Ten.Eight Hundred & Twenty-Nine

1. I make a bigger pot of coffee, set out yesterday’s leftover bacon, and empty the dishwasher. Still dark and quiet.

2. I get milk and cereal and breakfast sausage, popcorn kernels just in case.

3. I feel like I’m always leaving.

4. I don’t have much to say. I know that this is perfectly timed because I am tired. Soul-weary maybe. Just in need of more nourishment.

5. Not our style of Pinot Grigio but it still pairs with the pear and Gorgonzola flatbread. I need to find myself a recipe for this creamy feta dressing.

6. Ocean medicine. I need to be closer to the water.

7. I write down answers to the questions. I have more to say than I had expected. That’s a good thing, I think.

8. The worst tasting room.

9. A bottle of sparkling Vermintino, a half-bottle of Grenache Blanc, and a handful of recommendations.

10. Tomato soup with gruyere crouton. Rabbit wrapped in pork wrapped in prosciutto with mushrooms and carrots and spinach. 2017 Domaine de Marquiliani Il de Beaute Rouge. Cheese for dessert. The just-right amount of fullness.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Twenty-Eight

1. I need to be where I can see the sun rise.

2. Bacon, scrambled egg. What I really want is that frittata. I need to find a recipe.

3. Some kind of haziness. Smoke? Thin fog? Whatever it is it makes the landscape look more like a dreamscape. I’m in some other world.

4. More words, more words. Her voice. The way it sings. Undulations slow like honey.

5. Two turkey vultures pecking away at fresh road kill. It’s kind of obscene when you look at it. I wonder if the passersby will try to shoo them away. But isn’t that just life? Also, those birds are much bigger up close than I’d imagine they would be.

6. They talk about all the ones they know without power. It happened, it really happened. Some seem so worried. It is but a mild inconvenience compared to what others must endure on a regular basis.

7. We have to relocate and that means a shifting of everything. Things I’ve learned this almost-one-year of living in California: don’t plan an event during fire season. Also: read more Octavia Butler.

8. The thing is that I tried to make it easy for the team while I was away. All that work for naught.

9. I think the work of the past few weeks is finally catching up with me. I can barely keep my eyes open, can barely complete a sentence. Faded.

10. The breeze is cool. You can feel the season’s shift. The mums died while I was away.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Twenty-Seven

1. I light a stick of the incense she gave to us and set it on the kitchen counter. I remember when this used to be a ritual of mine in the green house: Wake up, get dressed, go downstairs, light incense, watch the curls of smoke rise, make coffee.

2. I figure out hot to remove the blade of the juicer so that I can make carrot juice for my mid-morning snack.

3. Horses out on the pasture. I remember how she said she read a book that talked about how there are no discordant colors in nature. That is what I experience on this drive each day. Always the right shade of blue and gold and faded green. Always like driving through a painting.

4. Another cup of coffee.

5. I make my list. It’s usually not a lot but sometimes the work is just tedious. And I am also guilty of triple-checking.

6. Why is something like choosing sheets so hard? I am the worst at shopping.

7. Always right after I leave the office is when I get the emails that are suddenly urgent.

8. I need to get a desk that can be tucked away into another room because when they see me they think I am home. They don’t think of me as still working, as still needing to be left alone. I get it. But even though I am here, I am not.

9. I just need to make.

10. Eyes wide open.

11. We are one of the towns spared. I was just listening to a story in which the reader said the words “survivor guilt.” How it feels to be one that doesn’t have to worry when so many others do. We still got gas and cash and a handful of non-perishables just in case. What a wild world we live in.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Twenty-Six

1. Slow to get up. So tired.

2. I miss the sunrise at the ranch; how it burned hot orange right before the softer light came.

3. Linen overalls. I should find me 5 more pair of these.

4. The drive in is shorter than usual for a Monday. I remember it’s because the kids are still on break. That must be it.

5. I text him to say that I’m having a hard time at work today. My brain is just moving so slow.

6. The salad is good but nothing like what we ate at the ranch.

7. I type the words and feel my heart flutter and think about deleting them but then remember that this is about saying what I want and what I need and that it’s truth. That this practice will have me feeling guilty/anxious/fearful, but in time I think I’ll mostly just feel empowered.

