Ten.Eight Hundred & Seventy-Five

1. I keep thinking I should check my phone but it still looks so dark. It is just early, right?

2. He says something about it being 6:30am. No school so it’s okay. But my morning is still cut short.

3. Celery juice and carrot juice. Cereal for them. I think of last night’s dinner and her with her head in her hands, saying that she wished I didn’t have a job.

4. I leave a little early so I can get coffee for the office. And honey. Maybe tea? I’ll order the tea from Amazon. Definitely the coffee though because it’s a Monday and I know I need another cup.

5. He carries one and I carry the other. I probably should not have worn 3-inch wedges to carry boxes but I do it and I’m glad it’s just done.

6. It might be one of the most outrageous excuses I’ve ever heard. I stick my headphones back into my ears.

7. The wind. I look up at the turbines. They don’t seem to be moving as fast as I think they should considering the way this car is shaking.

8. 2017 Drew Family Cellars Syrah Valenti Vineyard Mendocino Ridge. Spinach and bacon pasta.

9. Enough broth for soup tomorrow?

10. “We don’t have time together anymore.”

Ten.Eight Hundred & Seventy-Four

1. No. I am sleeping in.

2. But then the blinds opened and all hopes of that are lost.

3. I stick the potatoes and a few strips of bacon in the oven. More water before the first sip of coffee.

4. Morning pages. So much to write.

5. I dial her up. We talk like we always talk—deep and wide. About being black in white spaces. About advocating for your children in systems that aren’t meant for them to succeed. About people-ing. About the correlation between awareness and suffering. About how painful it is to be an artist that sees things no one else sees. About retreats specifically for black creatives. About being fearful and disappointed.

6. I mean. Hammock in late November. Sun on my face. I soak it in because I know the rains are coming.

7. She says to go for a 20-minute walk to shake the words loose. I think it might work.

8. West and Wilder White Wine. We are both a little skeptical.

9. It takes me 2 hours but I give her braids like mine. It will be easier for the both of us. Wasn’t I just saying something about putting in the work upfront in order to enjoy some ease later?

10. Already.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Seventy-Three

1. I feel his cold hand on my arm and I let him get in.

2. Light creeping in. 6:42am. He tells me that they’re eating bagels. Oh yeah, I had forgotten about those. What a sweet gift to myself.

3. Cleaning day’s not so bad when 4 other people actually chip in.

4. I take the book and some water to the hammock. The middle of the yard is filled with sun. The material in the book is light, boring, surprisingly simple. There’s nothing wrong with simple. It’s just that I was expecting to learn something new.

5. She asks me what to do with the persimmons. We discuss tarts and pies. I suggest a sweet potato pie, apple hand pies, that chocolate cake that she likes to make. I encourage her to just stay bored. Nothing wrong with being bored, I say, and then close my eyes again and turn my left cheek to the sun.

6. Snuggle time. How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Home Alone.

7. The wave of emotion is actually not about this. I mean, it is but it isn’t.

8. Requests for cell phones for Christmas. No one makes a moving argument.

9. They rewatch the first episodes of The Mandalorian while I take my bath. I let the bathwater get cold, read through more poems, slow down to watch the language move through the pages.

10. Ice cream.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Seventy-Two

1. TGIF.

2. I miss the days when the weekend was not something I looked forward to.

3. I leave early to get bagels for the team. They really are the best bagels I’ve had since leaving New Jersey. I wish we had one in Brentwood. Livermore is too far to drive for a bagel.

4. I place my hand on the door and then stop myself. I turn toward the sun and close my eyes, set my intention for the day. Today will be a good day.

5. Well there goes that.

6. I say something about choosing to protect a boundary for someone who can’t manage to do it for themselves. And then I fill up my water bottle and walk to the garden. I grab the lemon balm and then smell my fingers. I wonder what trees they’ve planted to replace the tomatoes. The table is set for a wine and cheese pairing; glassware and gold chargers. Poppies?

7. We have a name for this kind of person.

8. I’m no longer interested in not being that angry black woman at the school.

9. I tell him that there’s not way I could anything that would be worth eating today. I think of “Like Water for Chocolate” and Tita and the wedding cake that made everyone sick. I can only imagine what angry cooking would do to the belly.

10. Still sweating from the heat of the bathwater.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Seventy-One

1. No wind. Just cold.

2. She asks me if I miss it. Nope. But it sure is pretty to look at.

3. What can I do with this lavender without dropping it all over the floor?

4. I want to eat the blueberry pie for breakfast.

5. It’s saying the El Camino Diable will be 14 minutes slower than Vasco so I reluctantly take the shortest route even though I really want to drive the route with the least amount of altitude—and the slower drivers.

