Ten.Three Hundred & Fifty-One
1. Sleeping in.
2. The ground is wet from dew but the soil is still quite dry. I set about to water it. A strong breeze blows the water back toward me. I laugh.
3. It's going to be a hot, long drive into the city for this shoot today. But hopefully it will be worth it. The editor says she trusts me which means I need to go into this trusting myself.
4. Birthday parties for kids you don't know. I drop him off and use up some store credit from a Christmas return. The mall is a dark and empty place.
5. I put pull on and pull off pants and shirts. This is another reason I do not like to shop. I have a hard time with what I see in the mirror. I keep trying on clothes. Keep trying to rewrite the stories I have about myself and my body. I realize that I've ignored these stories because I created space for myself where there are no scales and no full-length mirrors.
6. At last a pair of shorts that I can convince myself to purchase.
7. I always get nervous before these kinds of things. It's been a while since I've shot some food. And this is my first newspaper assignment so I'm extra nervous.
8. The restaurant is small and a little dark but I think I know how to work with this space. I remind myself that I am a natural light photographer. This is what I work with exclusively. I know this kind of space best.
9. "It’s the quality of a particular interaction that creates the replication of energy." - John Paul Lederach, On Being
10. I'm miles and miles away from the redwoods, barreling down the highway headed home, but I listen to them speak and am back in the lushness of that weekend. I remember Shabbat and how to listen and how to speak and how to observe and how to rest.
Ten.Three Hundred & Fifty
1. Snooze.
2. Dreams of being places that I do and don't want to be. People seem to be confused.
3. Nowhere to be but here.
4. Donut run. One very old pick-up on over-sized wheels with two large American flags attached to the bed. In the parking lot of the donut shop, A bumper sticker with a heart, a cross, and a gun. An American flag bandana hanging from the rear-view mirror. I think maybe I don't belong here after all.
5. I dip the old-fashioned into my coffee before heading down to the basement to work.
6. It looks like rain but I don't think it will fall.
7. I didn't realize I was supposed to pick him up. I round up the two of them and get in the car to drive to Naperville. The ride there feels longs. My mind is just preoccupied with so many other things.
8. I follow the thoughts all the way through and realize that it's not anger but shame. The shame of being a black person who cannot swim and thus a black woman who's kids cannot swim.
9. Turkey burgers again for dinner. I think I was able to convert him with these.
10. I forgive myself for feeling shame.
Ten.Three Hundred & Forty-Nine
1. I let myself sleep in until 5 because it's cleaning day. The clouds are pushing east and the air is quiet.
2. Knowing versus Learning.
3. Today just feels like the day to stop. And then I realize that it's exactly two weeks until my birthday and so yes, this makes sense. I've been really into numbers lately. Not necessarily numerology, but just paying attention to what numbers I'm seeing and how they make me feel.
4. I still don't like the idea of announcing digital sabbaths but it feels necessary to do so. I don't know how long I'll be gone. I never know how long I'll choose to be gone when I leave which is kind of the interesting piece when it comes to these kinds of breaks. Sometimes one week is enough, sometimes three weeks is not enough.
5. Chairs.
6. The impulse to check is strong.
7. I drive all of us to Naperville to spend a little bit of time with friends. I always get asked when I'm going to move back. There's always a house for sale. Maybe. Maybe if he gets a different job with a bit of a pay-raise then we might move back. I try not to think about that. Right now, despite my feeling of loneliness, moving back isn't the focus. Rooting is.
8. I grab the chairs and they are just brown enough and not red at all and I'm relieved.
9. She asks if we can talk about other things, not grow-up things.
10. We look up and see the sky. The sun is setting. The sky is the color of cornflower and the clouds are a pale pink. I can't move back. I'd never see these kinds of sunsets.
Ten.Three Hundred & Forty-Eight
1. What time is it?
2. The windows are sweating so I already know what kind of day it's going to be.
3. I drag myself down to the basement for a quick yoga session. It's warm outside but so cold down here. I need to remember to bring a sweater.
