7/5/18 7/5/18

Ten.Three Hundred & Sixty-Nine

1. Up early and the sky is still dark and the air feels even more humid than the day before. No need to water this morning because of the storms from last night.

2. So dark I need the twinkle lights on. No yoga because I know I'll be out trimming bushes and cutting back the tomatoes and the watermelon.

3. I make granola and then we make a list.

4. Does it really matter?

5. They are definitely persistent. And I let them bake snickerdoodles while I clean out the cabinets. Flour, sugar, cream of tartar—so much of it on the floor.

6. And it still doesn't feel real.

7. I sit in the chair in the alcove and read until the heat makes it so that I can't see any more. But I'm reluctant to go back inside...to go back to the work that awaits.

8. I sneak onto Instagram to watch her stories. I say the French names in my head and imagine what the air must feel and taste like where she is. I feel the heat of envy. I also feel the warmth of pride. I'm proud of her and in awe of her and so happy that she is there and doing this. I wish I could have made it happen. I will have my own turn.

9. Sky thickened with clouds. Then the clouds thin themselves out until there are just whisps here and there. And then the sky turns to cornflower and the clouds, because of how they're eating the light from the sun, turn into the softest yet most electric shade of peach. The sunsets here are just so hard to beat.

10. This is the Great Adventure.

7/3/18 7/3/18

Ten.Three Hundred & Sixty-Eight

1. I stretch into child's pose and breathe for a few minutes.

2. I realize that I should have gotten a cart once I remember that I need to make baked beans for more than just the 5 of us. I need to triple the recipe. 12 cans plus a jar of molasses and 1.5lbs of bacon.

3. Even the air inside the house feels thick. But I think I need a bike ride anyway. I did this my senior year of high school when I couldn't figure out how to pay for Wake Forest and the Army and the Navy kept calling me and I didn't want to go to stay in Missouri any longer. Every day after school I would get on my roller blades and circle the neighborhood 3 or 4 or 5 or 10 times. Until I just couldn't do it anymore and the mind had rested itself.

4. Baked beans from scratch. Bacon and onions and beans, molasses and dry mustard and some salt and pepper. A little bit of brown sugar. I can't help it.

5. I try to rest but what I do instead is scroll through Pinterest to pass the time away.

6. I wake up from the nap, reluctant to go and there's a pit in my stomach. It could be the cherries. It could be the dairy I ate last night. But most likely it's just all the nerves.

7. Did you tell [her]?

8. So hot that I don't want to move, not even for a glass of rosé. I can feel my feet swelling.

9. We make it home in time for nature's fireworks. I get in the shower and remember how my grandmother would never let us shower or take a bath if there was a thunderstorm. We couldn't use the telephone either.

10. He asks me if it feels more real now. I can't decide.

7/3/18 7/3/18

Ten.Three Hundred & Sixty-Eight

1. I stretch into child's pose and breathe for a few minutes.

4. Baked beans from scratch. Bacon and onions and beans, molasses and dry mustard and some salt and pepper. A little bit of brown sugar. I can't help it.

5. I try to rest but what I do instead is scroll through Pinterest to pass the time away.

6. I wake up from the nap, reluctant to go and there's a pit in my stomach. It could be the cherries. It could be the dairy I ate last night. But most likely it's just all the nerves.

7. Did you tell [her]?

8. So hot that I don't want to move, not even for a glass of rosé. I can feel my feet swelling.

10. He asks me if it feels more real now. I can't decide.

7/3/18 7/3/18

Ten.Three Hundred & Sixty-Seven

1. 4 mosquito bites. My first ones this summer.

2. The day hasn't broke yet and I walk around back to water the garden and to set the sprinkler in the yard. I miss the deer.

3. The sound of the water. I can hear it running in the basement. Itchy arms.

4. The way anxiety makes your body itch on the inside. I tell him I am going for a bike ride. Alone. I take my cruiser all the way to 5th street. I see wildflowers and weeds I cannot name. I see the crane standing in the water. I see red-winged black birds balancing so perfectly on the tip of a tall stalk. I feel the breeze in my hair and the burn in my thighs.

