Ten.Sixty-One
1. I didn't really sleep last night. Tossing and turning since 4:30 AM.
2. I like to be down here alone in the dark. Back to three lunches and three snacks today. Bacon and toast and fruit. One cappuccino. I think I can handle just this little bit of caffeine.
3. I am trying to listen to myself and cringing at every "like" and "um." Critiquing my silence and the tone of my voice. Why did I talk about a fur coat? I mean, it drove home a point, but still. A fur coat? And I remember why I never go back to listen to my interviews.
4. I like this little spot and I sit in the sun while I wait for her because I need to feel the heat on my skin. Wooden gliders.
5. We walk down to the river and find a bench that looks out onto the water. Ducks, cranes, ripples from someone skipping rocks a little ways away.
6. We talk about the beauty of the morning; children and their friends; how to stay out of the entrepreneurial slump and addressing fears; ways in which we can build a network of black women way out here in the suburbs; how to take care of ourselves when people that look like your neighbors carry tiki torches and try to start race wars.
7. Grenache for lunch.
8. I sit out on the back porch and listen to the ping of golf balls. I need to harvest all of these herbs and hang them to dry.
9. We make dinner together tonight. I do the risotto and he does the salmon. I like it when we dance in this space together.
10. I finally sign them up for something. Basketball for the boys and gymnastics for the girl. I jokingly say that now I feel like a good mother. But I'm not really joking. It's interesting the way we cut our own selves over these kinds of things.
Ten.Sixty
1. It's still so dark.
2. The thickness of the fog reminds me of somewhere that's not where I am. The landscape and the weather is so different here. What a difference 12 miles can make.
3. Frozen waffles for them. Fruit for me plus one cappuccino and lots of warm lemon water and kombucha.
4. I know how to work through this. I shake out the rugs and clean the bathrooms. Light candles. Reorganize my drawers. Dust the baseboards and the dressers. This kind of attention to the home breeds gratitude.
5. Morning pages in the afternoon.
6. Just him and me today. I always joke that he would have been happier as an only child.
7. I write my husband a letter. He likes these. Plus there are things to say, like "thank you."
8. Malbec.
9. He asks me to lay down with him. Reminds me that I used to do this at the old house.
10. Is it possible to clean your way out of sadness? I'm not sad. Really I am just worried. Worried that I'm not doing enough. Worried about my parents and the failing pumps in their city. Worried about getting a flat tire with a car full of children. I'm not worried. I'm afraid. So many fears. I want to remember what it was like to not be afraid.
Ten.Fifty-Eight
1. Late.
2. He came in and out of the room so many times that I lost count. And now he's sitting here with his head resting in his hand telling me that he kept coming in because his belly hurt. I recommend an apple and a glass of water.
3. The list of what is left to be done is still so long and I am tired. I lay with them in the bed and watch Jurassic Park for maybe the 63rd time.
4. I drive him to see an old friend. He notices that they've stuck in new flowers beside the hydrangeas I planted last spring. He also says there's a playground back there now. They must have little, little kids. My heart cracks a tiny bit. I want it back.
5. I stop at Trader Joe's and buy three bunches of gladiolas because I love the way they look in our kitchen. Deep purple. They always look so grand and gentle.
6. I drink another cup of tea and journal. I write to myself that I think maybe I am depressed. I list all the things that it could also be: the lack of caffeine, my anxiety surrounding my upcoming workshop, the laundry that still needs to folded, the fatigue, my cycle, that I've been down those streets too many times these last two days.
7. I wanted salmon with burre rouge but nothing today is going as planned and so it's chicken fried rice and potstickers instead. But I burn the potstickers.
8. I make him drink a little bit of tea to settle his tummy.
9. He throws up on my feet. How he managed to make it all the way downstairs into the kitchen, I do not know. What I do know is that he'll be home with me tomorrow. And that I'm grateful that I have the luxury of tending to him. I need to tend to myself.
10. I still have the roller of essential oils she gave me from the last time I was sick and so I roll it around my neck and chest and count my blessings as the rain taps against the windows.