4. Blueberry muffins. I forgot how satisfyingly light and airy the batter is once everything has been mixed together.
5. "Being at home in a given place means recognizing the rocks, the plants, the winds, and the waters and stars of that place in your own body, and your body in the rocks, the plants, the winds, and the waters and stars of that place. It means more than having memories associated with a given place. It means learning again how you and those you love and admire, in every physical, metabolic, chemical, mythical, and spiritual sense it can be means, are made of the things that make the place you belong to. That is the alchemy of belonging. This is where home comes from." - Die Wise
6. My shoulders and neck are sore from me trying to retrain them into alignment. Poor posture as a defense mechanism. Poor posture as a result of holding so much in that the body feels the need to cup itself in order to contain it.
7. I teach myself a few new things and it feels good.
8. I drag the blanket out of the back of the car and spread it on the grass, half in the shade and half in the sun. His gift to me was pizza ordered in for dinner so that I could continue to read and relax. It is a gift indeed. More time to feel the breeze blow down the back of my shirt.
9. "The culture lives in the language." - Die Wise
10. The right book at the right time is an elixir for your own becoming.
Ten.Three Hundred & Forty-Six
1. 3:55 am. I know I won't be able to fall asleep again.
2. 4:25.
3. The way the street is wet from last night's rains and the way the streetlights make the water glisten.
4. There are spiders and slugs clinging to the window wells. I really need to get these covered.
5. Finally a frame for this image. All the dried eucalyptus in a vase beside it. Right here above the tub where the soft light will always hit it. This might become my new favorite spot.
6. Canceled plans mean a sense of ease about the day. It means more time to read and to write and do more laundry.
7. He sees me in bed. Even though he's smiling, I always feel judged. I justify it with having been up since before 4 am. But does it really matter what time I woke up? When you're tired, you're tired. It's taken me a long time to let myself be okay with resting.
8. It's taken me a long time to enjoy the privilege of resting. The next iteration of my life and my work will be helping other women to find a rhythm of rest in their lives and work. Yes. I think that's going to be a thing.
9. When I write down the list of things to do it doesn't always seem so big. But the few things that are there are large. And they're exciting. And they're heavy. And. I'll just get to them when I get to them.
10. I think back to the conversation. "What are you going to do with them?" (Them being my followers.) "Connect," I said. "This is a creative outlet," I said. Very little of what I do makes sense to those on the outside. Sometimes I care too much. I'm learning to care less and trust myself more.
Ten.Three Hundred & Forty-Five
1. I think what it is is that I had worried that a post of mine might have offended my neighbors. That maybe what they read was that they are not my people. What I meant is that I didn't know who here might be my people so please raise your hand if you are. See. I still care too much what they think.
2. This is also a childhood wound. I carry this story of always being the odd one out, of not belonging, of being misunderstood. This is why I so deeply care about belonging, why I am always trying to find home.
3. We talk a little bit about my feelings at the island. I acknowledge that it's my own stuff I need to work on. Someone responds in a DM to say that she's learning how to honor her introvert-self while also finding ways to be seen by others. Yes, this.
4. More and more white petals on the baby hydrangea bushes. I need to take a picture to show Aunt Janice.
5. I sit down to write a newsletter and it feels good to be back. There is a tiny but mighty little community that sits right there. I tell them that they too are essential for living.
6. Everything is just an experiment anyway but I need better systems.
7. The great thing about choosing to watch a really bad horror movie is that everyone has to leave you alone. So I drink Lacroix in my underwear and watch "A Cure for Wellness" and this feels like a good way to spend a cloudy afternoon.
8. I worry that she'll think I'm flaking on her if I cancel on her tomorrow. But really, who wants to go to the pool when it's not even 80 degrees?