8. Also, I do really know what I want even though I keep saying that I don’t. From where does the shame and fear of naming what one wants come from? I feel like I’ve been asking myself this question for so many years and I still haven’t figured out the source. But at this point, does the origin of the shame/fear/guilt really matter if I am willing to just start doing and being differently?

9. I actually am happy to be home.

10. Feeling filled with tenderness from the weekend. Trying so hard to hang on to it.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Twenty-Five

1. I wake up and remember that it’s the last morning. How is this already the end?

2. I catch her coming back up from her car and I take my coffee into their cabin to chat. The sunlight illuminates the room. Rumpled sheets, pillows askew, glowing wood.

3. I remind myself to eat the banana before I drink the coffee.

4. I think of the words that need to be written and wonder when I will find space for them. When will there be space for anything? Last night I asked them that I needed space for processing and clarity on how to let more of myself out. I still hold too much in.

5. Time for the good-byes to begin.

6. I watch the two of them walk down the ramp, hand in hand, framed by an archway of green vines. Tear start again in my eyes. I turn back to her and hug her and then fall apart. I can’t remember the last time I cried so hard that snot fell from my nose.

7. We sweep and vacuum and load the car. I will miss this place.

8. Linen overalls, yes please.

9. We head to Compline. Burgers for the both of us. Rosé for her and Pax Syrah for me. Duck fat fries. She says they are like pillows in the mouth.

10. The ride home alone is so quiet. How can things ever be the same?

Ten.Eight Hundred & Twenty-Four

1. Gotta stop drinking coffee so late at night.

2. It’s my favorite part of the day, delivering little envelopes filled with beauty.

3. Two tiny apples and water before coffee. I decide to stay in the cabin and watch the sun rise through the window.

4. My biggest worry is that I’ve looked and felt too distracted this week. That even though I tried really hard to be present that there were moments where I just really wasn’t.

5. It might just be an unhealthy coping mechanism. And it’s exhausting.

6. Or maybe I’m just sad that this is all ending and I really don’t want it to. I text him to tell him that I need the floors swept and vacuumed, that dinner needs to be taken care of, that I need two heads of celery and bags of apples and carrots for juice. Oh, and for there to at least be breakfast for Monday morning already available.

7. I will miss the quiet of this place. I will miss the weird acoustics of the round room, the way whispers seem to travel across the space. I will miss these hills. I will miss their laughter. I will miss feeling seen and heard and held.

8. That name will never not elicit a visceral response even with all the time that’s passed.

9. In the pouch are the brass hoops.

10. But I don’t want to go.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Twenty-Three

1. Much better.

2. So steep.

3. Where are the bananas? They were overripe but I could really use one before I drink coffee.

4. I walk up behind the cabins to watch a little bit of the sunrise and 10 turkeys cross the labyrinth in front of me. Charting serendipity.

5. The thing about the labyrinth is that it doesn’t matter where you start; you always end up in the same place. A metaphor for life.

6. Apparently all the Ubers and Lyfts are coming here. It’s worth the hassle.

7. It’s all a process in learning.

8. That feeling like you’re saying too much and yet also not enough.

9. It didn’t make me feel that much better.

10. Where are my words?

Ten.Eight Hundred & Twenty-Two

1. 3 am.

2. 4:15 am. I don’t think I’ll be able to fall back asleep.

3. I begin to walk up the hill, up to the bench so that I can see the sun rise. The rustling sounds make me nervous; the grass is tall and I think I see animal droppings and I wonder if I should turn back. The wind is stronger up here and is blowing in my air. The third time I hear the whistle in my ear I turn around and head back down.

4. The gift of being present with another person without the expectation of filling the space with noise. We sit beside each other speaking barely a word, turning our heads to the sounds of birds flapping in and out of the trees.

5. Cold ears.

6. I want to write but I decide I don’t. I can only think of one sentence to write and for whatever reason it doesn’t feel as though my journal can hold the weight of the words.

7. So good to be with friends.

8. Time is moving so slowly and that’s a good thing.

9. Finally some figs.

10. The moon looks so close. And the stars, my goodness, the stars.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Twenty-One

1. People talking. Kitchen staff maybe? Never get a room in a hotel that’s attached to a restaurant.

2. The smell of coffee brewing and what sounds like a vacuum cleaner running. Maybe it’s Carol or Lourdes.

3. I know it’s coffee time and maybe, just maybe the pastries are already out. No. Just coffee. There’s a man in a hat talking about moving to Colorado Springs. He has a bit of a twang. I press the button and get coffee into the mug.

