Tag: family (Page 2 of 4)

Nutcracker Memories

2 December 2023 / Editor

Nonfiction by Marianne Lonsdale

I was in my attic, organizing the boxes and piles of the stuff of my life, when I came across a theatre program from 1961, for The Nutcracker Ballet, that transported me to the steps of the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco. My memories of that day surged back.

I am six, my sister Cathy is nine and our big brother, Jimmy, is ten. Mom bends down, holds my coat collar and tells me to obey Jimmy and Cathy. No squirming around and no talking during the performance. Her voice is firm and strict, but she hugs me too. She will meet us back on the steps after the ballet is over.

I’d not thought of that sweet day in years, the gift of a day. I wrote to my mother that December, sharing my memories on holiday paper, a soft red with a banner of green wreaths across the top. My mom and I spent more time being annoyed with each other than we did feeling affectionate. I wanted her to know that I remembered her kindness.

My mother had scraped together the money for our tickets but could not afford one for herself or to pay a babysitter for my two younger brothers. Mom was thirty years old with five children, making ends meet on dad’s firefighter’s wages. But she wouldn’t let her older children miss the magic of The Nutcracker. She drove us from our suburban home to San Francisco, dropped us off in front of the theatre, and picked us up a few hours later.

I wrote of the beauty and sequins of the ballerinas, the enchanting music, the fighting rats and sugar plum fairies. Swirling collages of colors, and sparkling silver and glitter. That ballet was the most glamorous event of my young life; the beginning of my love affair with dance and theatre.

After Mom received the essay, she called to say she loved the piece. Her voice choked on the words. We talked a bit more, and as I got ready to end the call, Mom said “I don’t remember taking you to the ballet.” I was taken aback but she’d had lots of kids and memories to keep track of.

At our Christmas gathering at her home, Mom shared the printed story with my older brother and sister.

“That is so sweet,” my brother commented.

“I love that story,” my sister said. Then looking at my brother she asked “Do you remember going? I don’t.”

He shook his head. I was flabbergasted. A standout event in my mind, and none of the main characters besides me even remembered. If I hadn’t saved the theatre program, I might have wondered if I’d made it up.

Marianne Lonsdale writes personal essays, fiction and poetry. She’s looking for an agent for her novel, Finding Nora, a story set in 1991 Oakland about love and friendship during the AIDS epidemic. Her work has been published in Literary Mama, Grown and Flown, The Bluebird Word and several print anthologies. Read her nonfiction essay Parting Gift from last year’s holiday issue.

autumn leaves placed on ground — Photo by Tim Samuel on Pexels.com

The Rains of November Have Come Again

13 October 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Lisa Ashley

nailing the metal roof. It falls steady on,
clicking like a bad wheel bearing.

The brilliant reds and golds
are getting battered, drenched
until they drown, mush up underfoot.

I want more of the sun’s colorcalling,
less of its slantburn in my squint here
where day gives way to black night by five.

I want to clutch that low down fire dazzle
before the clouds lower themselves over me,
a wet blanket disgruntled.

I want more sweet melancholy
autumn stretched over more days,
days that could bring back the siblings

that once surrounded me with noise,
sheared off like widowmakers
under winter’s snow-weight,

yet still moving about their lives—pinioned
in time, some strangers to themselves, one dead,
all lost to me.

I want more of our childhood games,
jumping in piles of leaves we raked,
undoing our work without care,

the lift of the leaps, the screams,
the soft landings we banked on without question.
I want to walk along small-town streets

lined with brilliant red maples,
leaves so blazed I can’t pick out singles.
Whole trees, torched and engulfed.

Lisa Ashley (she/her) Pushcart Prize nominee, descends from Armenian Genocide survivors and supported incarcerated youth for eight years as a chaplain. Her poems appear in Last Leaves Magazine, Amsterdam Quarterly, The Healing Muse, Blue Heron Review, Thimble, Snapdragon and others. She writes in her log home on Bainbridge Island, WA.

Ruth and Oscar

12 August 2023 / Editor

Nonfiction by Angela Townsend

Ruth and Oscar have been married forty years, and they have drawn stares for every one.

