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

Without Words

My 77-year-old mother and I have a system: She texts me an emoji every morning when she wakes to let me know she's alive, and I text one back as a receipt. (She is afraid she’ll die in her sleep and her two cats will eat her remains.) She chooses a different emoji every day; a turtle, a butterfly, a sleepy face. I reply with an emoji in a similar vein; a snail, a bird, big bugged-out eyes. A simple visual exchange or rich and complex conversation? I see you, I hear you, I'm glad you're here, I love you.

Amy Goldmacher (she/her) is an anthropologist, a writer, and a book coach, which means her career has centered around transforming information for good. Find Amy at amygoldmacher.com and on Twitter and Instagram @solidgoldmacher.

The Arrival

Bobby's Tree