5. I begin The Keeper of the Bees. He is on a Great Adventure and so am I.

6. I don't know if I turn my eyes to the sky enough.

7. The things I hunger for change in the summer. I have practice restraint with the cherries. I crave tomatoes and cheese and bread. I want to eat like every meal is a picnic in the south of France.

8. Accumulation.

9. But I've had two days of socializing and need to take a break. I need to be alone. I feel badly for not coming out to watch the fireworks that the neighbor is setting off. But I just don't have it in me. I grab a glass of wine and make a small plate of salami and some thin slices of Gruyere. We watch the fireworks from my bedroom window.

10. I can do this.

7/2/18 7/2/18

Ten.Three Hundred & Sixty-Six

1. I'm back on the alarm so that there's time for yoga today. The must-get-done list is long and there's also time at the pool in the late morning which means I need to do a bulk of the work before 10 am.

2. But I need to feed myself first.

3. Of course, I can't get all of it done. I get sidetracked by fonts and spacing and suddenly the whole hour is gone and it's time for me to pack a lunch and put on a swimsuit and get them out of the door.

4. It's hot in the sun. I still do not like small talk. The kids are playing so nicely though, and the women are kind. It's not them. It's me.

5. Pool concession stand and being knocked over by nostalgia. A paper cup full of seasoned shoestring fries. A big swirl of vanilla ice cream in a cake cone.

6. I sit on the windowsill in his office and try to warm myself in the sun. We talk. We are always talking. And we've had conversations like this but not exactly like this and so it feels real but not real. So much of life these days has felt real but not real.

7. Phone calls.

8. I still am not sure what I feel.

9. The watermelon has taken up almost all of the free space left in the garden. I need to prune back the tomato plants and stake what's left. Last night's harsh winds from the storm blew everything over and the cages can no longer bear the weight of the plants.

10. I hope I can sleep tonight.

6/30/18 6/30/18

Ten.Three Hundred & Sixty-Five

1. One year. I don't see the ending.

2. We have guests coming for dinner. There are shortcakes and loaves of focaccia to make. And still a few walls to wipe down.

3. 7:36 am and they are already arguing.

4. She emails me to tell me that I had to 363's and so really yesterday was my one year mark. I chuckle. Of course I'm off by a day. I debate whether or not I should fix it. But since it maybe doesn't really matter, I decide to leave the days numbered as they are.

5. There's not enough magic eraser for these walls so I call it quits and then realize that I'll still need to paint in order to get rid of most of these marks.

6. The smell of spaghetti and meatballs and shortcakes and focaccia.

7. Flowers and two bottles of wine: White Burgundy and Chianti. The flowers would photograph beautifully and for a quick second I think about returning to Instagram the following day in order to show them.

8. That moment where you had forgotten to ask your husband the other wife's name and you get swept up in conversation and forget to ask and now it's 5 hours later and you want to use her proper name and say a name that you think you heard someone call her but you're not sure so you cross your fingers that you don't sound like a dolt.

9. The time has passed so quickly and that's how you know that the gathering was good.

10. Straight to sleep.

6/30/18 6/30/18

Ten.Three Hundred & Sixty-Five

1. One year. I don't see the ending.

2. We have guests coming for dinner. There are shortcakes and loaves of focaccia to make. And still a few walls to wipe down.

3. 7:36 am and they are already arguing.

5. There's not enough magic eraser for these walls so I call it quits and then realize that I'll still need to paint in order to get rid of most of these marks.

6. The smell of spaghetti and meatballs and shortcakes and focaccia.

9. The time has passed so quickly and that's how you know that the gathering was good.

10. Straight to sleep.

6/30/18 6/30/18

Ten.Three Hundred & Sixty-Four

1. Almost a year of this already.

2. The moon in it's thin, translucent skin. The sun is so bright that it's lost its shape.

3. Of all the days to need to clean out the garage. But the list is long and I should do as much as I can while I have the energy to do it.

