Ten.Seven Hundred & Ninety-Four

1. Comfort in the dark.

2. Candle light. The sounds of my jeans dragging along the floor.

3. One jar of celery juice for now. One jar of carrot and apple and ginger for later. One gift from that stint is the renewed interest in juicing.

4. I fish around for a pen and paper. There’s a vineyard back there, trellised but browned over. No fruit. Clearly not irrigated. I wonder to whom it belongs? What grew here? Who can I ask who might know? Elaine will know.

5. The fog is hanging around a little longer today. Fall is coming.

6. Double-stuff Oreos.

7. Black glass and aroma class. Mind blown.

8. Remember to order “Pleasure Activism.”

9. “Well, I never got it sized because I was afraid someone was going to mess it up—no offense.” But I thank him for taking the time make it right again.

10. She calls to ask for all of the portraits. It’s a project I’ve been putting off. There are over 3,000 images to sort through. “Before Christmas, please.”

Ten.Seven Hundred & Ninety-Three

1. Might as well get up.

2. I light a candle and play a little bit of music. It is still too early to wake them. I boil some eggs and put bacon in the oven. 2 is easier than three.

3. They say that it’s much easier to be on time since they don’t have to wait for their brother. Not entirely wrong.

4. All of this is new for everyone.

5. I am the person who dances in the car while driving. Which sounds really unsafe. But I’m going very slowly.

6. White butterflies.

7. I refill the water. Need to order more still, probably more sparkling too. Gotta figure out who to order from to get better pricing. One thing at a time.

8. “I like how you said that. ‘I expect your room to be clean.’”

9. I really have to commit to meal planning and meal prep. The feeling of being unprepared is not a feeling I like.

10. Shrimp scampi for the win when the one who’s allergic is gone.

11. I remember that making for the sake of making is a worthy venture. That experimentation leads to innovation. That the point of this is that it can be done for the sake of personal satisfaction and not external validation. That this is about the infinite game.

Ten.Seven Hundred & Ninety-Two

1. He leaves today. I am ready, but not ready.

2. The light is slow to come. I wait patiently. I want to take a picture today. Not because I really have that much to say, but because I miss the practice of sitting with myself, for myself.

3. El Camino Diablo again. I prefer the Altamont to Vasco; it’s less hilly and there are fewer curves.

4. No ID card. Where could it be. I walk all the way around the gate to get to the office. But there are worse things than looking at grapes and vines and flowers on your way into the office.

5. I stick my mug under the spout of the Keurig and walk back to my desk. No computer. I forgot my computer. “A Tuesday that feels like Monday,” I say. Mommy needs a routine of her own.

6. We call. Monse isn’t working today but that’s understandable considering she got married this weekend. We try La Costa. I tell the young woman that I want to practice my Spanish. Tres tacos; asada, carnitas, camaron, por favor. Y una agua fresca—jamaica. She’s smiling and its either out of pleasure, because I gave a sincere effort, or because I way off.

7. Will I ever not be shy about relatives reading my published work?

8. I understand the transformative power of writing but it’s an odd feeling to read your own words and be moved. To remember who you were and where you were and how you were being during the time it was written. And then to be able to see and feel how much has changed since.

9. So quiet with only two of them.

10. 28 days.

Ten.Seven Hundred & Ninety-One

1. The orange glow of pre-dawn.

2. I decide that more cereal is on the menu for breakfast. Because this is the first week.

3. The Art of Slow Writing.

4. We decide that none of the albariños taste like albariño. And is this a shift in style or inexperienced palates? Maybe both.

5. I tickle him enough to get him dressed so that we can get the rest of the items on the list.

6. Had forgotten how good he looks in real pants. He opts for the skinny jeans over the straight leg.

7. I watch him walk ahead of me. The length of his legs and the width of his shoulders. We walk by young men who are a few years older and a few inches taller but I see him in them. I can’t believe that this is the human I gave birth to.

