by Penny Jackson
The reason why my mother had to buy me a bra was because of a letter from our school’s headmaster to the parents of the 7th grade girls. It was noted that many girls who were “maturing” were not wearing the proper undergarments. Teachers would now routinely check each girl who came to the school by tracing a finger down their backs. If the necessary “item” was not worn, the girl could be sent home. Continue reading
Filed under Nonfiction
by Virginia Watts
You are either born afraid of horses or you aren’t. I tried to pretend I wasn’t afraid of them the summer I was fourteen. Blame the recent television coverage of the equestrian events on the Olympic games in living color. Female riders like string beans. Absolutely no hips. Just slinky. Gorgeous, oiled leather boots molded to their calves. How did they get those boots on and off? Continue reading
Filed under Nonfiction
by John Haymaker
At thirteen I fixated on playing piano like John, Paul, and Elton — the new kid in 1970. But not until I graduated college would a prostitute unlock the secrets of rock music for me — techniques I might have learned from my first piano teacher, Raleigh, a sightless British gentleman. Continue reading
Filed under Nonfiction
by Fabrizia Faustinella
The house across the street from ours had been abandoned for many years and was now falling apart. The roof was collapsing, the front door hardly standing, the back door was jammed, and many windows were shuttered. The vegetation grew wild and unchecked; the vines took hold of the house like tentacles of a giant octopus. Continue reading
Filed under Nonfiction
by Lynn Levin
When the final rounds of radiation and chemo exhausted my friend Pam but failed to halt the resurgence of her breast cancer, when her tumor markers rose and she lay bedridden, her family advised me that rather than calling and emailing, I should write her letters. I wrote to her on deckle-edged stationery silk screened with bright flowers, on museum cards depicting works of fine art, and on picture postcards. I wrote in my best penmanship. I told Pam again that I loved her, that I knew she never stopped climbing mountains, that I only wished she did not have so many mountains to climb. She once said that we were like sisters. Those words bounded me to her like a ribbon. We each wanted the best for the other. We laughed together and celebrated each other’s successes and joys. In darker times we sympathized, advised, and listened. We were friends for forty-seven years. I hope that I was as good a friend, as good a sister, to her as she was to me.
Filed under Nonfiction
Hawaii Pacific Review 