Ten.Fifty-Four
1. The yellowness of this morning's sun. Ten tomatoes. Sometimes feel silly for counting them each morning. For inspecting the sage leaves, for touching the rosemary and then bringing my fingertips to my nose to smell. But then I remember that life deserves this kind of attention.
2. I think I am ready for what's next.
3. Where do I go from here?
4. We sit on her porch and drink coffee in the sun. Notice how quiet it is. Talk about family and Christmas and cleaning techniques and toilets that stay stained (cheap materials). I like this moment.
5. I turn on the twinkle lights overhead even though there's plenty of daylight. There's a fieldmouse stuck in the window well. He keeps trying to climb the screens and almost reaches the top before tumbling back down again. He is persistent.
6. Jennette and I speak of life changes and my trip to California and bleeding keys. How once you've been shown a new truth, you are forever changed. And even though everyone wants you to stay, you know that it is time for you to leave.
7. I tell her that people keep asking me when I'm going to write a book.
8. This. I don't know how to handle this. Every year it's the same. And we're only 1 week in. He doesn't need to love school but... it pains me to see him on the brink of tears and for me to not understand how I can help him. I don't want him to be one of the ones who gets lost.
9. La Crema Willamete Valley Oregon Pinot Noir. It tastes like a wild cherry Luden's cough drop.
10. Squam in 3 weeks.
Ten.Fifty-Three
1. The gray. I love it. The coming of autumn.
2. I'm getting faster at making the lunches and snacks.
3. The deer. She's still here and I feel relieved.
4. I'm thinking a lot about failure. It's not just the wine exam, but a lifetime of so many other kinds of tests. And yet here I still am. And maybe that is the lesson. Here I am.
5. I send an invoice. I know it will be my last one. I am sad that this relationship is ending. I am grateful that I've been pushed toward the building of new boundaries.
6. Back to the library.
7. I like when he's not home, on the phone, and I can turn the music up real loud. Today it's french cafè music, Katie Perry, Ariana, Elton John, Feist, moody classical.
8. Chicken tacos.
9. I think of her saying, "They're a nice family," and how I think to myself, "Of course you think they are a nice family. You are white." And how I say this too about the Midwest—the Midwest is very friendly if you are white.
10. You cry for your children and then you do this dishes.
Ten.Fifty-Two
1. Gray and rain against the screen.
2. Blueberry muffins. Smash 1 cup and stir into the batter. Gently fold in 1 cup whole berries. This recipe is the one they like the most. It's silly but I really do feel loved when they beg for more muffins.
3. I keep using this Oakville Grocery mug. It's so big but the weight of it in my hand. Yes.
4. So much laundry.
5. I capture a bit of the eclipse. I'm not entirely certain I didn't damage an eye.
6. Breathe and meditate. I want stay in this feeling of overflow.
7. So much laundry.
8. Roast chicken and baked potatoes. Semper Pinot Noir. Butter on my hands. Trimming my own sage and rosemary and oregano for the seasoning.
9. Fortune favors action.
10. The sound of train whistles after the sun goes down.
Ten.Fifty-One
1. Late rising. But I know I must get up soon because I promised donuts.
2. Take out all of the pans and the sugar and the cinnamon and the oil. Warm the dutch oven. Run the rolling pin lightly over the puff pastry before punching it with the biscuit cutters. Remember how this is what makes you.
3. Cappuccinos while I chat with my best friend. Inhear the quickness in my breath when I tell her about my trip to California. About how every time I return I feel my roots burrow deeper and deeper. How every time I'm there it tastes like home.
4. Then I listen to the quickness in her breath as she recounts her encounter with the artist who made a million dollars. How this hit her with the truth that abundance and prosperity is possible in the honoring of one's gifts and passions.
5. I am already almost out of pages in my journal.
6. Rest.
7. So much gratitude for the slowness of this day.
8. I am overwhelmed with ambition. Both ambition and fear that I don't have the strength to get it done. But she wrote to me, "Believe that you can do it all."
9. All the laundry.
10. "Believe that you can do it all."
Ten.Fifty
1. Sleeping in. I don't love how everyone comes to mu side of the bed to ask me questions.
2. Cappuccino times 2.
3. I am always counting the tomatoes. I missed one last time. There are actually nine.
4. I make space for all of my fears. They take up the whole page. Then, one by one, I refute them.
5. Still no deer.
6. I am sorting through images from my trip to California. Back at Westerbeke Ranch. There's the labyrinth, the succulents, the cabins, the pond. All that light.
