Going to visit a dead body has seemed bizarre to me since my first such occasion when I was five or six years old. Like any good Southern family, we had seemingly countless numbers of old ladies populating the family tree. Most of them were a little scary, I thought. They were somebody’s second-cousin-twice-removed or a great-aunt or Neva’s mother-in-law, someone whose life and death had little bearing on my life. But Mom and Daddy took me with them to the funeral home for the Visitation, an occasion taken very seriously in my family. We … Continue reading Paying Our Respects by Connie Clark→
“What’s wrong with pear trees?” I ask, wondering if my dad is getting senile. “Well, they’re an invasive species. They’re not allowed to sell them in nurseries here anymore. They’re very spreadable because of their seeds. The ones in this subdivision are cultivated so they don’t have the thorns, but once the birds start getting to them, and they, you know, do what birds do, the ones that turn up in the wild have the thorns and then they take over everything around them. It’s the monoculture. If you plant only one kind of tree, … Continue reading Foie Gras by Nathan Cover→
The slap came before I could take a breath. I had just said the word “Jiao” the way Teacher Zhang had taught me, firm in my seven-year-old confidence. My mother, arising from her chair and putting down her knitting, hovered behind me in her wool jacket and sharp eyes, and didn’t agree. “It’s pronounced Xiao,” she corrected, her voice clipped, sharp. “But Teacher Zhang said Jiao,” I muttered and continued reading aloud, repeating it the way I had learned. Her hand sliced the air. “I’m a teacher too!” she snapped just before it landed across … Continue reading The Slap and the Word by Jean Romano→
I’d already missed two periods before I went to Planned Parenthood in Berkeley. I knew the result before a woman asked if I wanted counseling. She had a lovely voice. “I always say, you’re the one to ask the questions of yourself. Who do you see in yourself, Gina, what do you want?” I answered that I was thirty-five, unmarried, and didn’t know what I wanted. “But my hormones aren’t neutral,” I laughed. “They’re saying yes but I just don’t know.” She asked about my circumstances. “The father is not committed but I’d like him … Continue reading Distances by Barbara Baer→
Weddings create their own weather. I had no idea. I did not have a big wedding myself. It was spontaneous and the only white article of clothing I had that wild night in the Hollywood Hills was my white satin nightgown. I sometimes regretted that I did not have the confidence to have a real wedding. Now, my daughter is to be married next month, here, in my home, and the village and I am caught up in the matrimonial turbulence. One such storm, the wedding wardrobe. In the spring, she searched for her dress. … Continue reading The Wedding Dress by Trudy Hale→
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→
Karen Dolan has earned an Honorable Mention in Streetlight’s 2024 Essay/Memoir Contest I had seen the penis on the ultrasound, I knew I was having a boy. What I didn’t know was that I was wrong. “Stop it with all the questions!” the midwife barks in response to my questions about a possible epidural. “This isn’t a think tank.” This is a dig at me and my employment at–indeed–a Washington, DC think tank. I feel like I’m in a medieval torture chamber and my captor is commanding me to shut up, lay back, and … Continue reading The Earth is Round by Karen Dolan→
How do you knock on a door that, all your life, you imagined opening? I stood at a fateful address on the edge of the historic district of Old Cloverdale, in Montgomery Alabama. I had never been to Alabama before and until now, had only one important contact here—Harper Lee. Before my first memoir was published, Harper Lee had read it and written to me, “A beautiful story I shall cherish for years to come.” I was thrilled, of course, but still uncertain— what was my story? Ever since I could speak I had searched … Continue reading My Father Unknown by Laura Shaine→
Not sure how we got here. But here is where we are. My next-door neighbor, Sarah, and her little sister Pearl, and me. We were eating cereal at their red kitchen table, the light of January moving across the wall where their parakeets, Peet and Repeat, lunge sporadically around their cage. We were at the kitchen table one moment. And the next we were inside this snow globe. On the floor is a circular rug, red and pink with miniature roses, probably wool, like the rugs at the store where Mom works. To the left … Continue reading Missive From the Snow Globe by Charlotte Matthews→
Amy Boyes has earned an Honorable Mention in Streetlight’s 2023 Essay/Memoir Contest The hibiscuses arrived in six-inch grower pots. Packed for cold weather in a foil and Styrofoam-lined box, they had journeyed in a transport trailer to my grandmother’s prairie flower shop. “Careful, those are live plants!” Grandma would warn, as if “LIVE PLANTS” emblazed on the cardboard box was an insufficient indication. Deposited on the shop floor, the box remained until a knife or pair of scissors could be fetched. Typically, neither was found and a substitute tool was employed—pruning clippers or even … Continue reading The Hibiscus by Amy Boyes→
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