Ten.Five Hundred & Forty-Two

1. I hear the sound of boxes being moved around. Didn’t we say 7? What time is it?

2. I get up and put bacon and the apple turnovers in the oven, slice the danish and put it on a platter.

3. Mimosas and a big bottle of water.

4. Everyone is satisfied. A fat stack of books and a pasta maker for me. Plus a set of V flats. I don’t know where to begin.

5. Twilight Zone plus hot tea and a nap. This is day 2 of no caffeine.

6. It’s too hot in the sun. Yes, I’m in all black, but still. Sweating on Christmas.

7. We talk about how today doesn’t really feel like Christmas. It does, but it doesn’t. We blame it on all the transition. This has been a long year with long periods of high stress. But it’s almost over and we’re here. Next year will be different. Next year will feel totally different.

8. Prime rib, a heavy Italian Sangiovese and Syrah blend, those cheesy potatoes, green beans in bacon fat.

9. One medium slice of chocolate cake with salted caramel frosting. We decided that the cake looks rustic but that didn’t interfere with its taste. Clean plate and fork.

10. More Twilight Zone and back to bed.

Ten.Five Hundred & Forty-One

1. Almost. 

2. Why won’t any of these children just let me sleep?  

3. I grab ingredients. On the list for making today: chocolate cake, salted caramel frosting, muffin tin gratin potatoes.  

4. No baking soda.  

5. The grocery store is full but not yet crazy. The woman helping me at the checkout is still friendly. 

6. There’s the rain.  

7. The feeling of learning something new.  

8. The five of us in the bed watching Home Alone and eating popcorn, finishing a glass of Chirobles.  

9. I get a sting in the heart. I miss Chicago just a teeny bit. I’ll miss the way houses are lit up on snowy evenings. I miss the feeling of being familiar with people and places and things. 

10. Wrapping paper. The Great American Baking Show Holiday Edition. Bugey-Cerdon La Cueille Sparkling Wine, methode ancestral, made from Gamay.  

Ten.Five Hundred & Forty

1. 7:30 is too late. She comes in saying that needs waffles.

2. I feel a bit of a cold coming on. I’ll keep it to one coffee today.

3. Overcast morning but the sky is still bright. A soft glow over everything.

   4. Unravel Your Year.

   5. I think all the way way back to January and just how full the year was for me. This was a year big things: big hurts and big dreams and big transitions. I made it through. Vision is a powerful thing.

   6. Next year: more gratitude and joy. More devotion to the work that wants to be done.

   7. Lunette. 

   8. An unsatisfiable hunger. 

   9. Chimichurri can really go on anything.  

   10. Note to self: get sparkling wine for tomorrow’s late night wrapping session. 

Ten.Five Hundred & Thirty-Nine

1. Ocean sounds.

2. He taps me on the exposed shoulder, “You know it’s 7:16?!” I know kid, that’s why I’m still sleeping. Why won’t you let me sleep?

3. The sun is bright, casting an orange glow on the palm leaves and the chimneys.

4. How to Read Water.

5. The Fedex guy says he’s been really careful and creeping up the sidewalks because all the parents are trying to hide the packages from their kids. We laugh.

6. Three days before Christmas and we’re sitting on the front porch without coats, sun on the face.

7. I need to get back to the water.

8. A complete Alice Water’s The Art of Simple Cooking meal: slow-roasted salmon in herb butter, creamed spinach, roasted carrots. Sonoma Coast Vineyards Freestone Hills Pinot Noir.

9. I think about islands and stones and oceans and ponds. Wave patterns. How reading water is a metaphor for living life.

10. Up too late playing Wordscapes.

Ten.Five Hundred & Thirty-Eight

1. Late start.

2. The color of the amaryllis. The way the red is pulsating with life.

3. Cinnamon raisin toast with coffee.

4. She’s the friendliest deli counter person I’ve ever had, but she can never remember the orders. But I’d rather her triple check than mess it up.