7. Leftovers for dinner but I make a fresh caprese with my own tomatoes and my own basil and I then I think forward to the real garden we'll have next spring.
8. Pinot Noir.
9. The way the light falls across this floor in golden rectangles. And the way it's shifting. I'm learning the seasons of living.
10. Vanilla gelato with a caramel swirl. I sprinkle smoked sea salt, a gift from Holly, across the top. I think of all the gifts I've been given from the people I know in spirit only.
Ten.Forty-Nine
1. I push snooze on the alarm and wait a little bit longer. I am still so tired.
2. Clean the counters off. Make the lunches. Bag the snacks. Everyone is still sleeping.
3. No deer.
4. Iced chai with my best friend as we walk down to the park by the water's edge. I've never been here before. I think this could be a new writing place. The water is high and this brings me a sense of comfort.
5. I stroll the stacks of the library: one cook book, one book on business, one novel.
6. Squam is less than a month away. Anxiety is rising. I'll be flying alone. Traveling alone. Conducting my workshop alone. But I can do this.
7. Afterall, I do like to be alone.
8. Chicken tortilla soup on a Friday. It's still summer but so breezy. Hints of fall. I can't wait for the turning of the leaves and open-window-weather.
9. Not entirely sure what is holding me back. Scratch that. Not entirely sure why I am holding myself back.
10. Wine by the fire pit. Grateful for neighbors like these who want to share sunsets and lives with you. A gentle ending to an emotionally draining week.
Ten.Forty-Eight
1. Emotion hangover. Making me sleep in.
2. The sky is still dense and gray, but as a little bit of the light seeps through, I count the new tomatoes. Eight in all. Tiny, green, firm.
3. He said to me, last night, that I don't like when people take my dreams away from me. And that coming home was like reality snatching back every dream I'd been living over those past 4 days.
4. I love the color of this mug. Just off-white enough to shift my color story.
5. Three lunches and 3 snacks. Breakfast. Need to also buy 6 tab dividers with pockets.
6. I really need to get my new glasses. Maybe then I'll be able to see again.
7. I failed.
8. I don't really want to talk to anyone so I sit in the car until the very last minute. Then avoid eye contact and look low to meet the gazes of only my own children. I know that I am in hiding.
9. The blackberries are big and ripe and juicy. Let this, too, be a metaphor for life.
10. For just a moment the sun made the bottoms of the clouds glow highlighter orange and I think I'm going to be ok.
Ten.Forty-Seven
1. He snuck into the bed sometime in the morning but before the first light. The babies are always babies.
2. Dreams of frogs all over the house.
3. Wash face. Brush teeth. Get dressed. Make the lunches and the snacks. Figure out which muffins to make. Back to school.
4. The backs of my eyes are stinging with tears again.
5. I am tired. I know it's the kind of tired you feel from stress.
6. It's so humid.
7. No one seemed to be happy when I picked them up from school. Maybe I'm projecting.
8. The backs of my eyes are stinging with tears again.
9. I yell at him about the laundry. I want to snap the stems with my thumbs. I can't see anything but white.
10. How he talks me down and away from the rage and honors the truth that this is all fear. That this is what you should feel when people want to kill you.
Ten.Forty-Six
1. San Francisco is quiet this time of morning.
2. This flight feels tighter than the last. Maybe I have grown.
3. I am sleepy. My eyes stay more closed than open.
4. Not ready.
5. I should have told her to stay on I-88.
6. Home. The children. My plants. Dirty floors. So much laundry. Everyone seems taller.
7. Dead battery.
8. I make frozen pizza and a Caesar salad for dinner. Re-entry is always about ease.
9. How is tomorrow already the first day of school?
10. I can feel my eyes getting hot with tears right before I fall asleep. This is ok.
Ten.Forty-Five
1. The last morning.
2. You guys are local, right?
3. We hope to be soon, we say. Order two more english muffins, double-toasted with butter, and blackberry jam.
4. I meet her at Bouchon Bakery and order a croissant and a large coffee. We talk a little bit of business, of children, of writing.
5. Gather all the things and bring them back down to the car. My bag has a large seed cone, some feathers, a piece of driftwood, vine skeletons, and a coffee mug.
6. My first barrel sample and it's given to me by my favorite winemaker. She says the guys didn't take to the haiku idea. I learn that the seeds of the grapes will taste like toasted almonds when ripe.
7. I could have stayed there all day looking at The Palisades.
8. Tyler.
9. The light on the vines. Been here three times before and this is the first time I've seen the vines full of leaves and grapes, drip irrigation in action.
