Ten.Two Hundred & Fifty
1. The light is creeping in much earlier now. I like this. This feels like a promise.
2. She'll leave today. Hopefully. Maybe not. We'll see what the east coast storm does. But for now, I'll soak in time with her as best as I can.
3. He's coughing. And he has a very slight fever. He will not be going to school today. What this means is that I'll be moving just a little bit more slowly today. I'll plan for more interruptions.
4. We talk about the differences in thinking between men and women. How one always thinks they know slightly more or slightly better than the other. How sometimes the best thing to do is to just keep quiet. I mean, you say your piece, and then let yourself move on.
5. She rolls her bag down the driveway to the uber. As soon as it pulls away I feel that deep sting of loss. I will see her again. Soon. This summer hopefully. She and I are so different and yet I'm finding the ways in which we are also so similar. I love that my children love her as much I do.
6. Daydreams of lemon trees, pea gravel patios, trellises, and lettuce fill my head. I know there is other work to be doing, but this is what I want to think about right now.
7. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if we just stayed.
8. Roasted beets, beet greens, farro, a light viniagrette, goat cheese.
9. I feel like molasses. I know that I am tired. I know that some of this is genuine fatigue. I know that some of this is also related to food. I know that some of this stress. I know that some of this might also be depression.
10. Today is done but tomorrow...tomorrow feels like choosing joy. Like celebrating really tiny moments. Letting myself conquer one corner at a time.
Ten.Two Hundred & Forty-Nine
1. I bought new sheets before I left town and they were totally worth it.
2. Breakfast today is whatever they can make themselves. Again. Because I'm still returning and my brain is working just enough for me to make it through the morning. Plus we're out of coffee and I'm thinking it's time to take a break.
3. For just a moment, the snow globe feeling makes me feel a bit like a child. But then the cold smacks against the face and I am brough back down to earth.
4. I stop and buy a few bunches of daffodils. I think back to a part in the book where he talks about cultivating a garden that seemed to constantly be in bloom. I think about the kind of attention and planning that it would require. Maybe this year I'll plant some bulbs.
5. I drink 3 cups of coffee, each one splashed with a tiny bit of almond milk. I eat three too many pieces of butter fudge while we listen to one another.
6. I hate that I don't have any answers.
7. The honk of geese overhead.
8. I pick the leaves off but keep the stems of sage to propogate. I know he will say something about this.
9. But maybe the way to staying grounded is through playing in the earth. I am still pretty certain that this kind of play is what will root me.
10. He asks me what I plan to do with the stems of sage. I tell him I'm going to propogate. He tells me I shouldn't bother. I tell him that I'm going to continue to live.
Ten.Two Hundred & Forty-Eight
1. I wake up early enough to spend a little time with him before his über comes. We talk about the funny things they said while we were gone.
2. Electric pink sky and thick gray clouds. There will be no sun today. I write and then try to meditate before they come downstairs.
3. Long hugs of welcoming. Then straight to making their lunches. It’s almost as if I’d never been gone. I am both grateful and sad about their independence. Easy but not easy. Life is always about cradling the opposites.
4. I pour myself another cup and take it up to bed as I wait to hear when she’ll be released. I’m still so tired. I’ve been tired for months.
5. “We equate choice with freedom but they are not the same.” - Wayne Muller, Sabbath
6. I start to walk to the right of the ER lobby but am overcome by the smell of vomit and so make my way over to the far, far left side and look down the long corridor for my mom. Finally she is there, walking on her own, no wheelchair, smile on her face.
7. The wind is whipping and cold air is making its way down the neck of my coat and I can feel everything.
8. Changes to be made.
9. The road seems extra dark. Maybe it’s because of the wetness. But it’s so dark that I’m not even sure if my headlights are on. Seeing but not really seeing. Where are the edges of the road? I still don’t know where I’m going.