Ten.Fifty-Seven
1. Still the first one awake. Making pancakes in my pajamas. Day two without coffee.
2. Back here with the red brick.
3. It feels good to see these faces. Good and also sad. The way the tops of the trees meet. How you have to kind of gun it up the hill.
4. New glasses. New Me.
5. Trying to think of the ways I can make it all make sense.
6. I tell her that, yeah, I feel like I need a year before I say "yes" to anything else.
7. I slice the tomatoes and chop the tops off the garlic and place them on a baking sheet. Slide them into the oven to roast. I shift around the baskets, load, and unload. I am finding comfort in domesticity.
8. Light candles, pour a glass of wine—Argentinian Cabernet, write a newsletter in which I talk about recent failures. It feels good to get it off my chest.
9. Sugar cookies.
10. I want to not feel this way anymore when they ask me these questions.
Ten.Fifty-Six
1. The way the mist is rising up from the wetlands out back. I am instantly taken to the foggy mornings in Yountville.
2. I post a picture of The French Laundry's culinary gardens. They were so lush, saturated in color. What were those tall stalk way in the back? Oh yes, Sunchokes.
3. I have decided to abstain from coffee and caffeine and see if my body with catch up with it's own natural rhythms. I drink water with a little apple cider vinegar and then my oat straw and nettle leaf infusions. I need to remember that I know how to heal myself.
4. We meet in downtown Geneva. I am so I love with its old houses and brick storefronts. I am sad for a moment even though I'm with my best friend. But the weather is perfect, truly: sunny and breezy and no humidity.
5. I decide that this weekend will be for restoring my self and for making spaces in my home. In the last house I had my corners and my rooms where I felt at ease. I'm struggling to recreate this. Maybe it's not the house. Maybe it's just Me.
6. Head hurts.
7. I clean the kitchen and then order pizza for dinner because the withdrawal headache is too much and I just need to rest.
8. We eat our pizza and talk a little about the school day and the plans for the weekend and video games.
9. The way the light is setting behind me. The house is glowing orange and gold.
10. Someone I follow on Instagram uses the hashtag #thereistimeforthis. And there is. There is time for choosing less or more or different or better. There is time to change your mind. There is time for stillness and presence and for sitting in the orange glow.
Ten.Fifty-Five
1. The light is changing.
2. I'm moving with more grace, pulling the containers and the boxes and the slices of salami.
3. He asks me to make my bed so that we can lay down together before school. Runs to his room to make his own bed and cleans up all the toys. So proud of himself that he calls us back upstairs to see how well he did. And then we throw ourselves onto the bed and watch cartoons together for these spare 15 minutes.
4. Back home and down to the basement to edit photos. Looking at the photos of the two of them brings me back to those early morning. And I'm proud of her and her and myself for stepping into the light.
5. Leftover pot pie for lunch.
6. I keep crashing mid-day. I am certain that this means I need to adjust my diet again. Clear myself of the caffeine for awhile, drink my nettle and oat straw infusions, cut back on the dairy and the wheat.
7. In the pick-up lane I scribble down words. Trying to finish out the line "...beyond the control of humans" before the tail lights fade out.
8. Home isn't feeling like home. What is home? Why am I always asking this question?
9. Why am I so uncomfortable? But the weather today is so beautiful. And I keep touching the leaves of the trees as I pass by. I like the sound of my heels on the sidewalk.
10. Too many sugar cookies.
Ten.Fifty-Four
1. The yellowness of this morning's sun. Ten tomatoes. Sometimes feel silly for counting them each morning. For inspecting the sage leaves, for touching the rosemary and then bringing my fingertips to my nose to smell. But then I remember that life deserves this kind of attention.
2. I think I am ready for what's next.
3. Where do I go from here?
4. We sit on her porch and drink coffee in the sun. Notice how quiet it is. Talk about family and Christmas and cleaning techniques and toilets that stay stained (cheap materials). I like this moment.
