Ten.One Thousand & Fifty-Nine

1. The sooner I get the toilets cleaned, the sooner I can get on with my day.

2. I mean to have my coffee sooner but other things keep distracting me.

3. Virtual coffee with her. It feels easy, like I’ve known her for an entire lifetime. But sometimes it’s like that when you’ve been connected with someone on social media for so long—and when they are so open and real on social media.

4. When we will be able to gather again?

5. I had forgotten how beautiful it is here. Blue, cloudless sky. Yellow-golden-brown hills. White and black and brown cows.

6. Oh. Pleasant Hill. Not Pleasanton.

7. Apriums and blueberries and tangerines and more mulberries. Thank goodness there are more mulberries.

8. I finish France. We take the old magazines and cut out images. I have her pull up a chair while we watch the zoom call. Glueless collages. I like this. I’ll do this again. I love the impermanence, the ability to recreate over and over again. She thanks me for asking her to do it with me. It feels like a parenting win when it doesn’t take much convincing for a child to choose time with you over time with their friends.

9. Technical difficulties.

10. “It was just a matter of collecting beautiful things.”