4. She tells me that her father was a Presbyterian pastor and that they moved about every 6 years. It was in Burbank that she sang in the choir and got tickets to see The Bob Hope Show. She used to know how to use a loom.

5. Marlene says that sometimes Lourdes doesn’t like it when people ask for a late checkout but since not very many people are checking in, she doesn’t think it will be a problem.

6. She thinks we’re organized.

7. What is going on?

8. The back door of the car won’t open which seems almost comedic. I mean, how are we supposed to reload this thing? At least we will be leaving with a lighter load.

9. Chocolate mousse and coffee. Yep.

10. So good to see familiar faces, to be in a place where I can be with old friends and make new ones. All things considered, this is the best place I could be right now.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Twenty

1. Really? 5 am?

2. I move as quietly as I can through the kitchen, set out all the ingredients for breakfast: a plate of tomatoes and some feta, a few slices of bread for toast, bacon, celery for juice.

3. I make a list of what needs to be done. There’s a lot but not too much. I feel like I am forgetting about something.

4. One day she will be able to come with me. Maybe in another year or two.

5. So much sun.

6. Stuffed to the gills.

7. It’s an easy drive. No traffic at all heading this direction. I tell her that even though I have some hesitations about moving up this way, it is so pretty and I do love pretty.

8. ”You ladies have been walking back and forth on this sidewalk so many times!” “We have a lot of stuff to do!”

9. Soy glazed pork belly, watermelon, and frisbee salad. Fettuccine carbonara with a Hanzell Sebella Pinot Noir. Trio of dessert wines: Sauternes, Ben Ryé, Tokaji.

10. This is my happy place: here, with her, doing this.

11. He sends me a text: May not seem like it but I’m very proud of the experience you’ve created for these people. That’s all I needed to hear.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Nineteen

1. Today.

2. It’s even cold for me. I walk to the windows and slide them shut but I still love the cool air in the morning.

3. List making. Just enough to get through dinner today and breakfast tomorrow. I trust they can manage the rest on their own. I’ll give some ideas. Would he call it advocating for myself if I said, “you need to figure it out on your own this week”?

4. I love the way the morning sun bursts through the trees in the cul-de-sac. So bright and golden, it almost sparkles.

5. Nerves.

6. “I’ll notice you,” I say as I make my way to the terminal and to her. So good to see her in the flesh again.

7. The weather is quite perfect and it will be quite perfect this entire week. Thank the gods and goddesses, the universe, everything that has conspired to make this week happen.

8. Just don’t answer the phone.

9. I burn the focaccia but it didn’t rise anyway. The chicken is just right. The tomatoes are just right. The corn is sweet. The wine is good.

10. I need another way of being.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Nineteen

1. Today.

2. It’s even cold for me. I walk to the windows and slide them shut but I still love the cool air in the morning.

3. List making. Just enough to get through dinner today and breakfast tomorrow. I trust they can manage the rest on their own. I’ll give some ideas. Would he call it advocating for myself if I said, “you need to figure it out on your own this week”?

4. I love the way the morning sun bursts through the trees in the cul-de-sac. So bright and golden, it almost sparkles.

5. Nerves.

6. “I’ll notice you,” I say as I make my way to the terminal and to her. So good to see her in the flesh again.

7. The weather is quite perfect and it will be quite perfect this entire week. Thank the gods and goddesses, the universe, everything that has conspired to make this week happen.

8. Just don’t answer the phone.

9. I burn the focaccia but it didn’t rise anyway. The chicken is just right. The tomatoes are just right. The corn is sweet. The wine is good.

10. I need another way of being.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Eighteen

1. I know it’s time to get up even though the coolness of the air around me suggests that it’s best to stay in bed.

2. I juice the celery. They look watching me make it but won’t dare drink it.

3. The coffee is too strong.

4. I spread all the books out on the table, there are papers everywhere, and yellow post-it notes stuck to everything.

5. It’s so cool this morning that you have to park yourself right in the sun to stay warm. Hot tea isn’t helping all that much. He hit’s a batter with his pitch; I can see the disappointment on his face but he’s not giving up. If he would only apply that kind of thinking to all aspects of his life and not just his baseball games.