5. I turn on the twinkle lights overhead even though there's plenty of daylight. There's a fieldmouse stuck in the window well. He keeps trying to climb the screens and almost reaches the top before tumbling back down again. He is persistent.
6. Jennette and I speak of life changes and my trip to California and bleeding keys. How once you've been shown a new truth, you are forever changed. And even though everyone wants you to stay, you know that it is time for you to leave.
7. I tell her that people keep asking me when I'm going to write a book.
8. This. I don't know how to handle this. Every year it's the same. And we're only 1 week in. He doesn't need to love school but... it pains me to see him on the brink of tears and for me to not understand how I can help him. I don't want him to be one of the ones who gets lost.
9. La Crema Willamete Valley Oregon Pinot Noir. It tastes like a wild cherry Luden's cough drop.
10. Squam in 3 weeks.
Ten.Fifty-Three
1. The gray. I love it. The coming of autumn.
2. I'm getting faster at making the lunches and snacks.
3. The deer. She's still here and I feel relieved.
4. I'm thinking a lot about failure. It's not just the wine exam, but a lifetime of so many other kinds of tests. And yet here I still am. And maybe that is the lesson. Here I am.
5. I send an invoice. I know it will be my last one. I am sad that this relationship is ending. I am grateful that I've been pushed toward the building of new boundaries.
6. Back to the library.
7. I like when he's not home, on the phone, and I can turn the music up real loud. Today it's french cafè music, Katie Perry, Ariana, Elton John, Feist, moody classical.
8. Chicken tacos.
9. I think of her saying, "They're a nice family," and how I think to myself, "Of course you think they are a nice family. You are white." And how I say this too about the Midwest—the Midwest is very friendly if you are white.
10. You cry for your children and then you do this dishes.
Ten.Fifty-Two
1. Gray and rain against the screen.
2. Blueberry muffins. Smash 1 cup and stir into the batter. Gently fold in 1 cup whole berries. This recipe is the one they like the most. It's silly but I really do feel loved when they beg for more muffins.
3. I keep using this Oakville Grocery mug. It's so big but the weight of it in my hand. Yes.
4. So much laundry.
5. I capture a bit of the eclipse. I'm not entirely certain I didn't damage an eye.
6. Breathe and meditate. I want stay in this feeling of overflow.
7. So much laundry.
8. Roast chicken and baked potatoes. Semper Pinot Noir. Butter on my hands. Trimming my own sage and rosemary and oregano for the seasoning.
9. Fortune favors action.
10. The sound of train whistles after the sun goes down.
Ten.Fifty-One
1. Late rising. But I know I must get up soon because I promised donuts.
2. Take out all of the pans and the sugar and the cinnamon and the oil. Warm the dutch oven. Run the rolling pin lightly over the puff pastry before punching it with the biscuit cutters. Remember how this is what makes you.
3. Cappuccinos while I chat with my best friend. Inhear the quickness in my breath when I tell her about my trip to California. About how every time I return I feel my roots burrow deeper and deeper. How every time I'm there it tastes like home.
4. Then I listen to the quickness in her breath as she recounts her encounter with the artist who made a million dollars. How this hit her with the truth that abundance and prosperity is possible in the honoring of one's gifts and passions.
5. I am already almost out of pages in my journal.
6. Rest.
7. So much gratitude for the slowness of this day.
8. I am overwhelmed with ambition. Both ambition and fear that I don't have the strength to get it done. But she wrote to me, "Believe that you can do it all."
9. All the laundry.
10. "Believe that you can do it all."
Ten.Fifty
1. Sleeping in. I don't love how everyone comes to mu side of the bed to ask me questions.
2. Cappuccino times 2.
3. I am always counting the tomatoes. I missed one last time. There are actually nine.
4. I make space for all of my fears. They take up the whole page. Then, one by one, I refute them.
5. Still no deer.
6. I am sorting through images from my trip to California. Back at Westerbeke Ranch. There's the labyrinth, the succulents, the cabins, the pond. All that light.
7. Leftovers for dinner but I make a fresh caprese with my own tomatoes and my own basil and I then I think forward to the real garden we'll have next spring.
