Ten.Eight Hundred & Forty-Two

1. I miss that crazy loud rooster.

2. I can’t decide if I like that he’s driving me to work today. But since I’m feeling better today than the last two days, maybe it won’t be so bad. Besides, I like to stare out the window and daydream and that’s hard to when you have to focus on driving.

3. Oh no. She reads my stories. I laugh. How did she know what I was talking about?

4. It really is beautiful here. Like, so beautiful. Like, breathtaking. When will it get old?

5. I know mindfulness but I haven’t been practicing it lately and so this luncheon is right on time. She guides us through a meditation. I think of the two of us in those adirondack chairs drinking a bottle of white wine with the sun beating down us, the garden vibrant with blooms. Oh yeah. I needed to be reminded that all you need is one memory to access peace.

6. On the walk back to the office i give gratitude for being able to work in a place where I can bring this intention into my job. Single-tasking is the way for me. Slowness is the way for me. Nothing is as urgent as it seems. I can take my time.

7. One lone calla lily in the freshly mulched flower bed.

8. On the ride home we decide that it will never get old.

9. I am indeed in hell. But trying to stay present and mindful through it all.

10. Tomorrow I will go in late which means tonight I will clean and clean and clean. Looking forward to savoring my morning.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Forty-One

1. Thank goodness for sons who bake muffins the night before thus relieving you from any pressure to make a breakfast this morning.

2. Looking for the light.

3. How is it that the last 30 minutes always goes by so much fast than the first 90 minutes?

4. We are slowed to a stop and so I grab my phone to take a picture. There is nothing there but a big oak tree and a hill and the sky. But in this moment it seems worthy of capturing.

5. I know my head is not where it should be. I am here but I am not.

6. She gets the kind of text that no mother every wants to recieve.

7. Then I realize that the only person who is working on this is me. Which is not a problem. It’s just that I think it will be me and me only doing this one particular thing that I really am not very good at. No. Not that I couldn’t be good at it, it’s just that it’s outside of my comfort zone.

8. It’s almost November.

9. I realize that really, I just miss my friends. All of them. I remember telling her that I think I’m going to be okay this winter because I work in an office and I’ll be around people and that they’re nice people. But the truth is that I miss my friends. There isn’t anyone yet that can just come over for coffee or check out the yoga class at the YMCA, or eat lunch at the tea house.

10. I let myself feel it all.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Fourty

1. Overslept.

2. I rub her Beloved oil on my neck and my forearms. A reminder to myself and my body.

3. I really ought to remember to give myself another day off on the other end of a trip. Always feeling unprepared.

4. Black cows puddled across the yellow-gold hills. The muted green of sagebrush and oaks off in the distance. Blue sky. I fall in love with this view a little more each day.

5. I decide that I am not ambitious. I don’t want to be. That sounds too exhausting. I’d rather have vision. Is it too much to call oneself a visionary?

6. Can you call yourself a visionary when lately everything has felt so thickly veiled?

7. She takes us through, pulling off leaves of lemon balm and lemon verbena. I rub them between my fingers and brind my hand to my nose. The puts green fennel seeds in my cupped hands and then asks me if I’d like some hibiscus seeds. Maybe I just need to spend more time outside (who doesn’t?). Perfect mid-day act of self-restoration.

8. I tell him that I don’t have time to make scones in the morning anymore but that those are things they can make on their own. That that would help me.

9. I miss slow mornings when there was time for making muffins and scones and olive oil cakes. I miss slow evenings when there was more time for enjoying the process of cooking…when it didn’t have to be another chore to be rushed through on the way to something else.

10. No time for delight.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Thirty-Nine

1. Last morning.

2. The rooster makes me giggle every time. He’s just so. loud.

3. We manage to stuff everything back into the bags from which they came and then head out for an empanada and coffee. The fog is still so thick and low but there’s the hazy glow of yellow off in the distance which promises a sunny day.