8. Hot.

9. No clearer than before.

10. What is being said versus what is being heard. Add a filter of experience through which all the words are passing through and then you get to what is being felt.

Ten.Seven Hundred & Ninety

1. I think I hear him yelling. I rip out the cords from the machine and take his headphones and controller. I don’t say a word.

2. I suppose I ought to get up and make a breakfast. Scones?

3. I choose to drink my coffee and make everyone else scramble to get their things together for the baseball game. I think a mother’s life is mostly holding in all the “I told you so”s.

4. Strikeout.

5. Nope.

6. And nope. But I take his card because if I do ever need an agent, I’ll gladly give my money to a black broker and agent. Plus he’s from Louisiana and so that makes me like him even more.

7. I tell him that next year I will get my own license and we’ll buy our house on our own.

8. “There are too many kids here,” she says. I laugh because, well, what else would there be at a baseball game. But what she means is, “there are too many noisy/young/cranky children.” Which is also funny because she is sometimes a noise/young/cranky child.

9. A Sunday that feels like a Saturday.

10. This smells like Syrah.

Ten.Seven Hundred & Eighty-Nine

1. Deciding to honor my tiredness by letting myself sleep in .

2. More bacon and hash browns. The smell of coffee.

3. It’s happening soon.

4. The smells coming from the food trucks. The weight of humidity against my back. Sound checks from the stage.

5. Andre Thierry. I make a note to look up his band. They’re playing accordions and washboards. He ends with a Bruno Mars cover.

6. Everyone said this was a crazy day. Maybe they just meant hot. And being hot can make you feel out of sorts. I stay as close to the fan as possible and keep drinking water.

7. I get my bottle of wine and slink off to the car. So much water and still a headache. A pang of sadness that I won’t get to work with these folks in this capacity any more. Excited for what’s next, excited to be able to be with my family on the weekends again, but sad to be leaving them. Grateful for the experience.

8. Ah. This view. A desaturated sky. Pale pink and orange and yellow and blue and purple layered behind the silhouettes of the rolling hills and Mount Diablo.

9. Too tired for anything but a shower and bed.

10. I think about the upcoming week and how it’s the week before I leave for Squam. And then two weeks after that it will be the week of Fever Dreams Collective. And the then week after that I will get to see my dad. And then the week after that, I will get to see my best friend. The next few months will be gloriously full.

Ten.Seven Hundred & Eighty-Eight

1. Slow start.

2. No school for them today so I take my time and make hash browns and bacon, coffee.

3. It’s hard to believe how close we are to being together again, to returning to the ranch. Now, it’s time to put together all the little pieces, the details. And the to-do lists feel a little long but doable.

4. I pull in two minutes late. It’s my own fault. I lost track of time.

5. They are kind, from Ohio, pet-sitting for their daughter while she’s off celebrating a birthday. He loves Merlot, she doesn’t really know what she loves, but she knows it’s definitely not port.

6. Accidentally on purpose?

7. Beginner’s mind.

8. A little bit of space can be a good thing.

9. Gloam. Can a person be the personification of Gloam? I sometimes feel like I am just that—that period of time right after the sun sets but before night falls, the quiet glow.

10. Tillamook Marionberry Pie Ice Cream.

Ten.Seven Hundred & Eighty-Seven

1. He did it again.

2. I had forgotten how peaceful the early morning dark can be. When there is no sound but your own feet padding across the tile.

3. She says that watching me use the juicer is “satisfying.”

4. Is it just me or is the car blowing around a bit in the wind? I look for the turbines and see them twirling. Yes, it’s actually just very windy.

5. The way the light and shadow is playing in the hills this morning.

6. The way newness can be disorienting. Simple things that should feel easy don’t. I remind myself that it’s just new and it’s okay to be new at things and that no one is going to tell you you’re dumb because you’ve never used this particular kind of Keurig before. And you laugh at yourself because sometimes a little bit of humor is what gets you through.

