Ten.Eight Hundred & Ninety-Eight

1. Oh, yes. I did promise olive oil cake.

2. I’m running out of places to hide the elf. In the old house I had a lot more options. Something about the layout of this place feels limiting. Not limiting. It’s just different.

3. I am missing all the old things these days.

4. I grab some shoes and step out into the dark and the rain to see if I can grab a few lemons for the cake. Nothing is hanging low enough. It’s so quiet though, just the sound of thick drops beating against the rooves. I could sit out here all morning.

5. This is what I miss about solitary cooking: the ability to hear one’s thoughts. Almost as good as journaling.

6. She asks me when the next liberated lines will be. I think this is the third time I’ve been asked this question in the last handful of months. I wonder if this is the sign that I need.

7. It’s just that I think I’d rather be outside all day.

8. It’s just the two of us today. I like Wednesdays. They’re quieter.

9. I feel like I have to decide and I’m not exactly sure about either of the choices.

10. “the light that came to lucille clifton/ came in a shift of knowing/ when even her fondest sureties/faded away. it was the summer/ she understood that she had not understood/ and was not mistress even/ of her own off eye. then/ the man escaped throwing away his tie and/ the children grew legs and started walking and/ she could see the peril of an/ unexamined life./ she closed her eyes, afraid to look for her/ authenticity/ but the light insists on itself in the world;/ a voice from the nondead past started talking,/ she closed her ears and it spelled out in her hand/ ’you might as well answer the door, my child,/ the truth is furiously knocking.’” - from “for the mute” by lucille clifton