S is for . . . .

shrimp
Ann Carter
 
S is for shrimp. I can de-head two shrimp at one time, standing up. When I was twenty-five I worked on a small shrimp boat off the coast of North Carolina. We shrimped at night and dug clams during the day. Gliding through the salt-water creeks, the night sky stretched across my imagination and darkness wrapped itself around me. The weighted nets were dragged through the black water leaving gentle ripples behind us. When they were full, we hoisted the doors up, and emptied our catch into the boat. Then standing at the bow cap under lantern light, I de-headed pounds and pounds of shrimp, one in each hand.



s-shaped
Anne Killian-Russo

Our cabin-like home in the woods had its share of mice and spiders and ants and my husband always remarked calmly, “We live in the woods,” whenever I  would become unnerved enough about their presence and want to demand the landlords do something. It was a lovely home otherwise with just enough of what we needed and a wood-burning stove that kept me warmer than I’d ever been in the long northeastern winters. One warm August evening that turned into night while I worked, Cali, our cat, and I were upstairs creating a birthday memory project for my son, Sean, who was turning 30 in September. I worked and Cali dozed. Nobody else was in the house. Feeling quite pleased with how the 30 collages of photographs and words to represent cherished remembrances of his life were developing, I capped the glue stick, organized the materials for ease in picking up where I left off the next time, closed the light, and descended the stairs with Cali right ahead of me, as usual. At the moment my feet touched the ground floor, I noticed Cali frozen in full attention toward the living room. “What?” I asked her, as I turned toward what she was looking at, to see a black ring-necked snake slithering quickly across the floor, its body forming first a correctly formed capital S, and in one quick movement, a backwards one. We don’t live in that cabin “in the woods” anymore.



smoke
Bill Waters

I was out for a drive on a sunny November morning, and I was five cars behind a big dump truck. We were all moving down a narrow tree-lined road, and as the truck driver shifted up through the gears, clouds of exhaust came blasting out of his muffler. All that pollution! I set my ventilation system to internal as the bluish haze expanded — above the cars, above the truck, above the trees. And then I noticed the sunbeams: long, slanting shafts of light among the bare branches. Without the smoke, I couldn’t have seen those sunbeams; without the darkness, I wouldn’t have seen the light.



slinky
Blue Waters

I was five years old, in 1952. My three older siblings were all at school. Mom needed something from the Dime Store. We went together. I was too young to leave at home alone for a half hour, apparently. Not in my opinion, but definitely in Mom’s. While Mom went to find what she needed, I wandered around the store on my own. And then it happened. I saw something I absolutely had to have. A slinky! I fondled it’s wiry structure and imagined it walking down the basement stairs like I had seen on TV. I knew Mom wouldn’t think it an appropriate toy for me since it wasn’t a cutsie baby doll. So I just stuck that slinky in my pocket. We went back home. Helen, the owner of the Dime Store, was also my Sunday School teacher. When I saw her on Sunday, she winked at me. I knew she knew. I whispered my confession to her. “Just promise me, Martha, that this won’t become a habit. It’s not proper. So don’t ever do it again, okay?” “Okay. But can I keep my slinky anyway?” Helen gave me another wink. “As long as you be good.” My first big secret from my mom!



sex
Edna S. Brown

The questions my young children asked me about sex still make me giggle. How are babies made? (Sperm meets egg, they fall in love and a baby is made.) How does the sperm get to the egg? (Traditionally, penis goes in vagina.) Silence . . . . But only for a second, right? (Oh, I hope not!) Do you guys still have sex? (Much less than we used to before you were born.) Can we watch? (No! Oops, forgot to stress the privacy part.) You’re naked, aren’t you? (Yes, sexual partners may be partially clothed or naked.) Last comment, “naw, we don’t wanna watch that.”



