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Tiny Love Stories: 'Remember How Obnoxious I Was?'
Calling It What It IsI'd been a disobedient teenager, eager to rebel against authority. I resisted my parents and the church. But oddly, the one adult I could actually talk to was our Presbyterian minister, Dr. Moffatt. We reunited recently for his 99th birthday. He surprised me by saying he'd once considered becoming a politician to impact peoples' lives. "But you've impacted plenty of lives," I responded. "Take me; remember how obnoxious I was?" "Oh, yes," he said, smiling. "Remember being the only person who made me feel accepted and OK?" He nodded. Then, looking at me straight on, he said, "Lee, it's called love." — Lee Guthrie
The GirlsI called it quits 10 years into our marriage. Anger, obstinance, grief and my alcoholism marred the end of our otherwise good-enough partnership. Wading through the thick muck of resentment, we often fought. But the girls? We never once argued that they must come first. Five healing years later, at every drop-off and pickup when they excitedly run into the arms of whichever parent "gets them" next, I thank my higher power it was you who held my body in the birthing tub when we welcomed our daughters into the world. — Emily O. Power
Almost Exactly RightMy mother, Lurilee, got married at age 33 — pretty old for the 1980s. She often advised me, "There is no rush. The right man is worth the wait." I am getting married at age 35 — not young, even for the 2020s. My mother died from the coronavirus just weeks before she could have met my fiancée. I so badly wish that I could tell my mother that her advice was almost exactly right: There was no rush, and the right woman was totally worth the wait. — Audrey Springer-Wilson
An Unexpected MessageI looked through my journal, taking stock of 2023 with a touch of disappointment. I'd written sparsely and abandoned too many resolutions midway. I haven't been meditating, nor have I managed to read two books or attend four exercise classes a month. What have I been doing with my days? I thumbed through the remaining pages. One stopped me. My husband and I have been teaching our 5-year-old, Anya, to write, celebrating every new word she learned. Unbeknown to me, she'd strung together a few words in my journal: "I love you mama." 2023 had been meaningful after all. — Simi Rose George
Tiny Love Stories: 'Not The Romance I'd Imagined'
Our Shared Sense of WonderFlannel, fireplace, falling snow and frosty windows. The chilly Vermont evening felt so romantic, yet I stood alone gazing up at the stars, struck by both the immensity of the sky and the realization that this was not the romance I'd imagined. He sat inside the warm log cabin, claiming "it's too cold" to go out. A few years later, I have a new lover who shares my sense of wonder. "Will you go look at the stars with me?" I ask. Wrapping me in a warm hug, he replies, "Always." We step out into the starry night, together. — Kate Pearce
A Final GoodbyeMama never said "goodbye." She'd end phone conversations by simply hanging up. Or flee to grandma's without comment whenever her fights with Dad escalated. The last time I saw her in our motherland, Taiwan, she was dying. I begged her to say "goodbye" so I could return to America with closure. She refused. In an airport 26 years later, I hear a woman say goodbye to her family at passenger drop-off. I'm shocked; her voice is uncannily similar to my mother's. It's like I'm finally hearing Mama say goodbye — which translates to "see you again" in our native Mandarin. — Allison Hong Merrill
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SHORT STORIES
Hunter in Huskvarna
by Sara Stridsberg, translated by Deborah Bragan-Turner
(Quercus £10, 288pp)
There's a dreamy quality to these death-stalked tales from Swedish author Stridsberg, which marry old-world mysteriousness to modern sensibilities.
This is a world where dead whales go on tour in the back of articulated lorries, offering a respite for a child of an alcoholic mother, who feels a healing awe as she steps into the hall of its ribs (The Whales).
It's a place where a dead sibling's body is covered in 'teeth and claw marks, as if she had fought with bears and angels', where a boy keeps company with a wolf (Hunter In Huskvarna), and a young, grieving man visits his sister's murderer on death row in a Texas prison (Lone Star State) in search of a kind of happiness, a semblance of peace.
The Body of the Soul
by Ludmila Ulitskaya, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky
(Yale Univeristy Press £14.99, 168pp)
(Yale Univeristy Press £14.99, 168pp)
Death, disappointment and the decline of faculties are the shades that haunt 80-year-old Ulitskaya's collection of economical, honest stories.
They are all tinged with a sense of loss, but her spirited characters are determined to spit in the eye of bad faith.
This is evidenced in the delightful The Dragon And The Phoenix: two lesbian lovers happily marry in tolerant Amsterdam, while their unforgiving families quick-march back to Azerbaijan and Armenia, refusing to 'participate in the forthcoming blasphemy'.
Equally, oddly optimistic is the wonderful Alisa Buys Death, where a daughter decries her overly passionate mother's 'indecently literary suicide', and plans a more decorous ending until an unexpected love in later life changes her final plans.
Walter Benjamin Stares At The Sea
(Melville House £17.99, 208pp)
by C.D. Rose
(Melville House £17.99, 208pp)
Disgruntled photographers, bored philosophers, and a social media-obsessed Saint Augustine star in these teasing, twisty tales, where uncanny coincidences abound and narratives meander into surreal meta-fiction.
In The Neva Star, three sailors, all named Sergei, are marooned on a ship in the port of Naples, pondering their pasts and waiting for their futures to begin; in What Remains Of Claire Blanck, the tale is told in a series of footnotes at the bottom of otherwise empty pages, while in I'm In Love With A German Film Star, it's vinyl records that unspool the history of an obsession.
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