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

History

When the layers of clapboard decay and peel upward from the foundations of 200-year-old houses, they release an olfactory bouquet that my dog cannot resist. She delights in twenty decades’ accumulation of her forebears’ pee and man-made paint and snow and salt and who knows what else. On this day, I stand idly while she visits an 1806 colonial—a perennial favorite—and then we turn the corner and I notice an historic plaque affixed to the brickface of the house next door. I stop to read, and realize my faithful friend is sitting patiently, waiting for me to finish my turn.

Arielle Gronner works in performing arts management, volunteers for a local charity, and takes frequent walks with her dog around Salem, Massachusetts.


Crossing

Passim