Ten.Eight Hundred & Forty-Nine

1. I don’t want to wake up but I know it’s time to wake up even though the alarm hasn’t gone off yet.

2. Beloved oil.

3. Gratitudes for leftovers that are lunch for the week.

4. I trade in the audiobook for Lizzo and it seems like the right move for a day like today. I needed a boost.

5. I catch the guy in the car next to mine looking at me. I just smile. Yes. It’s possible to be this happy on a Wednesday morning while sitting in rush hour traffic.

6. I remind myself that this is an evolving process and, ultimately, not something that is crucial. So there is room for experimentation.

7. She says that maybe “empowerment” will be a theme going forward and that sounds progressive.

8. Hummingbird friend. Must figure out the name of this plant. It looks like some kind of salvia.

9. I mean, I could not do any of this at all.

10. Wal-Mart after dinner on the night before Halloween.

Ten.One Hundred & Fifty-Three

1. Clouds that look like mountains.

2. Maybe one day I can talk the farmer into letting me on his property to take pictures. The land is so flat and the sun makes the short grass glow gold when the sun rises and sets.

3. She doesn't like granola.

4. Down to the basement. I should really put on slippers. This space works but it doesn't. Going through her edits makes me smile. I think, maybe I'll offer this again. I am still not sure how it all fits and makes sense. 

5. A baked potato makes for an oddly satisfying lunch before I head back downstairs to edit.

6. How is this already the last day of November? I'm sure I say this to myself on the last day of every month of every year.

7. They did a control burn in the wetlands out back and so now all I see is the few remaining trees and scorched earth. I want to walk on the blackened ground and feel what it feels like to set fire to what is in order to make space for what will be.

8. A hawk. Awareness. Vision. Timing. 

9. We both sit in front of the fireplace—I read and drink a pot of tea while he does his homework.

10. This used to be my favorite easy drinking wine but now they've put too much zinfandel in it.

Ten.One Hundred & Eleven

1. I sleep in an extra 30 minutes. Maybe it was the manchego that gave me such strange dreams.  

2. I make the lunches and offer fruit loops for breakfast so that I can empty the dishwasher and put in another load.  

3. When I drop them off I put the car in park, run around the rear and hug each one, tell them I’ll see them again on Monday. I feel the pang of mother guilt.  

4. Why is it that when we leave we have to be so accommodating? 

5. The ride to the airport is quiet. I am anxious about my travel. Because I am doing it alone. I tell him that I’m never nervous when he’s with me.  

6. As I inch along in the security line I realize I left my water bottle in the bathroom.  

7. I’m in the middle seat but can see bits of earth through the window. The mountains look like pointy stacks of cheap cocoa powder.  

8. I can feel the accumulation of too much dairy in my gut.  

9. I really hope the three of them are not getting on my plane.  

10. I roll down the window to type the code and then can’t keep my head inside the window. All the stars. I am here.  

Ten.Sixty-One

1. I didn't really sleep last night. Tossing and turning since 4:30 AM. 

2. I like to be down here alone in the dark. Back to three lunches and three snacks today. Bacon and toast and fruit. One cappuccino. I think I can handle just this little bit of caffeine.

3. I am trying to listen to myself and cringing at every "like" and "um." Critiquing my silence and the tone of my voice. Why did I talk about a fur coat? I mean, it drove home a point, but still. A fur coat? And I remember why I never go back to listen to my interviews. 

4. I like this little spot and I sit in the sun while I wait for her because I need to feel the heat on my skin. Wooden gliders. 

5. We walk down to the river and find a bench that looks out onto the water. Ducks, cranes, ripples from someone skipping rocks a little ways away. 

6. We talk about the beauty of the morning; children and their friends; how to stay out of the entrepreneurial slump and addressing fears; ways in which we can build a network of black women way out here in the suburbs; how to take care of ourselves when people that look like your neighbors carry tiki torches and try to start race wars.

7. Grenache for lunch.

8. I sit out on the back porch and listen to the ping of golf balls. I need to harvest all of these herbs and hang them to dry. 

9. We make dinner together tonight. I do the risotto and he does the salmon. I like it when we dance in this space together. 

10. I finally sign them up for something. Basketball for the boys and gymnastics for the girl. I jokingly say that now I feel like a good mother. But I'm not really joking. It's interesting the way we cut our own selves over these kinds of things.