Emily Brisse

   

There's a lot to love about the world.

A few weeks ago, my husband, son, and I journeyed out to the Portland, Oregon, area to visit family. As luck would have it, we arrived just two days after one of Portland's biggest snowstorms in years and years. (Apparently, when people out there encounter a snow event, they abandon their cars on the highways and somehow hitch a hide home, ostensibly on the nine snowplows Portland has for the entire city. Suffice it to say, this baffled us Minnesotans. :) Our luck involved landing at the airport after  it was up and running again, and also being able to enjoy an already gorgeous part of the country under a blanket of fresh and frosty white. I took these photos on a solo walk along the Lewis River one early morning. It was a beautiful way to greet the day, and it reminded me of a walk I took at the very end of my pregnancy with my son . This time, I whispered to a new baby, and despite the single-digit temperatures, I was warm. Happy February, friends. Spring is near, an...

There is nothing quite like lazy days on a beach. To spend every hour of light outside--to be able to pay attention to how that light changes the color of things, and to feel it change even the color of your skin--is why people who live in the north go south for holiday. Thank you, Melaque, for your sand, your big and small waves, your mangos-on-sticks, the way everyone was looking up.

We were lucky enough to travel to the Jalisco region of Mexico over my spring break this year. To say I was ready for another adventure that involved significant travel is an understatement, so I hope these photos give you a sense of the height of my wonder and gratitude. I love where I spend my every-day, but going elsewhere is like being given new eyes. I looked and I looked. More photos later (and yes, that little boy in the orange shirt racing the wind is my dear one). Viva!

May your new year be full of adventure and clarity. (And lots of reading, writing, big hopes, simple dreams, and chocolate.) xo from the north shore of Minnesota!

Tonight I am not in London or Grindelwald or Strasbourg or Basel or the Alsace or Lahr . I am not in New York or LA. I am not in Costa Rica or Spain or over the rocky edges of Iceland. I am not in Chicago, or Montpelier, or even Minneapolis. I am not on the Chesapeake Bay . Tonight I am here. My back pressed into pillows, a laptop under my fingers, the windows open open to the night that was yellow then orange then pink and now blue. There are clouds that look like hills, a sky that looks like ocean. There are lights in the distance from the ball park. There are shadows of birds flying toward nests. In the field, each individual blade of grass holds itself up, watching the last of the day slip west.  I hold myself up. I watch this day, just as I've watched the others, sometimes from places very far away.  I think and I think and I feel and I remember and I imagine. The windows are open open. One star. Another. Fireflies. The moon. Breeze. Breathing. Baby no...

   

We entered the Tube around 9:00 in the morning, a mass of noisy students and a few adults, taking up a section of platform. We had told the teens: "We'll start you on your journey, but you'll have to find your way back. Pay attention." The anxious ones stayed near us, the eager ones studied the green and red and blue and yellow lines on the wall map. "We'll need the Circle Line," one said, and after nodding, we passed the phrase among us like bread, or sweets, so when the train arrived, and the sliding doors opened, we all walked through them with enough nourishment and energy to know where we were going . Later, we stepped out of trams into the high Swiss landscape at Pfingstegg Station. After London, most of the kids didn't even look at the trail map. They just started up. One foot in front of the other, one sore-muscled groan after the other, a collection of revelations. We walked under rock ledges and over small streams.  We talked abo...