Tag Archives: aging

It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll . . . at 1 p.m. on a Wednesday by Celia Rivenbark

Black and white photo of concert audience from the back
 

Oh, thank you, Jamie Lee Curtis, for bringing to the nation’s attention a problem that many of us, er, “seasoned citizens” have been too embarrassed to talk about. No, not bladder control. Honestly, I can’t take you people anywhere. I’m talking about why—oh, why—our favorite bands won’t have concerts at a decent hour. Like, says Curtis, 1 p.m. She tossed out the idea during the Oscars but then it took off! Turns out there are a lot of us who would love to see our favorite bands when they come to town but not at … Continue reading It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll . . . at 1 p.m. on a Wednesday by Celia Rivenbark

Forehand Drive by Amy Foster Myer

Photo of hand being held out
 

“How much further down you think it is?” He turned to look at me in the backseat as he drove. Through the front windshield, dark streets I didn’t recognize spread out in confusing perpendiculars. I had booked a place in the North end—somebody’s basement done up all IKEA-chic—because it was close to my mother’s facility. I’d barely been up this way before and never in the dark, on the lonely industrial roads from the airport. He said sorry again, repeated it. We had turned off at an orange Detour sign, below it, another reading, “Road … Continue reading Forehand Drive by Amy Foster Myer

Watching Colors Fade By Kathleen Coleman Thomas

Author Kathleen Coleman Thomas and her mother Patty Coleman
 

Turning sixty last month mandated a driver’s license renewal that replaced my wide-eyed forty-year-old self with a puffy-eyed, wrinkly-necked person unmistakably related to the round-faced woman who gave me life. I stare at my new picture and wince, wondering if the blood flow to my brain will one day be limited. But I also look with pride, remembering the vibrant, funny, empathetic person my mother once was, hopeful I inherited some of her better traits, too. That ninety-year-old now lives with me and asks repeatedly, sometimes three or more times in a five-minute span, “What’s … Continue reading Watching Colors Fade By Kathleen Coleman Thomas

Another Fall by William Cass

Photo of open book on leaves
 

Rose sat on the front porch, her custom at that dwindling time of day, watching. She tucked a strand of gray-white hair behind an ear. Her rocker squeaked against the floorboards. Light had fallen near gloaming. She tugged her cardigan around her girth. Not much happening in the old neighborhood. The lady across the street took in laundry from her side yard. At the two-family house a few doors further down, a young couple potted a plant together on their second-floor balcony. A little girl Rose didn’t recognize peddled by on a bicycle with training … Continue reading Another Fall by William Cass

Angry by Alan Brickman

Photo of two old hands holding each other
 

  Marie moved her mother Florence into an elder care facility only two months ago, but still got lost trying to find it. It was an incongruously red brick institutional building dropped into a suburban neighborhood of single family split levels and ranch houses, all on tree-named streets like Birch or Willow that formed no recognizable grid or pattern but were rather a random and meandering tangle that was impossible to navigate. She left her house late, and was now even later for being lost, which would add yet another level of tension to this … Continue reading Angry by Alan Brickman

Self, Expression by Anne Holzman


 

Anne Holzman is the 3rd place winner of Streetlight‘s 2020 Flash Fiction Contest   I hear you before I see you. I start working on arranging my face. There’s the ding-ding of the elevator, the door opening, your father’s voice. Your father is a good husband. He visits me every day, except once in a while he doesn’t come. On those days, the elevator doors open, and it isn’t him, and they open a while later and I can smell the supper cart and I know for sure he’s not coming. Those are hard days. … Continue reading Self, Expression by Anne Holzman

Stripping by Vicky Oliver

Photo of outside of goodwill store
 

Vicky Oliver is an Honorable Mention in Streetlight’s 2020 Essay/Memoir Contest It was an orgy of silk and satin and velvet. Twenty cocktail dresses sprawled on my floor, all temptresses still in their peak, wanting to be touched, craving admiration. They each had their stories and I thumbed through them the way most people listen to golden oldies, remembering with a mixture of awe, sadness, and a lurch of nostalgia that tugs somewhere between the heart and the gut. This was me, I thought. They all were, and not so very long ago. The sleeveless, … Continue reading Stripping by Vicky Oliver

Getting Carded. And a Love Letter by Erika Raskin

Old cash register
 

I was typing my alternate ID number into the keypad at my (formerly) favorite grocery store when the perky cashier asked if I qualified for Senior Discount Thursday. My finger froze midair. “Excuse me?” She repeated her question, louder this time, for the people over in the produce aisle. I smiled à la Kellyanne Conway when somebody brings up her husband’s tweets, and gave the wrinkle-less clerk ample opportunity to say something like, “You look far too young, of course, but we are required to ask everybody. Even school children.” She didn’t. Granted, I’m almost … Continue reading Getting Carded. And a Love Letter by Erika Raskin

From Ice and Dust by Sharon Ackerman

comet in sky
 

From Ice and Dust   All summer long, a comet streaks, star blown and cold, as I walk, hollow boned thin ribbed, a scarecrow loosed upon the night, trailing cotton. How elastic the hands once, thick with boxwood and petunias, a plump face blankly ignorant of kneecaps and hips, their gray, aching moonscape. In the dark closeted sky, original dust returns, its tiny, solid planet flashes the same blinkered path always, a brightness not consuming itself, a body falling, falling for miles, whole and unbroken. Sharon Ackerman is a poet residing in Albemarle County, Virginia. … Continue reading From Ice and Dust by Sharon Ackerman

The Rock of Lost Hope by Bill Gaythwaite

Boulder on the beach
 

My father seemed well enough when I saw him, though he did remind me of someone who’d been woken up too quickly from a deep sleep and was trying really hard not to bump into any walls. I’m not sure how reliable my opinion was though, since I was only there for the weekend and was coming down with the flu or something by the time I got to the house. I felt feverish and sort of submerged most of the time and only felt better when I headed back to the city Sunday night. … Continue reading The Rock of Lost Hope by Bill Gaythwaite