10. It’s just that right now it feels like we’re grasping.
Ten.Two Hundred & Forty-Seven
1. The first thing I see is that our flight has been delayed.
2. The second thing I read is a text message from my mother at 4:24am asking where the nearest hospital is.
3. We call to extend the rental car and then get dressed. We argue over where to eat lunch as the sun rises. Nothing is even open for breakfast yet.
4. It’s chilly but there’s finally some sun. Our walk is peppered with “good mornings,” the cawing of the crows. One day this will not be a vacation.
5. I stop into Copperfield’s Book Store in Healdsburg for a book on wine country, any book. Just something I know I can’t find at home.
6. Lunch is a paprika broth filled with potatoes and leeks, clams and cod. We dip a little bit of sourdough into the bowl to soak up the juices.
7. She’s being admitted and so I shoot off a few texts to neighbors to see who can watch the children while Dad visits her in the next town over. So grateful for community.
8. Her comment makes us smile.
9. We eat and drink and talk on the plane. Arms entwined. He says it’s like having an extra date.
10. From the airport we’ll head to the hospital where she is in order to pick up the car. The waning moon is looking in on me through the window of the Prius. We are all silent. But I am hearing all of the noise.
Ten.Two Hundred & Forty-Six
1. Deep gray sky but it’s beginning to glow.
2. Birdsong as the light filters in, pale yellow.
3. The problem with waking so early in a sleepy town is having to wait for everyone else to wake up.
4. The most beautiful bowl of granola I’ve ever seen. Honey drizzled over the vanilla yogurt. Granola with soft yet crunchy almonds. Topped with a slice of a blood orange. Hot coffee.
5. The green in this valley. So much green. But this spot may not be right for us.
6. “A kind of light spread out from her. And everything changed color. And the world opened out. And a day was good to awaken to. And there were no limits to anything. And the people of the world were good and handsome. And I was not afraid any more.” - East of Eden
7. Compline. Black and gray and white and wood. One glass of Vouvray Petillant. One glass of Blaufränkisch. One glass of Blanc de Morgex et de La Salle. Duck fat fries and terrine and funky cheeses. Natural light illuminating the room. It’s a wine bar for the curious. I can’t wait to come back.
8. When we live here... When we live here... When we live here...
9. How is it already the last night?
10. Tomorrow morning I’ll rub on some more of this lotion, pack up my things, stick my feet into my converse and walk around culinary garden, fill up on coffee and farmer dreams at Fremont Diner.
Ten.Two Hundred & Forty-Five
1. I wake up early to call the kids in sick to school so that they can have an extra day with their grandparents.
2. We drive to the flagship location in downtown Saint Helena. The front window is stacked with crusty breads. I get an English muffin—double toasted—with butter and blackberry jam. Also this big slice of lemon pie with a ginger snap crust. The coffee is steamy and burning through the thin paper cup.
3. The bakery is full of older people with no work to do and then men in rough jeans and work boots and fleece. This is what I love about wine country the most: the work. I don’t love it for the glamour. I love it for the effort that goes into loving the land. The reverence for nature. The passion for the earth and its beauty. It wouldn’t take long for me to become a farmer if I lived here.
4. I eat the lemon pie as a second breakfast. The gray morning light illuminating my sliver of the bed.
5. The drive up to Brown Estate is steep and windy but so beautiful. Green as far as the eye can see. Undulating hills and a touch of blue sky.
6. The garden is unused but it could be a magical place.
7. Gotts for the first time. Bacon cheeseburger in a lettuce wrap. You can always tell when ketchup is homemade. The color is a little deeper and the sauce retains visible texture.
8. So wet.
9. Beaujolais from Regnie. I opt for a light dinner. Salad and tamales at Mustard’s. Platform 8 for dessert: ice cream made using liquid nitrogen. Blackelberry = huckleberry mixed with activated charcoal. Topped with sweet crunch and freeze dried berries.
