Ten.Three Hundred & Seventy-Nine
1. Now the first thing I do is pray for a showing.
2. The glass is wet. It will be warm again today. We have plans to see friends, the girl and I, and I can't wait to have my laboradite back on my wrist.
3. Call it in.
4. I drink the coffee even though it's almost too hot to drink the coffee. I sit in the chair on the right-hand side because it's the one that get's the sun first. the bottoms of my legs begin to feel the heat and I pull them back into the shade.
5. What kinds of birds are these?
6. It's so quiet out here. On the inside everything is so loud.
7. We sit in the shade and laugh. They play on the slides and monkey bars and in the sand.
8. I text my parents. They've done this so many times. What do we do? What should we try? He tells us nothing. Assures us that it's summer time and people are on vacation and that there's really no reason to worry. I am not so sure I agree but he is my expert and what's the point in calling an expert if you aren't going to listen to their advice.
9. It's time for braids again.
10. Mosquitoes and fireflies and fire and stars. I keep staring up and thinking of how jealous the little one would be to know that I could see all of these stars. This is one of the last times I'll be in this circle. This is going to be the hard part: Saying all of the good-byes.
Ten.Three Hundred & Seventy-Eight
1. I can't see the stars. It looks like rain.
2. It is rain. I fill up my water bottle and look at the damp concrete. It will rain all day today.
3. Donuts.
4. The anxiety is just fear working its way through. I write again, "What is the truth? What am I really afraid of?"
5. I only eat half of the donut. Nerves maybe. I keep drinking the coffee though. I look at my watch and decide to give myself 30 more minutes of reading.
6. Who's panicking now?
7. I missed lunch. This Twix is unsatisfying. This is how it will be on days there are showings. You kind of wish that if you had to go through all of this effort that it would at least be for more than one person.
8. She asks if there have been any offers yet. Everyone is just as surprised as we are that no one is coming to look at the house.
9. Furmint while prepping potatoes and the chimichurri.
10. We stay out in the alcove longer than usual, watching the light turn from blue to gray to orange. It looks like a storm is coming. Tomorrow there will be more rain.
Ten.Three Hundred & Seventy-Seven
1. I see two stars glowing yellow-orange. I remember from last year that one is Mars.
2. I finish getting dressed and download the star app onto my phone so I can identify the other star but now I can't find it. There is too much light. I look up and stare a little longer.
3. I think about how grateful I am for his interest in the sky. Whereas I'd always been focused on the light, I now have an appreciation for the way the atmosphere comes alive at night.
4. Before I get to the list of things I must do I take a seat in the alcove and read. I hear my neighbor yell, "We've got a deer!" She's back. I go inside the house and run to the back window. I see here up on the hill, the same front fight leg bent from last year's injury. And then I see a fawn bound into the trees. She's OK. In fact, she's more than OK because here she is with new life again.
5. I drive all the way to the grocery store and realize that I've lost my wallet. I turn around to go home. We have a showing scheduled. This brightens the trip back just a little bit.
6. He tells me that he feels like I'm panicking.
7. It won't be perfect. I can't make it perfect. And the house will still sell even if I didn't get everything perfectly right.
8. The three of us on the front stoop sitting and drinking wine. I watch and listen to the sprinklers in the yards. Cars drive past slowly. One car more slow than the other. This car stops right in front of the house. I try to hide behind my son. I am disheveled, in painters clothes and black. We are always removing blackness from the house so that when it shows, it's not a deterrent to a white buyer because maybe, probably, that really still matters. But I can't hide my grown up body behind a 6-year old. They wave. We wave back.
9. I continue to watch the sprinklers and we finish up the Firesteed Pinot Noir and it's actually much better than I remember. This one got 91 points. It is better than I remember.
10. One showing cancelled. Another one scheduled. I don't know how long I can last.
Ten.Three Hundred & Seventy-Six
1. A thin strip of neon pink behind the trees.
2. I remember to water. Of course I get wet because it’s early and I haven’t yet had any coffee and I’m not thinking about how I’m going to get all wet if I stay here.
