Literary Mama Rewind: Lessons

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. Even once we leave school, there is always more to learn. As these Literary Mamas show us, life’s lessons never stop coming.

• Swimming Lessons by Lisa Hammond Rashley  in Poetry
  Minnows and their moms/ hurry in           no running/ no floaties

 

• Guitar Lessons by Carolyn Harris Zukowski in Poetry
  Returning from outside chores, I open the door/ And find the old guitar case pilfered from the closet

 

• Pointed Lessons by Tatiana Strelkoff in Fiction
  With a practiced hand Theresa scooped Sandra up by her belly and flipped her over on the towel, blowing on her stomach in order to make her laugh while she deftly pulled the diaper off. Before Sandra had time to realize she was being kept from her toys she was already back on her hands and knees and crawling happily toward her things.

 

• Swimming Lessons by Valerie Weaver-Zercher in Creative Nonfiction
  I do not understand the physics of floating. I know that it has something to do with an object’s buoyancy exceeding its weight.

 

• Driving Lessons by Karen L. Lewis in Creative Nonfiction
  Learning to drive is an important rite of passage in our society, and one of the few rites with an actual written list of guidelines, a map to earning a license. I’ve come to realize that the territory of parenthood and the territory of adolescence are landscapes that defy quantification.

 

• Language Lessons by Avery Fischer Udagawa from the Column Four Worlds
  My husband and I acquired our second tongues (English for him, Japanese for me) well after the cerebral austerity measures, so we know the deed can be done with practice. As with math, and writing and toilet training, daily repetition does produce results. Eventually.

 

• Voice Lessons by Shari MacDonald Strong from the Column Zen and the Art of Child Maintenance
  Our chatty voices that night were particularly resonant because all of us in that room had, in some form or another, at one time or another, been silenced.