10. “I want this to be mine,” is what I said to myself. This admission to self followed by shame: “But that sounds greedy.” And so then the reworking of words begins within my mind. How do I explain it? Ok. So there is this thing. It’s not that you want it because you crave dominion over it but because you crave a consistent and ever deepening communion with it. Because all of it is calling to you. Because you’ve been flitting back and forth, pulling away bits and pieces to construct the nest of your dreams. And so now the longing feels cavernous because the gap is closing but not quickly enough. Maybe this is where you lean more into your faith.
Ten.Two Hundred & Forty-Four
1. Up before the light, listening to the sound of rain hitting terra cotta tiles on the patio.
2. I go to eat breakfast by myself. Coffee, orange juice, water, a chickpea, potato and kale scramble. Quiet. I can see the vineyards in the distance, bare, wet and dripping.
3. Downtown Santa Rosa to meet Adam for coffee at Flying Goat. I almost don’t recognize him with all of the hair. We sit and talk life and photography and freelancing.
4. Back at the ranch. So much time planning and talking and dreaming. I can’t wait to bring everyone here to sit by the pool, to warm by the fire, the drink in the sun, to make space to breathe.
5. We get tacos with Kevin before he heads back to San Francisco to go home. He tells me to stop underpricing myself. To keep playing with one light and a subject. To live with the confidence I speak to in my writing. Grateful for mentors like this.
6. We drive through Petaluma as we make our way toward Napa. There’s a little bar, Ernie’s Tin Bar, with cute chalkboard signs and a no cell phone policy.
7. Green hills as far as the eye can see. Trying to keep my vision pointed on gratitude.
8. A glass of Fumé Blanc upon arrival. There’s a new blanket at the foot of the bed.
9. The Charter Oak. Schramsberg and a long chat with the sommelier who also happens to be from Chicago as we wait for our friends. Wood and leather and copper and vintage rugs. Embers from the open flame. A drawer at the table loaded with silverware and a napkin. Sparkling water. Musacdet. Bordeaux blend. Mushrooms and salads and kohlrabi and duck and burgers.
10. Gratitude for this. For time spent in meaningful conversations. For good coffee and good wine and good food. For the privilege of comfort. For space. For beauty.
Ten.Two Hundred & Forty-Three
1. Only 2.5 hours of sleep. I’ll get better at this.
2. Not only is he early but he’s also not talking and there’s old school R&B playing. It’s the perfect kind of 5am taxi ride.
3. I decide to stand for 30 minutes before boarding begins to combat the 4.5 hours of sitting that is ahead of me. 1 liter of water. Set intentions for this weekend.
4. She tells me that I’m the first person in the last three flights to say “please,” and so she gives me my meal for free. That can’t possibly be true—no one has the decency to say please? I listen as the attendants come by and make their offers and passengers make their requests. And she’s right: nary a “please” or “thank you.”
5. How do we learn how to live together again?
6. Oxbow market with Amanda. I opt for a green juice over food because my belly feels odd after so much travel.
7. Charred trunks. Chopped trunks. The juxtaposition of new life and that which was consumed by fire.
8. I ask him for a table for one, not at the bar, but in the dining room by a window where I can read in peace.
9. But this place does feel like home.
10. Champagne. Vegan truffled potato and leek soul. Vegan stuffed deliata squash. Gluten free apple crumble. First ever glass of Tokaji. Decaf coffee. Letting myself almost fall asleep at the table.
Ten.Two Hundred & Forty-Two
1. Late.
2. I fill two containers with coffee—one for me and one for Dad when he gets in the car.
3. The sun is playing peek-a-boo with the clouds and the dead grass on the bern is gold and gray, half alive and half dead.
4. Yes to carving corners of quiet.
5. The slow release of this dream, a little bit at a time with each breath.
6. I think back to sitting in the sanctuary with Sylvia Boorstein and how she said it’s easier to relax your face for meditation if you first put a little smile on your face.
7. No.
8. He asks Pop Pops to play horse. I have the house to myself for just a little bit. I put on music and keep stirring: there’s pot for spaghetti sauce, one for the leftover chicken noodle soup, and I push around the granola in the oven. Cooking my way back into a rhythm of trust.
