The Monthly Theme Essays are a collection of essays written each month on a predetermined theme. These essays are always published during the last week of the month. To submit a Monthly Theme Essay check out our upcoming themes.
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A summer camp in the Allegheny Mountains is where I lost the plan for my future. Given the early 1960s, one would have thought a loss of virginity the big event of the season, but that dropped away as casually as dandelion fluff in the wind. My lost plan was a casualty of my lost religion. I had planned a career in the church, in one of the limited options then offered to women. I entered camp as a Presbyterian and emerged as an unbeliever.
Read MoreAt Indian Rocks Beach, we stay in an oceanside ranch house. It is small, flat to the ground, and the walls are painted sea green. The living room is covered with sandy, shaggy orange carpet. We are vacationing with my dad’s family: his parents, his sister, her many, blonde children. Absolute chaos.
Read MoreAt a beach on Madeline Island, my son and daughter searched for skipping stones, flat and smooth, perfectly sized to fit their little hands. They would have been six and nine that summer. We had gone to the island to sightsee, a day trip to visit a friend of my husband who had retired there. She drove us to a quiet inlet tucked safely away from the mighty waves of Lake Superior, and there we walked across the rose gold sand and there we found the stones.
Read MoreSummers lingered, with pancakes for breakfast and sometimes for lunch, too. Mom peeled carrots and left them in a Pyrex bowl of water on the kitchen table. I’d grab one for a snack, running through the house and out to the backyard, where the fun happened.
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