Emily Brisse

in Danish: sommer in Swedish: sommar in Old English: sumor in Dutch: zomer in Czech:   éto in Greek:  καλοκαίρι in Quechua: chakisqa pacha in Arabic:  صيف in Lakota:  blokétu  in Chechen: a khke in Chinese:  夏天 in French:  été  in Japanese:  夏 in Latin:   aestas in Fijian:  vulaikatakata in Russian:  лето in Somali: x agaa in Spanish: verano in Thai:  หน้าร้อ น Or, in Me: lazy mornings barn swallows playground swings small stones in clear streams festivals farmers markets aluminum canoes pontoons bonfires back porches berries flower gardens wide skies fireflies baseball hats leaves, shaking baby, laughing late nights white wine love in the afternoon

I've decided to try something new here. I was talking the other day to a friend about our summers, and I realized two things: I loved hearing about what she'd been doing, what she'd read and seen, where she visited, what she'd been mulling over. Although I had read/seen/visited/thought over actual adultish things myself, I could hardly remember any of them.  I am blaming this on my dear sweet little boy and the scientific FACT called "Baby Brain." And I am using it as a reason to put together a post now and then--maybe once a month? once a season?--to remember what I've been into between the rocking and feeding and human-jungle-gyming exploits that soak through so many of my waking hours. A good number of other bloggers  do this same thing, and despite the fact that there's nothing overtly lovely or inspiring about a list of television titles, I look forward to these posts. They open the door to that writer's humanness, I think, and they esta

I have been a mother for six months. Half a year. Winter to summer. Brown to green. Snow to heat lightning. Egg to flight. 184 rotations of the earth, and so many moments with my cheek placed along the skin of my son. I have lived delight. And exhaustion. And a breaking away of time. Those 184 rotations happened, surely, but sometimes I glance out the window and it is startling to see the clover, so lush and purple-budded, instead of white. Perhaps it is because Elliot came to us in this northern land when everything was insular and tucked away and, for the most part, still. What I do know is that despite my denial, he has grown as quickly as the clover, observant and beautiful and steadfast, and I love him more than all the other studied and cultivated sections of my wild-garden life. I might have anticipated this, but I could not have anticipated him, this person. It's bewildering, really: what it means to be a mother, to be his mother, to still be me. On the night of