Just want to remember that this is the view from my commute every single day.

And that, as much as I like to complain about it, I sort of love the ritual of heating up my studio in the Headlands, and the wool booties and socks, the hot water bottle, the down vest and comforter, the endless cups of tea, and the space heaters I need to keep warm and stay alive out here.

And, as stressed out and paralyzed with doubt, and in my head, and anti-social as I feel right now, there is this sort of luxurious level of self-indulgence involved in making a creative work on this scale and that soon, when I am done, I will actually miss this. A friend said I'm in a love affair with this book. It's sort of like that, I think, a torturous, highest-highs, lowest-lows kind of love affair.

I just want to say, for the record, that every single day, I still can't believe I get to write a book. That my job is coming out to this National Recreation Area, sitting down at my desk with a view of Bolinas, and writing down every story I have ever wanted to tell about cooking, and life, and beauty and pain. That I get to walk down to the beach in the afternoon, fiery light bleeding through the iceplant down the hillside, to collect tiny, perfect sand dollars and watch dolphins pups play with their mamas on their way to warmer waters. And that I get to collaborate with some of the most excellent people I have ever met in the making of this thing.

I haven't lost sight of that.

Soundtrack:

Van Morrison, Into the Mystic

James Vincent McMorrow, Higher Love

Bonnie Raitt, Bluebird

Joni Mitchell, Blue