art by Geraldine Stevenson

by Mary Cate Stevenson

My grandmother was a painter. Even though we lived just a few streets over for most of my childhood, I didn’t know her well. When we visited her house, a one-story ranch in a modest Houston neighborhood, the grownups sat in the kitchen and I was told to run along. She was of the “children should be seen and not heard” generation but seemed to prefer to not see us, either. Her black eyes looked capable of casting curses. Her house even smelled inhospitable,

art by Beth Kephart

by Shanda Connolly

Our happy place is Surfrider, a beach up the coast in Malibu at the end of a trail wrapping around a lagoon filled with ducks, pelicans, cormorants, egrets, and herons.  Last Martin Luther King Day, my husband, nine-year-old daughter, and I went there to watch the surf and look for treasure — seashells, that is.  It also was the day after my mother passed away several hundred miles away in Arizona.  It had been about six weeks since I’d last seen her.  As we walked out onto the sand,

art by Kale Hensley

by Angela Townsend

Most of the volunteers at the Peace Fair are older than me. If I asked them why, they would not be offended, because they have more important things to be. They would try out theories on the spot, lively as popcorn and meaty as portobellos. They would ask my opinion. They would promise that someday I will be old enough to take back every age I have ever been, and at that point I can take the world in my arms.

I am still in the demilitarized zone between the ruddy post-grad and the opaline elder.

art by Kale Hensley

by Joseph Gilbride

When I was ten, my imaginary friend was born. I was lying on the sofa in my parents’ living room, struggling to sleep amid a thunderstorm. During strong storms, I would retreat downstairs from my bedroom to put more walls between myself and a potential bolt of lightning. At that age, I believed in God and was frightened of thunder, understanding that, when punishment needed meting out, lightning was His weapon of choice.

What punishment I deserved related to my tendency to fib.

art by Reena Choudhary

by Joan Schweighardt

 It was a quarry long before it became a pool, a huge pit site from which mortal men plundered Mother Earth for her sand and gravel. The booty was used to make concrete and asphalt, which in turn became buildings and roads. The locals who knew about the quarry called it “the pit.” Those who lived near it—and there weren’t many back then—warned their children not to play there. But some of them did anyway.

Vertical sand walls—even those propped up with timber—are unstable and known to cave with the slightest provocation.