3. The black toad is still not back.
4. Anything else but the basement.
5. It feels good to be back in this corner, with this light, and the camera in hand. I miss all of this.
6. So much laundry.
7. She asks me, “what was the book you were reading that made you want to quit social media?” It wasn’t really just that one book, but a result of ALL of the books I’ve read this year. So much knowledge and truth ingested and it turned into a much-needed respite from engaging the world in that way for a bit.
8. And I still don’t have any new clarity or wisdom from that break. I do, however, have a renewed entusiasm for my art and my work.
9. Why not?
10. “All of our flourishing is mutual.” - Braiding Sweetgrass
Ten.Three Hundred & Seventy-Five
1. I wake up before the alarm. Idris Elba.
2. The quiet of pre-dawn. I water the garden, look for ripened Chocolate Sprinkles, notice that something is eating the sage leaves.
3. Coffee. So good to be back. I brush the mulch off the front porch and off the driveway. I bend over to pull up the dead petunia and am startled by a black toad burrowed into the mulch.
4. Today is the day.
5. Impatiently waiting.
6. Refresh over and over again waiting for the official listing.
7. No longer a secret. We are moving.
8. I am so tired and there is still so much to do.
9. Dessert.
10. Everything is changing.
Ten.Three Hundred & Seventy-Four
1. Moths clinging to window screens.
2. The clouds are dark but the air is so still. No one's flag is fluttering, no leaf is shimmying. Everything is asleep.
3. I water the garden and check on the watermelon. Two little watermelon babies. So unbelievable.
4. Paint. So much paint.
5. Pain in the knees. I am tired but I keep going because there is no more time left.
6. Choosing to hold the brightest vision.
7. My friend once told me that she was always waiting for the other shoe to drop. That's the feeling I'm having now. How could it be this good? What is the "bad" that's waiting around the bend?
8. Seat cushions, bud vase, navy comforter, air fresheners.
9. The sign makes it more real.
10. The list doesn't get any smaller.
Ten.Three Hundred & Seventy-Three
1. Condensation on the windows. I worry that it is already too humid to enjoy the day but when I step outside it's still cool enough.
2. Watery sky.
3. I find two caramel rice cakes and a banana for breakfast. The rice cakes are sticky because someone, probably myself, didn't close the bag properly.
4. Petunias.
5. I have coffee in one and hand a book in the other. Cool breeze. Two birds fly right into the alcove and flit about in front of my face for a second. I can still feel my heart racing.
6. These days, all the words that run through my head are prayers.
7. Five of them want to come back. 5. I text her to say that I'm about to cry into my paint can because, wow, we must have made something magical. I mean, I knew it. I knew that this is what I want to be doing for a very, very long time. I can't wait for next October.
8. Mini meatloaves and salad and a baked potato. I eat so fast. I realize that I hadn't really stopped to feed myself today. I need to get back in the habit of allowing myself to be nourished.
9. I take it as a sign that the two women who came to buy these items are both from California.
10. My little stargazer. He reads the app to tell us what time certain stars and planets peak. He can see the tiny white dots so much more quickly than we can. We tell him we have old eyes.
Ten.Three Hundred & Seventy-Two
1. Water.
2. Mist rising up from the wetlands out back. The sun has not yet risen above the tree line and so there's this milky orange glow to the grasses that feels otherworldly.
3. A dozen donuts. I will probably eat 3 of them and drink that mug of coffee with so much joy.
4. We eat the sugar donuts and drink coffee in the alcove. I keep looking at my watch. Ok. I'll start my work at 9.
5. What is today? The last 3 days have felt like Saturday. Today is Sunday. Tomorrow begins the week and there is much to do. Client work plus pool promises plus life.
6. I keep forgetting things and end up crossing the store 3 times. This is not typical but I'm also not surprised.
7. "Respect one another, support one another, bring your gift to the world and receive the gifts of others, and there will be enough for all." - Braiding Sweetgrass
8. She's a little too talkative.
9. We sit together on the stoop. talking about all the things that are really about one thing, watching the sprinkler wave back and forth. It's almost like a meditation. I do love this about summer: the sounds of sprinklers and bike chains and laughter.