5. Grocery shopping is much more enjoyable when you put your headphones in.

6. Note to self: no one here does anything before 8 am.

7. I start shifting the boxes and the table around. What do I do with these chairs? Then he comes in and stops me.

8. But what exactly is the goal?

9. I look like me but not quite like me.

10. The longest night of the year. The winter solstice. The return of the night. I myself am feeling a return to light. Brilliant in my emergence.

Ten.Five Hundred & Thirty-Seven

1. Thursday. The last day before they get out on break. I feel unprepared.

2. Quick run for donuts. Seems like I’m not the only one needing to do this. The person before me gets 3 dozen. The person before her got 5 dozen. I feel a little bit better about my 2.

3. We drop them all off at school and head out to complete that last bit of shopping that needs to be done.

4. Didn’t get the coffee into the system early enough.

5. It’s only 10:30 but we are done. I slip into leggings and under the covers, tea in hand, headache still pressing against the side of the skull.

6. The grayness is a blanket over everything.

7. How do I feel like this all of the time? I want to feel like this all of the time.

8. Is this what maturity is? Is this what growth is? Is this what feels like to emerge into womanhood?

9. But I can do whatever I want. Because this is my body.

10. And so it begins.

Ten.Five Hundred & Thirty-Six

1. It’s nice to have a morning where I can get dressed in the light.

2. There’s not enough sugar for her to make pavlovas for her teacher. I promise that we’ll do it today after school. Must buy more sugar.

3. Short day. Second-to-last day before school is out for break. Trying not to stress out about all that remains on the to-do list.

4. We left a little too early and so he and I just sit in the car, listening to music while he plays wordscapes on my phone.

5. I keep getting onto the wrong Highway 4 ramp.

6. The fog is still sitting on top of the hills. Before me are shades of orange, red, brown, green, gray. The black cows dot the hills, some of them so close to the fence on the highway. Every new crest brings a different view. I feel like I’m driving through a movie.

7. Oh, yes. We should do this. Because we really can do this and do it well.

8. The mixer is still going. They’re going to overbeat those egg whites.

9. Bordeaux from Pauillac. Steak and veggies.

10. “What’s your schedule for tomorrow?” “I’m with you tomorrow.”

Ten.Five Hundred & Thirty-Five

1. Seven days and nothing done yet.

2. How many? One, two, three. They’re all awake. Now I can grind the beans.

3. Feeling the pinch.

4. I keep looking into the dining room. I’ll get back to you soon, I promise. It’s just….it’s just that it’s Christmas time and I have to get all of these other things done first.

5. The sun. So much sun.

6. Gay 90’s pizza.

7. I think we both cry a little bit every day. Tears of gratitude and joy.

8. German engineering.

9. My wings are on fire.

10. She keeps asking me questions. I realize it’s because I skipped something that everyone else usually does first before they go to work. I don’t want to say too much. Not that it really matters in the end. But right now, I just want to live in stealth mode for a little while longer.

Ten.Five Hundred & Thirty-Four

1. The elf. Almost done with the elf.

2. I set out breakfast. I like this more continental thing we’ve been doing lately. Less waste and no one seems to be complaining.

3. What is the opposite of gloam? What are the other words to describe the very beginning of morning right before the first hint of light?

4. We take a different path. What’s that smell? Is it this bush? Oh, no. The sidewalks are lined in rosemary bushes, or something like a rosemary, cut square to look like hedges. We run our fingers through the leaves and then smell them. I think about how being here is sensory overload but in the best possible way.

5. I like secret projects. This feels good.

6. We don’t have much time to talk but it is enough.

7. The light, the light, the light. I can see me in here.

8. The three of us rocking out to Paramore in the pick-up line, waiting for the oldest.

9. Having a kid in the front seat is pretty cool The conversations shift when you are side-by-side. Also: how is he almost 11?

10. The sunset. It looks like there’s a beam of fire shooting right out of the top of Mt. Diablo. Will this ever get old? I don’t think it will.