9. Philosophical questions that don't have any answers.
10. One more sip of pinot before I fall asleep.
Ten.Three Hundred & Forty-Four
1. Slept in long enough for me to consider grabbing donuts but the pressure is on for scones.
2. I have her gather all the ingredients and squeeze the lemon juice to make the glaze.
3. I love the cloud-cover and the low rumble of thunder and the sound of the rain. Storms feel like a deep inhale.
4. He flips through the books and looks at the maps of Fixin, Gevrey-Chambertin, Saint-Aubin. I remember how badly I still desire to learn French and that this is the last year I can try to retake my certified sommelier exam without starting over with the introductory.
5. I get it, I really do.
6. I want to take a nap but I know if I do I won't want to get up for the block party so I grab the book and head outside to the alcove to read. I'm too cool in the corner of shade and so I sit on the step and drape my dress over my legs and sit in the little bit of sun that's peeking through.
7. I ask him how he wants to die. Then we realize that there are more adult things we need to do like make a will or a plan for the children. The things you have to talk about once you get to a certain age.
8. I tell him that we don't do the things that require lawn chairs but that maybe it's time to get some for next year's block party.
9. Pulled pork, kebabs, macaroni and cheese, homemade empanadas, wine and water. Some conversation.
10. All of these people and yet this feeling of being alone. Maybe it's an introvert thing. I am not one to walk up to a group of people to introduce myself. Most people can't, really. Engagement is a two-way street. So I know that I shouldn't take it personally. But I am. I tell him that I sometimes worry that because so many of the people here only know me through my Instagram that it might affect how they interact with me. That maybe I wish they couldn't see everything I post and say before getting to know me in real time, face-to-face. It shouldn't really matter. I am who I am and eventually they would see and learn what I'm all about anyway. I think I just wish that I didn't care.
Ten.Three Hundred & Forty-Three
1. Twinkle lights on and a bit of a chill in the air.
2. I’m moving slowly. The rain is coming. I can see it in the clouds.
3. No, I will continue to follow my gut.
4. I am trying to see it all from his point of view. I hear him. I understand him. But I can tell that it’s not landing in me how he wants it too.
5. Grocery shopping with three children. What I thought would be torturous turned into a moment of awareness for them and gratitude for the food they eat. I hadn’t thought about how, out of convenience, I’d been shielding them from a life lesson.
6. I have them help me unload the car and put the groceries away. Yesterday I was yelling but today I feel empowered.
7. Two Oreos.
8. I could quit it all but then what would I do?
9. Flank steak and potatoes and asparagus and mushrooms and blue cheese sauce eaten quickly before drinks with friends.
10. Community.
Ten.Three Hundred & Forty
1. All clouds and bird song.
2. Someone's been eating the spinach. This weekend we must put up the chicken wire and protect what's left. I inspect it every morning and all the green still astonishes me.
3. Body aches. I can feel soreness in every movement.
4. It's funny how often I forget to breathe.
5. What happens when women are given permission to market their work? I know there are some still hesitating to write their name and their offering. I can tell by the way the sentences are crafted who is pushing an edge and responding to the call. I love it though. I love that there are so many of us doing our work.
6. The littlest one doesn't really ever stop talking. He has an inquisitive mind and I have very few of the answers he's looking for.
7. I'm inviting people into my home for a poetry and wine tasting. I am not the one doing the reading or performing the tasting. I am just making the space for it to happen. I tell her that I'm trying to create what I need.
8. Her house feels like a home.
9. I'm thinking of his assertion that the natural world actually has no need for humans. That if we were all to be gone, or had never existed, nature would continue to move at its own pace. The earth may not need us, but since we're here, how are we going to live on it? The earth may not need us but we need us—whole versions of us.
10. I agree with Mike Wilbon. I'm not interested in visiting the White House right now either.
Ten.Three Hundred & Thirty-Eight
1. There’s already so much light for this early in the morning.
2. Bright bits of moon.
3. The boat house with its pagoda-style roof and warped, cloudy glass windows.
4. The red-winged blackbird loops around my head and lands in front of me.
5. Rusty iron gates and trellises and peonies in bloom.
6. I’m out of practice and can feel it in my hands and quietness. I need to do more of this.
7. The sun on skin. I remember why summer is so good.
8. Watching him hit the ball and I think about all the parents that think their kid will be some kind of star and how it’s just natural to see the potential in your children. But I did call it, back at the house on Needham, when he was 4 years old and I watched him pitch the ball to himself and knock it across the yard.
