Ten.Eight Hundred & Fifty-Four

1. Don’t want to.

2. The sound of him making coffee.

3. Fruit, fruit, fruit. No one seems to be listening to me.

4. ”We call it homophobic chicken.” I think of this phrase as I listen to the podcast. Because, yeah, I don’t eat the chicken anymore but their business practices are inspiring.

5. Servant leadership.

6. That will certainly take the wind out of the sails.

7. The Four Agreements.

8. And like that, the tension. The tension between what I desire and what is; between what I have asked for and for what remains undone.

9. The irony is that it’s just another thing on my to-do list masked as something that is supposed to reduce the number of items on my to-do list.

10. As Roland Barthes wrote, “What language conceals is said through my body.”

Ten.Eight Hundred & Fifty-Three

1. So grateful for the light.

2. Coffee and donuts on a Sunday with an extra hour of sleep. Thank you.

3. Resuming this means a renewed commitment to the studies. I do need to decide, at some point, whether I really want it or not.

4. I watch him cross the street. Multi-colored beanie. Long-sleeve oversized white t-shirt. Black pants that stop just above the ankle. White ankle socks. No shoes. In the shopping cart he' pushes what looks like only a thick white blanket and two white pillows. But he has no shoes. He has no shoes. I watch him press the button to cross the street. As he walks back to his cart he spreads his arms out and twirls. But he has no shoes.

5. Babera d’Asti, Barbaresco, Amarone della Valpolicella, Barbaresco. None of these are wines I really know, all of them are okay. Sufficient enough but it’s clear that you do need to spend upwards of $50 to get classic examples of these.

6. But this is just silly.

7. I don’t want to, but I know I need to. And so I start with granola, then the muffins, then muffin-tin hash browns. Now the soup. My legs are tired. That’s all I can do for today.

8. I rush to see if I am the one that’s made a mistake and I’m not. Which is a relief but it doesn’t erase the rush of anxiety. I realize that I care a lot/too much about what others think. I still have so much to work through.

9. The sick nectarine tree is the first one in the yard to turn its leaves.

10. Early to bed.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Fifty-Two

1. I already know that the to-do list in my head is far too much to get accomplished for the day.

2. Braids or twists?

3. The slow arrival of morning. The feeling that everything needs to be reset and redone and refreshed. Not corner untouched. Is this just new moon energy? New month energy? Nesting by proxy?

4. Cleaning in between sips of coffee.

5. I stare out the window. I mean, I didn’t want to have to buy a new vacuum cleaner today but I am grateful that I could.

6. A clean garage.

7. She asks when we’ll move again and to where. It isn’t a matter of if, just when. I want to tell her that honestly, I don’t feel like moving again either. We’ve moved so many times in these last handful of years. But I don’t say that out loud. Instead I just tell her that I don’t know. Because that’s also the truth.

8. The first braid takes almost and 45 minutes for me to figure out.

9. Rhythm and Flow. Dreamers working on dreams. “I don’t take Ls I take lessons.”

10. Let’s just hope I can get a good 6 weeks out of these.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Fifty-One

1. I should just get up.

2. Clothes into the dryer. I hate clothes shopping but it’s now a necessity.

3. Two of them are up. He reminds me that I need to switch out the candies that have nuts in them. I remind him to ask his sister when she wakes up or to trade them in for the leftover candy that we bought.

4. Today is her last day in the office. You know you have a pretty decent job when you’re going to miss your supervisor.

5. I gladly accept the ride.

6. I grab caramel sauce and maraschino cherries just in case only to see her text a few minutes later saying she grabbed caramel sauce and cherries.

7. I cut some light pink roses from the garden, and a few zinnias and a stem of fennel too just in case. I get a small glass from the bar and take them out to the wine barrel set in between the vines. This is the first proposal I’ve ever helped with.

8. Basically permission to do as one pleases.

9. We decide that a charcuterie board will be a sufficient dinner. They are all still stuffed from yesterday’s tricks and treats.

10. “Everyone should cultivate a secret garden.” - Mating in Captivity

Ten.Eight Hundred & Fifty

1. I know it’s early, but how early? How much longer can I lay here before the alarm goes off?

2. The smell of heat. He must have turned it on in the middle of the night.

3. At this point I’m not really sure how much more I can advocate for him. But also, I could care less about Halloween so, whatever.

4. Note to self: buy hothands for tonight.

5. She forgot the tombstone. I have him drive us back home so that I can get it to her before we drive me down to work. A little bit of mom guilt creeps in but then I think to myself, “how in the world am I supposed to remember everything? I can’t remember everything.”