Ten.Five Hundred & Thirty-Three

1. Shut off alarm. Manage to only “sleep” for 30 more minutes.

2. Why is it that I’m always afraid that I’m going to run out of time?

3. A proper Sunday breakfast: bacon and eggs and hashbrowns and fruit. I must be hungry. Too bad the coffee is weak.

4. He says that there some more fruit on the ground. I walk out and pick up a few lemons from the ground. I tug on a few of the lemons still on the tree but none of them give. I walk over to the orange and inspect. Nothing that looks ripe enough yet. Then I move on to the Pomelo. I grab one that’s already on the ground.

5. Soft morning light. There will be rain.

6. Create with Joy.

7. Create with Courage and Joy.

8. This is the kind of slowness on a Sunday I love.

9. “Can I make pavlovas?” “No.” “I mean, yes. There is enough time.” There is usually enough time. I’m trying to work on that reflexive “no.”

10. The hills are alive.

Ten.Five Hundred & Thirty-Two

1. 5:30 and I catch him on the computer watching Fortnite videos on Youtube. I send him back to bed.

2. I try to shut my eyes but I can’t. Nerves, maybe?

3. I wonder how many more years I’ll get these kinds of hugs from her.

4. Pink clouds at sunrise.

   5. The fog in the hills. Feels like I’m driving through a dream. To a dream? It’s all very dreamy.  

   6. Of course I’m workng with him. He’s the one who knows everything.  

   7. I accidentally give them too much wine. But now I know how to poor correctly.  

   8. The joy of getting to serve a group of black women on my first day. High fives, laughter, and an invite to come eat with them next time they’re in town. 

   9. This was a good idea.  

   10. Sore feet but a grateful heart. Seeing how everything I’ve done, am doing, and want to do is connected.  

   10.1 I need to start Christmas shopping.  

Ten.Five Hundred & Thirty-One

1. The glow of the amaryllis.

2. Almost 7:15 and I still haven’t had my coffee yet.

3. We are all forgetting things. Time to bring back the checklists.

4. We head towards the trail. Feather. Two white cranes in flight along the creek. It feels like medicine to me. A leaf the size of my face. I now hold that and the feather in my hands. Then we each pick up a large, smoothe nut of some kind. Let’s figure out what this is.

5. I am always seeing something new.

6. Wine delivery. Two bottles of rosé with a gorgeous leather carrying case. The color of the wine is a pale rose gold. I stick one in the fridge to chill.

7. Semi-sweet chocolate chips.

8. She asks if she can make the cookies. I say yes, and then tell her to add the flaky sea salt on top. “Mise en place!” I shout to her. “I know!”

9. Turns out, I just don’t like chocolate chip cookies.

10. “I don’t feel bad about feeling happy. And neither do you. Because you’re happy.”

Ten.Five Hundred & Thirty

1. What time is it? 

2. Move the elf.  

3. Gratitude for extra muffins that can be reheated for today’s breakfast.  

4. We take a quick walk. We find the river which is not a river but a creek—and a very dry one at that.  

5. He says that he’s not doing too bad considering he’s a grandpa with two grandsons in the backseat of his Prius. I wish him good luck. He says, “Thank you! I need it.” People here are so damn nice.  

6. I don’t mind having a “job” if it means getting to make a beautiful drive like this every day. 

7. What a beautiful place to work.  

8. Jack in the box. Never again. Now I remember why I never ate here in high school.

9. He didn’t have that great of a time on his field trip. But he’s excited to show me the pictures that he took of the Golden Gate Bridge and Berkeley. I think of the text message he wrote to me thanking me for moving him to California. I think he really does like it here even if the field trip was a bust. 

10. More Pinot Noir from Alsace. They all talk with their hands. Where do they get that from?

10.1 Fireplace. Christmas music. Stockings. Just the two of us.  

Ten.Five Hundred & Twenty-Nine

1. Alone again. I go through the routine: turn off the outside lights, raise the blinds on the front window, then open the blinds on the sliding glass door in the family room.