4. Dripping everywhere. Shirt sticking. I am in the shade. The heat. I scrub down the front door too. It all looks so fresh again.

5. I shower and I think of orange trees and lemon trees and fig trees and all the green.

6. Costco on a Saturday morning is never a good idea. I'm glad I took this place out of my weekly rotation. All the people. All the noise. All the stuff.

7. I start on the sauce. First I put on my apron. I haven't worn it in so long. The linen is beginning to soften and I love that. I love that my daughter will wear this some day. I go out to the garden and stuff the pockets of the apron with rosemary, thyme, sage, oregano, and basil.

8. Cranes in the sky.

9. We sit on the stoop and talk and talk and sometimes we're quiet because they are playing Euro-pop next door and the both of us are trying to figure it out.

10. I love how much he wants to look at the stars. Al of the kids ask questions, but he asks the most and that's an exciting trait—a wondering mind.

6/29/18 6/29/18

Ten.Three Hundred & Sixty-Three

1. How is he up before me. Oh. He's late getting up for his flight.

2. A melty ultraviolet sun means a hot day is coming.

3. I did buy cereal yesterday so maybe this morning I can actually relax just a little bit. Just a little bit.

4. The meal plan comes slowly but there have been two requests, one for beef stroganoff and another for butternut squash and bacon pasta, so that makes it just a little easier.

5. I eat my lunch and read in the shade but at these temperatures, it's just so draining that I immediately feel as though I need a nap. But before we go in we check the garden. I pull three very large but very green heirlooms off the vine and hope that they'll ripen in the windowsill.

6. Just as I'm about to close my eyes I feel my phone vibrate. I read the text but now I can't sleep.

7. The hours until he comes home suddenly feel like too much. Since I can't rest I journal and then surf Pinterest and then go back outside to read again before the heat overwhelms me and I come back inside.

8. The littlest one wants to make cookies from the cookbook he got at the library. We make the dough and then I help him roll it out. Now everyone wants to be a chef. I'll take it as a compliment. I think of how lucky their future friends and partners will be to know them.

9. I tell him that I had a dream that it would happen. That it would happen on the Friday after my birthday. And that I shouldn't be surprised because there was a book that arrived for me today at the library too. That should have been a sign.

10. But change can be scary. The only constant thing in life is change. "God is Change." —Parable of the Sowers

6/28/18 6/28/18

Ten.Three Hundred & Sixty-Three

1. 33.

2. I didn't wash the doors or baseboards yesterday which means that since it's cleaning day today, I'll add them to the list.

3. Fog rising up from the wetlands out back. I decide to prune back the tomato plants so that my okra and the rosemary will survive. I decide to trust that I will get what I need.

4. There are these yellow wildflower or weeds out back that I can't wait to trim back and then stick around the house. Yellow used to be my least favorite color but now I see its virtues. Maybe it was only a matter of time. Yellow was my grandmother's favorite color and so when I see these wildflower-weeds I think of her kitchen in Atlanta and the cast iron trivets with ceramic tiles painted with sunflowers.

5. I take my time going over the baseboards. I think of the quote that says something like, housework is love made visible. I complain about the cleaning, but every week I get on my hands and knees and am grateful for the space that holds us.

6. Pool. Crowded. I get everyone situated. I realize that I've under-rated adult swim. I decided that today, that's the only time I'll spend in the pool. I manage to read a few pages of "Braiding Sweetgrass."

7. But is it cultural appropriation for those of us who are uninitiated and homeless and finding a connection in the philosophies and ideologies of other peoples and nations?

8. A few years ago—maybe even just last year—I would have been concerned about the darkening of my skin but this summer I'm relishing the heat and the way the cocoa hues deepen from a few hours in the sun.