10. My boots are so dusty.
Ten.Forty-Four
1. Heavy and low skies. Us and the runners. The second-to-last morning here.
2. Coffee again at Mini Model Bakery. I make him be the Instagram husband and have him take a picture of me between the vines.
3. The curvy roads back over to Sonoma for breakfast at Fremont Diner. Shrimp and grits and chicken and waffles. 3 cups of coffee. I buy a mug. It's the sink full of green leaves and the teal backless stools that I love.
4. Sandwiches and a bottle of wine while we overlook the valley. Karman has been working here for as long as I've been coming to Napa. 7 years, he says. You should totally move here, he says. We know.
5. Open houses. They all point us to Browns Valley and Alta Heights.
6. The agent we met yesterday sends over a file and sets us up in a porthole.
7. You're moving there?! No, not yet. But it feels like it's gonna happen soon.
8. Back in St. Helena at the winemaker's house. He tells us all the people he knows. We drink through three different wines. I think I now need to go to Mexico City.
9. How is any of this happening?
10. This is really happening.
Ten.Forty-Three
1. 4:38 am.
2. The Safeway on Jefferson Street is open 24 hours a day. We fill the cart with kombucha and water and smoked almonds; sign up with our email address to get the discounts and pay with gift cards.
3. The sun is just beginning to rise as we leave the grocery store.
4. English muffin. Double toasted. Butter and blackberry jam on the side.
5. I ask him if I can have the recipe for the granola. He takes my email address and says he'll leave it for the pastry chef.
6. We look at the app and see if we can find some open houses for Sunday.
7. How I wanted to say to him, "Thank you for telling the truth about what was done to the Native Americans here."
8. This place. The water and the cabins and the bells. How I know this will change everything. Jennette and me, 14 other women, fever dreaming.
9. It's going to happen. This is everything. The designer - talking to her about brass clips and stemware, her writer friends, and her favorite clients. Overhearing a bit of a conversation and walking out of there, mouth coated in zinfandel, with smiles, and a real estate agent.
10. One order of canolis.
Ten.Forty-Two
1. It is still dark. I go to each of them and kiss their cheeks.
2. The car is here a little early and I'm still scrambling to make sure they have paper towels and toilet tissue and cash for groceries.
3. Deep gratitude for them showing up and being here so that I could have this time away.
4. Airport fashion.
5. The way the clouds look like cotton balls planted in very neat and tidy rows.
6. Pieces of the earth cut up into rectangles and circles.
7. The greenish hue of the bay. How when I cross over it I think of how cold the water must be on a day like today.
8. This is everything.
9. Sometimes you get to live out pieces of your dream and trust that the holes will fill themselves in when ready.
10. The water at my toes, and then over my feet, and then over my ankles, and then just below my calves. How I giggled when the bottoms of my pants got wet. Feathers and driftwood and plants from the sea. Hot sand. Blue sky. Vanilla milkshake after a cheeseburger with peppery bacon. All the children laughing. This is everything.
Ten.Forty-One
1. I'm always worried that the sound of the kettle will wake them all up. But she comes down right after me anyway, pink and white pajama pants with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.
2. I convince her that it was all a dream.
3. Butterfly. Black and that crazy bright blue.
4. Buying sneakers for three kids at the same time. Everyone is surprisingly patient.
5. I like this whole reading by the pool thing. Next time I will bring a hat to shield my eyes from the sun. Should be easier to nap that way.
6. The feeling of being stretched across cool cotton.
7. There is not enough time.
8. I am better today.
9. The deer are back. They are mesmerizing. I am always stopping to watch them graze or lay down or bound into the thickest of the grasses.
10. One sleep until California.
Ten.Forty
1. 5:45 alarm. School begins in one week.
2. Still stinging but my stomach is not as tight.
3. Cappuccino and front porch with my journal. I know that my head is hanging. I'm trying to stay upright.
4. No deer.
5. Monarch butterfly.
6. I feel for where I need to pull the tomato. 6 of them. Tomorrow I'll drizzle them with balsamic and a little bit of salt.
7. Dragonflies. So many of them. Is it that I never noticed them before? Or is it that this space we have here is full of the things that draw them near.
8. Praying Mantis. All of these signs.
9. I'm still sour and I know that it will pass in time.
10. Two sleeps until California.
Ten.Thirty-Nine
1. Waking up with the moon.
2. The bathroom tiles glow from the light. It's so quiet. These are always the quietest hours. I love the times when I'm the only one awake.
