***Ashley Stimpson is the 3rd place winner of Streetlight’s 2018 Essay/Memoir Contest*** You insist it’s okay to smoke in the rental car, that you’ve done it so many times and never had to pay a cleaning fee. Gently as houseflies, my four left fingers land on the window buttons each time you reveal the Camel Lights from your shirt pocket. Every few hours, I have one too, so you won’t ask if I’m upset. A hot wind shotguns the breath from my lips before I feel even a pang of satisfaction. The highway south … Continue reading A Road Trip Through Texas After We Stopped Loving Each Other by Ashley Stimpson→
Private Wilson hesitated at the precipice. It felt like a long time since his Sargent had barked, “Wilson, GO! GO!” Technically, Wilson hadn’t heard it, the air rushing by the plane was moving by so quickly that it hijacked all speech and left angry roaring wind in its place. Still, he knew what the Sargent had said, there was no mistaking his squinting eyes and tensing body trying to squeeze out sound and even though Sarge’s skin seemed to be blown back, trying to take his facial features with it, Wilson could still make out … Continue reading The War by Carla Myers→
I began making photos, suddenly and unexpectedly, in 2005, when a dear friend was diagnosed with cancer. Making photos help me to fill temporal-spatial, psycho-social holes and, on rare good days, to enjoy the flow. Other than that, as Wittgenstein wrote in his Tractatus, “Some things can not be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical.” Now, my cRaZy quilt background is unrelated to my photography. I earned graduate degrees in both business administration and philosophy and consulted/taught higher education for 30 years at two community colleges and … Continue reading Photographs by James Ray Paradiso→
Malady He’s never been sick before skin warm and ill-fitting, moist as he sinks into me, that exhausted root for comfort and the fear that he’ll be declining soon. Children know to seek this oath from their mothers, the affirmation when the darkness comes and they feel as though they will never stop ailing. I can feel it swallow him—skin pale, lukewarm and halfhearted the lids of his eyes bending over yellowing whites, each heavy and brimming with unease. I feel him wilt like day old flowers in my arms and at my breast, … Continue reading Malady by Jesse Albatrosov→
I had long been convinced that destiny had intended me to be born and bred in Italy. Instead, I grew up in suburban Chicago. In September 2008 I set out to rectify fate’s error. Together with my husband Bill and our ten-year-old son Asher we would rent an apartment in Bologna, Italy for three months. It was a city whose streets were practically paved in tortellini and prosciutto and then, for good measure, covered over with miles of graceful porticoes. My husband and I were artists who had spent our youth among the angst-ridden expressionists … Continue reading Nesting by Stefanie Newman→
Risa Eccles, thirty-nine weeks pregnant, sat in her car, furious at Dr. LaSalle for being an asshole, at Paul for having the kind of job that made him seem like a degenerate, at herself for thinking that having a baby might be fun. She watched people walking in and out of the clinic. Some of them held crying toddlers; others—mostly elderly—grasped canes, walkers, or other people’s arms. She thought, Everyone who comes here needs something desperately. It reminded her of church. When she was sure she wouldn’t cry, she called Paul. “The baby’s fine,” she … Continue reading Sequins by Gina Willner-Pardo→
***Anne Carson is the 2nd place winner of Streetlight’s 2018 Essay/Memoir Contest*** Before my older sister outgrew me, outgrew our entire family’s chaos, we shared a bedroom. For a few years there, we were good company for each other. We would stay up after bedtime and role-play storybook fantasies about our futures that seemed more like memories of a former life together centuries ago—as shopkeepers in some village. She on the twin bed beside the windows on the front of the house, me on the bed closer to the hallway. We sold fine goods, maybe … Continue reading Hot Toddies by Anne Carson→
Okay, maybe not exactly saved it, but at least shored it up. Let me tell you how. My husband and I married in the late 70’s, back when our generation was all about living simply, off the land and off the grid. We moved into a house with no indoor plumbing, used wood to heat, grew our veggies, and collected water from a nearby spring. Bob was a self-employed carpenter and I worked at a natural foods store. I made our bread from a dog-eared, oil and flour stained Tassajara Bread Book, and prepared meals … Continue reading Donald Trump Saved My Marriage by Ruth Ewers→
Charybdis and the River Do you hear the gurgling river? All the molecules of oxygen and hydrogen in their special dance, choreographed, washing memories clean, liquid fingers wearing grooves into the banks. White water foams, restless. I, on the other hand, am the undertow, placid above, roiling dark beneath, unpredictable. Soothing sounds hide the maw that swallows without trace. Stillness draws with languor the unsuspecting heart. Remember me, I murmur: I am the scar. Between Covers She used to think she could open any man like a book, run her finger along … Continue reading Charybdis and the River; Between Covers by Anca Segall→
Soundtrack 3 (1964) It’s a cold February day. My parents and I are visiting Saint James School to decide if I will go there in the fall. I am in the ninth grade at Sligo Junior High School; I am lost there between the “hoods” and the “nerds,” not fitting into either group. I want to be a “hood,” of course, because they’re the tough, cool guys. I’m a bit scared of the idea of going off to boarding school, living with 120 strangers. I’m also anxious because tonight The Beatles are to make their … Continue reading Music & Memory by David Roach→
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