9. We get there in just in time for the reservation though it doesn't really matter because it's a Thursday evening in a suburban town. But this is some of the best food in the western suburbs in my opinion. A half glass of Prosecco, a bottle of Piper-Heidsieck, pork belly with cavatelli in a parmesan broth, corn chowder with a smoked poblano crema, wild boar chops with gnocchi and shallots and peas, a glass of 1955 Bodegas Toro Albala Don PX, whiskey date cake, and a cup of decaf. Happy Birthday indeed.

10. The passing of time is often this quiet and ordinary but still full of magic when we choose to pay attention.

6/27/18 6/27/18

Ten.Three Hundred & Sixty-Two

1. Gratitude for the 24-hour grocery store. You can tell a lot about a person's week based on their trash. Today is trash day and I'm out before the recycling truck and so I can see the cans overflowing with pizza boxes and TV boxes and air filters. We make more trash in this house than we did in the last one and I'm not entirely sure how or why but I want to change that.

2. The way the light of the morning is falling onto my desk. I should capture this. The beginnings of the day. The one thing about not posting on Instagram is that my camera is not in my hand. We need to become familiar again.

3. The spiderwebs are getting bigger.

4. I will wash the walls and the doors and the baseboards today so that I can paint on Friday. That's the thing about white walls: they show all the evidence of the living.

5. Nothing I am doing is working right. I think it's all in my head.

6. The little one and I go for a ride. Now that he's on two wheels, the world feels so different. As sad as I am that he won't hold my hand in public anymore, I love moments like these where he and I can do things that excite him. Plus I just needed the fresh air.

7. I find a few books in the library but none are exactly what I was looking for. The selection always feels so limited. I can get almost anything digitally but I want a real book. I like to flip pages and feel the texture on my fingertips. Reading is such a sensual experience.

8. I try to work on the computer outside but the between the glare and the loud talking by the landscapers a few houses down, I decide to call it quits and fold laundry.

9. I realize that I've been stewing in shame and guilt and fear for the whole day and this is why everything I've touched is paled over. So I go back to the journal and write while I stir the risotto, circle back to my why, write my gratitude in all caps.

10. The garden is wild. All the tomato plants are now fruiting, there is so much basil and sage and thyme. The okra is beginning to flower. There are two large green bell peppers and the watermelon wants to creep up the side of the house. I like this. I like this a lot.

6/26/18 6/26/18

Ten.Three Hundred & Sixty-One

1. Almost a year of this. Really? It doesn't even feel like it's been this long.

2. I wonder what I will do with all of these words. Some of these are the beginnings or the endings of poems that have yet to be written.

3. But we're out of cheddar cheese I think and so this might not go over very well. So it's just bagels and fruit like the day before.

4. This headache just won't go away.

5. All of the details for Fever Dreams 2019 are typed up and written out and now all that's left to do is to email all of the women in the upcoming weeks and cross fingers and toes that this is something everyone is needing again. I know I need it.

6. I'm thinking of her making her way to France. I am sad that I won't make it this year. Maybe next year or the year after that.

7. I lay down to try to sleep off the headache. It feels like a needle is being pressed into my left temple. I want to stay awake and read but I close my eyes and turn onto my side.

8. I wake up with a start. In the dream it was already 4:30 and time for me to make dinner. I go down and get more water and a few crackers and then lay back down. I am grateful that I can rest.

9. Then what am I really doing?

10. Maybe I can't do hard things.

6/25/18 6/25/18

Ten.Three Hundred & Sixty

1. Dream of remembering my yoga posture and driving long distances.

2. Grassy shadows.

3. No one seems to like my "figure out breakfast on your own" mornings. I'll cook tomorrow.

4. I go through and map out the months and feel this weight on one side of my body that means that something is not right. I've spent far too many years questioning my intuition, wondering if I've confused it (intuition) with resistance to the hard stuff.

5. I can do hard things.

6. I know this is a library book but I begin to dog-ear the pages. This is a book I'll need to go and buy and reread later.

