by Emily Branden | Sep 18, 2023 | Uncategorized
My cousin’s Saguaro went down. Sixty mile an hour winds while he watched it sway in record heat temperatures. I arrived the next night, only to squint on his iPhone at the damage during a recent Arizona storm. It was the centerpiece of his Fountain Hills home,...
by Emily Branden | Apr 9, 2023 | Uncategorized
Leaving W. San left me in a state of shock. And like shock goes—I didn’t notice until I stared at the walls of my temporary spot on Marcy. East Marcy. A bit fancy for my past sixteen years down on West San Francisco Street. “End of an era…” friends chimed...
by Emily Branden | Oct 18, 2022 | Uncategorized
They say the hardest things in life, the things that almost break you are what make you. Driving twenty miles outside Scottsdale, Arizona late August and still 100 degrees, I listened to Matthew McConaughey’s book on tape. Seconding my belief in...
by Emily Branden | Oct 4, 2021 | Uncategorized
It’s been a life of catching up on summer. And Hemingway, and sunsets, and the way the light hits the pool and turns purple before dark. A season of camping and teaching in public again, and singing—on the lawn at el Rey, and Cowgirl patio, and listening to friends...
by Emily Branden | Jun 8, 2021 | Uncategorized
If you did the difficult self work of 2020, this summer may be the biggest transition of your life. I’m humbled by maintaining conversation and casual acquaintances knowing I already was narrowing my focus to a select few. It’s not that I don’t love humanity, it’s...
by Emily Branden | Dec 17, 2020 | Uncategorized
I’ve been spending my days tending fires…learning to keep the flames lit by giving it enough space and air, and kindling to keep it going. Months spent reading fiction and eating take-out from restaurants I used to dress up and go to. Only now, the fire is the...
by Emily Branden | Sep 1, 2020 | Uncategorized
I feel a duty to write more in these times, to document the subtleties making for good story during the Renaissance—which is coming, right? It’s guaranteed after this level of darkness, has to be. In New Mexico, I’m writing in the dark this morning, doors and windows...
by Emily Branden | May 28, 2020 | Uncategorized
Yoga is acting. A born performer, I knew the moment I connected to my breath and moved my body in rhythm to it, I was experiencing the same high and Divine connection I felt on stage. It was a godsend because it meant I could live life without always having to be...
by Emily Branden | Apr 13, 2020 | Uncategorized
It’s interesting, this space, isn’t it? No opportunities for new memories to form, we experience pause and remember a moment not too far back, when life was different and the connection now, so dear. In normal times we would not reflect on it, a lost thought and...
by Emily Branden | Mar 7, 2020 | Uncategorized
If I look back on my adult life…and the scariest of times, they were defining moments of my character. The decision to move to New York, for acting, when my parents wanted me to teach English. The decision to move to New Mexico, for art, when colleagues warned career...