Oscar, crafted exclusively of knees and elbows, is the word “jaunty” sprung to life. Eighty-six and five-foot-two, he commands eyes bluer than the Earth from space.

Oscar will neither retire from paid work nor stomach being told that he is in any way impressive. What he will do is elbow you, an instant co-conspirator in this majestic business of being awake, and call you “kid” until you wish it was your given name. His polo shirts are sky and indigo, bright enough to spot him across a century.

Statuesque at seventy-eight, Ruth is a cloud of concern, claiming herself unworthy of her white halo. Her mouth is mournful, and if she didn’t love you, she would distrust you when you insist she is one of the kindest people you know.

But Ruth does love you, almost enough to believe the unfathomable things you believe about her. Proficient in ganache and genealogy, she makes cold rooms feel like dens. She feeds strays, only a few of them feline, and lies awake worrying who might be alone this Thanksgiving. Ruth cried when she learned that introversion is an honest, honorable trait, not a shortcoming.

Oscar and Ruth have toilet paper emblazoned with the face of a political figure.

When Oscar sees me, he hugs me so tight I nearly need to have his elbows surgically removed. Ours was one of those instant bonds that makes you wonder if your families touch fingertips above the treeline. Far beyond DNA, Oscar is family now, equal parts scampish brother and Father Abraham.

Ruth learns through cautious eyes but raced through the pages of my affection like one of her Revolutionary War novels. For ten years she has been perplexed by my admiration, telling me I’m kinder than cats and twice as daft. But when Ruth sees Ruth in my mirror, the truth makes her taller, and she shines like God’s angel in her sturdy denim dress.

On my birthday, Ruth carefully lays out cards on her desktop computer, photos of their cats with wry bylines like, “Sage was going to wish you a happy birthday, but she had to eat her third breakfast instead.” I save every one.

Ruth and Oscar are the rare friends with whom I’ve discussed our rare friendship. None of us has any explanation for why we loved each other so quickly and entirely, only that we are very, very fortunate.

I had to downplay the distress of my divorce to Oscar, who shuddered with tears anyway, lip quivering. “This, to the best person we know!”

But Ruth and Oscar found each other after divorces of their own, pasts they don’t discuss, histories that had to happen for us to have Ruth and Oscar.

Oscar and Ruth give me hope.

Oscar and Ruth had better both reach one hundred years.

Angela Townsend is Development Director at Tabby’s Place and has an M.Div. from Princeton Seminary and B.A. from Vassar. Her work has appeared or will be published in upcoming issues of The Amethyst Review, Braided Way, Fathom Magazine, and Young Ravens Literary Review, among others. Angie loves life dearly.

The Visit

12 August 2023 / Editor

Poetry by R.M. Kinder

This house bursts with loving you—
all of you—our voices, vernacular:
“going out of a night,” “Virgie’s man,” “I had went.”
Dear to me, that peasant language I once spoke freely and well,
but it charmed only a few.

Our breed laughed often, sometimes so heartily
the laugh itself was the greatest pleasure of a day,
a day of work—toil—thorough and demanding and done!
We laughed before supper and after,
prayed before the meal and before bed.

What was class and status
but a cloud over land not ours?
We had dumplings, and pot roast, weather,
and animals close to us, named, and well kept.

I loved all of you, and, then, even our enemies
who seamed us together, separate, whole,
a nature, bearing the flags of ourselves,
nothing but that, and proud, proud, proud.

R. M. Kinder is a Missouri writer, author of three collections of short fiction and two novels. Her poems have appeared in Cottonwood, SHR, Appalacian Journal and other journals; her collection, The Likes of Us, was a semi-finalist for the 2019 Cowles Poetry Book Prize at SE Missouri State University.