2. Today sounds like a good day for blueberry muffins. She’s upset about the blueberries even though I know she’ll eat them.

3. Trying to be flexible in my thinking. This week, cleaning day can’t be on Thursday and I don’t want it to be on Friday, so it must be today. And today is their short day anyway, there’s not much else one can do with such limited time.

4. 11 am. Done and done. I head out for a 30 minute walk. No headphones today.

5. I take a picture of the blue house. I love the landscaping: tall, windswept grasses, huge aloes, and other large bushes and small trees that I can’t identify.

6. They have dark stone like this at The French Laundry.

7. Why are there so many people at the dollar store?

8. I take them to the park. They boys find some other boys to play basketball with on the court and the girls run off to the playground to do their thing. I sit at a bench and write. I can see the turbines off in the distance. I can see a lonely oak on a hill. I can see Mt. Diablo. I can see tall palms swaying in the wind. I laugh at how this is my new winter.

9. The fear is just a concern that I’ll feel a loss of freedom. But the truth is that in return, I’m going to gain so much more. So much more.

10. Roasted chicken and leftover baked potatoes with Alice Waters’ rocket salad. 2017 Kuentz-Bas Pinot Noir. Fun wine but not the most perfect pairing with the roasted chicken..

Ten.Five Hundred & Twenty-Eight

1. What’s for breakfast, what’s for breakfast?

2. I stir the milk and the water and the steel cut oats. I really hope they eat them because these are going to take so long to cook.

3. He tells me that the elf is hiding in a very tricky spot.

4. Bright morning sky. I’m beginning to learn the patterns.

5. I set to work on some things for liberated lines and decide to not beat myself up over how I forgot to do so many things. It’s been so long since we’ve run one plus the distraction and chaotic mess of a major move. Note to self: plan to do less the next time you decide to embark on a major life transition.

6. Ok. I can take a walk. I need to take a walk. I grab my coat and put on my boots (yes, I think these will be comfortable enough for work) and stick the earbuds in my ears. The sun is bright and the sky is blue and clear. Yellow is really yellow and orange looks like fire. It’s quiet save the intermittent sound of leaf blowers.

7. I spot more blossoms on the lemon tree and see way too much rotting and rotted fruit on the orange. I promise them that I’ll take care of them but that I just need to get through this season.

8. Flashcards.

9. Leftover pork tenderloin, baked potatoes, a simple recipe of creamed spinach from Alice Water’s The Art of Simple Food. They tell me that they’ll always eat spinach if it’s made like this.

10. There is so much to plan.

Ten.Five Hundred & Twenty-Seven

1. Please let it not be time to get up already. Oh, just. 1:04 am. I can go back to bed.

2. It’s just me. I set out the cinnamon bread from Trader Joes, plates, the toaster, softened butter, a bowl of grapes, a cut up apple. The extra effort is worth it. This is the first time we’ve all sat down to eat breakfast together in a long time.

3. Today, he leaves before we do.

4. It says there’s a 24 minute slow down but that I’m still on the fastest route.

5. And then there’s a turbine. The fog is still so thick and for a minute I feel like the earth is being invaded by giant aliens.

6. The cows are right up against the fence.

7. Not perfection, but excellence.

8. More flashcards. She asks me if I’m ready to be tested yet. No, not yet. I tell her to give me a few more weeks and then we can start.

9. The chicken parmigiana is a little bland. Needed more salt. But I’m the only one who seemed to notice. He picked a good night to be gone for dinner.

10. There is room for everything.

Ten.Five Hundred & Twenty-Six

1. What day is it? Sunday. Oh, yes. Okay.

2. I let myself sleep in but it leads to anxiety about the to-do list for today. I need to go grocery shopping but I still need to make a meal plan for the week. But I also don’t know what this week is going to look like with this new job stuff. I’ll keep it simple.