7. It should be instagrammable.

8. Bloody keys.

9. I’m almost afraid to say how much I enjoy it so far.

10. Gather all the scattered bits.

Ten. Seven Hundred & Eighty-Six

1. Light a candle.

2. I will not make myself feel guilty for giving myself the gift of ease in the mornings.

3. I press the celery through the slot. Out comes a vibrantly green juice. That’s a lot of celery for just one glass of juice. They all make faces at me.

4. Practice eye contact.

5. It has a crack running through it but I stick it into the CD player just to try. A flood of memories washes over me with every song that comes on. I sit in the parking lot of the grocery store until the song is over.

6. It’s not that it’s hard, it’s that it’s tedious and thus time consuming. Inefficient. The more I do the more questions I have and the more pressing the need for a new process is.

7. We finally get to catch up on the phone. Ah, that North Carolinian accent. She mentions a few names and it all comes flooding back. We talk about the ways in which people can change; how time surprises you; how crazy it is that we haven’t seen each other in so long. How long has it been? Almost 15 years.

8. 94 degrees feels pretty good after you’ve had a long stretch of 100.

9. There is the silhouette of Mt. Diablo and the hills below it are glowing a pinkish-gold under the setting sun. There is the sound of rustling palm trees and the ping of balls hitting bats.

10. “So look at yourself and start to live again”

Ten.Seven Hundred & Eighty-Five

1. A few more minutes makes a big difference.

2. I’m sure we have enough milk. Yes. There’s most likely enough.

3. “Did you get milk?”

4. Let go. Let go.

5. The Google maps lie. I always need to leave way earlier than they say. I relax my grip and trust that I’ll get where I need to be when I need to be there.

6. Giggles.

7. I check and double-check and triple-check. I catch myself in the spiral of shameful perfection. And now to claw myself back out of it.

8. Flexing through fear.

9. They are more excited about this than I thought they would be.

10. “Didn't have a camera by my side this time
    Hoping I would see the world with both my eyes
    Maybe I will tell you all about it when I'm
    In the mood to lose my way with words”

Ten. Seven Hundred & Eighty-Six

1. Light a candle.

2. I will not make myself feel guilty for giving myself the gift of ease in the mornings.

3. I press the celery through the slot. Out comes a vibrantly green juice. That’s a lot of celery for just one glass of juice. They all make faces at me.

4. Practice eye contact.

5. It has a crack running through it but I stick it into the CD player just to try. A flood of memories washes over me with every song that comes on. I sit in the parking lot of the grocery store until the song is over.

6. It’s not that it’s hard, it’s that it’s tedious and thus time consuming. Inefficient. The more I do the more questions I have and the more pressing the need for a new process is.

7. We finally get to catch up on the phone. Ah, that North Carolinian accent. She mentions a few names and it all comes flooding back. We talk about the ways in which people can change; how time surprises you; how crazy it is that we haven’t seen each other in so long. How long has it been? Almost 15 years.

8. 94 degrees feels pretty good after you’ve had a long stretch of 100.

9. There is the silhouette of Mt. Diablo and the hills below it are glowing a pinkish-gold under the setting sun. There is the sound of rustling palm trees and the ping of balls hitting bats.

10. “So look at yourself and start to live again”

Ten.Seven Hundred & Eighty-Four

1. Forgot to turn the alarm back on.

2. Leftover cinnamon loaf and fruit. No one is going to eat the fruit.

3. Is that almost a smile? In the car on the way to school?

4. I tell myself I will only drink half a cup. I drink the whole thing.

5. So private and secluded. You almost forget where you are. Roses and Spanish tile and wine. Gratitude.

6. Hot.

7. He asks to come to the library with me. I wonder if it’s obvious how much I enjoy feeding their library habit. Read all the books you want. I will drop everything for a trip to the library.