6. I remember that though it’s hard to do in the moment, what he’s doing is actually asking for more attention. Maybe what he needs is just more love.

7. He says he’s going to up my budget. That brings some relief.

8. There’s a movie playing on the garage door and tables set up in a few driveways. I put my ham and cheese croissants on a table and then we go into the one house we know. I think this will be okay.

9. We’ve lost our group and one of my children.

10. We’re back in the driveway by 7:30. The kids are all parked on benches watching Hotel Transylvania 3 and eating candy and popcorn. One dad comes around to offer a shot of Hennesey. I stick with my wine. We talk about Brentwood and what we like about it and how she likes it more than Petaluma because everyone just seems friendlier here but that she does miss being so close to the ocean.

11. I tell him that whenever I’m not in Brentwood I want to leave, but when I’m really in it, I can’t see myself moving. Because, actually, as much as I like certain things, the kind of people I’m around matter to me too. And if I am in a place where we can stand in a circle and talk about the random places and ways in which we’ve had to pee because of being trapped in a car with no available bathroom in sight, then these actually might be more my kind of people.

12. Which is not to say that my kind of people aren’t also in those other places. I just may need to interrupt the thought that I can’t have what I want where I am.

13. This art of really being and knowing the spaces in which I live and work and create.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Forty-Nine

1. I don’t want to wake up but I know it’s time to wake up even though the alarm hasn’t gone off yet.

2. Beloved oil.

3. Gratitudes for leftovers that are lunch for the week.

4. I trade in the audiobook for Lizzo and it seems like the right move for a day like today. I needed a boost.

5. I catch the guy in the car next to mine looking at me. I just smile. Yes. It’s possible to be this happy on a Wednesday morning while sitting in rush hour traffic.

6. I remind myself that this is an evolving process and, ultimately, not something that is crucial. So there is room for experimentation.

7. She says that maybe “empowerment” will be a theme going forward and that sounds progressive.

8. Hummingbird friend. Must figure out the name of this plant. It looks like some kind of salvia.

9. I mean, I could not do any of this at all.

10. Wal-Mart after dinner on the night before Halloween.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Forty-Eight

1. I let myself sleep in a little bit on account of there being cereal and milk for breakfast today.

2. He makes the coffee again. I’m putting away dishes and ladling leftover soup into thermoses. I need a thermos of my own, don’t I?

3. The things I now require.

4. I leave before them so that there’s enough time to stop and get gas. Alice Munro’s collection “Dear Life” on audio.

5. The horizon is hazy. Hazier than before. I am reminded to remind him that we need to buy another set of masks because if these continue to burn the air quality will continue to deteriorate.

6. The polluted smoke tints the shadows of the hills a light pink. Everything looks like a vintage photo that’s lost its color.

7. She passes out masks. She was working on a preparedness kit for the office.

8. The shadow of a hummingbird.

9. I pull everything out of the office and out of my trunk and into the cottage. Yes, this will be good. I check to see if the wreath hanger will fit on the door. I close the door and hang the wreath.

10. Sometimes you just need to become comfortable with the idea of doing something different and new. And sometimes you just have to sit on your hands and wait with patience for the very right thing and trust that the next right thing will come when it’s time for it to come.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Forty-Seven

1. He’s up before me. The glow from the phone wakes me up.

2. I had a dream that it rained.

3. I can’t hear the wind like I did yesterday. That feels comforting.

4. She says he left at 2 am last Thursday and could be gone until November 8th. That they had a break today but the winds are supposed to return tomorrow,

5. The time goes by just as fast even when you work from home.

6. I overhear him say he had to evacuate in the middle of the night but that they are back home and everything was okay. He must have been part of the Oakley evacuation.

7. For a brief moment, I wonder if we made a mistake. But then I step outside into the sunshine and I see Mt. Diablo in the distance, the horizon hazy with smoke, and I know that we didn’t. We definitely didn’t. This is just our new normal.

8. I drag the hammock back into the middle of the yard, straight into the sunshine, to read a little bit before I have to get him from school.

9. We both decide that this town is already too crowded and that we’d vote no on L too, even though we haven’t lived here that long.

10. Great British Baking Show all cuddled together in the bed.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Forty-Six

1. I hear a loud clatter from the vertical blinds. I get up to close the screen door and then walk into the kitchen and hear the winds howl. “Oh no, the fires. The firefighters.” My eyes get teary. I walk back into bed and say a little prayer. I listen to the wind.

2. All phones going off. 6 am. An evacuation for neighborhood in the next town over. Another fire.

3. The gift of someone else brewing the coffee.

4. They all look at me like I’m being silly but I know myself and I know how cold I will get and so calf-length winter jacket it is.