Haleakala Sunrise

18 June 2023 / Editor

Nonfiction by Sherri Wright

The sky is pitch black and the temperature drops from seventy degrees to the thirties as our son-in-law drives the switchback road up the mountain. The trip is only twenty miles but it will take us more than two hours to reach the summit of Haleakala at 10,023 feet. Cramped into the back seat my husband, our nineteen year old grandson, and I flop into each other on every hairpin turn and our ears pop as we continue the climb. My daughter follows the route on her phone warning Azi of steep drop offs and approaching turns. Jenny wants to share with her husband and son the experience she remembers when she came here as a child.

At the top we step out of the warm car into a cutting wind and an immense dark sky — not just above but wrapping all around us — uninterrupted by tree or cloud or human made thing. And millions and millions of stars unobstructed by light pollution. The landscape is a monochrome grey surface of lava and rocks like I imagine on the face of the moon. We make our way up an uneven stone path toward the rim of the crater. Hundreds of people in parkas, rain coats and blankets murmur over the whisper of the wind. Jenny and I talk about how years ago we’d worn sandals and wrapped ourselves in beach towels but today the air feels so cold and the wind so bitter that I can’t stop shaking. Harry gives me his hoodie and swears he’s not cold. Sunrise won’t happen for another hour and a half. The thin air makes us feel light headed.

As the dark begins to lift, a warm blush rises above the horizon and exposes the width of the bowl and the depth of the cavern below. Few plants are able to survive here but scattered down the cinder slopes of the crater I see round grey bundles of silver sword. This ahinahina can live up to ninety years. Once in its lifetime it sends up a spectacular six foot stalk of vibrant purple flowers, then dies and scatters seeds to the wind. Here on Haleakala is the only place in the world the ahinahina grows. The mood is mystical. Early Hawaiians believed that the demigod Maui stood at this summit and lassoed the sun to slow its journey and lengthen the day. Thus, the name Haleakala means “house of the sun.”

In a swirl of light and grey and yellow, mauve and orange hues, a hush comes over the crowd and then an eerie silence. A silence I can feel in my chest and my bones. When the sun appears then quickly rises above the rim, the throng breaks into gentle applause. Black silhouettes in the glow, my daughter hugs her son.

Sherri Wright is a member of the Rehoboth Beach Writers Guild and the Key West Poetry Guild. Her work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, Dreamer’s Creative Writing, Persimmon Tree, Ocotillo Review, Delaware Beach Life, Raven’s Perch, and Quartet.

close up photo of birds — Photo by Hal Moran on Pexels.com

Wizardry

5 June 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Susan Shea

While I was choosing a
casket for my father a bluebird
tapped on our front living room window
flew to the back window
kept tapping until my husband
stood up to join him
he flew to a nearby branch
making his tu-a-wee sound
sitting right next to a female

my husband immediately believed

it was my father making him know
that he was now with my mother again
tu-a-wee two are we

I mentioned this story to my niece

two days later I gave the eulogy
mentioned that my daughter
repeatedly noticed me singing “we’re
off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard
of Oz” while driving to visit my father

right after the eulogy my niece presented me
with a framed photo of two bluebirds on a branch
with the quote “somewhere over the rainbow
bluebirds sing…the wizard of Oz”
we all made the connection at that moment

tu-a-wee
tu-a-wee
tu-a-wee

you are here
out from behind the curtain
here from beyond the veil

Susan Shea is retired school psychologist who has been a poet since third grade. She has been published under her previous married name, Susan Townsend in Plainsongs, Pudding, Poetry Forum Newsletter, Oxalis, The Orange Review, and the Accordion Flyer. Poetry is what keeps her pilot light on.

bunch of photo print — Photo by Suzy Hazelwood on Pexels.com

The Old Photographs

3 June 2023 / Editor

Nonfiction by Joan Potter

My ex-son-in-law, who’s been out of my life for several years, just mailed me two photographs. I’m looking at one of them now. It’s an 8 x 10 print, in muted colors overlaid with a faded golden tint. Resting on a table in the foreground is an oblong Pyrex dish holding the remains of a green bean casserole, some creamy sauce still coating the inside corner. Next to it is an earthenware bowl with a spoon balanced on its edge, and a glass half full of red wine.

