Posts in 2016
Let Me Tell You How We Met

Every couple has a definitive how-and-where-we-met narrative. Here’s the one my husband and I tell at dinner parties:

I was a counselor on a teen tour to Israel. He was the manager. He hired me. We fell in love in Israel that summer, the summer of 2000, the summer just before the second intifada.

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memoir, 2016SLMJen Maidenberg
Photography

I take a picture of your coffee cup after you leave. Then I lick the spoon you used, still resting in the cup, still tasting of the warm, bitter liquid. But not of you, of course.

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memoir, 2016SLMS.M. Whitfield
Punch

The first time I saw my dad hit someone, the movement was too fast and too slow at the same time. One moment, he was walking, and the next there was blood all over the hallway from the other man’s nose. The blood shone against the white tile floor. I stood there forever while it spread, and the sound of pain the other man made struggled through the thickened air to catch up to me.

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memoir, 2016SLMErica Naone
My House Burned Down

In most cases, “My house burned down” is a get out of jail free card. For instance, “I’m sorry officer, I can’t find my ID, my car, I mean my house, burned down. Let me riffle through all my worldly possessions in the back seat to find it for you.” And subsequently, “Sorry I’m late, boss, I got pulled over on my way. Also, my house burned down.”

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memoir, 2016SLMTatiana Ryckman
But I’m Wanted

April’s lips are chapped. They’re rough and scrape against mine, and the taste of nicotine fills my mouth. Her fingers are wrapping around the tendrils of my mullet. And she pulls my hair a lot harder than I expected. It’s my first kiss. Well, the first one I count, anyway.

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memoir, 2016SLMSteven LaFond