5. A gust of wind whips tiny beads of sand against our face and exposed ankles. I hope they cut this game short.

6. My black pants and black coat are covered in a thin film sand. When I try to put on chapstick I feel a thin layer of grit scraping across my lips.

7. Alerts about more fires.

8. I give up on trying to go to the grocery store today.

9. One of the twins thinks her father is very funny. She’s always giggling at him which I find amusing since most of us in the house have stopped laughing. But glad he’s got a new and willing audience.

10. This will be an interesting week.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Forty-Five

1. Chilly but I put on shorts anyway because I know it will be 85 and I plan on getting some good hammock time in.

2. He gets the donuts and I brew the coffee. Everyone is awake but quiet and in their own rooms and that’s good for me right now.

3. She asks what we have to do today. I tell her that I want to do as little as possible. Maybe go to the farmstand for tonight’s veggies. But that’s it. As little as possible.

4. I leave a bottle of wine with the burner. A thank you and an apology for being so tardy in returning it.

5. I get there just as it opens. An older black woman is there. She gets one pound of San Marzano tomatoes and a cucumber. She and the woman checking her out talk about the ways in which one can cook them. “Sliced, skin on, with a little bit of shallot, butter, and olive oil.”

6. He asks if I bought the delicata squash just because it’s pretty.

7. These dogs won’t stop barking.

8. I pull the hammock to the middle of the patio so that I’m half in the sun and half in the shade. I read the latest issue of Fast Company before closing my eyes for a nap.

9. Noses turned up at the delicata squash. Oh well.

10. He says something about how different it feels knowing someone who is actually a fireman out there fighting those fires. How it’s different knowing that their children are in your house almost every day. How it’s interesting how perspective shifts once a situation becomes personal.

11. You just pray.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Forty-Four

1. I sit on the floor of the closet and turn on the app. 5 minutes of deep breathing.

2. I really do feel more centered.

3. Her text says that there’s a small fire in Livermore too and that now parts of Alameda county are also on the list for power shut-off. I check the map for Brentwood. We are still okay, but just barely.

4. I check the time on Google maps and see that there’s space in the morning for me to do the drop off. I haven’t done it in such a long time. It’s one of those mom things that I didn’t think I’d miss.

5. In fact, there are a lot of stay-at-home mom things that I was looking forward to escaping by having a traditional job. Turns out, I didn’t hate it all as much as I thought I did.

6. I take my time walking from the car to the door of the building. I notice the grasses and the flowers and the perfect patina of the brass lights that flank the double doors. Beauty hunting.

7. While IT fixes my computer, I sort and fold and rearrange. I take the shirts to the cottage to store in the drawers. That lone calla lily. Delight.

8. The loud chirping of smoke detectors that need new batteries.

9. He brings me a glass of sparkling while I read in the hammock. There is time for this.

10. The birds of paradise have bloomed again.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Forty-Three

1. 6 am wake feels luxurious. I might be more tired than I am. I might not actually be a morning person at all any more. Or maybe I just need 3 days of nothing but sleep. I do believe there’s a such thing as catching up on rest.

2. I sit on the floor of the closet and do some breathing exercises. 5 minutes makes a difference.

3. I wash dishes and he takes the kids to school. I finally pour myself a cup of coffee. What next, what next? Journal.

4. Single-task mind.

5. Curled up beneath the blue blanket at the end of the sofa. I close the book and look out of the window. Done with the book. Sad that these little sips of delight are over. Committed to refocusing on beauty hunting.

6. The moderator is introducing folks and giving thanks to donors and my body tingles with tears. And then my body does the same thing again as he introduces the speakers and there a round of applause. I think to myself how the body and the heart are funny things. Why is this making me cry? Maybe it’s something else that’s making me cry. Maybe I just need to cry and for whatever reason someone else’s expression of gratitude is moving me. I will delight in this.

7. The colors of early afternoon are so different from the colors of morning.

8. “How will we be together?”

9. Sometimes I just can’t decide.

10. Sometimes it just takes a while to find your groove.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Forty-Two

1. I miss that crazy loud rooster.

2. I can’t decide if I like that he’s driving me to work today. But since I’m feeling better today than the last two days, maybe it won’t be so bad. Besides, I like to stare out the window and daydream and that’s hard to when you have to focus on driving.

3. Oh no. She reads my stories. I laugh. How did she know what I was talking about?

4. It really is beautiful here. Like, so beautiful. Like, breathtaking. When will it get old?

5. I know mindfulness but I haven’t been practicing it lately and so this luncheon is right on time. She guides us through a meditation. I think of the two of us in those adirondack chairs drinking a bottle of white wine with the sun beating down us, the garden vibrant with blooms. Oh yeah. I needed to be reminded that all you need is one memory to access peace.