10. I make it real and share.
Ten.Three Hundred & Seventy-One
1. There so much light in the room that I think it's later that 5:30. I feel like donuts today and coffee. I haven't had coffee in almost three weeks.
2. The donut shop is closed for the week. I had forgotten that she takes this week off. I circle back to the grocery story for bacon and hash browns. Those also go well with coffee.
3. The air is still cool and pleasant and the birds are singing and there's this one that keeps gliding on the wind, reminding me of Jonathan Livingston Seagull. He looks so free.
4. We sit in the sun on the first step, talking and watching the cars go by, tossing around ideas and possibilities. Neither of us wanting to do the work that's ahead. I am honest about the fact that I'm procrastinating.
5. I finish cleaning out the pantry and organizing the rest of the kitchen cabinets. There is a birthday party for the younger two and I forgot the presents. I always forget about presents.
6. All the things we will be able to see.
7. I spot a monarch butterfly making circles and I stick my hand out, wanting so badly for it to land in the palm of my hand. It doesn't and that's okay. I stand for another few minutes an watch it flit about and then give it thanks for its beauty and say to myself, "why yes, things are transforming here, aren't they?"
8. Awkward conversations.
9. The sunflower is now taller than him which means it's over 6-feet tall and still growing.
10. We won't look at the stars tonight but I know what there. Past, present, and future all existing at once. I can claim something now, knowing that in some other realm it already exists.
Ten.Three Hundred & Seventy
1. There's no condensation on the windows and the trees and grass are all shaking from a breeze. I know that means it must be a cool morning. I am grateful for it after this stretch of heat.
2. Things scattered everywhere and we have a guest coming for dinner this evening. I think I'll make the butternut squash pasta. Or maybe something a little lighter. Maybe a Greek Salad and chicken breasts and some roasted veggies.
3. Immunity tea and morning pages in the alcove. Stillness.
4. He asks me what I'm afraid of. Why I haven't told anyone yet. That it seems a little silly to be so excited about something and to not be sharing it. He doesn't know that I asked myself those same questions in my journal earlier this morning. There is fear there. There is anxiety about all of it.
5. Two turkey burgers with a little bit of dijon mustard eaten while standing at the counter. I know this is not good for my digestion. Also: I never thought I'd love turkey burgers this much.
6. But this is really happening. I send out texts to only a handful of people; only the ones I really want to see.
7. 1 part lemonade and 4 parts La Croix.
8. We serve skirt steak with blue cheese sauce, roasted potatoes, and roasted asparagus. I am surprised by my appetite.
9. We find Jupiter and Venus. And I think we see Saturn too and a few other stars, one that is 500 light years away. We talk about how what we're seeing is something that is older than the Earth. There is no such thing as time.
10. Fireworks.
Ten.Three Hundred & Sixty-Nine
1. Up early and the sky is still dark and the air feels even more humid than the day before. No need to water this morning because of the storms from last night.
2. So dark I need the twinkle lights on. No yoga because I know I'll be out trimming bushes and cutting back the tomatoes and the watermelon.
3. I make granola and then we make a list.
4. Does it really matter?
5. They are definitely persistent. And I let them bake snickerdoodles while I clean out the cabinets. Flour, sugar, cream of tartar—so much of it on the floor.
6. And it still doesn't feel real.
7. I sit in the chair in the alcove and read until the heat makes it so that I can't see any more. But I'm reluctant to go back inside...to go back to the work that awaits.
8. I sneak onto Instagram to watch her stories. I say the French names in my head and imagine what the air must feel and taste like where she is. I feel the heat of envy. I also feel the warmth of pride. I'm proud of her and in awe of her and so happy that she is there and doing this. I wish I could have made it happen. I will have my own turn.
9. Sky thickened with clouds. Then the clouds thin themselves out until there are just whisps here and there. And then the sky turns to cornflower and the clouds, because of how they're eating the light from the sun, turn into the softest yet most electric shade of peach. The sunsets here are just so hard to beat.