8. It feels good to let some of this all go.

9. Kay Ryan and water outside at dusk. It is surprisingly quiet. Pale pink light.

10. So much laundry.

Ten.Seven Hundred & Eighty-Three

1. I remember that I turned off the alarm. That’s why there is so much light.

2. I’m worried that I will get this all sweaty before I meet them. But there will be no time for changing clothes between the baseball games and meeting them at the winery.

3. First the dough for the galettes. I stick a cup of water into the back of the freezer.

4. In the message she says that one of our sister’s died. How is that possible? How? We are so young and yet 2 of our sisters have died already. How?

5. Prep chicken, slice the plums, empty the dishwasher, yell at them to get their baseball gear together, visually inspect the house before leaving to ensure there’s nothing else that should be done before you go.

6. A breeze. He’s pitching for the first time. I watch him strike out 2 players before another parents rushed over to tell me that little one got hit in the head with a ball.

7. It’s so hot that the ice cream melts before I can eat it all.

8. Beauty hunting.

9. 2015 Navarro Vineyards Unfiltered Pinot Noir. Roast chicken; heirloom tomatoes with a drizzle of olive oil, a sprinkle of maldon salt, and freshly cracked pepper; Brentwood sweet corn with butter and parsley; kale salad with figs and prosciutto.

10. Full.

Ten.Seven Hundred & Eighty-Two

1. There is one long to-do list but at least it doesn’t involve going to work.

2. I see the cones blocking off the road up ahead. Set-up for the farmer’s market. I make a left for donuts.

3. I move slowly but keep my list in front of me so that I don’t get too distracted. But the whole point of the store is for you to be distracted. I fill the cart up with 4 different kinds of deodorant. One way of marking the passage of time is to realize that almost of all of your children need to wear deodorant.

4. I think this will all work out just fine.

5. I thank her for sharing her process with me. That it helped me to take the final step in shifting away from the old life into the new one. That making the decision lifted so much weight off of my heart.

6. Hot.

7. Everything is coming together.

8. This nut-free pesto plus pasta plus grilled chicken thigh dish.

9. We talk about the power of connecting through language while drinking La Caña Albariño at dusk. Pale pink and hazy blue skies. The sound of crickets.

10. Confidence.

Ten.Seven Hundred & Eighty-One

1. Early morning bird chatter.

2. There is no where to be today and so I move slowly.

3. I can feel the perspiration coming. I carry the branch the rest of the way. I can feel a little bit of soreness in the knee but it feels good to be moving.

4. There are no figs but she says that we can pick some. $4 a pound. Yes. I want to do that.

5. We buy a baby olive tree for $20 and the man hands us a handful of yellow figs. I didn’t even know such a thing existed. A fig tree will be next. And a lemon. And a lime.

6. Planting seeds.

7. Monse’s margaritas. She gets married next weekend. We leave her a big tip.

8. I say something about empanadas and then stop myself; I don’t want to give it all away.

9. Sometimes you just need to shift everything around. Immediately. Because sometimes, when you aren’t entirely sure what you should do, you do what you can. Even if it means moving glassware from one cabinet to another so that you can reach it.

10. I show him a picture of the yellow figs. I wish I could share them with him. One of these days.

Ten.Seven Hundred & Eighty

1. So dark. I’m a little saddened by the lack of light.

2. A little creativity goes a long way.

3. I set the boxes of cereal on the table but slice up some avocado and dress it up for myself to eat for breakfast. She says that she was craving guacamole last night.

4. El Camino Diablo.

5. So this is the Altamont. I ascend into the morning fog and follow the curves of the road. I will be on time after all.

6. It’s not doing what I want it to and I can’t figure out how to make it do what I want it to do. I keep the positive self-talk up. This is part of the process. I’m going to have to learn something new.

7. I go for the Merlot. That will be the base of my blend. I think I’ve got the right combination. We’ll see in three months.

8. Brut, Artisan White, Pinot Clones, Artisan Red, Lot 009. Three of my favorite wines. But the cheeses, the cheeses. And the prosciutto. And the olives. And the pate. And the dates. And the salami. And the almonds. All of everything.