Across the table sit three of the dozen or so family members celebrating Thanksgiving in my daughter’s dining room. I’m on the left, wearing a red ribbed turtleneck, my grey hair cut short. I’m looking off in the direction of someone out of the picture.

Next to me is my youngest grandson, still with the chubby cheeks of a twelve-year-old. He’s smiling as he digs into his plate of food; he always loved to eat. On his other side is his teenage cousin, face partly hidden by the wine glass in the foreground, glancing with amusement at his young relative.

We always gathered for Thanksgiving dinner at the house my daughter shared with her then-husband and their two girls. It was just a few miles from where my husband and I lived in our New York City suburb. Their house had the most room, as well as a fireplace we could relax in front of after dinner.

The second photograph my ex-son-in-law enclosed was taken in the living room. In this one, my eldest granddaughter, a teenager then, is in the foreground, strumming a guitar with her lips parted in song. My husband, wearing a colorful sweater and khaki pants, is seated in a chair near her, looking thoughtful.

These pictures were taken almost twenty years ago. I don’t know why my former son-in-law decided to send them now. Perhaps he’s feeling sentimental. He and my daughter have been divorced for several years – amicably, she says. The chubby-cheeked grandson is now thirty, an engineer. His older cousin, my second daughter’s son, works on an upstate horse farm. I never hear from him.

The guitar-playing granddaughter lives in a small Midwestern city where she moved to be close to her younger sister, whose husband is studying at the university there. The younger sister is now planning to file for divorce. The older one, the guitar-playing one, is pregnant with her first child. She says she’s been having some problems with her boyfriend, the baby’s father, but they’re working things out. My husband, who was pensively listening to his granddaughter’s song, has been dead for six years.

Now that I’ve pored over these two photographs long enough, there’s no reason to keep them. They’re too big to store and the quality is poor. I already have closet shelves full of albums and boxes stuffed with hundreds of pictures of family as toddlers, teenagers, new parents, grandparents. It can be both enjoyable and painful to sift through them – my mother and father smiling in front of their California house, my four kids eating lobster rolls in Maine, and the many images of my husband, looking proud and content, with various babies resting on his lap.

Joan Potter‘s personal essays have appeared in anthologies and literary journals. Her piece, The Blur, appeared in the January, 2023 issue of The Bluebird Word. Her work has also been published in Persimmon Tree, The RavensPerch, Bright Flash Literary Review, Iron Horse Review, and others. She has published several nonfiction books.

home for the holidays

3 March 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Nicole Farmer

the cold the waiting
the airport the anticipation the anxiety
the arrival the introductions the hugs
the car the road the talking
the home the familiar the suitcases
the shopping the cooking the eating
the mess the cleaning the dishes
the board games the laughter the competition
the fire the warmth the stories
the traditions the movies the quoted lines
the photos the misunderstandings the confrontations
the alcohol the overeating the teasing
the gifts the hugs the texting
the sore throats the tea the tissues
the cold the grey the wind
the accusations the whispers the hurt feelings
the love the irritation the exhaustion
the suitcases the packing the loading
the car the road the silence
the airport the departure the hugs
the cold the relief

Nicole Farmer is a reading tutor living in Asheville, NC. Her poems have been published in many magazines. Her chapbook entitled Wet Underbelly Wind was published in 2022. Her book Honest Sonnets: memories from an unorthodox upbringing in verse will be published by Kelsay Books in 2023. Read more at NicoleFarmerpoetry.com

orange leaf on chainlink fence — Photo by Brett Sayles on Pexels.com

The Leavings

17 January 2023 / Editor

Nonfiction by Susan Reese

I feel the days of parenthood creeping by, distant and unfulfilled. I hear the ticking of my children’s childhood clocks as that time passes forever by. Without a present and without a memory. These are feelings which fill my days and flood my heart with longing, the pain of separation and the melancholy of despair.
Lou Reese, #52760-080, 1992

You called late one night. You called every night, but it was unusual for you to call so late. After the kids were already asleep.

I was in our bed, exhausted from the day, finishing my tea and reading for a few minutes before turning out the light. That first year with you away in prison, it was hard to fall asleep.

