Ten.Eight Hundred & Sixty-One

1. Everyone else is home but me for today. That’s okay. The day should go by quickly.

2. I think of what he said to me. He’s not entirely wrong. What it would it look like to shift the language from management to leadership? I don’t want to manage the household. I want to lead it into its next phase. That sounds better, more intentional, less like it’s full of drudgery.

3. Really, dude?

4. I check Google maps to see what today’s commute will be like. Only 45 minutes. 45! On a Monday! This gives me another 25 minutes which means one more cup of coffee slipped slowly in the chair while I finally open up her book.

5. I’m in the acknowledgements. This makes my eyes water. And then I try to read, the words slightly blurred from tears. Her book! This is her book. And I am reading it and imagining the characters and thinking of the way an orchard is lined with trees and sitting in awe of the fact that she wrote this.

6. No bottleneck.

7. She offers up one big bag of persimmons to me. I think of how they will photograph but mostly of how much my daughter will love this gift. I think of the Rocket Salad with persimmon that I had at Chez Panisse, my first ever bite of persimmon. I think I might try to grow one of these in the next place.

8. I overhear her say that someone offered her a piece of land up in Sonoma to do whatever she wants. I am mostly sad she is gone for selfish reasons. I had plans to learn from her. Who will I now go to for that learning, for someone willing to teach?

9. For now.

10. I lay my whole weight against his back, arms wrapped around his thin body. I am amazed even by my own endurance.