4. It’s a short walk and yet there is so much to see even though there is nothing to see.

5. Sage, artichoke flowers, brussel sprouts, horsemint, tarragon, rosemary, perfectly shaped heads of lettuce.

6. But the view. Can you even imagine?

7. I drive and try not to think about the fact that this is the end of the weekend, that this means going back. What am I even going back to? Each time I leave, I see another thing that needs changing. Not fixing. But changing. Nothing is necessarily wrong but I can see where I’ve bent the ends of pieces to make them fit.

8. I remind myself to not romanticize it too much.

9. We split a spicy gingersnap as we drive across the Golden Gate Bridge. To the left, the too-closeness of the the city. To the right, nothing but water and air.

10. I worry he will criticize the stack of books I brought back from Dawn’s caboose, but instead he seems excited. I am just tired. Tired and sad. Tired and sad and full of questions. Tired, sad, full of questions, worried that there’s not enough space anymore to figure things out.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Thirty-Eight

1. Oh, good morning, rooster.

2. Fog hanging low. The cafe is fuller this morning than the last few times I’d been. Black coffee and a bacon and goat cheese empanada. The flurry of Spanish circling my ears. I’m reminded that we have a lot of learning to do upon my return,

3. Return. Not thinking about leaving just yet.

4. She pulls out a bowl of pomegranate seeds and adds it to the bar that is already stuffed full of scones and hard-boiled eggs and flaky sea salt, granola and yogurt, and local unfiltered apple juice.

5. A deer darts across 128. He turns back to look at us as we move along.

6. Two more deer. These, I didn’t see. They stop and stare at us again. Remember to look up Deer medicine later.

7. It’s just the two of us, and a young man with the chef, and this is actually the most perfect thing, A private pasta-making class during which we drink Scharfenberger and sparkling water. We make farfalle and pappardelle and the one that looks like a chicken gullet. He brings us oysters—my first time eating them raw—and then a salad with more pomegranate seeds and pickled butternut squash and roasted delicata with a ginger dressing, and then our pasta to which he’s added shrimp seasoned with a piment d’ville. And then a plate of figs drizzled with honeycomb.

8. Delight while under the blanket on the sleeping porch. Her in her bath with her glass of Syrah and her book. The sounds of the cats chasing one another through the leaves.

9. Notebooks full of stars.

10. A whole sky full of stars. Billions of them. I feel even smaller at this moment that when we overlooking the gray waves of the sea. Why does this have to be the last night?

Ten.Eight Hundred & Thirty-Seven

1. Up before the alarm. Not surprised at all by this. There is too much to be excited about.

2. I find them all and give them hugs before I go. They are all jealous that I am leaving. I tell them that we will pick another weekend for all of us to go. Don’t worry. He asks me to bring back a bottle of Pinot Noir Juice.

3. I go through the car wash like he asked me too even though I feel like it will put me behind schedule.

4. No. I’m really not a city person.

5. I’m here. She’s here. We’re together.

6. The water is churning. So powerful. I’ve never seen waves that big. We pull off somewhere in Bodega Bay to watch the gray water smash against the gray cliffs.

7. Lunch at Trink’s. Apparently it’s Point Reyes Blue Cheese that should be on my BLT, not cheddar. The sound of crashing waves flooding the spaces in between words.

8. Mountain View Road.

9. Phillips Hill Gewurtztraminer with our backs to the sun.

10. Roederer Brut. Baxter Pinot Noir. Catching up in the candle light. Writing a list of restaurants in New Orleans for the server. Hot shower uninterrupted.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Thirty-Six

1. She comes today. I won’t see her until tomorrow, but she comes today.

2. Reheat muffins, make coffee. He will want those leftover hashbrowns. I really need to drink my water before I eat anything.

3. I worry. I worry about the loss of dream time, of free time, of art time. I worry that I won’t find a new rhythm that makes space for the other kinds of work I know I’m meant to be doing. I mourn the prior life while also trying to hold the potential of this new one. I’ll figure it out. Right?