We chatted about this and that. You had a new cellmate. Just arrived today. How was I holding up? Pretty good I guess. How was Beau’s sleepover with Orion last night? Fun. Uneventful.

I could tell there was another reason for the late-night call.

I closed my book and placed it on the bedside table. I turned off the lamp and lay on my back in the dark, holding only the phone, pretending you were lying next to me.

There was an awkward silence before you cleared your throat, lowered your voice, and said, “Susan, do you think it would be easier for the kids if you all stopped visiting me? Let them stay home, concentrate on school, their friends and having fun? Let them just pretend I’m away on a long business trip?”

My impulse was to comfort you, to say whatever I had to say to make you feel better, but my anger rose as I recognized your selfishness. I sat up and switched the light back on. Maybe that would be better for the kids, you’d said. My heart was racing as my eyes adjusted to the light. I was wide awake now.

How could you imagine our children not seeing you for three years? Hearing your voice from 800 miles away without seeing your face, or you theirs. Katie needing you for every precarious step from thirteen to sixteen. You were the most important male in her life. Beau needing you for the things I felt ill-equipped to handle. Sports, competition and before long, girls. And McKenzie—the baby. Needing you to be proud of her successes and your reassurance that she was not being disloyal having surrogate fathers for the first grade, father-daughter pancake breakfast and her first under the lights soccer game.

And me, needing you to be strong, to somehow manage to thrive. With the addition of everything else, were you willing to hand me the entire weight of parenthood for three years?

The longer we talked into the night, the easier it was for you to tell me the truth. I relaxed back into our bed and listened to you, my faraway husband.

“I don’t know if I can handle this, Susan. I’m ashamed, and I hate the kids seeing me this way.” Ashamed to be in the visiting room filled with strangers. The f***ing guards on red alert watching for a forbidden kiss between us. Ashamed of the count, having the kids watch as you line up subserviently with tattooed, long-haired inmates. Ashamed. “Every time you all come to see me, I don’t think I can stand it. When you all leave, I’m a total mess.”

Yes, the leavings hurt the most. Watching us walk away from you—off to the Comfort Inn as you head back to your dorm to climb up on your tiny top bunk, put your t-shirt over your face, and cry yourself to sleep. It would be easier for you to do your time on your own. Sure, probably. But at what cost to our kids? Not a price I was willing to have them pay.

Susan Reese is writing a book length manuscript dealing with the experience she and her family had when her husband, Lou, was incarcerated for three years. Writings include poems and essays written by Lou (the insider) and Susan (the outsider), reflecting the fact that the whole family was incarcerated.

cooked turkey on black round pan — Photo by EKATERINA BOLOVTSOVA on Pexels.com

Help?

25 December 2022 / Editor

Special Selection for the 2022/2023 Winter Holiday Issue

Fiction by Kraig Kiehl

She knew this was going to be a terribly busy day. They always were this time of year. Gail took off her wreath earrings, since they got in the way of the headset, and accessed the call database. Her day began.

Gail answered the first call, “Emergency Hotline, what is the location of your emergency?”

A woman on the line whispered, “I’m in the garage.”

Gail knew the steps that followed: she had handled many calls like this in her almost 40-year career.

“Ok, sweetie, please stay on the line with me. Is anyone hurt?”

“No, not really – just my feelings.”

“Ma’am, what is the nature of your emergency?”

“I’ve never cooked a turkey, and my mother-in-law says I won’t be able to do it. And I can’t cook a turkey, but I want to.”

“Can you help me?” the woman pleaded in a whisper.

Gail could help her and did. She had worked in this role since the early 1980s. There was no one better in the business. She was armed with a degree in home economics from the state college, a teaching certificate, and over 30 years’ experience as a teacher at the largest high school in Blair City. The kids called her Mrs. G – short for Mrs. Gail. She was retired now and spent more time with her kids, grandkids soon hopefully, but the community needed her today.

She was the lead dispatcher for the Butterbaster Turkey Hotline. It was Christmas Day and although Thanksgiving kicked her butt each year, it seemed like people needed her more on this special holiday.

