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

Ice Conditions

Not far from Edgcumbe Road, where pines offer their shade and scent, I meet a craggy snowbank that a homeowner failed to shovel early, when it was soft and new. My Pac boot catches in a black hole unseen, carved by runoff or snowplow I don’t know. In the crevasse, my ankle twists. I fall on hard crystal—not swearing, because I’m a mother and I can hold my tongue. I stare into ice as unknowable as the Apostle Islands Sea Caves, four hours away, where I will not go this winter if this is broken, and not just sprained.

Kathryn Ganfield is a nature writer and essayist in the river town of St. Paul, Minnesota. Find Kathryn on Twitter @KTGanfield.

Bathroom Classroom

Move-In Day