, no idea that he was such a major influence on their own work. Dad gravitates to a print of a tyre track that spans an entire wall, Mom to a monoprint of two figures in a field of blue. I split myself between them, not wanting to miss … Continue reading The Rauschenberg Retrospective by Ingrid Jandrewski→
Rebecca Watkins has earned an Honorable Mention in Streetlight’s 2024 Essay/Memoir Contest “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from a troubled dream, he found himself changed in his bed to some monstrous kind of vermin.” —The Metamorphosis *** It was winter, 2021 when my first Nespresso machine, Helga, died. I am not the kind of person who names my personal belongings, but I figure it would be more enjoyable to read “The Story of Helga” instead of “The Story of the Nespresso Machine,” so I am calling her Helga. I had noticed, once or … Continue reading Cockroaches in Coffee Pots by Rebecca Watkins→
Philip Newman Lawton has earned an Honorable Mention in Streetlight’s 2024 Essay/Memoir Contest My sister Margaret is dead. Her body has gone to cinders, her pain, blown away like smoke. I want to remember her as a child, go back far enough to trace the whole arc of her existence, make sense of it, figure out why she lived and died the way she did, but we grew up in a dysfunctional family, an alcoholic father, a hand-wringing mother, and I was prone to lose myself in books and daydreams. My memories are in … Continue reading Deus Absconditus by Philip Newman Lawton→
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