6. So cold.

7. I apply for the scholarship even though I don’t even know if I can travel in February but I figure I’ve got nothing to lose. And plus, I really want to do. And also, you never get what you don’t ask for. And also, I could totally go to New Orleans twice in two months; i think it would be good for me.

8. She says that we talk a lot more at dinner when Dad isn’t here. I laugh and say that she’s right because he’s always just talking to me.

9. Laughing fit. I look around at all of their faces and then realize that I actually do like them. They still fight over whose turn it is to sit beside me at dinner. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that it didn’t make me feel a little bit better about myself.

10. Her water broke.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Seventy

1. More wind. Even stronger? The sound of palm fronds entangling themselves.

2. Muffin-tin hash browns. Turns out only one of the boys like them. I got it wrong.

3. Today will be a short day in the office but only because of this meeting for which I am excited but also dreading.

4. I pull out the camera because I miss making. Because making soothes me. Because I just needed 10 minutes to create for myself and myself only.

5. Because I’m trying not to put too much pressure on myself and my art at this moment, trying to be patient with whatever the next iteration is while also worrying that if I stop completely, I’ll be become frozen.

6. What to do?

7. I try to push away the thought that maybe we were being extreme. No, this is just caring. This is just us knowing that there is a disconnect. This is just us making sure that everyone is being held accountable because this is a team effort. I want to see the trajectory shift. There is time, but there isn’t. Also: if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck…

8. It still kills me that he’s the only one in the family who will not touch the risotto and salmon with buerre rouge. I mean.

9. I drank too slowly at dinner and only got one glass of the Chateau de Bligny Brut Rosé Champagne.

10. I needed this conversation with Lola. I didn’t realize I needed it. There’s a certain kind of medicine in being asked questions about yourself. Your mouth opens and reveals to you the things you didn’t know you thought or the things you needed to remember.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Sixty-Nine

1. Getting dressed in the dark.

2. It feels like a morning for blueberry muffins but I do shortcuts today—add all the eggs in at once, don’t sift the flour. The batter still looks smooth.

3. Celery juice and carrot/pear/ginger for later.

4. Big cotton-ball clouds and fog way off in the horizon, the gray-brown body of Mt. Diablo standing tall in front of them. I take Camino Diablo again, even though I know the mileage is longer but you don’t sit like you do during certain passes on Vasco.

5. Who owns the derelict vineyard at Bruns Rd. and Byron Highway? Why has it gone to waste?

6. Design Matters with Debbie Millman. I remember to save the interviews with Saeed Jones and Roxane Gay. “I am relentless in my ambition.”

7. What is the point of all of this anyway? Does anyone else know that this whole system is a racket? And yet here I am, trying to play certain parts of the game in hopes that I might be able to one day escape it.

8. He buys the book. I knew he would. And I will read it. And I will talk to her about it the next time I see her.

9. Chicken pot pie.

10. “I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hate so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.” - James Baldwin

Ten.Eight Hundred & Sixty-Eight

1. Overslept. I knew I should have checked the phone.

2. But I have to have celery juice this morning because I can feel it—the difference in not having it.

3. I use the Apple maps and it wants to take me down Camino Diablo which I’m not that upset about because I could use a change of scenery.

4. One coyote. Two coyote. Is the medicine different when they’re dead?

5. Graciously persistent. - Seth Godin

6. Man, look at all this light.

7. The day moves quickly, mostly because I’m doing the things that I don’t always do. The learning something new, remembering the little bits that I do know and applying it to the problems—this is good.

8. He’s here to do the walk-through and it dawns on me again that we will be here for another year. I can’t decide if it feels like a trap or if it feels grounding. Does it even matter? It just is what it is.

9. It’s just never as good as I want it to be.

10. “Trauma or no trauma, many Black bodies don’t feel settled around white ones, for reason that are all too obvious: the long, brutal history of enslavement and subjugation; racial profiling (and occasionally murder) by police; stand-your-ground laws and the exoneration of folks such as George Zimmerman (who shot Trayvon Martin), Tim Loehmann (who shot Tamir Rice), and Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam (who murdered Emmett Till); outright targeted aggression; and the habitual grind of everyday disregard, discrimination, institutional disrespect, over-policing, over-sentencing, and micro-aggressions.” - My Grandmother’s Hands

Ten.Eight Hundred & Sixty-Seven

1. 5:20. That’s more like it.

2. I stroke his round cheek a few times before climbing over his body to get ready for the morning. I don’t know what time he came back in.

