Ten.Two Thousand, Two Hundred & Eighteen

1. +4

2. Really need to get this car washed.

3. The last bit of protein powder for the smoothies.

4. Glistening gossamer between the leaves of the manzanitas. I think of the book I used to read in the alcove of the house in Oswego—The Keeper of the Bees—and how I would daydream about the jacarandas.

5. Progress but not perfection.

6. I check the app to see where the fire is and then write down the name of our evacuation zone so that I can commit it to memory. It feels like I’m going to need to know this.

7. Not sure I feel any better. Maybe less confused. Maybe more confused.

8. “The two of you set things on fire.”

9. A little bit of baseball on a hot summer night.

10. “Who was that guy that got kicked out of the game?” “Your eye doctor.”

Ten.Two Thousand, Two Hundred & Seventeen

1. +3

2. Already too warm for me.

3. Never not grateful for this sight that greets me on my way down the stairs.

4. The feeling of knowing what you need and anxiously trying to figure out how to get it.

5. Seeing your own changing face.

6. It’s half over.

7. If nothing else, it is cool and quiet in here. Sometimes too quiet, even for me.

8. Bigger than my body.

9. A preview of what is to come. Trying not to count my chickens before they hatch. Calling this feeling not stress, but awareness and care. And hope? I care so much and see the possibility so vividly that I can’t bare for it not to come to pass.

10. Really gotta get this headshot done.

Ten.Two Thousand, Two Hundred & Sixteen

1. +2

2. Really needed that extra hour of sleep.

3. Hair day.

4. Queenie. I start to judge my emotional reactions and then remember that good art makes you feel, that engaging with any artistic work is going to elicit a response.

5. They say that the goats are loud. They are. This is a whiny bunch.

6. I shouldn’t be cold but I grab a blanket and throw it over my legs, and then my arms.

7. Just one more day? Just one more day.

8. A new 5-year plan.

9. Lamb chops.

10. I stare at all of them the same way. A mixture of awe, fear, curiosity.

Ten.Two Thousand, Two Hundred & Fifteen

1. +1

2. Slow Saturday.

3. I go a little further on the trail this time, climb more and more of the dirt stairs cut into the hillside. The views from here are worth the extra effort. I’m still too afraid to walk the whole loop alone.

4. The gift of grocery pick-up and delivery.

5. I should have made time for the beach.

6. She reminds me that we’re supposed to be reading the book about rest, which is ironic because right now, I am trying to rest and feeling guilty about it.

7. I sit and write. It is mostly groupings of unanswered questions.

8. “Let it be a love letter to California.”

9. This is Sunday-after-church macaroni-and-cheese.

10. “The sky resembles a backlit canopy with holes punched in it.” - Incubus

Ten.Two Thousand, Two Hundred & Fourteen

1. This light.

2. The last avocado.

3. I don’t even need this coffee.

4. It’s already hot.

5. She stops and pulls a candle out of her pocket. “We’re not going to light it. We don’t want to be responsible for the great White-Sommer fire of 2024.”

6. Fried chicken and cornbread. They say it’s good, but Popeye’s is just as good and cheaper. “I’m not driving to Vallejo for fried chicken.”

7. Another convert?

8. “To achieve happiness, you must know yourself.”

9. “Don’t let me buy that fudge again.”

10. I tell her it feels like a magic number.