Ten.One Thousand & Forty-Eight

1. The cooing of pigeons. They are so loud in their nests tucked between solar panels.

2. Gray skies. Rain and wind in today’s forecast. A cleansing is coming.

3. So many little ones in the grass today, I dare not step into the lawn to visit the plants out of fear that I may crush one.

4. Two biscuits. I gotta stop making these if I’m the only one eating them.

5. Location, Flavor, Aroma, Balance, ABV, SRM, IBU.

6. The streets are quieter than I expected after what seemed like a rather boisterous Saturday in the neighborhood. I make notes to self: plant jasmine in the next house—maybe add an arbor of bougainvillea too; get yourself somewhere with a better view; but maybe I just need to belong to myself first.

7. What am I thinking?

8. It looks like rain. I feel a drop of water on my cheek. The clouds are now a milky gray, obscuring the sun. I head back inside. The sun returns. Of course.

9. “And what’s new for me, or at least what I’m seeing differently as a mom is that even living in a place long viewed as a progressive enclave won’t save your family.” - Dani McClain, We Live for the We: The Political Power of Black Motherhood

10. I remember the day I came to that realization. When the real fear of parenting was no longer about whether or not I would pick the right preschool or school district for my child, but whether or not I could truly keep them safe.

11. Coffee table jazz station on Spotify. Red wine in a stemless glass. “Die Wise,” “We Live for the We,” “California Calling.” The sounds of the television creeping in. The night breeze caressing my bare ankles. Too many open tabs.

Ten.One Thousand & Thirty-Seven

1. I stare up at the ceiling.

2. Will their antennae touch? Will one shrink back? Which one will continue on its path?

3. He walks in to let me know that today, I forgot to wake him up at 6am. I tell him that I’m sorry; I got carried away.

4. I add more books to the cart. I just can’t help myself. Also, she is a voracious reader, just like her mother, and without a library, I can’t keep up.

5. I haven’t heard any of his sneezes today.

6. How much of this is true? How much of this is my imagination? How much of this is just the phase of the moon?

7. I pull the rose off the tree with just my hand. A fistful of purple petals. I scatter them on the ground. I am not sure what I planned to do with them. I just felt the need to hold the flower in my hand.

8. The two of us swinging in the hammock. The other two chatting beside us. Sun and shadow.

9. Meeting strangers on the internet.

10. I realize that maybe it’s just birthday anxiety. Perhaps I am more afraid of aging than I thought.

Ten.One Thousand & Thirty-Four

1. Still a headache. I need to work on hydration today. Need to wash her hair today.

2. I get the idea in my head to get a headstart on the work for the week but then I remember I need to guard my time. Don’t slip into the boundarylessness again. Keep pockets of time for self.

3. But what can I do?

4. Wash day for her. I decide we should do it right after breakfast. Way fewer tears than last time.

5. We transplant what needs new containers and plant the starters in proper pots of their own. Well. Now it’s 9:15 am. What else is there to do?

6. The beetle is indeed very large and I can understand why she would sleep so uncomfortably on the sofa instead of in her own room.

7. Margarita and chips and guacamole for lunch. The last class makes us both tear up. Yes, this is what we moved here for.

8. I try to block out the conversation.

9. I crush the garlic in the mortar and pestle and then understand why she prefers the suribachi. I whisk the egg yolk while slowly drizzling in the olive oil. We will dip the potatoes and chicken in it.

10. “The human species is a kind of animal, of course. But we can do something no other animal species has ever had the option to do. We can choose: We can go on building and destroying until we either destroy ourselves or destroy the ability fo our world to sustain us. Or we can make something more of ourselves. We can grow up. We can leave the nest. We can…make homes for ourselves among the stars, and become some combination of what we want to become and whatever our new environments challenge us to become. Our new worlds will remake us as we remake them. And some of the new people who emerge from all this will develop new ways to cope. They’ll have to. That will break the old cycle, even if it’s only to begins a new one, a different one.” - Parable of the Talents, pg 321

Ten.One Thousand & Thirty-Three

1. It’s early, I think. What is today? Today is Saturday.

2. The last thing I remember in the dream is a baby Dash asking for more rice while sitting in a high chair. The cheeks!

3. Don’t put so much pressure on yourself.

4. Leftover broth and noodles for breakfast. I think I could eat dinner for breakfast on most days. Unless it’s a Belgian waffle with fresh strawberries and big clouds of whipped cream.

5. It’s still cool but I face the sun and drape a blanket across my legs. Just need the fog to lift a little more and then I should be okay.

6. A different map of the tongue.

7. It takes too long.

8. Garbling meditation. The scent of lavender is soothing.

9. I am bothered even though I shouldn’t let it bother me. There are more important things to be bothered by. I try to refocus on Alice.

10. The water is hot, too hot. Extremely hot. I tell him it makes for a good bath, though. Water that is too hot means that the bath lasts a lot longer and I do have a book I want to finish.

Ten.One Thousand & Thirty

1. It’s only 3:18. There’s no way I’m going to fall back asleep.

2. Remember to take a Zyrtec today.

3. This. Behold the beauty of multi-use clothing. I iron out the wrinkles and slip it over my head.

4. It’s good to see her face. Really see her and talk to her. I think of her forsythia and the big maple in front of her house. I think of her last October under the umbrella at Scribe.

5. I tell him that all of my friend-chats this week start with J: Jennette, Julie, and JJ! He is not as amused as I am.

6. They’ve outfitted them with black masks, everyone.

7. I tell him that I actually can’t listen to his albums anymore. That I literally wake up every day with one of his songs stuck in my head. We laugh. But seriously, no more.

8. She asks if she can make lemon bars. I point to the small pile of lemons on the chair that I collected this morning.

9. I miss their delivery, but I know I needed a time out.

10. The thought: They didn’t like it; they hated it. In fact, she hasn’t emailed me back because they need to edit too much of it. Feeling behind the thought: Fear coupled with Imposter Syndrome. They will never ask me to write anything again; I am a hack after all. Reality: She told me they had meetings this week and that she wouldn’t even really get to it until maybe today. They may have other, more important things to address besides my tense shift. Or, the original thought could be accurate, but it doesn’t mean that I’m a hack. It doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth it.

11. Gratitude for tools that allow me to analyze my own thought process to keep me from spiraling.

12. Just point it to where you want it to go.