3. Store before tasting group? Or after? After. Why rush myself this morning for no reason? Let today be slow.

4. Sometimes I guess it really is just about asking.

5. We try to parse out the differences in the blends. Is it the Viognier or the Marsanne? What next? Red wines from Australia and New Zealand it is.

6. The turbines move in slow motion. Sometimes it makes me feel like I’m disconnected from my body or traveling through space. Everything moving at a different rate.

7. I take my pants off and put on a tunic because the idea is to actually expose the skin to as much light as possible. As David Banner said, we are people of the sun.

8. You know you’re an adult when the package you’re most looking forward to is a steam mop.

9. The benefit of a persistent attitude, of being the kind of person who continually asks for what one wants, is that he often gets it. So here we are eating dinner out so that he can take advantage of the free meal he won for his achievements at school.

10. The ice cream is good but I can taste the baking soda in the cookie. I think of the mom in the booth across from us with her 4 children, the baby beside her yelling “mommymommymommy” in that way that only 15 month-olds do. I wish I had had a chance to tell her how great of a job she was doing before the jetted out of the restaurant.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Sixty-Six

1. 3:32am.

2. I know that it’s just the stress. It’s just because I care too much.

3. I am hours away from sunrise but I begin to plan the day. I’ll go to the Home Depot so that I can buy a microwave, then I’ll head over to check out Story Coffee—because I do love a hipster coffee shop. I’ll journal there before meeting her at the Tasting Lounge to show her the set up. I need to see the setup myself too. Figure out the best way to utilize this space for the influencer event. Then get wine for tomorrow’s tasting group.

4. Also realizing that everything is happening at the same time today. Birthday pick-up for one, birthday drop-off for another, returning home, eating lunch. And there are groceries to be procured at some point today.

5. Irony.

6. There’s exactly one on the shelf and I carry it through to the self-checkout and back to the car in less than 10 minutes. The fastest errand ever.

7. They have very little signage but I found it. Hot chai for here. I find a corner in the back in which I can write and observe.

8. The first thought is always that you should just leave and find someplace better. But the alternative is to stay and do the work, demand better, set a new expectation. And then, if that fails, then you can leave.

9. I walk the grounds while I wait. it’s such a beautiful place, especially in the morning before the crowds begin to arrive. I listen the crunch of the gravel beneath my feet, the sounds of the crew preparing for a wedding, the scratch of the leaves as they tumble across the parking lot.

10. Like Water for Chocolate.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Sixty-Five

1. 2:36am

2. I try to close my eyes but all I can hear is the quiet and oddly enough it doesn’t feel that comforting.

3. 3:48.

4. I get up and get ready as quietly as I can. I let it be okay. Instead of getting more angry about not sleeping, I probably ought to just get up and get ready. At least there will be time to journal before work.

5. I warm up the last two pieces of leftover fried chicken and splash them with the hot sauce from Attraversiamo. Sweet, salty, spicy.

6. Push the shoulders down.

7. I keep checking my phone to see if they have emailed me back yet. Why is no one responding? Why no acknowledgement of communication?

8. The thing is that I like to work smarter and not harder. But the fact that there is no person here who has any kind of real insight on the process means that I’m working to figure it out on my own. I finally decide to just do it however I think is best. I empower myself.

9. Push the shoulders down.

10. I tell him that I figured that because I don’t have anything positive to say, I should just stick myself in the bath. But one positive thing is that I really love that I have this book that my friend wrote that I look forward to returning to every night. That I’m so proud of her. And then he tells me that it should mean that I know I can do the same thing.

11. I make a diagram in my head. I envision myself, at this meeting that we should be having, walking up to the whiteboard to draw out this diagram: Physical, emotional, mental, social. How are we going to work as a team to support him in these areas?

12. I turn to my side. I remember that I’ve been up since 2:30am. I’m allowed to fall asleep at 8.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Sixty-Four

1. In the dream, my father tells me that they got a loan to relocate. I’m not sure how it works, just that it means they are willing to move to us.

2. I should just get up.

3. I print out a piece of paper with two instructions. Then I make a sticky note. Then I help him bundle together the completed papers that need to be turned in. I print out an article and then underline all the bits that fit what we’re experiencing. Then I send an email through the school site.

4. I make sure he leaves with the post-it note that has his two instructions for the day. We’ll see how this goes.

5. She’s not like most other guests they have on the podcast. Everything is figureoutable.

6. We decide to split two donuts: one apple fritter and one old fashioned. I realize that if you’re a woman who wants permission to eat, I am your person. I will always eat with you. I will eat all the things with you.