3. I think I’m recording a message to her but look down and see that I accidentally stopped it 10 minutes ago. Is it a sign? Or should I jus re-record myself?

4. He keeps asking me if I am finding what I need.

5. The fog is still hanging low and there is a bright gray hue over everything. What grapes could they possibly be growing here? They all look head trained so most likely Zinfandel? The colors of the leaves are breathtaking.

6. Second store. Still slowly walking up and down the aisles. My eyes begin to swell with tears. I can’t find anything that I’m looking for. At least not a the price that I want to pay for it. Nothing feels familiar. I’ve been gone almost two hours already. They are tears of frustration. I’ll eventually figure it out.

7. Sometimes the feelings just leak out when you least expect it.

8. Two cups of tea and a long nap.

9. Salmon, risotto, asparagus. No one seems to be as hungry as I am.

10. Nervous. Is “nervous” the same thing as “scared”? I’ll be okay.

Ten.Five Hundred & Twenty-Five

1. The three of them on the sofa watching a television show. Is it even 6 am yet?

2. Scones. I stick the butter in the freezer and set out the flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, cream.

3. Sometimes, the more crumbly, the better.

4. The heat of the coffee in my hands. Fog all around.

5. We have an owl. A real owl this time. It’s staring at us. Us at it.

6. Just a few miles down the highway and the sun begins to break through.

7. From the bridge we see sailboats and military ships. Oh, that was an island. Treasure island.

8. Fat pigeons. One glass of Malbec. Cheeseburger and fries.

9. We can’t find parking. Newbies. We go home without having achieved the goal. I relax into the reality of it. We came all this way and all I got to do was eat a burger. But it only takes us an hour to get home. And this is reassuring.

10. “…and you’re the sky.”

Ten.Five Hundred & Twenty-Four

1. What the…why are all of them awake?

2. I am trying to make breakfast but the three of them are also trying to make lunch and for as big as this space is the kitchen is smaller than the old house. All of us trying to do this work at the same time is just chaos.

3. I keep looking at the clock. I still haven’t made coffee yet.

4. They all wanted to get to school early and so now I’m back home by 8 am.

5. The acorns don’t look like the kinds of acorns we’re used to seeing. This plant here looks like a bunch of cat tails made out of succulents. Their yard is full of containers full of all kinds of plants. That’s what we can do.

6. The drive to Oakland is easy. An hour, but easy. Then again, he’s the one doing the driving.

7. Baby snuggles. I do miss it. And I also don’t. But oh, to hold a little baby again. He will tell me that we should have had one more.

8. The shrimp taco is the best. The three of them know each other and they sit down at our table and make small talk and before we leave.

9. I buy a cookbook from him. He tells us that he was the Chef at Chez Panisse. I don’t know the name but I do love a good story and a cookbook.

10. I decide we’ll try the greens with garlic cloves and pancetta. Pork tenderloin with a dijon cream sauce. Roasted fingerling potatoes. Cote-de-Brouilly.

Ten.Five Hundred & Twenty-Three

1. It’s a different one this time.

2. I’m too preoccupied about the interview today. I’m just walking around in circles.

3. Well that’s a first.

4. The sink just keeps filling with water and nothing is going down. I’m trying not to yell at them because it’s not them. It’s that the sink is filling with water and it won’t go down.

5. Blazer? Sweater? Neither? Blazer. Yes. Blazer. Is the white and black and gray too boring? He told me to just be myself.

6. Bright blue sky. The hills that line Vasco Road are beginning to turn green. The cows are getting fatter.

7. Okay. I think I can do this.

8. “How did your job interview go?” I think this means I’m doing something right with him. I’m trying to hide the tears from the almost-11-year-old but it feels like a big deal that he remembered. I tell him that I got the job. He congratulates me. This is one of the things you aren’t prepared for as a parent.

9. I see his post and I’m a little embarrassed. But it’s sweet that he’s so proud and excited for me.

10. His turn tomorrow.