Five Minutes explores five minutes of a life in one hundred words. Five minutes is edited by Susanna Baird, with editorial support from managing editor Maria s. picone, newsletter editor kate meen, and founding reader bobbi lerman, plus our rotating team of guest readers, who you can meet in the latest newsletteR. Five Minutes was founded in October 2020, with the Salem (Mass.)-based writing group Carrot Cake Writers supplying the journal’s first pieces. We’d love to read your five. Submit here

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Looking at my daughter from across the kitchen island, I felt her anxiety. Sitting next to her was her husband. They'd been together nineteen years and married for fifteen. The Zoom session with the judge was about to start and, in five minutes, those ties that bound them so closely together disintegrated, at least legally. They'd committed to being amicable; the process had inched congenially forward the past six months. Explanations to children, frustrations, tears, and sadness were all swept up and packaged in a tiny document that allowed each adult to go their separate ways. Unexpected tears slid down my face.

Sandra Hudson is old enough to know better, young enough to still stay engaged; a semi-retired nurse, entrepreneur, artist, mother, grandmother and wife.

Passim

Frozen