8. Pinot Noir.
9. The way the light falls across this floor in golden rectangles. And the way it's shifting. I'm learning the seasons of living.
10. Vanilla gelato with a caramel swirl. I sprinkle smoked sea salt, a gift from Holly, across the top. I think of all the gifts I've been given from the people I know in spirit only.
Ten.Forty-Nine
1. I push snooze on the alarm and wait a little bit longer. I am still so tired.
2. Clean the counters off. Make the lunches. Bag the snacks. Everyone is still sleeping.
3. No deer.
4. Iced chai with my best friend as we walk down to the park by the water's edge. I've never been here before. I think this could be a new writing place. The water is high and this brings me a sense of comfort.
5. I stroll the stacks of the library: one cook book, one book on business, one novel.
6. Squam is less than a month away. Anxiety is rising. I'll be flying alone. Traveling alone. Conducting my workshop alone. But I can do this.
7. Afterall, I do like to be alone.
8. Chicken tortilla soup on a Friday. It's still summer but so breezy. Hints of fall. I can't wait for the turning of the leaves and open-window-weather.
9. Not entirely sure what is holding me back. Scratch that. Not entirely sure why I am holding myself back.
10. Wine by the fire pit. Grateful for neighbors like these who want to share sunsets and lives with you. A gentle ending to an emotionally draining week.
Ten.Forty-Eight
1. Emotion hangover. Making me sleep in.
2. The sky is still dense and gray, but as a little bit of the light seeps through, I count the new tomatoes. Eight in all. Tiny, green, firm.
3. He said to me, last night, that I don't like when people take my dreams away from me. And that coming home was like reality snatching back every dream I'd been living over those past 4 days.
4. I love the color of this mug. Just off-white enough to shift my color story.
5. Three lunches and 3 snacks. Breakfast. Need to also buy 6 tab dividers with pockets.
6. I really need to get my new glasses. Maybe then I'll be able to see again.
7. I failed.
8. I don't really want to talk to anyone so I sit in the car until the very last minute. Then avoid eye contact and look low to meet the gazes of only my own children. I know that I am in hiding.
9. The blackberries are big and ripe and juicy. Let this, too, be a metaphor for life.
10. For just a moment the sun made the bottoms of the clouds glow highlighter orange and I think I'm going to be ok.
Ten.Forty-Six
1. San Francisco is quiet this time of morning.
2. This flight feels tighter than the last. Maybe I have grown.
3. I am sleepy. My eyes stay more closed than open.
4. Not ready.
5. I should have told her to stay on I-88.
6. Home. The children. My plants. Dirty floors. So much laundry. Everyone seems taller.
7. Dead battery.
8. I make frozen pizza and a Caesar salad for dinner. Re-entry is always about ease.
9. How is tomorrow already the first day of school?
10. I can feel my eyes getting hot with tears right before I fall asleep. This is ok.
Ten.Forty-Five
1. The last morning.
2. You guys are local, right?
3. We hope to be soon, we say. Order two more english muffins, double-toasted with butter, and blackberry jam.
4. I meet her at Bouchon Bakery and order a croissant and a large coffee. We talk a little bit of business, of children, of writing.
5. Gather all the things and bring them back down to the car. My bag has a large seed cone, some feathers, a piece of driftwood, vine skeletons, and a coffee mug.
6. My first barrel sample and it's given to me by my favorite winemaker. She says the guys didn't take to the haiku idea. I learn that the seeds of the grapes will taste like toasted almonds when ripe.
7. I could have stayed there all day looking at The Palisades.
8. Tyler.
9. The light on the vines. Been here three times before and this is the first time I've seen the vines full of leaves and grapes, drip irrigation in action.
10. My boots are so dusty.
Ten.Forty-Four
1. Heavy and low skies. Us and the runners. The second-to-last morning here.
2. Coffee again at Mini Model Bakery. I make him be the Instagram husband and have him take a picture of me between the vines.