10. This is the Great Adventure.
Ten.Three Hundred & Sixty-Eight
1. I stretch into child's pose and breathe for a few minutes.
2. I realize that I should have gotten a cart once I remember that I need to make baked beans for more than just the 5 of us. I need to triple the recipe. 12 cans plus a jar of molasses and 1.5lbs of bacon.
3. Even the air inside the house feels thick. But I think I need a bike ride anyway. I did this my senior year of high school when I couldn't figure out how to pay for Wake Forest and the Army and the Navy kept calling me and I didn't want to go to stay in Missouri any longer. Every day after school I would get on my roller blades and circle the neighborhood 3 or 4 or 5 or 10 times. Until I just couldn't do it anymore and the mind had rested itself.
4. Baked beans from scratch. Bacon and onions and beans, molasses and dry mustard and some salt and pepper. A little bit of brown sugar. I can't help it.
5. I try to rest but what I do instead is scroll through Pinterest to pass the time away.
6. I wake up from the nap, reluctant to go and there's a pit in my stomach. It could be the cherries. It could be the dairy I ate last night. But most likely it's just all the nerves.
7. Did you tell [her]?
8. So hot that I don't want to move, not even for a glass of rosé. I can feel my feet swelling.
9. We make it home in time for nature's fireworks. I get in the shower and remember how my grandmother would never let us shower or take a bath if there was a thunderstorm. We couldn't use the telephone either.
10. He asks me if it feels more real now. I can't decide.
Ten.Three Hundred & Sixty-Eight
1. I stretch into child's pose and breathe for a few minutes.
2. I realize that I should have gotten a cart once I remember that I need to make baked beans for more than just the 5 of us. I need to triple the recipe. 12 cans plus a jar of molasses and 1.5lbs of bacon.
3. Even the air inside the house feels thick. But I think I need a bike ride anyway. I did this my senior year of high school when I couldn't figure out how to pay for Wake Forest and the Army and the Navy kept calling me and I didn't want to go to stay in Missouri any longer. Every day after school I would get on my roller blades and circle the neighborhood 3 or 4 or 5 or 10 times. Until I just couldn't do it anymore and the mind had rested itself.
4. Baked beans from scratch. Bacon and onions and beans, molasses and dry mustard and some salt and pepper. A little bit of brown sugar. I can't help it.
5. I try to rest but what I do instead is scroll through Pinterest to pass the time away.
6. I wake up from the nap, reluctant to go and there's a pit in my stomach. It could be the cherries. It could be the dairy I ate last night. But most likely it's just all the nerves.
7. Did you tell [her]?
8. So hot that I don't want to move, not even for a glass of rosé. I can feel my feet swelling.
9. We make it home in time for nature's fireworks. I get in the shower and remember how my grandmother would never let us shower or take a bath if there was a thunderstorm. We couldn't use the telephone either.
10. He asks me if it feels more real now. I can't decide.
Ten.Three Hundred & Sixty-Seven
1. 4 mosquito bites. My first ones this summer.
2. The day hasn't broke yet and I walk around back to water the garden and to set the sprinkler in the yard. I miss the deer.
3. The sound of the water. I can hear it running in the basement. Itchy arms.
4. The way anxiety makes your body itch on the inside. I tell him I am going for a bike ride. Alone. I take my cruiser all the way to 5th street. I see wildflowers and weeds I cannot name. I see the crane standing in the water. I see red-winged black birds balancing so perfectly on the tip of a tall stalk. I feel the breeze in my hair and the burn in my thighs.
5. I begin The Keeper of the Bees. He is on a Great Adventure and so am I.
6. I don't know if I turn my eyes to the sky enough.
7. The things I hunger for change in the summer. I have practice restraint with the cherries. I crave tomatoes and cheese and bread. I want to eat like every meal is a picnic in the south of France.
8. Accumulation.
9. But I've had two days of socializing and need to take a break. I need to be alone. I feel badly for not coming out to watch the fireworks that the neighbor is setting off. But I just don't have it in me. I grab a glass of wine and make a small plate of salami and some thin slices of Gruyere. We watch the fireworks from my bedroom window.