9. In the shower I think of old poems and old stories that maybe, now, with a fresh heart and fresh eyes might make more sense.
10. Soon.
Ten.Three Hundred & Thirty-Seven
1. Two days in a row.
2. I go out back to harvest and water. I end up with a basket full of spinach, basil, cilantro, and mint. The level of satisfaction I feel is high.
3. They use some of the spinach to make his omelet. I’ll save everything else for something else. Maybe I need hooks for drying now.
4. “Obedience is following the grain of things. With that skill of obedience, every natural thing knows above all how to be itself, come what may.” - Die Wise
5. Morning pages in the alcove. The stree is quiet. I hear the neighbor and his friend next door moving the slab of walnut to the basement for his bartop.
6. Nap. But not the kind where you’re fully asleep. The kind where you half-hear everything even though you don’t want to.
7. All the design books. I need inspiration for this home. Dreaming up a vision for this space.
8. I dump all the feta into the bowl for this salad. There’s something about summer and a Greek salad with all the tomatoes and the dress dill.
9. We get there at 6:30 and don’t eat until 8:30. I am silently apologizing to my husband.
10. It takes me a little bit to wind down from the night. Sometimes an experience just leaves you so abuzz.
Ten.Three Hundred & Thirty-Six
1. 4:45 am sounds like I have enough time to reintroduce a yoga practice.
2. I go down to the basement and turn on the laptop. I don’t know where my yoga mat is but I find the box of Pendleton blankets and decide it will do. 30 minutes. I can do this.
3. Blueberry turnovers for them. I eat a leftover salad.
4. I think of things I’d like to say but choose to keep them private. That is the dance. How much can you reveal and still maintain your privacy. Not everyone needs to know everything. Not everyone should know most things.
5. I’ll need to harvest some things tomorrow.
6. The pool combines some of my least favorite things: crowds and the possibility of danger/death. But maybe once they are all confident and capable swimmers I’ll be able to relax.
7. Nap.
8. Cravings: curtains, pictures frames, a new hammock for the stand.
9. There are these small trees that sit at the top of the hill and when their little trunks are bent because of the way the wind blows through them. They remind me of the windswept tree you sometimes see on the hillsides of California.
10. I love his love of the stars but I’m getting cold and so I go in. He puts on his jacket and takes the phone back out and looks for Venus and tracks the moon. We watch him from the upstairs window as he gazes at the sky.
Ten.Three Hundred & Thirty-Five
1. I undo the twists.
2. The window screens are still covered in rain but the sun is peeking through the trees. I know I need to harvest spinach, thyme, basil, maybe some mint.
3. One cappuccino before I begin.
4. Today I will dust the baseboards. The house is so much quieter with one of them gone.
5. I feel resentment rise as I begin to clean the toilets. I talk myself back down. I ask myself what is the anger telling me? What do I want instead? What do I need?
6. I realize that what I want is to be fed. Not figuratively, but in a very literal way. I want someone else to make me a delicious meal and then clean the kitchen afterward. I want to be cared for in this way.
7. I walk to the garden in my bare feet, hot blades of grass pushing up between my toes. Cottonwood seeds sticking to my lips.
8. I forgot to tell them to get rice so now I need to go to the store. I take my time and walk almost the whole store. A baby is screaming and I try not to stare but it’s hard.
9. Hawaiian bowl for dinner but I skip the pork. Next time I’ll remember to add black beans.
10. I drop my glass of rosé on the concrete and it shatters into what feels like a 1,000 pieces. I take it as a sign to get some rest.
Ten.Three Hundred & Thirty-Four
1. I step out to water the garden, hoping I'll see some deer. I don't think they'll be back this year. I haven't seen foxes or coyotes or even rabbits this season. Maybe it was the control burn.