3. The curvy roads back over to Sonoma for breakfast at Fremont Diner. Shrimp and grits and chicken and waffles. 3 cups of coffee. I buy a mug. It's the sink full of green leaves and the teal backless stools that I love.
4. Sandwiches and a bottle of wine while we overlook the valley. Karman has been working here for as long as I've been coming to Napa. 7 years, he says. You should totally move here, he says. We know.
5. Open houses. They all point us to Browns Valley and Alta Heights.
6. The agent we met yesterday sends over a file and sets us up in a porthole.
7. You're moving there?! No, not yet. But it feels like it's gonna happen soon.
8. Back in St. Helena at the winemaker's house. He tells us all the people he knows. We drink through three different wines. I think I now need to go to Mexico City.
9. How is any of this happening?
10. This is really happening.
Ten.Forty-Three
1. 4:38 am.
2. The Safeway on Jefferson Street is open 24 hours a day. We fill the cart with kombucha and water and smoked almonds; sign up with our email address to get the discounts and pay with gift cards.
3. The sun is just beginning to rise as we leave the grocery store.
4. English muffin. Double toasted. Butter and blackberry jam on the side.
5. I ask him if I can have the recipe for the granola. He takes my email address and says he'll leave it for the pastry chef.
6. We look at the app and see if we can find some open houses for Sunday.
7. How I wanted to say to him, "Thank you for telling the truth about what was done to the Native Americans here."
8. This place. The water and the cabins and the bells. How I know this will change everything. Jennette and me, 14 other women, fever dreaming.
9. It's going to happen. This is everything. The designer - talking to her about brass clips and stemware, her writer friends, and her favorite clients. Overhearing a bit of a conversation and walking out of there, mouth coated in zinfandel, with smiles, and a real estate agent.
10. One order of canolis.
Ten.Forty-Two
1. It is still dark. I go to each of them and kiss their cheeks.
2. The car is here a little early and I'm still scrambling to make sure they have paper towels and toilet tissue and cash for groceries.
3. Deep gratitude for them showing up and being here so that I could have this time away.
4. Airport fashion.
5. The way the clouds look like cotton balls planted in very neat and tidy rows.
6. Pieces of the earth cut up into rectangles and circles.
7. The greenish hue of the bay. How when I cross over it I think of how cold the water must be on a day like today.
8. This is everything.
9. Sometimes you get to live out pieces of your dream and trust that the holes will fill themselves in when ready.
10. The water at my toes, and then over my feet, and then over my ankles, and then just below my calves. How I giggled when the bottoms of my pants got wet. Feathers and driftwood and plants from the sea. Hot sand. Blue sky. Vanilla milkshake after a cheeseburger with peppery bacon. All the children laughing. This is everything.
Ten.Forty-One
1. I'm always worried that the sound of the kettle will wake them all up. But she comes down right after me anyway, pink and white pajama pants with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.
2. I convince her that it was all a dream.
3. Butterfly. Black and that crazy bright blue.
4. Buying sneakers for three kids at the same time. Everyone is surprisingly patient.
5. I like this whole reading by the pool thing. Next time I will bring a hat to shield my eyes from the sun. Should be easier to nap that way.
6. The feeling of being stretched across cool cotton.
7. There is not enough time.
8. I am better today.
9. The deer are back. They are mesmerizing. I am always stopping to watch them graze or lay down or bound into the thickest of the grasses.
10. One sleep until California.
Ten.Forty
1. 5:45 alarm. School begins in one week.
2. Still stinging but my stomach is not as tight.
3. Cappuccino and front porch with my journal. I know that my head is hanging. I'm trying to stay upright.
4. No deer.
5. Monarch butterfly.
6. I feel for where I need to pull the tomato. 6 of them. Tomorrow I'll drizzle them with balsamic and a little bit of salt.
7. Dragonflies. So many of them. Is it that I never noticed them before? Or is it that this space we have here is full of the things that draw them near.
8. Praying Mantis. All of these signs.
9. I'm still sour and I know that it will pass in time.
10. Two sleeps until California.