Ten.Three Hundred & Three
1. The buzz buzz of my phone. Emails coming through pre-dawn.
2. I decide to make sure I get to the bench for sunrise. I watch as the yellow light falls over the land. The tall, wild grasses look golden. The grass—a bright yellow-green. Clouds that look like mountains.
3. I play "3x5" by John Mayer and my eyes swell a little with tears. Large sips of water.
4. I will miss this place. I will miss these women.
5. Two deer on the hill. It feels like some kind of good omen.
6. We hug them all good-bye. I'm almost glad that I'm so tired otherwise I might cry. Large sips of water.
7. Jasmine and orange blossoms and lemon blossoms and eucalyptus and succulents and oaks and roses and birds of paradise and agave and rosemary.
8. But when do I get to come back?
9. I ought to speak more love over it. Yes. Yes. More love. And so I whisper apologies and then affirmations. Because I do want it to grow.
10. I don't want to leave.
Ten.Three Hundred and Two
1. More poetry taped to doors and gifts placed on seats. I can’t stop smelling the Pali santo.
2. How is this really the last day? I’m not ready to go yet.
3. The sunrise this morning. How after last night’s rain the golden light makes everything look so lush and rich in color.
4. Still waiting for coffee.
5. This life.
6. All of the cards keep saying the same thing: It’s time to choose. If you want to continue on this path or transformation and growth, just do the hard thing.
7. So many smiles and so much laughter.
8. Hot coffee spilling over the sides. Everything here is spilling over: the jasmine, the clematis, the water, my heart.
9. Driving up Grove Street, alone in the van in complete silence, only in the presence of myself and the high rolling hills, feeling that “yes, this is Home. Yes. This is Home.”
10. Whole.
Ten.Three Hundred & One
1. Turkey? Yes, turkey I think.
2. The upside is that I get to hear all of the first sounds of the world waking and here it sounds unlike anything else at home.
3. Everything here is so fragrant. I’m trying to know the names of what I see and touch.
4. Praying for my life.
5. And this is just and experiment, an exercise in learning how to let go and stay in beginner’s mind.
6. Of course I would find my water bottle after I’ve already bought another one.
7. The sun, the sun, the sun.
8. All that you touch you change. All that you change changes you. I keep the light on the crown.
9. The hills and the oaks and the olive trees. Gravel, baby ducks, the formation of clusters on the vine.
10. There are so many things to say. I’ve forgotten to take notes like Dyana told me to. I’m just going to have to trust myself to remember.
Ten.Three Hundred
1. 300. What a number.
2. The sound of my feet on the wooden slats of the porch. There is no way to be quiet.
3. Bird song. But not just some birds but all of the birds and the frogs and the sounds of the sprinklers.
4. Feet crunching on pea gravel.
5. Full on coffee and coffee cake and potatoes and chicken sausage.
6. How I am both tired and exhilarated at the same time.
7. And overwhelmed by all that there is to take in.
8. This is the first time I’ve ever smelled a fresh orange blossom and I want to bottle it up and take it home with me.
9. This circle. So safe.
10. I still don’t know what day it is. But as A’Driane would say, “What is time?”
Ten.Two Hundred & Ninety-Nine
1. 3:30. Forgot to turn off the airport alarm.
2. Coffee from the lobby and quick walk around the grounds. Overcast skies and big peach-colored roses.
3. Fremont Diner for a good biscuit with sweet marmalade and scrambled eggs and bacon. And Coffee. I finally get a chance to do a photo booth.
4. Flowers.
5. We walk the square. Plump ducks with feathers I wish I could pick. My eyes search the grounds for loose ones I might be able to stick in my pocket.
6. A big salad and an Arnold Palmer. So much sun.
7. Here. The ranch is just as beautiful as I remembered it to be. It always is.
8. Deeply grateful for all that’s to come.
9. So sweaty.
10. Delirium has set in after a long day. Laughter and sleep.