6. On the walk back to the office i give gratitude for being able to work in a place where I can bring this intention into my job. Single-tasking is the way for me. Slowness is the way for me. Nothing is as urgent as it seems. I can take my time.

7. One lone calla lily in the freshly mulched flower bed.

8. On the ride home we decide that it will never get old.

9. I am indeed in hell. But trying to stay present and mindful through it all.

10. Tomorrow I will go in late which means tonight I will clean and clean and clean. Looking forward to savoring my morning.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Forty-One

1. Thank goodness for sons who bake muffins the night before thus relieving you from any pressure to make a breakfast this morning.

2. Looking for the light.

3. How is it that the last 30 minutes always goes by so much fast than the first 90 minutes?

4. We are slowed to a stop and so I grab my phone to take a picture. There is nothing there but a big oak tree and a hill and the sky. But in this moment it seems worthy of capturing.

5. I know my head is not where it should be. I am here but I am not.

6. She gets the kind of text that no mother every wants to recieve.

7. Then I realize that the only person who is working on this is me. Which is not a problem. It’s just that I think it will be me and me only doing this one particular thing that I really am not very good at. No. Not that I couldn’t be good at it, it’s just that it’s outside of my comfort zone.

8. It’s almost November.

9. I realize that really, I just miss my friends. All of them. I remember telling her that I think I’m going to be okay this winter because I work in an office and I’ll be around people and that they’re nice people. But the truth is that I miss my friends. There isn’t anyone yet that can just come over for coffee or check out the yoga class at the YMCA, or eat lunch at the tea house.

10. I let myself feel it all.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Fourty

1. Overslept.

2. I rub her Beloved oil on my neck and my forearms. A reminder to myself and my body.

3. I really ought to remember to give myself another day off on the other end of a trip. Always feeling unprepared.

4. Black cows puddled across the yellow-gold hills. The muted green of sagebrush and oaks off in the distance. Blue sky. I fall in love with this view a little more each day.

5. I decide that I am not ambitious. I don’t want to be. That sounds too exhausting. I’d rather have vision. Is it too much to call oneself a visionary?

6. Can you call yourself a visionary when lately everything has felt so thickly veiled?

7. She takes us through, pulling off leaves of lemon balm and lemon verbena. I rub them between my fingers and brind my hand to my nose. The puts green fennel seeds in my cupped hands and then asks me if I’d like some hibiscus seeds. Maybe I just need to spend more time outside (who doesn’t?). Perfect mid-day act of self-restoration.

8. I tell him that I don’t have time to make scones in the morning anymore but that those are things they can make on their own. That that would help me.

9. I miss slow mornings when there was time for making muffins and scones and olive oil cakes. I miss slow evenings when there was more time for enjoying the process of cooking…when it didn’t have to be another chore to be rushed through on the way to something else.

10. No time for delight.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Thirty-Nine

1. Last morning.

2. The rooster makes me giggle every time. He’s just so. loud.

3. We manage to stuff everything back into the bags from which they came and then head out for an empanada and coffee. The fog is still so thick and low but there’s the hazy glow of yellow off in the distance which promises a sunny day.

4. It’s a short walk and yet there is so much to see even though there is nothing to see.

5. Sage, artichoke flowers, brussel sprouts, horsemint, tarragon, rosemary, perfectly shaped heads of lettuce.

6. But the view. Can you even imagine?

7. I drive and try not to think about the fact that this is the end of the weekend, that this means going back. What am I even going back to? Each time I leave, I see another thing that needs changing. Not fixing. But changing. Nothing is necessarily wrong but I can see where I’ve bent the ends of pieces to make them fit.

8. I remind myself to not romanticize it too much.

9. We split a spicy gingersnap as we drive across the Golden Gate Bridge. To the left, the too-closeness of the the city. To the right, nothing but water and air.

10. I worry he will criticize the stack of books I brought back from Dawn’s caboose, but instead he seems excited. I am just tired. Tired and sad. Tired and sad and full of questions. Tired, sad, full of questions, worried that there’s not enough space anymore to figure things out.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Thirty-Eight

1. Oh, good morning, rooster.

2. Fog hanging low. The cafe is fuller this morning than the last few times I’d been. Black coffee and a bacon and goat cheese empanada. The flurry of Spanish circling my ears. I’m reminded that we have a lot of learning to do upon my return,

3. Return. Not thinking about leaving just yet.

4. She pulls out a bowl of pomegranate seeds and adds it to the bar that is already stuffed full of scones and hard-boiled eggs and flaky sea salt, granola and yogurt, and local unfiltered apple juice.

