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

Upper Upstate

Outside is a sea of snow, thick and heavy. I shovel my driveway. It’s cold, but not painfully so. My LA friends think I’m crazy. CA to NY. Eleven years. They’ve seen photos but they can’t hear my brook, how she sings for me every night and day. A chickadee flits into my view. Worried by the empty bird feeder, sing-song notes fly from its tiny white throat. “Give me five minutes,” I laugh. Winters here are as deep as LA summers. Endless. Emptiness. I push my shovel further into snow. Lift and toss. Stronger with every inch I clear.

Vicki Whicker is a writer and photographer. After a lifetime in Los Angeles she’s living in central NY. Her Instagram, @Dunga_Brook, tells the stories. You can also find Vicki on Twitter @vicki_whicker.

Blue Slippers

Passing Time