Ten.Eighteen
1. Fog hovering above the road in front and the wetlands out back. The tomatoes are increasing in size, as is my wonderment.
2. Butter, brown sugar, vanilla, water, salt, cinnamon, oats.
3. “I want to know
if you know
how to melt into that fierce heat of living
falling toward
the center of your longing.” - David Whyte
4. You know you've reached a milestone when you let your new neighbor walk across the crumbs on your floor. You have your husband make her a cappuccino while you sip on lukewarm drip coffee and water laced with apple cider vinegar and raw honey.
5. Blue velvet cloud.
6. She asked us to give her the gift of beauty. On my list: the beauty of longing.
7. Hydrangeas, petals pink and wilting.
8. I have an affinity for things that are big and delicate. Like hydrangeas and peonies and dahlias. Like men and dreams and good wine. Like Life.
9. Car full of kids waiting for ice cream.
10. Readiness.
Ten.Seventeen
1. I missed the sunrise again today but still managed to catch a glimpse of orange on the blades of green grass. I didn't put this on my wishlist for a new home, but the sunrises we've had here - they are some of my favorites.
2. The tomatoes are getting so big. I think I will make a caprese. Michael says I should try to make my own mozzarella.
3. I am wishing for just one more hour without the children so that I can finish my morning pages and gather my thoughts. These quiet hours belong to me. They are mine. They are sacred. I just need need one more hour to be my self.
4. He made the coffee.
5. Live EMPTY.
6. Two steaks. I will sear them and slice them and serve them with a roasted corn and tomato salad and some potatoes.
7. These are the kinds of neighbors you wish you had. The kind that lend you tools and give you their extra mulch. The kind where your daughters float between the two houses without shoes, eating each other's food, racing bicycles around the neighborhood. So when you feel like maybe you made a mistake, think of your neighbors and the way the ways in which they surprise and delight you.
8. So many bricks.
9. I watched a spider eat an ant.
10. The sun is shifting. I should be studying a map of Northern Italy but instead I am drinking chardonnay from California and being talked into running a 5k in October. I missed capturing the sun before it fell behind the trees. The sky is now just dusty blues and pale yellows tucked away among the green.
Ten.Sixteen
1. The sun always beats through the upstairs window but this time I was in bed late enough, and the door was open wide enough, for me to see the light float into the room.
2. Make the bed. White on white on white. Red wine stains on his side.
3. Six teeny firm and green buds on the pepper plant. Grow little babies, grow.
4. The texture of the paper in this journal. The way the ink sits on the pages. How every line I write feels like prophecy. I am laying out my bones.
5. Because I know that I am destined for what's better than good.
6. The pit in my stomach because I know where we are going.
7. The coolness of this day in mid-July. A gift. I am breathing. The sun is here and then gone again.
8. Cold water.
9. The same question over and over. My answer each time is the same but I wish it wasn't. Even if I forced out different and new words, I think the corners of my mouth would still be lined with the truth.
10. How large the hydrangeas have gotten in just one season. So big and green and white. We rented an old farmhouse once, in Kansas City, from a family who had moved on to something more grand. But occasionally I'd see the wife sitting in front of the house in her silver Volvo smoking a cigarette, staring intently, before rolling away. I think I understand it now - the way the heart is always pulling you back. You return again and again until the healing is over.
Ten.Fifteen
1. I am not the first one awake.
2. The way the sun splits the trees, red and orange. And the fog rising above the wetlands.
3. Two old fashioned sour cream donuts with coffee.
4. On the front stoop I stretch out my legs and lean my head back into the sun. I can still feel the tightness in my ribs as I breathe into this moment.
5. It's been so long since I had a Brunello di Montalcino. Montalcino. Mon-tal-chino. I like the way it sounds in my mouth. In another life I'd have been French or Italian and spoken in romantic whispers.
6. Dream. Blue velvet cloud.
7. The sound of Euro pop from the garage. How it makes me laugh until I cry. How it reminds me of the Russian who, when installing the subway tile, blasted Euro pop and N'Sync from a tiny black stereo.
8. Barefoot on the stoop. The warmth of concrete beneath my feet and on the backs of my thighs. This makes me feel most alive.
9. This time with them. The months apart are sometimes too long and I am craving the return of our circle. It is with them I become my best self.
10. On the long ride home I think of the old neighborhood with its Irish neighbors, the tall oaks, the holes in the sidewalk. I think of how I missed the peonies in bloom on Van Buren and the sound of the church bells. I cry.
Ten.Fourteen
1. What time is it? All I know is that it's dark and there is some star that is twinkling so brightly.
2. I am moving slowly this morning.
3. Still no deer.
4. The coolness of the breeze caught me off-guard. After so many days of thick humid air, this is a welcomed surprise. Sweater weather in July.
5. Still hanging on to that dream of all of us together so close on a cloud of blue velvet. How the rest of the world disappeared and fingers were laced and the laughter was quiet.
6. This is our last day.
7. Expired domain.
8. Ankle boots in cognac leather and how you know that these are going to change your life. Because shoes can do that, you know.
