Category: Childhood

I don’t want to write about the pandemic, so you get this instead.

Posted on April 3, 2020 by Author Melissa Crandall

I shift closer to the fire, toss on a log, make the sparks fly. It’s my night to sit up with the children that can’t sleep and I’m damned if I’ll do it cold. I look around the circle at their pale faces made… Continue Reading “I don’t want to write about the pandemic, so you get this instead.”

Category: Childhood, Children, Kids, Reading, Short Stories, WritingTags: Childhood, Short Stories, Writing

Breathing the Past

Posted on February 9, 2020 by Author Melissa Crandall

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I don’t know where the old tin came from. Maybe it held cookies once upon a time, a gift to my parents. I suspect it was found in the old house when they first moved in. (A lot of things were left behind by… Continue Reading “Breathing the Past”

Category: Childhood, Children, MemoirTags: Childhood, Crayons, Memoir

Where is Grandma’s smile?

Posted on January 23, 2020 by Author Melissa Crandall

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I can’t remember ever seeing my grandmother smile. This studio portrait, taken God knows when, is the closest she comes to it. As a child, I didn’t understand her lack of smiles and (I confess) took it personally. (I was an emotional, empathetic, introvert;… Continue Reading “Where is Grandma’s smile?”

Category: Childhood, Family, Geneaology, Grief, Memoir, Oakfield, MaineTags: Family, Genealogy, Maine, Oakfield

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”

Posted on January 22, 2020 by Author Melissa Crandall

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So begins the gothic novel Rebecca, written in 1938 by Dame Daphne du Maurier. My own version might begin, “Last night I dreamt of the house in Clifton Park.” The old farmhouse on Plant Road wasn’t much to look at when my parents purchased… Continue Reading ““Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.””

Category: Childhood, Christmas, Family, Home, MemoirTags: Childhood, Home, Memoir

A Hill Runs Through It

Posted on March 2, 2017 by Author Melissa Crandall

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A certain hill looms large in my memories, although it wasn’t particularly large itself. The yard behind the house in Clifton Park, NY where I grew up (we had yards back then, rather than manicured lawns) was wide enough to contain a swing-set and a clothesline… Continue Reading “A Hill Runs Through It”

Category: Childhood, Memoir, UncategorizedTags: Childhood, Memoir