9. So many things I want to talk about with them because all of what I learned is related to this experience of this circle. But there will be time and space for more of these kinds of conversations.
10. I still need to pack.
Ten.Two Hundred & Forty-One
1. Rarely is he ever up before me but he’s leaving on a jet plane this morning.
2. The clarity of color in the sky. Yes, there will be sun today.
3. I move from wall to wall with coffee in hand, falling into the light. Shadow play.
4. The cleaning isn’t going to get done today. It probably doesn’t matter anyway. He’s not coming here for clean floors. Who goes anywhere for the clean floors? Maybe I care about clean floors too much.
5. Chicken noodle soup.
6. Rosemary focaccia with smoked sea salt. Too hot to eat before basketball practice.
7. I keep thinking of how it felt to realize that I had a choice. That I could say “no.” That maybe I get to make it all in my own way. There is room for the yet to be imagined.
8. Tomorrow is our last call. There is so much I want to say and I hope that it makes sense in some way.
9. We wonder what’s so hard about compassion? I mean, why can’t we all just live by the golden rule? And yet, conversely, we are s beautifully flawed and imperfect that the barriers to feeling and knowing oneself and others can be thick like brambles.
10. I always have a hard time sleeping when he’s not home.
Ten.Two Hundred & Forty
1. I try to take her advice and let myself sleep in again. I keep hearing voices near my ear: “What’s for breakfast?”
2. In my dream I couldn’t escape. I just kept running down the stairs trying to go out the exit doors but none of them would open. Down and down and down and none of the doors would open.
3. Why do I feel trapped?
4. He needs jeans and a backpack and they need new shoes.
5. I have no meal plan but just buy all of the things that I think he could use to make the kids meals for the week.
6. I leave in three days.
7. The way the sun in lighting up the house all over. I needed this. I needed this light and the clean and the quiet. But really I needed the sun.
8. But I’m still tired.
9. I tell him that I had a really hard time eating my steak today. Because maybe it really does matter to me now.
10. I want something sweet.
Ten.Two Hundred & Thirty-Nine
1. I let myself sleep in a little because maybe I just need it.
2. We piece together breakfast from whatever is in the pantry and fridge. They don’t like to eat this way but I like that it demands some creativity.
3. My coffee spills all over the gym floor.
4. We win by a decent margin. Equally matched, we just made most of our shots.
5. I’m still tired. My eyes feel heavy. I am wondering if it’s something else going on. This degree of fatigue feels abnormal. But there is also no sun again. I need the sun.
6. The dad-coach is yelling in a way that is threatening. As if he is ready to fight the referee. They T him up and make him get off the floor. You can feel the air go out of the room. Everyone too afraid and embarrassed and in shock. It’s 4th-grade basketball. None of this really matters.
7. I’ve overbooked myself. Done the exact opposite of what I need most.
8. Half the hair in a bun. Red lipstick. I ask for the Malvasia and Sauvignon Blanc blend but I think he accidentally brought me the Riesling.
9. Fed.
10. I need one more day.
Ten.Two Hundred & Thirty-Eight
1. The weight of this gray.
2. Jordan Marsh’s Blueberry Muffins. I make some without the blueberries for the younger ones. They are missing out.
3. I go back to bed with coffee and Sabbath. My eyes are heavy.
4. I listen to an episode of On Being on my way to Riverside for a photo shoot. It’s a woman who explores the deep ocean. She also doesn’t eat fish. I find it funny but it makes sense. What do we change about our way of being as our awareness changes? What sacrifices are we willing to make?
5. It’s windy and cold. My fingers are getting numb and I’m fumbling with the controls on my camera.
6. Sips of earl gray between outfit changes.
7. She pulls the dreamer card for me. How fitting.
8. I can barely keep my eyes open for this drive home. Borderline dangerous.
9. I tell him that maybe the fatigue is still a residual effect of the sinus infection from the week before. Maybey body is just asking for more time to heal.