streams
Frank Muller

All my life I have been soothed by streams in the woods. I often sit quietly on their banks and listen to their gurgling songs, becoming part of the scenery. I watch as deer, fox, and raccoon appear silently from the forest to drink. I float in kayaks or immerse myself in the cooling waters.
I sail leaves in the currents and watch the natural sailboats journey on the living, undulating, glistening pathways. Sometimes tiny water strider insects climb on board a leaf raft to rest. I watch as they spin and meander slowly downstream, then quicken in rapids until out of view, journeying towards unknown destinations; a metaphor for life.



stream
Ian M. Shapiro

By the high school there was a stream and when things got rowdy kids would get thrown in. One time the stream flooded and overflowed into the high school parking lot. The lot became a pond and this guy took a boat out in it. But what I loved was if you left the school and headed into the woods, following the stream, it all became mystery. Trees and light and shadows and water. And solitude. So I did that. I left the school and I headed down the stream.



stinky
Jim Mazza

Ours is a neighborhood of cats. Most are rescues and some have been plucked from cardboard boxes at farm stands posted with signs promoting: Zucchini, Tomatoes, Free Kittens. Others have arrived with the fall influx of students. Stinky was one of those. She accompanied a first-year veterinary student who moved in next door to us. A lovely, long-haired feline, with fluffy black and white fur, Stinky’s appearance (and sweet smell) belied her name. Often left alone, she spent most days curled up on our front porch. She was a great presence in our life, so we were saddened when Stinky and her student moved across town, although equally surprised to find her, just days later, once again on our porch, sleeping soundly in her usual chair. At first, we feared she had been abandoned but soon learned that Stinky’s daily visits to the old neighborhood were planned. As implausible as it seemed, Stinky arrived each morning — by car. In the evening, the car returned and blew its horn twice, the cue for Stinky to jump off our porch, run to the corner, and disappear into an opened passenger door. Unwittingly, although happily, we were providing Kitty Day Care.



sauce
Julie Lind

When I was growing up, my parents would pack my sisters, brother, and I into our gray minivan every Sunday and drive down the thruway to Niagara Falls. We could see my grandparents’ house from the 190: a small ranch on the corner of 70th street with yellow siding, a brick front, and two small plum trees in the backyard. As we pulled up to the side walkway, we took our seatbelts off, ready to slide open the car door and run towards the entrance. Before we set foot inside, we could smell the garlic, tomatoes, and meat that had been simmering on low all day, the flavors folding into each other. We could hear my aunts’ Italian voices talking about what happened that day at the hospital, the smoke of their Merit menthol cigarettes filling each pause. The basement was the only room large enough to hold everyone, so at dinnertime we all headed downstairs and sat at the two tables that my grandfather had made out of old doors. We passed around the Parmesan cheese and sprinkled it on platefuls of spaghetti covered in sauce. Before we ate, my grandfather led us in prayer: “Father, Son, Holy Ghost, who eats the fastest gets the most!”

 

swan
Kath Abela Wilson

I was in love with the letter S. I knew it meant more. It only counted for one, I knew that. But added to other things it was priceless. Doubled their value, even tripled, without trying. I could be like that. I knew it. And so I was always in love. I began to collect S's. I put them in artworks, and modeled my signature with swirls and curliques. Finally with natural grace, one night, one began to come to life, formed itself with clay in my fingers, into a swan, the most natural shape,  a beak on one side and fan on the other. I had met my match. That was the night we grew wings.



soaps
Kathleen Kramer

Every Monday through Friday, at precisely one o’clock in the afternoon, Mother and Grandma Hess settled themselves before the TV, sighing with contentment and anticipation. It was time for their favorite soap opera, As the World Turns. Balanced on their laps were their lunch plates, and placed carefully on the floor beside them, steaming cups of black coffee. Mother’s lunch was always a cheese and onion sandwich — sharp cheddar, topped with a thick slice of Spanish onion. Grandma’s was the same, sans onion, but slathered with mustard. The morning’s work — whether it had been scrubbing floors, changing sheets, or canning peaches — was done, and they could lose themselves in the dramatic world of Sheila and Tom, Old Judge Lowell, and Bob and Lisa Hughes, whose troubles were always worse than their own.