She completed her notes for the last call, took a sip of water, and reached to pick up another call. The room was buzzing with activity; over 50 other good citizens, in cubicles, in a large room were busy at work; the people needed them.

“Emergency Hotline, what is the nature of your emergency?”

“Mom, it’s me. Why are you not answering your cell phone?” the female caller asked.

“Tara, honey, I’m at work, and the calls are coming in. What can I help with?”

“Mom, I tried the Supercenter like you asked to get our turkey on points, but they were out of turkeys. Dad’s not helping; he is watching Christmas Day bowl games with Uncle Barry. You know this may be a big night for me.”

“Honey, just go over to Martin’s. I know the manager, and he promised to put a nice turkey aside for us. So just take Daddy’s gas card with you to get the discount. Make sure it’s a thawed bird – we are running out of time. I will talk to you later.”

Buzz, Buzz. “Hi, honey, how’s it going?”

“Mom, it’s terrible. Dad and Uncle Barry are going crazy. State is down by 10 points.”

“No, honey. How did the turkey work out for you?”

“Mom, that’s the thing. Martin’s manager promised to hold your turkey until 11. He had to give it away. Stores are closing. What should I do?”

“Well, well…” Gail stammered.

“You are always more worried about other people’s holidays than our family. I just don’t understand,” Tara said with a sigh.

“Honey, you know that’s not true. What I do is important.”

“Yes, Mom. It is.” Tara said.

“Now, listen. Go down to Sanderson’s and see Joey Rabowski.”

“Who?” Tara asked.

“Joey Rabowski. Your Dad and I went to high school with him. Your Dad always called him Little Joe – not sure he liked that. Joey and I dated before I met your dad. He has always had a thing for me.”

“Oh, Mom, that’s gross.”

“Honey, it’s fine. Joey says he always keeps a turkey for me every year just in case I need it. He also gives me chocolate on Valentine’s Day, but don’t tell your dad.”

“Ok,” Tara said reluctantly.

“Go see Joey. They close soon, so hurry.”

Gail closed her flip-phone and wondered, was Tara right? Did she care more about other families than her own?

I really may have ruined my holiday this year, Gail thought.

“Emergency Hotline, what is the nature of your emergency?” Gail asked, a little less confidently than the calls earlier in the day.

“Hi. No emergency. We just called to get your advice on recipes for side dishes for our turkey. We are cooking a turducken in our outdoor oil fryer.”

“Well,” Gail said, “that is certainly a popular way to cook a turkey, not our recommendation, but a popular way. You are surely going to be fine, as long as you are following the directions.”

“We are…” the caller said and began to trail off.

“Sometimes people don’t thaw the turkeys, and they try to cook them froze– .”

Gail heard an explosion on the line, and the caller screamed.

“Ma’am, are you ok?” Gail questioned.

“Um, um. The turkducken exploded, was shot from the fryer, and is on fire in our front lawn. What should we do?”

“Call the fire department and rush over to Sanderson’s. I hear they have turkeys. They may be frozen but see if they have thawed ones in the back. Little Joe, um, Mr. Rabowski can help you.”

Gail disconnected the call.

“Emergency Hotline, what is the nature of your emergency?” Gail asked.

“Mom, it’s me. We got a turkey. Your old boyfriend hooked us up. He had a 20-pound turkey set aside for you and gave us extra cranberry sauce.”

“Oh, honey, that’s wonderful. We will be fine.”

“Mom, ah, one thing. The turkey is frozen,” Tara confessed.

Her day was not turning out the way she expected. Her husband and brother-in-law had drunk a case of Schlitz beer while watching State lose to Southern. Tara was already at the house.

“Emergency Hotline, what is the nature of your emergency?” the operator asked.

“Ethel, this is Gail. I need some help.”

Kraig Kiehl is an American writer of short stories and fiction prose. Kraig is a retired military officer, a former college professor, and currently an executive for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Kraig lives in Pennsylvania with his wife, Renae, and two needy dogs.