10. But there is no extra time. I’m back on a plane again in less than a week. There is a whole house that needs care and attention. There are five bodies that need to be fed and hydrated. There are people and projects to whom I wish to give whole-hearted attention.
Ten.Two Hundred & Thirty-Seven
1. The upside to these braids is that I don’t have to do much else in the morning.
2. There are two owls and they are very loud. I think of them as messengers in this time of my life where I need to trust my own wisdom the most.
3. Him taking the kids to school feels as good as a massage.
4. I don’t like how unready I feel to be back home. I can’t think of what to make for us to eat. The mess has scattered itself around the house and there is not one clean corner. I take my bloated belly back to bed.
5. I meditate for 15 minutes in hopes that this will fix it.
6. Fever Dreams.
7. Blankness.
8. But maybe I ought to just be a poet.
9. Unfollow. Unfollow. Unfollow.
10. “Sabbath dissolves the artificial urgency of our days, because it liberates us from the need to be finished.”
Ten.Two Hundred & Thirty-Six
1. Up.
2. Raindrops on windows. The sounds of life beginning again.
3. I make granola before I realize that we are out of both milk and yogurt and must think of what to make instead. I opt to make a pot of oats, sweetened with the last drops of maple syrup and small heaps of cinnamon. I know that no one will eat it but me and the tallest son. The other two choose toast and butter and a handful of blueberries.
4. Back in bed under the covers with a cup of coffee. Sabbath by Wayne Muller. "Sabbath dissolves the artificial urgency of our days, because it liberates us from the need to be finished."
5. I am conscious of my use of this word, "Sabbath." Worried that I am co-opting and simplifying a sacred word that is more than word. And yet I can't help but want to cover myself in it and all that it means.
6. She brings sunflowers. Her thoughtfulness challenges me. I am glad to be with her, here, in this moment. I needed the connection.
7. It feels as though the layers of wholeness I'd built up while away are beginning to thin. And this is bound to happen when you return before you're ready. When are we ever ready? I am craving more space and time to process and integrate and realizing that there is none. Maybe integration will occur during these periods of rest throughout my day.
8. It is also hard to shift something while you're in it.
9. I think back to when Naomi Shihab Nye said to me, "And you're a poet right?" And how I said, "Well, I'm a writer." Next time someone asks me if I am a poet, I will say "yes" and really mean it.
10. It's just that I didn't realize how badly I'd been missing this.
Ten.Two Hundred & Thirty-Five
1. I can feel that I’ve sweat through my shirt.
2. It’s only been 3.5 hours since I fell asleep and I feel like maybe I ought to take a shower. I need to get something for breakfast too. The sound of the rain coming down.
3. I don’t have my first cup of coffee until it’s time to leave. It’s hot and spilling over the sides.
4. I’m too tired to tell them all that transpired over the last 4 days. I don’t have the words yet. I don’t know when I will. All I know is that my head feels full.
5. Today feels like I’m just going through the motions.
6. It’s still raining.
7. Laundry and chicken tortilla soup in bed.
8. All I know is that change is required.
9. What I really want to do is sleep, not go to basketball practice.
10. Another shower. Another glass of water. Sleepy time tea because of course now I am no longer tired.
Ten.Two Hundred & Thirty-Four
1. Up before the alarm. Moving around with only the light of my phone, trying to not wake her.
2. I’m winded by the time I get up the hill to the parking lot where the car is. I blame it on the wedges.
3. Naomi Shihab Nye is sitting right beside me at breakfast. I want to be talking to her but find myself captivated by conversation with Lucas and Lisa. And they are radiating a tenderness that I find so very compelling.
4. Palestine.
5. I don’t know this name and I am not particularly excited to hear him talk until he starts reading haiku and it makes me think of the women in liberated lines and I’m tickled.