6. We both decide it’s better to be safe than sorry, even though we’re sure that none of these people parking here have any permits. We find a spot that’s at the far end of the parking lot but it doesn’t matter. I’m just glad she’s along for the ride.

7. I haven’t been in one of these in so many years, maybe since high school, but she has a gift card to use up. I steer her towards a more tolerable, though still powerfully sweet, scent of warm vanilla sugar or something like that. The body spray sparkles.

8. I’m always so sleepy at these late afternoon games but it’s so cold you can’t help but stay awake.

9. I tell him my brain is tired. He tells me it’s just time to stop then.

10. She comes tomorrow. And then we leave the day after that. And then, the day after that, we begin.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Seventeen

1. I have to get up. So dark, so dark.

2. I stir the mix for the waffles, slice the strawberries, whip the cream. They’ll drizzle chocolate syrup and spread sprinkles. Why am I even cutting up the fruit?

3. I walk instead. Crisp morning air. The sound of my flip-flops slapping against the sidewalk. Two birds perched atop the street sign.

4. Deep sigh.

5. She asks me what I’m making for dinner and tell her chicken tortilla soup. She tells me that it’s hard to think about soup when it’s 100 degrees.

6. She looks harried. I ask her if it’s been a little crazy since they added the drive-up. She nods her head and calls for support but helps me return two baskets I no longer need. I wish her a happy Saturday as more help arrives.

7. I see something new every day. Or is that I just see the same things in a different way?

8. Fresh pavement. Thank goodness.

9. The time is going by too quickly.

10. “Long-lasting change comes through long-standing effort. I don’t expect all things to heal in an instant, but I know that cumulative efforts can create the conditions for quantum leaps.” - Pisces and PIsces Rising, Chani Nicholas

Ten.Eight Hundred & Sixteen

1. Today is going to be a day.

2. I pull out the black sweater dress. Craving softness against the skin.

3. Why is it so dark? It doesn’t open until 8. How did I forget this? I head back tot he car and open up the google maps. I press play on Miranda July reading Janet Frame.

4. Next, Curtis Sittenfiled reading Tessa Hadley. This story, this story. Yes, Curtis. I too like it when the female characters are not too likeable. And wow, yes. How much you know without having to know very much at all.

5. I tell her she should eat what her body is telling her it wants. At this point that’s all she should be concerned about.

6. The man is trying to push the Apple air pods real hard. Tells us we can listen to some good gospel music with them. We’re just here to get snacks for work.

7. Last minute changes. Everything suddenly happening at the same time and right when I need to leave.

8. What I am first struck by is that my son is at a table with two black teachers and his parent. And then I listen to them speak life and encouragement into him. How they speak to him like he is their own child, how they see his strengths and expect him to advocate for himself. When was the last time I heard a teacher tell a kid to advocate for themself? Best parent-teacher conference ever.

9. Five giggly girls eating fondue.

10. Way past my bedtime.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Fifteen

1. So much better.

2. Maybe it was just because my womb felt like it was on fire.

3. No one eats the bacon anymore but I still keep making it.

4. I hear myself voicing the need and I’m hoping it doesn’t sound too full of frustration but more like an observation, more like a request.

5. But I hope she can make it.

6. Some people are harder to read than others and that’s okay. Not everyone wants to be known.

7. The coolness blowing through. Leaves on the ground. It’s coming.

8. There are periods in life when you become acutely aware of the wounds that have yet to heal, the insecurities you’ve yet to overcome, and the false beliefs that you continue to hold onto. I feel like I’ve been in this period of awakening for long enough. It’s becoming tiresome. Growth is exhausting. But in many ways, I chose this.

9. When I’m on this podcast and Deborah Triesman is interviewing me, I’m going to read “To Reach Japan” by Alice Munro. Yes. That’s the one I will read.

10. Dinner is made and I didn’t have to think about doing it or making it and this, I think, is what makes this evening more full of ease. Such a small but big thing.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Fourteen

1. But why a dream about someone else’s kid throwing up on me?

2. The plunk, plunk, plunk of the leaky faucet.

3. Celery juice.

4. I promise them that it’s the last hot day they’ll have to walk home. And it’s too bad the scooter was apparently stolen too so the walk will feel extraordinarily long.

5. She’s dancing in her car. I am not. I am catching up on Bardstown and tearing up listening to the story. I think of how he asks me why I listen to this and I tell him it’s like listening to a movie, but this movie is true.