4. What is with the traffic today? Sirens from behind. State Highway Patrol. The voice says this is still the fastest route.

5. The problem with listening to podcasts when you drive is that it’s impossible to write anything down. I try to repeat things in my head, a desperate attempt to remember. And then I realize that it’s okay. That whatever wants to stick will stick, even if it’s not the words and only the feeling.

6. Slow.

7. He left gifts on the table and each one is wrapped in the cutest red and white Japanese wrapping paper. I wish I could find out what’s inside.

8. Gratitude for leftovers.

9. She’s here.

10. Another bath. Another chunk of Delight devoured. I could get used to this.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Thirty-Five

1. Too much to think about at 5:15 in the morning.

2. So quiet. Still too dark for me. I need more light. Where is the light. I don’t remember it feeling so dark last year.

3. Episode 232: My Embodiment by Craig Morgan Telcher

4. He’s sending pictures from Disney World. Everyone looks so happy. I am happy that they are happy.

5. I get them all out the door so that I can just gather myself for a few minutes before I need to leave. Just a few minutes of quiet in an empty house does wonders.

6. All of the cows are back on this side of the pasture today, lazing around in the dry grass. A calf gallops andlands his face right into the side of an adult. The big cow doesn’t seem unnerved at all.

7. Sometimes I’m just waiting.

8. Holding all of this.

9. I never take a bath but I want to right now. Maybe I can squeeze out enough hot water before they’re all in the shower. I light some incense and set The Book of Delights by Ross Gay on the edge of the tub. Delight.

10. “If you’re black in this country you’re presumed guilty. Or, to come back to Abdel, who’s a schoolteacher and thinks a lot about children, you’re not allowed to be innocent. The eyes and heart of a nation are not avoidable things. The imagination of a country is not an avoidable thing. And the negreeting, back home, where we are mostly never seen, is a way of witnessing each other’s innocence—a way of saying, ‘I see your innocence.’” - from “8. The Negreeting”, The Book of Delights

Ten.Eight Hundred & Thirty-Four

1. Don’t want to get up.

2. I grab a stick of incense to take with me to the kitchen. I like that this is a ritual again. Thank you Michelle.

3. The morning time vanishes fat too quickly for my liking. I don’t like for my first cup to be in the car. What am I not doing right to get this routine down? The answer can’t be to wake up earlier. Or maybe it is. Maybe that is the only way.

4. Now I do know for sure that this will not be the place. And I don’t know that I want this place to be it either. We belong somewhere else and even though I know that and want that, I am also dreading the idea of shifting our lives once more. But I shouldn’t worry myself with that now. No need to future trip at this second.

5. 4 more days.

6. Getting over the fear of doing something new; realizing that you really don’t have a choice in the matter so you better do it anyway.

7. I am later than usual but there’s still enough time to take them to the library. Everything I want is not at this location and so I request it all, knowing that everything will arrive at the same time and then I probably won’t read any of them.

8. All hail sheet pan dinners.

9. I make him breathless from forcing him to practice chest passes and bounce passes with me. He still beats me in PIG—twice. I let him revel in that for today. I just haven’t been practicing. Also, how is this child, my child, so tall?

10. Great British Baking Show together, all crammed into my bed. But if only they would all stop talking.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Thirty-Three

1. I don’t want to get up.

2. Make the coffee first, then set the oven to warm, then make your juices.

3. Curious about what today will bring. Do I have enough time to journal this morning? Maybe just one page. One page is better than none.

4. No pages.

5. The thing about being so low and so close is that I have to wait too long for the morning light. I miss the old house with its wall full of windows, the way I could great the sunrise and sunset every day. I miss standing at the sliding door with my coffee looking for the deer and the foxes and the owls.

6. I will have to do the best I can.

7. The day goes by quickly; after a week like last week, I am good with things feeling a little slower.

8. James Baldwin and Maya Angelou had that same kind of voice, a church voice, a powerful voice, an intellectual voice, a honeyed voice; everything sounds like song, like in any minute they would begin to sing.

