by Emily Branden | Jan 13, 2020 | Uncategorized
My junior year of college I was selected with another female from our theatre department to drive to Chicago for a film starring opposite Claire Danes. I guess they were looking for an unknown, and my professor sent along our set designer to chaperone and drive us...
by Emily Branden | Oct 28, 2019 | Uncategorized
Somehow, I hadn’t planned on any of my students dying before me. Like a mother unable to understand outliving her son, losing Manny has been confusing. Mostly because I don’t want to live on this planet without him. I don’t want to live without his truth and...
by Emily Branden | Aug 29, 2019 | Uncategorized
I’m down to the last scraps of bar soap for a shower, and too overwhelmed this morning to even pick up the linens I managed to drop off at the laundry days ago. Thank God I have coffee, and creamer as I write and work through piles on my desk of equally amazing...
by Emily Branden | Jun 17, 2019 | Uncategorized
I live for summer. I like it hot. Throwing on a dress post swim, adding just lip color to an already sun kissed look. Taking off to some live music under the stars is what life’s made of. That first dive into the pool so precious, I could cry. Traumatized since grade...
by Emily Branden | May 20, 2019 | Uncategorized
I have to admit I never quite knew depression. Standing in the greenhouse of a local nursery, I knew I wanted bright colored flowers. Something cheery I thought as the store clerk directed me to ones that can handle full sun. Mystics say you should stare at the sun a...
by Emily Branden | Apr 15, 2019 | Uncategorized
I don’t recognize myself in the mirror these days, like my skin is molting, and the metamorphoses happening so constantly now I feel like a Science experiment. Every part of me being probed, and examined. The universe testing on me—the strange, the real, the painful...
by Emily Branden | Mar 5, 2019 | Uncategorized
I was brought to my knees more than once in Nashville. I grew up on old country. I had The Judds Greatest Hits on cassette tape my stepmother let me blare in car rides home. I wailed to Patsy Cline before I knew what heartbreak was—except I did. Daddy divorced Mama...
by Emily Branden | Feb 11, 2019 | Uncategorized
I’ve always felt Valentine’s Day was marketed, too generally. I mean, how to find the card for that friend/crush you share silence with in a way that feels like your cheating on their on-again/off again girlfriend? Be. My. Valentine. Or one for the latest ex that will...
by Emily Branden | Jan 14, 2019 | Uncategorized
As a member of SAG-AFTRA, I take this voting time of year seriously. I curl up and watch each film so I can check the boxes with due process. This year’s Green Book is what film is all about; Vice—equally challenging and difficult to take in. Like our current shut...
by Emily Branden | Dec 9, 2018 | Uncategorized
Diving off my paddle board into the Sea of Cortez…I realized I’d been living life half full. An apparent rebel and teacher of seizing the moment, it’s a human flaw—our denying ourselves. My mind racing about covering class, or even going to Cabo when I should...