snap
Katrina Morse
 
Larry Mortimer was destined to sit behind me in homeroom from 7th grade to 12th, Mortimer being alphabetically closest to my last name of Morse. In 7th grade three elementary schools merged together and we started having homeroom and passing classes. Each homeroom was a chunk of students whose last names were close together in the alphabet, so Larry and I started each day for 6 years sitting in our row of desks with me in front of him and him looking at my back. Larry looking at my hair, at what I was wearing each day . . . and then one day in 7th grade homeroom he ran his finger down my spine. I could feel it through my top. “You aren’t wearing a bra,” says Larry. “There’s nothing to snap.” I don’t know what I said, if anything. I am sure I turned bright red, mortified that he had noticed that I was still a prepubescent girl with no breasts. After that I asked my mom for a “training bra” and then asked her how to shave my legs — and hated how my legs quickly became scratchy hair stubble.



skinny
Margaret Dennis

I was always skinny as a kid. My legs were so thin that I had to endure tons of insults growing up, like: “what are those strings hanging out of your shorts?” or “what are you standing on? Toothpicks?” It didn’t help that my mother  was especially proud of her legs. She wore sheer nylons with seams up the back and very high heels, all to show off her proudest attributes. When the mother of my best friend bought me my first garter belt and stockings at age twelve (my own mother would never have done this) I was thrilled and felt so sophisticated! It didn’t matter anyway, though, as the stockings just “puddled” at my ankles. I cried bitter tears. It wasn’t just my legs that were skinny, I was thin all over. In elementary school we would get little cartons of milk for a mid-morning snack. I hated mine. The milk was warm and unappetizing. The nun in charge of my class would inevitably decide that if there were any “extra” they should go to me since I looked undernourished! The thought of that time can still turn my stomach. As years went on I did get an appetite, gained weight, and looked somewhat more “normal.” My legs never changed though. They are still skinny, but at this point, I have decided to like them!



sunrise
MJ Richmond

It was still dark as I drove my rental car down into the canyon toward three rainbow-colored hot air balloons resting on their sides. At first it appeared that the canopies were being filled with fire, but they were actually capturing the heat that was urgently coaxing the balloons to repeatedly rise and fall back to the ground. The basket readied for its passengers by sitting upright as the nylon envelope expanded. The sky above the Arizona canyon walls was light peach as I climbed into the wicker basket quarters and we lifted off. First we floated gently, a few inches aloft along the ground, then moved smoothly up into the morning light. We rose quickly as the sky took on hues of deep pink and bright reds. Soon we were close to an altitude of 3000 feet, moving in a river of air being heated by the rising sun that greeted us near the top edge of the steep-walled valley.   



sudan grass
Tina Wright
 
For the hell of it, I am growing a garden plot of Sudan grass this season as a cover crop.  My first try, buckwheat, was decimated by birds, especially killdeer nesting nearby. So I replanted. A crazy thing to do anyway, sign up for a Cornell community garden space in late May after my brother Jay’s death, but I needed a project like this, a cover crop with garden tools. In his last days Jay was desperate to refurbish the Farmall M tractor in his yard to a bright new red and I was to be his helper. So, we’re doing this instead, Jay. I tell the June blue sky about calling the Ithaca Agway Farm/Garden line to ask about seeds and the woman there had never heard of Sudan grass. Only Jay would know what I mean. Jay, she never even heard of Sudan grass! I told her it’s a sorghum, dairy farmers grow it sometimes when you can’t get corn in on time. And she acted funny like I was asking about quinoa seeds or something weird, exotic. Only Jay would know what I mean. A farm store!



scurvy
Zee Zahava

Mom talks a lot about scurvy. That I will get it if I don’t eat half a grapefruit every day. She says it’s what sailors used to get and it is a bad thing. I say I’m not a sailor. Mom says that doesn’t matter. Half a grapefruit. Every day. She must have read an article about this in one of her magazines: Redbook or Family Circle. I hate grapefruit, so bitter, makes my mouth pucker. Mom doesn’t care. Every day. Half a grapefruit. Because of the sailors. And the scurvy.