Emily Brisse

So it's spring, and I'm out walking again, today in the middle of the big city, trains rattling west, airplanes overhead, highway noise rumbling on two sides, glimpses of 35W through the ten-foot high still-standing grasses, but: the still-standing grasses swaying ten feet high, the robins with their scraggly nests and cautiousness, the deer paths, the boggy soil, dirt black as night, a new word ( fen ),  the Mississippi past the sedge line , the (I think) common sootywing butterfly that looks neither sooty nor common to these color-starved eyes, which is to say nothing for the green the green the green the green the green.

Your husband is sleeping. You hear his deep, regular breaths, feel the warmth of his fingers next to yours under the blankets. You do not have to look to know the contours of his face at rest in the dark. You turn onto your side, pull your knees up closer to your chest. Flex your toes. When you get up, you do so quietly, so as not to wake him, and tiptoe out, stepping into the cold of other rooms. You check your phone: 3:07 a.m. For a while you stand at the window, listening to the wind, watching it move the shadowed branches in the grove, thinking. When you pad back through the house--eyes heavy now, decisions put off until morning--the stove clock blinks 2:36, and you accept this like any dream's incongruence. It is only later, that morning, that the two of you realize it is Daylight Savings, and that you were awake in the strange moments when in some parts of the house it was one hour and in others it was sixty minutes before. You wonder how you managed to float so easily be...

Two years ago I reread one of my favorite books,  Love Medicine  by Minnesota writer Louise Erdrich, and shortly thereafter began writing the essay that would become my MFA graduate lecture. I called it "The Geography of Sentences." I examined word-nerdy terms like syntax . I referred to the psychological ways we react to beautiful phrases and why. And I ended up with a dozen pages that meant something meaningful to me. I've read The Writer's Chronicle  for as long as I've been a serious student of writing, so it is an immense honor to open up its March/April issue and find my essay there. Feeling a bit out of my league, to tell the truth. But happy, too. And reflective. There are so many paths we can take, and today I'm just grateful that mine has led me here.

The winter it didn't snow, I lost two pairs of slippers. I stood in steaming showers. I left the blinds broke-open after dark. The winter it didn't snow, I peeled and crunched on carrots. I trailed a hawk out hunting. I practiced yoga, cat and cowed, pigeon-toed. The winter it didn't snow, I met the sunrise, sunset. I listened to those engines. I tended potted plants with faith and fuss.   The winter it didn't snow, I scribbled a.m. hope notes. I remembered California. I found myself entranced again with techno. The winter it didn't snow, I held my love like hunger. I warmed my feet along him. I dreamt of us as children, us as grey. The winter it didn’t snow, I touched the fine lines forming. I finally took my vitamins. I tried to hush my mind, to let it slow. The winter it didn't snow, I wanted truth. But vastness. I wanted peace. But Future. I sought simplicity, the cool white sky. The winter it didn't snow, I waited for that foot fall. I waited for...

This essay can now be found in the 2012 edition of The Talking Stick. It received an honorable mention designation. I'm happy to have it there!