6. I’ve never paid attention to America Ferrera before but I will after today.
7. David Whyte, with his black pants tucked messily into, his slouchy black boots sends us off with a poem. This one I record.
8. I hug Tibeyo because I think he might need it and because there are many others I would hug but I can’t find them and I need to go.
9. The ride to San Francisco is easy. Traffic on 17, 85 and 101 is light. The sun is shining and I am crying. I’ve cried a little every day since I arrived. Getting here wasn’t easy. Being here wasn’t easy. Leaving is never easy.
10. It’s a good thing I meditated this morning.
10.1 Airport sushi and an Ichiban. Prompt writing. An aisle seat in the back with another black woman named Alecia. He gives us each two bottles of wine and a snack box for free because he can and he wants to and sometimes that’s what brothers and sisters do for each other.
10.2 Home.
Ten.Two Hundred & Thirty-Three
1. Up.
2. She tells me that I’m the most elegant person she’s ever seen this early in the morning. I laugh. It’s really just the lighting in this space. Can’t have people walking around trying to be mindful if they’re being too vein.
3. The air this morning has more bite to it.
4. At the end of breakfast I walk with threee white men to meditation with Sylvia Boorstein. The room itself is made up of meditators of all genders and ages and ethnicities.
5. As I begin my intentional breath I begin to see purples and greens and then yellows before the space behind my eyes becomes blindingly white.
6. Sylvie is from Toulouse and just now finding the power that comes from giving written voce to her story.
7. Marilyn Nelson reading poetry is just ... it brings me to a place of wordlessness.
8. Seth Godin.
9. I warm my hand by the fire. It is strange to feel surrounded and yet alone, to be connected and yet feel so separate.
10. I still am not sure how I got here or why I was selected but I have let these last few days change me, which means I am going to be changing my days.
Ten.Two Hundred & Thirty-Three
1. Awake but afraid to disturb my roommate who happens to also be from Chicago and incredibly cool.
2. What do city CFOs, educational consultants, radiologists, and writers have in common?
3. What we all have in common is being human.
4. I keep seeing Seth Godin in the dining hall.
5. I manage to have a quiet moment in the amphitheater tucked away in the redwoods. I eat my apple. Listen to the sound of the stream.
6. The amount of mental stimulation is exhausting. The conversations are weighty. Everyone is so captivating.
7. I find myself spending a lot of time self-validating—reminding myself that I was chosen to be here for a reason even though in comparison my accomplishments seem so small.
8. This tool for discernment is one to share.
9. The stars. My god, the stars. I want to tell him that I’m feeling an immense sadness. A fear that this will not work out after all. That we’ve wasted so much energy and time —ours and other’s. That I want so badly to be here that the thought of it falling apart pains me.
10. I hear myself use this one phrase over and over. An elevator pitch I wrote some time ago. Watching is land is an interesting experience. I still don’t know if I belong in these rooms.
Ten.Two Hundred & Thirty-One
1. I wake up a little later than I intended to but the light is just now starting to come into the room.
2. They’re FaceTime-ing me at 6:30am. Time zones. They are in the car and on their way to school.
3. I take my time getting ready. The light from the skylight in the bathroom makes me smile.
4. I grab a big mug, cream in color and speckled. Hot water for tea.
5. The three of us in the booth talking about the places in which we live, how motherhood changes you. How it changes everything.
6. So much sun.
7. I find a Target to get some shoes for the shower. And a few bananas in case I get hungry before bed.
8. It’s so warm I’m sweating as I roll my bag to the room.
9. I write that I’m very teary today. Crying about almost everything.
10. We hold hands because we are braided together just like the challah we are about to partake of.
10.1 Byron introduces me to Parker Palmer before we sit down for dinner. And a young woman, Mariah, who happens to be a senior editor for the On Being blog joins us. And it is a lovely conversation and I tear up talking about how overwhelmingly grateful I am.
10.2 I think there will be a lot of tears this weekend.
10.3 Krista Tippet and David Whyte.