9. Dad is still sitting here and I'm already missing him. How is it possible to miss someone before they're gone? What other man do I know will appreciate my love of ankle boots in cognac leather?
10. I'm still sitting with that dream of us tucked into that blue velvet cloud, our togetherness so dangerous and sweet.
Ten.Thirteen
1. So much green. This is the first time I've kept my plants so alive. I want this to be a metaphor for my own life.
2. The coffee machine is leaking again.
3. There is no air-conditioning in the warehouse and so he turns on a fan for me - for us. This has become my favorite job: sweeping sawdust off the backdrop, squeezing myself between pieces of furniture to fit it all into a shot, in awe of all the broken beauty.
4. There is a small settee with one broken leg and it always looks like it's floating.
5. These helmets aren't clean but I put one on anyway. Legs wide. Knees bent. Elbows up. Bat straight. Keep your eyes on the ball.
6. I remember the summer before my senior year of high school when I took gym and we headed to the batting cages across from the school. This tall kid with blonde hair and blue eyes watched me swing and miss at the first three balls before he said, "listen. Keep your bat high. Bring out your front leg and kinda step into it when you swing."
7. Ping. Ping. Ping. Ping. Ping. I run down to the desk and ask for more tokens. I'm a little breathless. "This is really therapeutic."
8. I know I'm going to really hurt tomorrow. But it will be the good kind of ache. And isn't that a lot like life anyway?
9. Pink Gladiolas.
10. This is his last night here.
Ten.Twelve
1. Mornings that look like night.
2. The back stoop is cement and herbs. This is now my new favorite piece of my home.
3. Coffee and morning pages on the front stoop. The breeze is cool and refreshing; the humidity has dropped out for just a few hours and I am breathing again. The pages fill up with a litany of gratitudes.
4. The rains are here and the clouds are dark and low and this is what I need now: The quieting of a storm.
5. Silence.
6. Melted butter and olive oil mixed with dried herbs and kosher salt, rubbed over the skin of the chicken.
7. Rosemary represents remembrance and right now I know that I may remember this moment for the rest of my life.
8. We have only 1 full day left together.
9. The smell of yeast and the way flour drifts into and onto places you never intend for it to go.
10. Garden State Soundtrack. How this movie and these songs marked the beginning and ending of so many things and helped me remember how to feel. How this movie and these songs still lead me to of all the tender places within my body.
Ten.Eleven
1. The whirring sound of the coffee grinder.
2. The peppermint is springing back to life; no sign yet that the rabbits are coming close enough to the house to eat the herbs.
3. There are too many things about Chicago that I do not like, namely, the gentrification and the prices you pay for parking. But driving along Lake Shore Drive can make you forget about it all.
4. Life is a lot like this maze of mirrors.
5. The Golden Ratio. 1.618. Looking for patterns.
6. In ice is the memory of the world. - James Balog
7. If I hadn't seen it in the pictures, I wouldn't have believed it at all. - James Balog
8. This is the memory of the landscape. That landscape is gone. It may never be seen again in the history of civilization and it's stored right here. - James Balog
9. What does it mean to have a visual voice?
10. There is so much to know and un-know.
Ten.Ten
1. Late.
2. The sky is thick and gray and the wind is beginning to pick up.
3. As much as I love light, I crave days like this that are long and dark and time is slow.
3. The children are gone and the husband is gone and this is the silence I've been longing for all summer.
4. How silly it is that I have to practice breathing.
5. What am I ready to release?
6. The sage and peppermint and oregano and basil are in new pots. I see six tomatoes. My cuticles are caked in soil.
7. It's still so quiet.
8. The sun is behind the clouds and it is making God light. That kind of light where the clouds are outlined in gleaming silver and you can see the rays beaming down toward Earth.
9. The only sound is the wind whipping through these trees.
10. Everything is sacred.
Ten.Nine
1. 4:02 a.m. Hello again big, bright moon.
2. If only every drive into the city was as quick and quiet as this one. I'd make my way more often.
3. Flashing yellow lights as the lanes go from four to one. A car, black and charred and flipped onto its roof.
4. The darkness of Lower Wacker.
5. This is the first time I've ever seen the sun rise over Lake Michigan and I am breathless at the sight: electric orange orb rising up over the rippling water.
6. This does not feel like Chicago.
7. The view from here. My god, the view. I'll cling to the memory of this.
8. This sand. This water. This moment with her as she looks out over the water.
9. Apples sliced for pie. Sugar and cinnamon and flour on my fingertips.
10. The figs I bought yesterday are soft and sweet. I roll the seeds on my tongue.
Ten.Eight
1. 4:07 am and there is nothing but moonlight.
2. 5:03 am and now the moon clings to the horizon. It is low and glowing orange and I want to stare at it instead of the road.
3. I always forget how vast and wide this world is until I take myself out past the edges of what I know.
4. This whole morning is a journey past an edge.
5. There are sounds that you hear only during these sacred early hours. There is so much life that goes unnoticed in the bright waking hours.