6. I get too lost in the details sometimes.

7. Yeah. Like, this is work.

8. I forgot the papers. I walk across the gravel in the wedge booties in the heat. I can feel sweat accumulating. I’m going to be late picking him up. I don’t know how I can do this. How am I supposed to do this? I forgot my computer. Back again. I’m going to be late. I have being late. How are we supposed to do this?

9. Dazed.

10. I tell him that I will show him how to clean the toilets. And then he can clean the mirrors and the countertops. That I might throw in some dusting of the baseboards too. We’ll see if that helps.

11. I think back to the drive home and how dazed I was. I couldn’t even hear the story—and I really wanted to hear the story because I really do love Mavis Gallant—but all I could think about and feel was heavy overwhelm. I am still feeling it. And I am hoping it will lift soon.

12. I tell him that it’s not just the shift in the routine but my brain is so full with new information. I am learning a lot. A lot. And that in itself is exhausting.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Thirteen

1. It feels too early. 4:12 am. It is.

2. I just want to try to sleep for the next hour but it’s not coming. I just keep thinking and thinking.

3. I have enough time to drink an espresso. I take my mug to the chair in the corner and stare out the window. “There’s water all over the floor!”

4. We use every towel and then I realize that we don’t have nearly enough towels. This is just my life right now. Overflowing. It’s literal a symbol of my life. I’m not even upset about it. It just is. On the plus side, the floors really did need to be mopped.

5. Lack of communication.

6. Everyone who enters keeps saying that the door is hot. I remind myself to use my back to push the door in. Easy fix.

7. Finally found the water.

8. Did I make a mistake? I made a mistake. But it doesn’t really matter.

9. She comes with me to run the errands. She asks me what the wood is for and what we’ll make and what food we’ll eat. One of these days I’ll bring her with me.

10. I re-listen to our conversation. I need to take my own advice.

11. “The state of the mother is the the state of the family.” - Adrienne Marie Brown

Ten.Eight Hundred & Twelve

1. Up before the alarm. I blame the dreams.

2. I open the sliding glass door and then promptly close it. Too humid.

3. Flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, milk. I brush the scones with melted butter and sprinkle them with the raw sugar.

4. I watch as she sticks a few slices of salami into a plastic baggie and adds an apple and some pretzel chips. I remember that if I don’t want to do it myself, I gotta release the result.

5. Thank goodness for leftover Chinese food.

6. But why? Why is this taking me through these hills on this narrow road that goes around all of these curves? Note to self: don’t take Mountain House Parkway. I can never do this again. I hate driving these roads.

7. She tells me about her new project. I can get behind this.

8. Shadow play. “Lamplight makes the shadows play and posters take the walls away, the t.v. is your window pane, the view won’t let you down.”

9. Let it go.

10. This parenting stuff is no joke.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Eleven

1. Morning light.

2. I empty the dish rack. Only three more days of this, I hope. Bacon and eggs for breakfast. I forgot to get avocados.

3. I turn a laundry basket upside down to hold my coffee while I fold my laundry. I take the coffee back to the kitchen and pour it down the sink. I don’t have to finish this. There are very few things I need to force my body to take when it doesn’t want or need it.

4. Gratitude for the slowness of the morning.

5. Once sun moves behind the tree I am chilly again. I put my sweatshirt back on and drink from the big mug of Tulsi to the sounds of baseball in the background.

6. She says that he almost never gets a hit and of course, the one time he does she didn’t record it.

7. Warmer. But still enjoyable in the shade. Fall is coming. The leaves on the trees are beginning to brown in some places. There are a string of 100-degree days before the temperatures cool down again. I am looking forward to coffee on the front porch.

8. I catch myself thinking, “I am really enjoying my family right now.” I’m not thinking about work or the retreat or how stressed I am or how my throat is still a little soar. I just am thinking about their smiling faces and how much I love them and how this is how I’d like to feel all of the time.

9. Don’t forget to call her tomorrow.

10. I think of the stories he told me about work. About how he realized that with only a few more years left to go before he retires that he’d go down swinging. That he was going to make his company accountable for actually living the values they claimed to uphold. How he realized he needed to be a stronger advocate for the other black people, people of color in his organization. I think about how I can do that in my job now. How comfortable can I become in making other people feel uncomfortable? Or, what can be my version of that?