5. A deer darts across 128. He turns back to look at us as we move along.

6. Two more deer. These, I didn’t see. They stop and stare at us again. Remember to look up Deer medicine later.

7. It’s just the two of us, and a young man with the chef, and this is actually the most perfect thing, A private pasta-making class during which we drink Scharfenberger and sparkling water. We make farfalle and pappardelle and the one that looks like a chicken gullet. He brings us oysters—my first time eating them raw—and then a salad with more pomegranate seeds and pickled butternut squash and roasted delicata with a ginger dressing, and then our pasta to which he’s added shrimp seasoned with a piment d’ville. And then a plate of figs drizzled with honeycomb.

8. Delight while under the blanket on the sleeping porch. Her in her bath with her glass of Syrah and her book. The sounds of the cats chasing one another through the leaves.

9. Notebooks full of stars.

10. A whole sky full of stars. Billions of them. I feel even smaller at this moment that when we overlooking the gray waves of the sea. Why does this have to be the last night?

Ten.Eight Hundred & Thirty-Seven

1. Up before the alarm. Not surprised at all by this. There is too much to be excited about.

2. I find them all and give them hugs before I go. They are all jealous that I am leaving. I tell them that we will pick another weekend for all of us to go. Don’t worry. He asks me to bring back a bottle of Pinot Noir Juice.

3. I go through the car wash like he asked me too even though I feel like it will put me behind schedule.

4. No. I’m really not a city person.

5. I’m here. She’s here. We’re together.

6. The water is churning. So powerful. I’ve never seen waves that big. We pull off somewhere in Bodega Bay to watch the gray water smash against the gray cliffs.

7. Lunch at Trink’s. Apparently it’s Point Reyes Blue Cheese that should be on my BLT, not cheddar. The sound of crashing waves flooding the spaces in between words.

8. Mountain View Road.

9. Phillips Hill Gewurtztraminer with our backs to the sun.

10. Roederer Brut. Baxter Pinot Noir. Catching up in the candle light. Writing a list of restaurants in New Orleans for the server. Hot shower uninterrupted.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Thirty-Six

1. She comes today. I won’t see her until tomorrow, but she comes today.

2. Reheat muffins, make coffee. He will want those leftover hashbrowns. I really need to drink my water before I eat anything.

3. I worry. I worry about the loss of dream time, of free time, of art time. I worry that I won’t find a new rhythm that makes space for the other kinds of work I know I’m meant to be doing. I mourn the prior life while also trying to hold the potential of this new one. I’ll figure it out. Right?

4. What is with the traffic today? Sirens from behind. State Highway Patrol. The voice says this is still the fastest route.

5. The problem with listening to podcasts when you drive is that it’s impossible to write anything down. I try to repeat things in my head, a desperate attempt to remember. And then I realize that it’s okay. That whatever wants to stick will stick, even if it’s not the words and only the feeling.

6. Slow.

7. He left gifts on the table and each one is wrapped in the cutest red and white Japanese wrapping paper. I wish I could find out what’s inside.

8. Gratitude for leftovers.

9. She’s here.

10. Another bath. Another chunk of Delight devoured. I could get used to this.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Thirty-Five

1. Too much to think about at 5:15 in the morning.

2. So quiet. Still too dark for me. I need more light. Where is the light. I don’t remember it feeling so dark last year.

3. Episode 232: My Embodiment by Craig Morgan Telcher

4. He’s sending pictures from Disney World. Everyone looks so happy. I am happy that they are happy.

5. I get them all out the door so that I can just gather myself for a few minutes before I need to leave. Just a few minutes of quiet in an empty house does wonders.

6. All of the cows are back on this side of the pasture today, lazing around in the dry grass. A calf gallops andlands his face right into the side of an adult. The big cow doesn’t seem unnerved at all.

7. Sometimes I’m just waiting.

8. Holding all of this.

9. I never take a bath but I want to right now. Maybe I can squeeze out enough hot water before they’re all in the shower. I light some incense and set The Book of Delights by Ross Gay on the edge of the tub. Delight.

10. “If you’re black in this country you’re presumed guilty. Or, to come back to Abdel, who’s a schoolteacher and thinks a lot about children, you’re not allowed to be innocent. The eyes and heart of a nation are not avoidable things. The imagination of a country is not an avoidable thing. And the negreeting, back home, where we are mostly never seen, is a way of witnessing each other’s innocence—a way of saying, ‘I see your innocence.’” - from “8. The Negreeting”, The Book of Delights