7. "How can one, however, in any other terms than in the symbols of power?" - The Fire Next Time

8. I fold the laundry and think and think. Then I grab the notebook and write to her. A letter I will probably never send but I think that maybe bits and pieces of this will become something. I try to explain these three anchors and what they mean to me at this moment: "honor life," "legacy," and "sovereignty." These words are hefty.

9. At some point, I ought to vacuum up these spider webs in the sills. I make a mental list of all things that will need to be done. It doesn't overwhelm me. But it is a very long list.

10. I pick a dessert for our guests to enjoy on Sunday. A kind of deconstructed strawberry shortcake. I'll need some small mason jars for this. I'll use fresh mint from the garden. I'll whip the cream by hand. It will be a good Sunday.

6/23/18 6/23/18

Ten.Three Hundred & Fifty-Eight

1. He asks me if I know what time it is. I guess 8:30 but it is 9:30.

2. Well, I do wake up at 4:30 every day so maybe I needed these extra 5 hours today.

3. I take a peak at the garden. The tomatoes are choking out the rosemary and the okra. I’ll need to prune them back.

4. The Fire Next Time.

5. Well, she is tenacious.

6. Two little white butterflies off in the distance. The sounds of cars going to and from. I wonder where the deer is and if we’ll see her again.

7. I think of his words and how he said all the things I’ve been thinking about about people and Christianity and to survive as a black person.

8. It just seems like my heart won’t stop breaking.

9. I’m not sure I liked the movie but it did make me cry.

10. We need more stories about death.

6/22/18 6/22/18

Ten.Three Hundred & Fifty-Seven

1. Still raining. Cool enough for jeans.

2. The way the soft light of morning illuminates the typewriter and the notebook and the wax and the candle. The way this space finally feels like sacred space. Gratitude.

3. Trying to come up with meals that can feed all of us while I try to honor what my own body is calling out for. How maybe the food doesn't have to be that different for all of us.

4. Still raining. I run the aisles for the regular items and add a few special items like a wedge of manchego.

5. He asks me about the lockbox on the front door. Are we moving? I don't know. They are moving. They have only a few more weeks before they head back to a place that feels more like home.

6. I help the girls make cookies. It warms me to know that the last time they spend together is doing this.

7. Maps.

8. I tell him I don't feel like making dinner. He orders pizza. I breathe a sigh of relief

9. I finish the pint of Madagascar Vanilla Talenti. Some things aren't ever worth their cost. This gelato is.

10. Wishing you didn't know the things you aren't supposed to know.

6/21/18 6/21/18

Ten.Three Hundred & Fifty-Six

1. Raindrops on windows.

2. We are supposed to meet with friends today but it feels like a good day for cleaning and drinking tea and reading books.

3. I hear footsteps while I try to finish up yoga. I know who it is. I told her not to come down until 7. But she just really wants to make scones.

4. Something in the dough is not quite right. This is the one things about letting go: choosing to be open to an unfamiliar experience.

5. It's kind of unreal to see my images on a major local publication. I'm honored and proud and it only makes my mind race.

6. Our plans did change and so I spend the morning cleaning. We empty out her dresser drawers which become receptacles for craft trash and I wonder what we'll do about her as she gets older. She is just a messy kid. I know that's part of her creative spirit but we need to introduce some order.

7. Still raining.

8. No tea and no books. I turn on Twilight Zone instead and he comes in to curl up with me as we watch one of our favorite episodes, The Odyssey of Flight 33.

9. I think we'll take a break from tacos for a while.

10. He still thinks I've told someone.

6/20/18 6/20/18

Ten.Three Hundred & Fifty-Five

1. No yoga today.

2. Bacon and eggs and hash browns for breakfast. I don't want coffee but I do. I'll make some coffee too.

3. How is it almost the end of June already?

4. She calls me up to tell me that there is a deer in the backyard. It looks like the same doe from last summer but alone. Her coat is deeper and a little thicker but the limp is still there. I can't believe she's alive.

5. I play the songs from the Fever Dreams playlist over and over again. Next October seems so far away but it really isn't.

