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...

I look at you, and blink. Wind, and the world shifts. New shadows, new light.

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...

  Took a walk yesterday eve just as the sun was sinking. Baby was asleep. Husband had his feet up. The birds were winging as if it were their last hour on earth. I walked out and joined them, spirit right up there beside their bodies in the air, the air warm, the breeze blue, the clouds perfect, the light the same light that I've loved as I've loved all I've loved my whole life. The world is kind.

Like a stunned piano, like a bucket of fresh milk flung into the air or a dozen fists of confetti thrown hard at a bride stepping down from the altar, the stars surprise the sky. Think of dazed stones floating overhead, or an ocean of starfish hung up to dry. Yes, like a conductor's expectant arm about to lift toward the chorus, or a juggler's plates defying gravity, or a hundred fastballs fired at once and freezing in midair, the stars startle the sky over the city. And that's why drunks leaning up against abandoned buildings, women hurrying home on deserted side streets, policemen turning blind corners, and even thieves stepping from alleys all stare up at once. Why else do sleepwalkers move toward the windows, or old men drag flimsy lawn chairs onto fire escapes, or hardened criminals press sad foreheads to steel bars? Because the night is alive with lamps! That's why in dark houses all over the city dreams stir in the pillows, a million plumes of breath rise into ...