9. I think I see smoke in the distance.

10. He reminds me that I can make it however I want. That I can create something new. Maybe even better.

Ten.Seven Hundred & Seventy-Nine

1. No milk for making scones. I run to the store to get cereal and milk and orange juice. No one will be upset by a box of Lucky Charms.

2. The slow coming of morning. The sound of sprinklers. The pink of the Crepe Myrtle tree glowing in the morning sun.

3. That solid feeling of clarity.

4. The smell of wet concrete and the surprising way in which it grounds me.

5. “Good morning.” “Good morning.” “Good morning.” “Good morning.” “Good morning.”

6. A.M. homes reads Margaret Atwood. I need to read more Atwood.

7. She’s leaving Atellier Crenn to be the sommelier at NOMA. Tattooed arms. The most beautiful French accent. A European coolness. She tells me to message her anytime I want to go to the restaurants in San Francisco. She seems sad about leaving in spite of that adventure that lies ahead. I can relate.

8. I tell them that there’s a way to get the wines there, that he just needs to ask the right people.

9. I stay for a post-shift drink to wait out a little bit of the traffic. Sauvignon Blanc and chicharones. A little bit of Nth Merlot. Today was such a nice day that it makes me a little sad to know that I’ll be leaving.

10. Endings and beginnings.

Ten.Seven Hundred & Seventy-Eight

1. Just a hint of light.

2. A counter scattered with odds and ends to make a breakfast. There is enough here; now to show them how to cobble together a meal from it.

3. The time is gone. No time to eat the eggs. I’ll save them for tomorrow. We’re all leaving at the same time; this is a different dance.

4. Two crows perched upon a developer sign. A big bush of something pale pink sticking out of the straw covered hill.

5. A steer high up on the hill. I always wish I had time to pull over to the side of the road and capture what I see. I want to gather all the wildflowers that blow in the wind. I wonder what I can crow now, so late in the season.

6. On the desk is a basket with pens, post-its, a hat, a t-shirt. There’s also a bottle of Brut next to my computer and my phone. And now suddenly, I feel a little bit like more of a grown-up.

7. “I’d be no fun if I had a filter.”

8. We walk back to the office. Blue sky. Golden hills. Green trees. Full grapes. A bowl of candy. There are worse things.

9. I stop at the farm stand for zucchini, avocados, red onions, and corn. I gift myself a bunch of lavender. One of these days I’ll grow my own.

10. Possibilities.

Ten.Seven Hundred & Seventy-Seven

1. Oops.

2. Quiet. No dogs barking—yet. I open up the windows to let in the cool morning air.

3. Tulsi tea. Not even missing coffee. That’s a lie. I do miss coffee. But I’m not desperate for it. That’s a lie. I am desperate for a cup of it on a morning that calls for a sweater and a near-empty to-do list.

4. It’s nice to be a passenger.

5. I just don’t think I could ever get over this.

6. Syrah, syrah, and more syrah.

7. I may or may not know what I’m talking about.

8. How much longer?

9. Hammock time. It’s been too long. The sound of the air conditioning kicking on keeps waking me.

10. Context matters.

Ten.Seven Hundred & Seventy-Seven

1. The air is cool enough for open windows. I open the sliding door and listen to the sounds of morning.

2. Blueberry smoothies. The sputtering sounds of the coffee machine. The whir of the dishwasher. The slosh of the washing machine.

3. Cherry tomatoes, a slice of bacon. Out of chai. Just water.

4. The length of my shadow across the dirt and gravel. I look long.

5. Glass after glass after glass. Try not to spill.

6. Body language. I think of what the nurse said yesterday: People are weird.

7. Hillsides freckled with black cows. A large black crow perched upon the white wooden sign. And now the hills go from gold to green.

8. I save the podcast episode. This poem is too good.

9. He says that he gets it now.

10. I just hope the dog doesn’t bark again.