6. She is pure light.
7. This is the good kind of exhaustion.
8. On the return home I see the powder blue four-square with its American flag. I try to recall the last time I drove through a two-stop-sign kind of town. I want to stop and take a picture with the barn and its grayed-out wood. I wish I could pull over and steal a handful of wheat, all golden and brown.
9. I want to know this landscape intimately. So that when I step out into it, it is less of an intrusion and more of a communion.
10. Gelato, please.
Ten.Seven
1. The deer are back again and the fawn is sturdy on her feet. We lock eyes, the three of us (mama, baby, and me), and stand still until we finally resume our work. They continue to graze and I drag the hoses.
2. The gentle way in which the air blows at the hem of my dress.
3. The clouds look like halos.
4. I am so very tired.
5. The smell of frankincense and myrrh fills the room as I move the vacuum back and forth. Why is it that the act of cleaning feels so holy to me?
6. I pick the dandelion weeds without gloves and so sometimes, when I'm not careful, my fingertips ache from the prickles.
7. It is the thoughtfulness of the gift that brings me to tears.
8. I've always judged myself for the ways in which I am so thoughtless. And as I write this right now I realize that the best gift I can give is that of my words.
9. The air is still moving.
10. Sometimes the light looks best through dirty glass.
Ten.Six
1. I am the only one awake.
2. There is something about the the height of the grass that makes me high-step through it as I drag the hoses.
3. The recycling truck is always first and it is the crashing of glass that greets me this morning.
4. Five baby tomatoes, soft yellow and pale green.
5. The scent of peppermint, oregano, and sage. I promise them that this time I will keep them alive. I finger the dried-out leaves of the potted hydrangea and reveal the new growth below. When does nature know to quit?
6. It is the whiteness of the walls, I think. How the whiteness is so expansive. I am uncomfortable.
7. I think again about the words I said to them last night: "I have to focus on the ways in which I can cultivate joy for myself."
8. Goodbyes. I am surprised by my sadness.
9. The dusty but rich color of the strand of dried rosebuds.
10. I am still the only one awake.
Ten.Four
1. How I wonder why I'm awake so early, at the first light, before the alarm. Before I'm fully rested.
2. I watch the videos I took on my phone of last night's fireworks, remembering the time we stopped in Arcola, Illinois and stood in the Dairy Queen parking lot, bones vibrating and ears ringing from the booms.
3. The sparrow is back again. Flying in frightened circles again. This must be a sign.
4. The sway of the tall grass on the berm.
5. My inability to make a conclusion is frustrating.
6. Circles.
7. The struggle to articulate the fullness of the situation.
8. We say the same things over and over.
9. Why are we here again, doing this again, saying this again, wishing for this again?
10. I watch myself stand outside the loop.
Ten.Three
1. Train horns at 5:33 a.m. Long and drawn out.
2. How many different way can I describe the density of air? It is milky, thick, heavy, syrupy, sticky, unmoving.
3. Mam and baby dear: the way they both turn toward me when I slide open the door, heads up, ears perked before they resume grazing.
4. Cigarette smoke: the way it lingers long after the last drag.
5. Wet grass.
6. The collapse into cool, white sheets.
7. The way writing on this piece of hotel stationery evokes the smell of bergamot and lavender and rain.
8. Sawdust. Varnish. The sound of the power washer against thin metal.
9. The thinness of the air.
10. Smears of black ink.
Ten.Two
1. The fog rising off the tall grass is thick and orange-hued.
2. Why is it that we scrub ourselves clean beyond recognition? Who do we think we are fooling?
3. The coffee tastes bitter and burnt but I drink it anyway because this is ritual and sometimes we forsake soul-sense in devotion of habit.
4. Milky air.
5. I am not breathing.
6. I hold my breath too much.
7. The way he is more himself when we are alone: head tilted, limbs so long and lean and folded over.
8. My skin is damp. Dewey. I am my own ecosystem.
9. There is a car up ahead whose taillights look like sirens. How the sight of what might be sirens makes me hold my breath.
10. I hold my breath too much.
Ten.One
1. A little black sparrow flew in frightened circles in front of the alcove this morning.
2. It's been 4 weeks since he last saw the barber and now the hairs, golden and brown, are curling around his temples and along his forehead.
3. The way his hands move in front of him when he beings to talk. It's one of the reasons I love him: His passion is never as quiet and unassuming as mine.
4. What is it? That sound of blade against wood? Rhythmic thuds.
5. A reflection of myself: shoulders curved too far forward and a neck bent to an unnatural degree. I am leaning into myself. Or am I curling away from someone or something?
6. The angles of light in this house and the way we walk in and out of the shadows.
7. There are not enough trees on our property to break up the wind and the small green leaves of the pepper plant whip back and forth.
8. Tenderness in the breast. First the left and now the right, and how I think about the cancer in my grandmother and my aunt and how I try to always convince myself that this tenderness is nothing.
9. Cold white sheets.
10. Fireworks boom in the distance.