3. Pants and shirt and jacket. Don't forget the pin. The babysitter will be here in 5 minutes. She is always early.
4. Quickly to the store first. I need something to eat before I drink the coffee. We try to use the 1-hour and 29-minute ride into the city to review, but sit mostly in silence. You realize that you know all you can know at this moment and there's no use stressing yourself trying to add in just one more thing.
5. What I miss most about my old town is how much I walked to everything. This is what I like about city living: the fresh air, the movement of your body, the sites, and the sounds. And all that brick.
6. The four of them seem nice and friendly. The first two parts of the test are done. I feel much more relieved. Like, maybe this will happen after all.
7. Nothing I eat is staying in my body. I've had a headache since this morning. My stomach keeps cramping. I'm sweaty. It's mostly nerves, I'm sure. But I leave the service portion of the exam knowing that I drowned in those last 16 minutes.
8. I eat some croquettes, drink Pinot Grigio from Mt. Etna, and then top it off with a cone of caramel ice cream and a bombolini from Bombobar. Try to sip on an iced-coffee to soothe the headache.
9. He passes and I fail. Only 6 out of 18 passed. I am one of the 12 that did not. But I am a strong candidate. Each one of the Masters tell me to do it again. They are always so encouraging. I will try to take it again before the end of the year.
10. You can tell fall is coming by the quality of the light. It's taken on this honeyed hue in the late evening.
Ten.Thirty-Eight
1. He asks me if I saw the way it glowed orange. I tell him "yes, but what I really love are the mornings where the mist is rising off the wetlands."
2. Less than one day to go.
3. The air is cool but I can feel the humidity blowing in.
4. This iron chair.
5. These pants do not feel like me. But I will wear them tomorrow with the blazer and the pin in my lapel. Playing dress-up.
6. Why?
7. Blacker berries.
8. The 7 grand cru vineyards of Chablis. They kind of rhyme when listed in alphabetical order. But it's French and I am not exactly sure I am saying them right.
9. Finally, the test.
10. California in 4 days.
Ten.Thirty-Seven
1. Up with the alarm and then back to sleep.
2. Bagels, toasted. Coffee. Glassware lined up on the counter. He is ready to test me.
3. This blazer is uncomfortable. How am I to be myself?
4. The tomatoes are turning red.
5. The sun and the breeze. Quiet Sunday. Reading and practicing and studying.
6. I keep kissing him on the head. The questions they asked us in the hospital reminded me of the afternoon I went in to feed him and instead had to sign slips to allow them to give him new blood. Through the umbilical cord, they said. We don't want brain damage, they said. Mom is Af-Am, they said. It's a blood disorder, they said. This is the hematologist from the University of Chicago, they said. The way the attending ER physician pretended to know what the disorder is, and the way I knew she Googled it just before stepping into the room. So, no fava beans, she said.
7. When you do it right, you will hear only a slight hiss.
8. I think we believe in ourselves enough.
9. The smell of sulphur in the glass.
10. The moon. A trail of clouds in front of it. Glowing white and then orange through the trees.
Ten.Thirty-Six
1. Green and breezy.
2. She asks for hand pies again. I balance cherries on the mouth of the wine bottle and push the pits through with a skewer. Toss them with flour and sugar and cinnamon. Heap them into circles of dough.
3. The same and yet not. They are eating up the land for ego; that is the part I don't miss. But I do miss the brick and the warmth of it. The feeling of familiarity.
4. She's nice enough. We laugh about children and my introvertedness.
5. I need to shift my language around this. I am talking myself back into the spaces I no longer wish to be.
6. Caramel popcorn.
7. Rest.
8. I've never seen one of my children pass out before. Eyes rolled back and lips white. Fire truck and ambulance. Him on the concrete, lashes fluttering. Saying his name over and over again.
9. Two hours in the ER and he is himself again. No fractures, no bleeding.
10. The moon. So big and bright and white.
Ten.Thirty-Five
1. The coolness of this morning. Sweater weather in August.
2. The skies are gray and moody and this donut shop is always full. Two old fashioned; one caramel; a vanilla longjohn with sprinkles; and a cinnamon roll.
3. Coffee in the cappuccino cup. I like it because it's white and fills the hand.
4. This test.
5. Slowly through the isles searching for Syrah and Gamay.
6. The wind today. It keeps blowing open my sweater and creeping up my ankles.
7. Fox. So lean and with a thick, slick coat, pausing before he trotted off into the tall grass.
8. This test. This test.
9. The young deer, grazing by the trees at the foot of the berm.
10. I trust myself.