2. I feel thirsty.
3. Sometimes when I sit in the alcove it's as if the birds are doing a show just for me. Maybe because I'm just slightly out of view so they feel more free to dance in ways they don't when I'm so plainly in sight.
4. I'm struggling for the words. I go back to that old prompt, What I really want to say is..., and then it all begins to flow again.
5. Everyone is upset that we have to spend so much time out today. We drop off the car to the dealership, take Daddy to a business lunch, and then head over to the library. They are all so resistant but each find at least two books to read. I pick up a book by Gladstar on herbs, Die Wise by Stephen Jenkinson, and a book on outdoor play that just happened to be on display.
6. On the way back home from the library, everyone is reading quietly in the car. Mission accomplished.
7. The thing is sometimes I get idea and then I have to spend a lot of time teaching myself how to make them.
8. I forgot cheese. I am annoyed but know that really it's just fried nerves from so much driving today. I remember that tomorrow is cleaning day which means I don't have to go anywhere that I do not want to go.
9. I need to get to the post office.
10. There's this feeling, which is really fear and old programming, that I need to find traditional work. This keeps coming up more and more and more for various reasons. I think of how she crofts and cobbles a living for herself. I think of what that could look like for me that doesn't have me feeling so split. I also remember that this might not be so hard if I just learn to ask for help where it's needed.
Ten.Three Hundred & Thirty-Three
1. A haloed moon.
2. I sub in cake flour for the muffins and the batter looks even lighter than usual.
3. Still alone here in the kitchen. I can’t stop looking at the peonies. I’ll keep up the 9pm bed time if it means I get to do all of this so quietly, alone.
4. Coffee and pages in the alcove.
5. I think of the way the house sends at the top of the cup-de-sac and how the long stretch of street in front of it reaches out to the farmer on the other side of the road. I often fantasize about taking self-portraits under the big tree by his pond.
6. I sometimes get this nervous energy and I talk really fast and fumble over my words. It’s like the opposite of what happens when I do a podcast.
7. Thirty-three days until 33. On the 333rd post
8. I don’t know what to do with this hair yet.
9. I know that I need to make risotto and so I start soon enough to give myself plenty of time to stir slowly.
10. Rethinking family culture.
Ten.Three Hundred & Thirty-Two
1. 5 am and he's on the Xbox and there's that feeling you get as a parent when you catch your kid making a bad choice. It's less like anger and more like sadness and a little bit of guilt.
2. I load the dishwasher, start the bacon, water the garden, and make coffee before any of the kids come downstairs.
3. I almost feel like I have too much time which feels both luxurious and uncomfortable.
4. Coffee in the alcove while I write my pages and it's hot. So hot.
5. Cottonwood fluff sticking to freshly chapsticked lips.
6. We settle on an elderflower cocktail called Eye Candy. Gin plus lemon juice plus a slice of ginger plus St. Germain plus leaves of mint with a splash of club soda.
7. Slow and easy late lunch with close friends.
8. She sends me home with leftover angel food cake and freshly cut peonies from her yard because she knows they're my favorite. I need to plant these in the new house.
9. Square of pale gold light on the wall.
10. My mind is so full of questions, ideas, desires, plans that it hurts.
Ten.Three Hundred & Thirty-One
1. Bright, bright sun.
2. I read the comments to see why she's moving from our neighborhood. She needs big trees. She's going to Naperville or St. Charles or Geneva. What is this feeling? Oh. Jealousy.
3. I dig through the clothes. Yes. Still feeling the jealousy. Reminding myself that I choose this place that this is where I am committed to being. I remember my big yard and my garden and my workspace in the basement. I am only able to have these things because we are here.
4. Granola with coconut milk yogurt, walnuts, and dried cranberries. Hot coffee. Just one cup. I need to cut back again.
5. Intuition and intention as guides for what I am consuming in every way.
6. We sweat on the bench at the playground but the girls have kept their complaints about the heat to a minimum. But it’s still good to be here with her under the tree.
7. The drive in is easy even if long. She gets a beet burger and I get vegan tostadas. We sit for two hours and end our meal with a scoop of vegan ice cream. I’m glad we made time for this. I’m looking forward to more things like this in the future.
