All I could think about this morning were persimmons. I have no idea why. We took our Saturday stroll to the Farmer’s Market. Each step over crunchy Autumn leaves closer to the farmhands yelling “PERSIMMONS” in their different dialects.

When I was eight living in Mesa, AZ – I gorged myself with oranges. Nothing fancy like persimmons. We lived on Concho Street, a square suburbia lot with a swimming pool, bermuda grass and a giant orange tree in the back that bared fruit as big as a baby’s head. You could hear the seismic boom as each one fell to the ground. Thunk. Thunk. I remember our Spaniel mix Daisy that stood at attention, her front paw up and frayed tail straight, pointing and saluting each miscarriage. It was the summer that never ended. I tasted and excreted those damn oranges. I inhaled their white veiny wedges. The sticky juice running over my lips, dripping down my collar-bone, staining my navy floral swimsuit.

I don’t have this same hope for persimmons. I only hope for something new.

So today I left the Farmer’s Market with a bag of persimmons, a package of Wasabi almonds and 2 Afghan bolanis. If the CIA ever profiled me based on the contents of my bag they’d deem me pschitzophrenic: Profile 1: organic bohemia. 2: Nostalgic for those Asia de Cuba nights. 3: Local hippie supporting third-world fare.

But I am craving some different lately. Something fancier than the norm. Maybe because  I’m trying not to look at a bleak month (or two) ahead since my freelance job let me go last week. Soon after my boss quit. They said their budget was tightening and they couldn’t afford to keep me. And they said it with one week’s notice. Right before the holidays. I’m forever at the whim of the almighty corporate budget. And budget, you can suck my d*ck.

Also, what sucks is that Christmas is next month. And I don’t know what kind of numbers my husband is looking at next week with the end of the sales quarter. And I don’t know how I’ll buy all the station parts to add on to Thomas the Train.

So for now, I will hang on, stay positive–make persimmon muffins (since that Martha Stewart crumbly cinnamon thing was way too many complicated. And I really don’t ever want to be connected to Martha Stewart, even through a recipe).

I’m going to remain a hip-hop dancing housewife with chocolate-hued nails that bakes with her buttcrack showing late at night while swilling some vino.

Oh wait.

How you like these muffins?

Here’s where I got the recipe if interested. Still a little fussy with the French gourmand version, but they are too die for, thank you.

With confection, brown sugar and sweet kisses.

Good night.

M

From one of my all-time favorite wordsmen:

There where the waves shatter on the restless rocks
the clear light bursts and enacts its rose,
and the sea-circle shrinks to a cluster of buds,
to one drop of blue salt, falling.

You & I, Love, together we ratify the silence,
while the sea destroys its perpetual statues,
collapses its towers of wild speed and whiteness:

because in the weavings of those invisible fabrics,
galloping water, incessant sand,
we make the only permanent tenderness. 

– Pablo Neruda

Dear Milo,

One of my first memories of childhood is the sand slipping through my fingers on a San Diego Beach. I am three years old with long braids and blunt bangs and the world has first turned itself on. It’s a beaming sun with booming waves, and the saltwater is spraying my face. I am happy, and loved. I am free. I am three.

This past weekend I saw this same joy in your eyes. You navigated the sand, all the while staggering in those size 7 feet.

The Carmel breeze tousled your hair and you stood at the edge of the water, completely idle. Motionless.

I found myself speechless because never once in your short time on this earth, have you ever stopped moving. In the womb, a thousand iron-clad kicks, and with your first steps, an awkward mad dash.

And now the surfers slip past us in rubbery black suits, only to glide over a roiling dark universe.

I want to tell you as far as your 21-month old eyes can see that this is real. Not a fleeting dream. Not a YouTube clip on my phone. Not merely a doctored photo (filtered, yes). Layer by layer, as the wires fuse in your mind, it will start to make sense. And you’ll begin to grasp the mystery, the beauty, the pain in this world.

But for now we’ll welcome the sand wedged under our nails. We’ll chase each other through sharp blasts of wind. We’ll yell in words that make no sense while the wind lifts our hair for exclamation. And I’ll remember you this way forever.

But I’ll also remember you like this: The boy with the nose that never stops running. The boy who already craves independence. The boy who inspects everything with his hands: abandoned crab shells, soggy tennis balls, strings of seaweed, cigarette butts, and the irresistible clump of “POO”.

I love you Boo.

Your beachbound mother forever.