7. I take notes. Notes about them but also notes about what I can apply to myself.

8. Notes from a meeting: What is my own true north? How do I optimize my own assets? Find momentum and us it to propel growth. Know/Trust/Respect. Measure what matters and prioritize accordingly. Be patient, active, committed. What drives loyalty, connection? Lead with strength.

9. Black plastic bag stuck to the barbed wire blowing in the wind.

10. It’s not that hard to talk me into buying fried chicken instead of going home to make homemade pizza dough.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Sixty-Three

1. 4 a.m.

2. The strangest dream. In a church, on Easter, going to the alter, two cats, I could only pick 2 candies.

3. I wonder if I should wake at 4 a.m. every morning just to have the extra moments of quiet.

4. In my efforts to be proactive, I dial in too early and then it kicks me off right before the call is to begin. And so I call back just in time.

5. In talking to her I realize that I am the one that’s been in my way. That actually, maybe I can do both. Just a little bit of both. And that there’s something about really owning what you want. Owning your want is different than acknowledging it. Or feeling guilty about it. I quickly run through all of the times I’ve been right at the edge of what I wanted and then backed away.

6. Before I get out of the car I do a quick search. Ohlone and Chochenyo. I want to remember this.

7. Retrograde? No. I just don’t have the patience for it anymore.

8. I joke that the homicidal impulse is just due to a phas.

9. But preteens really are the worst. And maybe the best. But also the worst.

10. Better dreams tonight?

Ten.Eight Hundred & Sixty-Two

1. Chance the Rapper Dreams. Work dreams. Too much in my mind.

2. The soft glow of twinkle lights around the kitchen window welcome me.

3. I send her links to The Clearing, Bardstown, and Woman Evolve.

4. Tesla Road. The deer, it’s body intact but the skin removed from the back half of its body, red flesh, tendon, muscle exposed. A reminder that we weren’t here first, that they have been more inconvenienced by sprawl than I am by its loss of life.

5. Yes. I will take this season of loneliness/solitude to just get to know myself better.

6. I remind her that she’s just stressed out. Working in an office will show you just how important the application of The Four Agreements really is.

7. Am I doing too much?

8. Maybe for Christmas I should ask for my typewriter to be refurbished?

9. I finish the letters and walk them to the mailbox. The street is quiet except for a man down the street blowing leaves out into the street. Tomorrow is Wednesday which means the street sweepers will come through to clean them all away but I quite like the leaf litter.

10. I play a few rounds of UNO and memory. I smile at them. I think it must look like a tired smile.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Sixty-One

1. Everyone else is home but me for today. That’s okay. The day should go by quickly.

2. I think of what he said to me. He’s not entirely wrong. What it would it look like to shift the language from management to leadership? I don’t want to manage the household. I want to lead it into its next phase. That sounds better, more intentional, less like it’s full of drudgery.

3. Really, dude?

4. I check Google maps to see what today’s commute will be like. Only 45 minutes. 45! On a Monday! This gives me another 25 minutes which means one more cup of coffee slipped slowly in the chair while I finally open up her book.

5. I’m in the acknowledgements. This makes my eyes water. And then I try to read, the words slightly blurred from tears. Her book! This is her book. And I am reading it and imagining the characters and thinking of the way an orchard is lined with trees and sitting in awe of the fact that she wrote this.

6. No bottleneck.

7. She offers up one big bag of persimmons to me. I think of how they will photograph but mostly of how much my daughter will love this gift. I think of the Rocket Salad with persimmon that I had at Chez Panisse, my first ever bite of persimmon. I think I might try to grow one of these in the next place.

8. I overhear her say that someone offered her a piece of land up in Sonoma to do whatever she wants. I am mostly sad she is gone for selfish reasons. I had plans to learn from her. Who will I now go to for that learning, for someone willing to teach?

9. For now.

10. I lay my whole weight against his back, arms wrapped around his thin body. I am amazed even by my own endurance.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Sixty

1. I decide to just get up even though the alarm hasn’t sounded, even though it’s Sunday.

2. But it’s a slow Sunday with no commitments to anyone or anything but myself.

3. I shred the butter into the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt and stir it with a fork until the flour stick to the thin bits of butter. Then I add in the cream. The cream really makes a difference. Anything less than that yields an entirely different result in the finished product.

4. Today is the day they move rooms. I think of last night’s negotiations. She traded him her smaller room with private bathroom which has a tub, plus one bath bomb and a jolly rancher in exchange for his slightly larger room. She needs more space for when her friends come over, she says. He’s just thrilled about the tub and the bath bomb.

