Literary Mama Rewind: Summer
Welcome to Literary Mama Rewind! Every few weeks we’ll round up some of our favorite essays, stories, poems, columns, and reviews from the Literary Mama archives relating to a particular theme. Summer is here! That means summer camp, swimsuits, beaches and iced tea. This week we have stories that shine the light on motherhood during summertime.
- The Summer of Broken Things by Sarah Boykin Hardy in Creative Nonfiction
It is a summer of broken things. Lightning hits our house and zaps two phones, an answering machine, and a computer hard drive. Thieves throw a brick through the truck window and steal my briefcase. My father falls on a steep gravel driveway and fractures his ankle in three places.
- A Summer’s Day: Mother to Child by Maureen Sullivan Keleher in Creative Nonfiction
It is July, a year and a half since we buried Mom, and I’ve taken eight-month-old Sebastian on his first trip to Scituate. As much as one can infuse an eight month old, I want to infuse him with Scituate and with Mom. I want to feel summer, sand, and especially, her.
- Summer Solstice by Ashley Nissler in Poetry
For an evening we loosen our grip
on the girls, their bodies too sweaty
to hold.
- The Thing About Summer, or: On Having Visited Fort Ticonderoga Seven Times Since June by Jill Crammond Wickham in Poetry
The thing about summer is,
summer is restless.
Trees hang around
waiting for something to happen.
- What She Needs by Wendy Pinkston Cebula in Fiction
Her iced tea was already sweaty with condensation, proof that the summer of 1974 promised to be unusually hot. Northerners up here preferred their tea unsweetened, but Ilona took after her mother and added both honey and mint.
- Sandwich Swimsuit Hell by Susan Ito from the Column Life in the Sandwich
Nothing strikes terror into a woman’s heart more than the sight of a small curtained room filled with bits of spandex dripping from plastic hangers. Multiply that by four females in one family, ages 12 to 83, and you’re in Sandwich Generation Hell.
- Hello Muddah by Ona Gritz from the Column Doing it Differently
Ethan was leaving for two weeks of summer camp and the way I saw it, it would be relatively easy for us. As a family of divorce, we’re often apart on weekends.
- Dark Night of the Summer by Shari MacDonald Strong from the Column Zen and the Art of Child Maintenance
Each year when the month of June draws close, I murmur, prayer-like: “Thank GOD the school year is almost over!” I’ve done this since the first year we adopted our oldest child.