9. Oh yeah, this is good. It’s been so long since I’ve had it. A Brouilly that does not taste like Brouilly. We need to get back to Kermit Lynch soon.

10. Her stories say something like 3 more holidays until Christmas. I tighten up. Yeah. That’s right.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Thirty-Two

1. How is it already time to get up?

2. I put on a dress and a big sweater, grab my water bottle and make my way to the kitchen. Yes. Next house, half this size, twice as much land.

3. Coffee and leftover pound cake. The kids are still fast asleep.

4. The ride back is quiet. I respond to her DM that I find it easier to use process of elimination. That it’s much easier for me to pinpoint my dislikes than my likes. It seems to work for me.

5. I remind myself that we agreed upon a new way of doing this. So I”ll sit here for today, but next week we’ll do this together.

6. Skin warmed by sun. I still have to wrap my shawl around me when the breeze blows. I can tell which one is mine because of the thick salt ring around the hat. Someone should really wash that.

7. I ask her to make the muffins for me while I make dinner. I realize that I won’t be able to get through this new weekly schedule without some kind of meal prep on Sundays. If i can get a couple pans of muffins and a batch of granola made each Sunday, that’s at least 4 days of breakfast. They can add fruit to either one and that should be sufficient. Right?

8. All of this is just one big experiment.

9. March feels so far away.

10. I miss the ocean.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Thirty-One

1. Up earlier than I wanted to be but here we are.

2. We head back to the diner for a pastry and coffee. Not ready to go.

3. We sit in the car overlooking the ocean while we eat. I stare at the water, so deep and so blue. I wonder what it might be like to be like that couple over there driving up and down the coast in a camper, stopping off in little towns for homemade pastries and a little bit of local conversation.

4. At first I think he knows them but then he throws the fish over the ledge and I realize that something is not quite right. I just make sure the young Germans get into their car and that he doesn’t follow them. Then I see him stab a fish is something long and sharp and raise the fish into the air.

5. The view from here.

6. Make note: Big Basin Redwood State Park.

7. I think I can do the drive for us next week.

8. I realize very quickly that I am actually not a city person. I am a country person. I need the quiet. I need the dark. I need the space.

9. Steak and potatoes and spinach. 2013 Clos Pegase Homage Cabernet Sauvignon. Pound cake.

10. Missing the ocean.

Ten.Eight Hundred & Thirty

1. Almost 8. Just as tired as I thought I was.

2. I feel so much further from home than I actually am and this is something I’m beginning to love about California. I need only to drive a few hours in either direction to be in another world.

3. We camp out at a table and wait for coffee. Home fries and eggs and bacon, an English muffin. I suggest we buy a pastry just so we can justify taking up the table for another 45 minutes. It’s light and airy, sticky but not too sweet, walnuts instead of pecans. I pull off a chunk to eat in the car.

4. Once you decide to really look, you realize there was nothing to be afraid of after all.

5. Wilder Beach. Coastal Bluff trail. I am always under-prepared for these kinds of excursions. From now on, always plan for lots of walking on uneven ground. I will never not want to be by the water or under the trees.

6. Collage by the pool. It is empty. The smell of chlorine wafting up the nose between sips of lemonade.

7. Shackteau Grenache.

8. Make it a priority. Must make it a priority.

9. We order the Domaine Laroche and a few bites of seafood but decide that we’re too offended by everything that’s going on to stay here for an entree. Whereas dinner the night before was of good value and excellent quality, this is feeling forced and obscene. Expensive for the sake of being expensive is a quick way to go out of business.

10. When you can go to sleep feeling accomplished, maybe even proud of the way in which you discovered that after 12 years, all things considered, you’ve been making your way just fine. I think of that Shania Twain song. “Looks like we made it.” I love the life we’ve been able to create together. Has it been easy? No. Is it perfect? No. But our mutual abilities to grow, be curious, and apply new knowledge surely does help to steady the ship.

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?