5. Laundry.

6. I take myself out to the front porch. I think briefly about eating my lunch in the backyard but then remember the broken fence and how the neighbor feels too close with that open gap. Yeah. I need more space.

7. I water the plants and then move them to the rear of the yard on a semicircle of patio so that they can get more sun. Then I drag the hammock to the middle of the yard, furthest away from the gaping fence and settle in to read.

8. Chicken noodle soup made from bone broth.

9. I shouldn’t have turned on my phone.

10. Yeast rolls. Not as good as my grandmother’s. I wish she had been alive long enough for me to have properly learned her secrets. Someone asks me if my grandmother was like my mother—their grandmother. I don’t know how to answer that. My memory of her is complex. No, not the same. Definitely different. But there are so many reasons for that difference.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Fifty-Nine

1. There really is no such thing as sleeping in any more. I think I’m going to bed too early to sleep in. Which means, I suppose, that I’m actual well-rested.

2. He offers to make waffles with strawberries and whipped cream. Yes, please.

3. Eat and then clean. I move quickly. I am anxious to get to the porch and the sun and a book.

4. “Completion is an honorable achievement.” This sounds like something Robin might have said to me. Or maybe I read it somewhere. Either way there’s so much truth and wisdom in it.

5. I grab a plate of leftover carnitas and settle into the sun. I crack open the book and quickly realize that I need a highlighter.

6. He starts looking up acreage in different parts of the state, asking me questions I don’t yet have answers for. I’m only on page 16.

7. “They look very French,” she says. They frames are gold, thin and round. And they do look cute on her. I remember that 10 is about the right age to start to have an opinion on fashion. You really begin to care when you’re 10.

8. So much laundry.

9. I add twinkle lights to windows in the kitchen and the living room. One layer of necessary coziness. I need the softness of this light.

10. Sacred Economics.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Fifty-Eight

1. One year.

2. I pull together my lunch, an assortment of dried fruits and nuts, sliced pears, one of those salads in a bag with kale and cranberries and pepitas. I should probably do this the night before.

3. I call her as soon as he gets out of the car and unload on her about his crappy attitude. That, I mean, it could be worse. He just doesn’t want to do his homework. But pre-teens, right now, are the worst.

4. I miss her laugh and our books discussions.

5. He waves to me from behind the machine, a black tube in his hand. “Good morning, Alisha.” I feel seen. I feel gratitude as I return the greeting.

6. So quiet with only two of us in there.

7. Don’t they open in an hour? Where is everyone? This makes me nervous.

8. A much slower day. Grateful for that.

9. I just knew he would text me. I am sure to end the response with “good night” to indicate that I am no longer available.

10. Too cold. Even colder. Disappointed. I will finish reading this book of poems tomorrow, I suppose. It is an empty Saturday afterall.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Fifty-Seven

1. I close the sliding glass door before heading into the bathroom. Maybe today will be cleaning day when I get home from work. Trying to be proactive about what I need this weekend.

2. I remind myself to ask mom’s group about children and anxiety because what she described to me last night sounded like anxiety. I have it now but I don’t recall having it at that age.

3. Curious.

4. All that build-up for 5 minutes.

5. Sara Bareilles singalong. I wish I remembered to sing more often.

6. Chefs are all the same. So serious.

7. Is it just me or does he look like someone we all know?

8. I run water for my bath but it’s too hot so I make them hot chocolate while I wait for the water to cook just a little.

9. I grab both collections by Sharon Olds. I decide to read the one with the more beautiful cover to take to the bath but when I flip through the pages I realize it’s a signed copy. “To Amanda from Sharon Olds. March ‘10. NYU.” Too sacred for the bathtub.

10. Wide open. Opened wide.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Fifty-Six

1. Where is the soreness from?

2. I complain every evening about the loss of light but I’m so grateful for promise of dawn; to have the morning light seeping in by 7.

3. Coffee. Today I actually have time to sit on the sofa and read before I need to go. Little luxuries.

4. I approach the crest of the hill and there on the horizon are the turbines, so thin and unmoving.

5. Today I opt for a story.

6. I’m not sure why I need so much convincing.

7. The days are going by much faster even though the week is going by so slowly. A combination of newness and the unknown.

8. I remember that I have two collections of Sharon Olds poetry that I bought in Boonville at Hedgehog books. That will be next.

9. The water is so hot that I can feel the sweat rolling down my forehead but it’s the perfect temperature for me to finish reading the last two chapters of this book. I dog ear the last five pages. So many things I want to remember.

10. What does a life beyond domesticity look like?