10. I can do this.
Ten.Three Hundred & Sixty-Six
1. I'm back on the alarm so that there's time for yoga today. The must-get-done list is long and there's also time at the pool in the late morning which means I need to do a bulk of the work before 10 am.
2. But I need to feed myself first.
3. Of course, I can't get all of it done. I get sidetracked by fonts and spacing and suddenly the whole hour is gone and it's time for me to pack a lunch and put on a swimsuit and get them out of the door.
4. It's hot in the sun. I still do not like small talk. The kids are playing so nicely though, and the women are kind. It's not them. It's me.
5. Pool concession stand and being knocked over by nostalgia. A paper cup full of seasoned shoestring fries. A big swirl of vanilla ice cream in a cake cone.
6. I sit on the windowsill in his office and try to warm myself in the sun. We talk. We are always talking. And we've had conversations like this but not exactly like this and so it feels real but not real. So much of life these days has felt real but not real.
7. Phone calls.
8. I still am not sure what I feel.
9. The watermelon has taken up almost all of the free space left in the garden. I need to prune back the tomato plants and stake what's left. Last night's harsh winds from the storm blew everything over and the cages can no longer bear the weight of the plants.
10. I hope I can sleep tonight.
Ten.Three Hundred & Sixty-Five
1. One year. I don't see the ending.
2. We have guests coming for dinner. There are shortcakes and loaves of focaccia to make. And still a few walls to wipe down.
3. 7:36 am and they are already arguing.
4. She emails me to tell me that I had to 363's and so really yesterday was my one year mark. I chuckle. Of course I'm off by a day. I debate whether or not I should fix it. But since it maybe doesn't really matter, I decide to leave the days numbered as they are.
5. There's not enough magic eraser for these walls so I call it quits and then realize that I'll still need to paint in order to get rid of most of these marks.
6. The smell of spaghetti and meatballs and shortcakes and focaccia.
7. Flowers and two bottles of wine: White Burgundy and Chianti. The flowers would photograph beautifully and for a quick second I think about returning to Instagram the following day in order to show them.
8. That moment where you had forgotten to ask your husband the other wife's name and you get swept up in conversation and forget to ask and now it's 5 hours later and you want to use her proper name and say a name that you think you heard someone call her but you're not sure so you cross your fingers that you don't sound like a dolt.
9. The time has passed so quickly and that's how you know that the gathering was good.
10. Straight to sleep.
Ten.Three Hundred & Sixty-Five
1. One year. I don't see the ending.
2. We have guests coming for dinner. There are shortcakes and loaves of focaccia to make. And still a few walls to wipe down.
3. 7:36 am and they are already arguing.
4. She emails me to tell me that I had to 363's and so really yesterday was my one year mark. I chuckle. Of course I'm off by a day. I debate whether or not I should fix it. But since it maybe doesn't really matter, I decide to leave the days numbered as they are.
5. There's not enough magic eraser for these walls so I call it quits and then realize that I'll still need to paint in order to get rid of most of these marks.
6. The smell of spaghetti and meatballs and shortcakes and focaccia.
7. Flowers and two bottles of wine: White Burgundy and Chianti. The flowers would photograph beautifully and for a quick second I think about returning to Instagram the following day in order to show them.
8. That moment where you had forgotten to ask your husband the other wife's name and you get swept up in conversation and forget to ask and now it's 5 hours later and you want to use her proper name and say a name that you think you heard someone call her but you're not sure so you cross your fingers that you don't sound like a dolt.
9. The time has passed so quickly and that's how you know that the gathering was good.
10. Straight to sleep.
Ten.Three Hundred & Sixty-Four
1. Almost a year of this already.
2. The moon in it's thin, translucent skin. The sun is so bright that it's lost its shape.
3. Of all the days to need to clean out the garage. But the list is long and I should do as much as I can while I have the energy to do it.
4. Dripping everywhere. Shirt sticking. I am in the shade. The heat. I scrub down the front door too. It all looks so fresh again.