8. I ask/tell him I want her to come do a poetry/wine tasting at the house next month.
9. We migrate to the garden. This wicker loveseat is probably the best $20 I’ve spent in a long time. Back here all you hear is the hum of cars on 34 and maybe a few smacks of the clubs and balls on the golf course. And we just watch the clouds change color and shift shape.
10. If I let him he’d stay here all night looking for stars, tracking Jupiter across the night sky.
Ten.Three Hundred & Thirty
1. I start the potatoes. I am dressed in clothes that feel uncomfortable but we're supposed to do some things in the garden this morning and these clothes are what make the most sense.
2. I get potting soil in my coffee and drink it anyway.
3. The lavender is dying. I re-pot them. We realize that we've been over-watering. It's funny to me how one symptom can have two causes. And how this means that you really must get to know each plant individually to assess its needs. This is why I'm doing this. I want to learn.
4. The 3 of us make the drive up to Geneva for Atlas Chicken Shack. We drink lemonade and eat fries at a picnic table tucked away in the alley. I'm intrigued by the ivy on the walls and the red and white building. I like it with just the 3 of us sometimes.
5. Old houses and big trees feel like home.
6. I finish a few of the details on my website. It feels good to have everything housed under one name. I hope it makes sense. I think it does. I see it all laid out in my mind so clearly.
7. I think back to the black woman I saw as we were leaving the grocery store. She too had a white husband, a biracial child. I kept looking back at her and I think she may have been looking at me. And I wish I had stopped myself and gotten her number or name or neighborhood.
8. So many birds. The robins are plentiful here. Always hopping around the yard picking up bugs and worms.
9. Wine on the front porch. The guy next door is playing the same song over and over again in a language I don't understand and it's amusing and also curious. One song. Four times in a row.
10. He wants me to come see how bright the moon is. I can't stop staring at it either. 93% gibbous it says. Gibbous: marked by convexity or swelling; seen with more than half but not all of the apparent disk illuminated.
Ten.Three Hundred & Twenty-Nine
1. The way the sun peeks around the corner of the neighbor’s house.
2. Bacon and eggs for breakfast. I’m out of coffee and settle for a cappuccino instead.
3. I’m scared someone will want to check my backpack and discover the candy and water bottles we’re taking in to see the movie.
4. Rebellion.
5. One thing I do like about the newer Star Wars movies is how diverse the casts are. There is a kaleidoscope of species who are for and against one another. There are women who lead.
6. It feels hot in a way that nots a fun kind of heat.
7. Details back and forth over voice memo.
8. i found god in myself and i loved her / i loved her fiercely - “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf
9. In the shower I feel gratitude in my body and it feels like a gentle current of electricity. I am thinking of next year’s retreat, I am thinking of this short piece I’m writing for Lucia about Zinfandel vines and my own wilding. I am thinking about how I’m going to solve my dining room chair problem so I can have her come read poetry in my home. In the soapscum I write “I love my life” as both an acknowledgement and an affirmation.
10. I can’t keep my eyes open.
Ten.Three Hundred & Twenty-Eight
1. All that sun already. It really will be 90 degrees today.
2. I suggest that she wears a dress or shorts but she insists on jeans.
3. I’ll be brave enough to ask. I’m resisting the urge to delete these words. But I know that they are necessary.
4. I don’t want anyone to take offense. I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining. I’m just trying to put the ask in context. I want to go deeper here.
5. I start the podcast she mentioned yesterday. Some of this I already know. A lot of it is a good reminder that I can make different choices.
6. It’s really the perfect kind of day for lunch on a terrace with sun and Sancerre and good food. I’m mostly full on fellowship.
7. I am grateful for the extension of support and the introductions and the encouragement.
8. Chicken on the grill in the summer heat.
9. The headache won’t go away. But I do think it’s time to cut back on the coffee again.
10. We decide that those are indeed Jupiter and Venus. And we marvel at the moon, so white and bright, making its way toward fullness.