6. The wildflowers and grasses are almost as tall as me. I had forgotten how beautiful this park is. Red-winged blackbirds everywhere.

7. He tells me something he's not supposed to tell me and now I can' think of anything else.

8. How many feelings can you feel all at once?

9. Sparkling Malbec on the wicker loveseat out back. Gravel between my toes. A cool breeze that turns over the leaves but won't keep away the gnats.

10. The last bit of Talenti from the jar.

6/19/18 6/19/18

Ten.Three Hundred & Fifty-Four

1. More spiders in webs. A moth too.

2. Feeling parts of the body that haven't been felt in such a long time. I've missed this level of awareness.

3. We talk about the writing life and social media and whether or not any of this is good for us. And also, we must be crazy to want to be writers and submit ourselves to this kind of torture.

4. Back to wine studies. I must plan as if I will take it again at the end of October. Why did I throw away all of those note cards?

5. I lay down for a few minutes and close my eyes and just breathe.

6. I grab "The Fire Next Time" by James Baldwin and tuck myself into the corner of the alcove, feet propped up against the cool stone, a small bowl of almonds placed precariously on my belly.

7. There is a lot of sage that needs to be harvested, And thyme and oregano and basil and cilantro too. I didn't prepare myself for what to do when everything is so abundant. I don't have enough baskets for collecting or hooks for drying. Why hadn't I set myself up to handle success?

8. Rigatoni with a pork ragu, rosemary focaccia and salad greens from the garden.

9. We sit outside while the rain falls. It is still humid but the temperature has dropped and there's a cool breeze that snakes its way into the corners. The sky is grayed over and everything is quiet. I just watch the birds and the leaves and listen.

10. It was worth the price.

6/17/18 6/17/18

Ten.Three Hundred & Fifty-Three

1. I can tell by the opaqueness of the sky that it will be another hot day. This is one morning where I won't be too cold for yoga in the basement.

2. A big black bird descends into the window well to eat a slug. It leaps up and out to go do whatever it does with a slug.

3. Mapping.

4. I write about the things I do instead of writing and decide that for the next 45 minutes I’m going to just write whatever comes up.

5. I write a page of questions to ask her; five haiku, a few pages about trusting myself.

6. We catch up on life and on Fever Dreams and on other projects. I tell her that the book did indeed change my life.

7. We head to the library. I find another herb book and pick up The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin.

8. More dates added.

9. Old John Mayer and a painfully late dinner.

10. Breathing.

6/17/18 6/17/18

Ten.Three Hundred & Fifty-Two

1. 5:30 am run to the store for syrup and challah and coffee. She wants to make him french toast for Father's Day.

2. I show her how to grind the coffee beans and which buttons to press on the maker. I see her in me. She is a caretaker, to some extent, and I both love this and am worried by it. I guess it will be okay as long as she learns to take care of her self.

3. I keep thinking about what she said. About how she was surprised by the other kinds of work I do. I realize it's because what I am really so good at is what I really want to do. What would it be like to do only that—to write only my own words, to only run creative retreats, to only run writing workshops, to feed people, to make people think in ways they've never thought before, to create sacred space for people to gather and experience one another.

4. I think back to how I described what I do with people at the On Being Gathering: I facilitate experiences for women to explore their creative truth in the form of online and in-person workshops and retreats. Yes, I just want to do that.

5. It's been open for only 6 minutes and the parking lot is full. We are here for steaks and wine. We find a package of ribeyes and settle on a 2012 Hietz Cabernet Sauvignon.

6. We stop once more for and get a bottle of 2010 Chateau Lalande-Borie Bordeaux.

7. I close the book. I am done and undone.

8. I forgot the whipped cream for the shortcakes. She comes with me to the store to grab a few more ingredients and decides to grab a bag of chocolates for her father.

9. Even in the shade, the heat is oppressive. I can feel the weight of every bead of sweat collecting above my brow. But there is also something pleasing about the stillness of the air.

10. I eat another shortcake.