5. I shower and I think of orange trees and lemon trees and fig trees and all the green.
6. Costco on a Saturday morning is never a good idea. I'm glad I took this place out of my weekly rotation. All the people. All the noise. All the stuff.
7. I start on the sauce. First I put on my apron. I haven't worn it in so long. The linen is beginning to soften and I love that. I love that my daughter will wear this some day. I go out to the garden and stuff the pockets of the apron with rosemary, thyme, sage, oregano, and basil.
8. Cranes in the sky.
9. We sit on the stoop and talk and talk and sometimes we're quiet because they are playing Euro-pop next door and the both of us are trying to figure it out.
10. I love how much he wants to look at the stars. Al of the kids ask questions, but he asks the most and that's an exciting trait—a wondering mind.
Ten.Three Hundred & Sixty-Three
1. How is he up before me. Oh. He's late getting up for his flight.
2. A melty ultraviolet sun means a hot day is coming.
3. I did buy cereal yesterday so maybe this morning I can actually relax just a little bit. Just a little bit.
4. The meal plan comes slowly but there have been two requests, one for beef stroganoff and another for butternut squash and bacon pasta, so that makes it just a little easier.
5. I eat my lunch and read in the shade but at these temperatures, it's just so draining that I immediately feel as though I need a nap. But before we go in we check the garden. I pull three very large but very green heirlooms off the vine and hope that they'll ripen in the windowsill.
6. Just as I'm about to close my eyes I feel my phone vibrate. I read the text but now I can't sleep.
7. The hours until he comes home suddenly feel like too much. Since I can't rest I journal and then surf Pinterest and then go back outside to read again before the heat overwhelms me and I come back inside.
8. The littlest one wants to make cookies from the cookbook he got at the library. We make the dough and then I help him roll it out. Now everyone wants to be a chef. I'll take it as a compliment. I think of how lucky their future friends and partners will be to know them.
9. I tell him that I had a dream that it would happen. That it would happen on the Friday after my birthday. And that I shouldn't be surprised because there was a book that arrived for me today at the library too. That should have been a sign.
10. But change can be scary. The only constant thing in life is change. "God is Change." —Parable of the Sowers
Ten.Three Hundred & Sixty-Three
1. 33.
2. I didn't wash the doors or baseboards yesterday which means that since it's cleaning day today, I'll add them to the list.
3. Fog rising up from the wetlands out back. I decide to prune back the tomato plants so that my okra and the rosemary will survive. I decide to trust that I will get what I need.
4. There are these yellow wildflower or weeds out back that I can't wait to trim back and then stick around the house. Yellow used to be my least favorite color but now I see its virtues. Maybe it was only a matter of time. Yellow was my grandmother's favorite color and so when I see these wildflower-weeds I think of her kitchen in Atlanta and the cast iron trivets with ceramic tiles painted with sunflowers.
5. I take my time going over the baseboards. I think of the quote that says something like, housework is love made visible. I complain about the cleaning, but every week I get on my hands and knees and am grateful for the space that holds us.
6. Pool. Crowded. I get everyone situated. I realize that I've under-rated adult swim. I decided that today, that's the only time I'll spend in the pool. I manage to read a few pages of "Braiding Sweetgrass."
7. But is it cultural appropriation for those of us who are uninitiated and homeless and finding a connection in the philosophies and ideologies of other peoples and nations?
8. A few years ago—maybe even just last year—I would have been concerned about the darkening of my skin but this summer I'm relishing the heat and the way the cocoa hues deepen from a few hours in the sun.
9. We get there in just in time for the reservation though it doesn't really matter because it's a Thursday evening in a suburban town. But this is some of the best food in the western suburbs in my opinion. A half glass of Prosecco, a bottle of Piper-Heidsieck, pork belly with cavatelli in a parmesan broth, corn chowder with a smoked poblano crema, wild boar chops with gnocchi and shallots and peas, a glass of 1955 Bodegas Toro Albala Don PX, whiskey date cake, and a cup of decaf. Happy Birthday indeed.
10. The passing of time is often this quiet and ordinary but still full of magic when we choose to pay attention.