I am writing from an internet cafe in Mendocino, California.

It is stunning up here, clouds and ocean and bluffs and extrememly animated coffee store workers even when it’s not quite 8 AM. I’m here with my mom, who is as much in need for this sort of weekend as I am; indeed, she is currently in hour 2 of her hot stone massage. I already had mine.

I took a walk this morning and the ocean breeze was making the tiny hole in my paper cup of coffee sing.

More soon… maybe.

Hi!

My name is “thisismysupercutenewJetta!”. Or at least I think it is- it’s what my driver says all the time around me. For a while I thought maybe my name was Lucy, because she says that name all the time too, but that name makes her weepy and I know for a fact that I make her happy.

See?

She parks me so I can see all the pretty flowers she’s been planting lately. I MUST make her happy.

We took a little trip on Saturday to somewhere called “sonoma” where she worked until almost 1 in the morning. I had to be very illuminating that night cuz she was super tired. She was all dressed up, working something called an “auction”. She apparently wasn’t just working; she came back to me with a huge armload of something that she said she won for her brother Sean at the auction. But I’m not allowed to say what it was until May 11th.

We also worked on Friday night, in this same sonoma place, at a winery up in the hills. I’d never seen anything like it!

I’m really glad that this blonde girl is my driver. I don’t know where I was born, but I spent months at the dealership where creepy guys took strange people for drives with me. When this girl walked by me the first time, I was yelling “PICK ME! PICK ME!” but of course she drove the Beetle first. They always do. But then I saw her frowing at a page of numbers, and she looked back at me fondly, and I knew she was the one for me.

She warms me up in the morning, and yesterday she even rubbed off all the icky bugs that were splattered on my headlights. I don’t know why she works so much. We had so much fun on Sunday, which is the only day she didn’t work. We went and picked up a bunch of pretty flowers (and she put sheets down on my backseat so I wouldn’t get dirty- see? She loves me!) and I hung out with her while she gardened all afternoon.

Sometimes at work I see her peek out her second-story windows to make sure I’m okay. I think what she really wants to do is take a long, long drive, far, far away. She knows that I’d take care of her if she did.

I hear her talking to someone in the house, but I never see who she’s talking to. She did say, however, that someone named “Fezzik” had a new nap place.

I think this “Fezzik” person is weird.

Michelle’s going to bed soon, so I better rest, too, so I can safely deliver her to work in the morning. Maybe tomorrow will be the day that we finally go for that long, long drive. But, if not, that’s okay. I’m patient. We’ll get there.

My dear sweet little newborn,

You do not yet know that I exist. I’m your aunt, your dad’s little sister, and even if I was there your fuzzy baby eyes wouldn’t be able to figure out that I have the same hands, lips, and goofy smile as your dad. And, maybe, as you. But I think about you all the time, and I almost feel these little wisps, bright-white tendrils of me seeking out you, even now as you stare at the ceiling from your crib, even from 3000 miles away, I seek you. You are the first girl-child born to this family since I came on the scene, and I’m stupid with longing to hang out with you. I’ve only seen two pictures of you, once of which you look pretty weird cuz you are yawning, and even grown-ups look weird when they yawn. But your simple existence makes me long all the more to figure out my own life and find a way to give you little cousins. You will be the steward of the next generation of Williams and I can’t wait to be there, then, and now.

I have this very busy life, Lucy, that pulls me in a hundred different directions every single day. But since you came on the scene, I just don’t care quite as much. I’m still going through the motions but until I can come out there and see your mom and dad and your other uncles and aunts, I’ll just be biding my time. You are an anchor unlike anything us younger Williams kids know. And I can’t wait to know you.

Love,

Aunt Michelle

I hardly know what it is I want to explore in tonight’s post. Is it the new car I might be buying tomorrow? Is it the death of a friend? Is it my relationship with my own body? Is it the evolution of my garden? Perhaps aching loneliness, wistful feelings about family, wishing I had had any semblance of normalcy as a child, my wishes for the future, the fact that I’ve sobbed about four times in the last week after not having anything to cry about for months? Really, I could wax on about any of this. And when a movie like “13 Going on 30” makes me bawl and hold my face in my hands, I realize I might be a little delicate right now.

Almost two years ago… scratch that, it was almost three years ago, I got an email from Tessa. At the time, Tessa and Ian were just, y’know, *dating*, and little Peanut was still wandering around on the 4th Mormon heaven wondering when she’d get a chance to come back to earth. This is what the email said:

“You know, it’s funny, the other day I described to Ian this image I keep
having: He and I drive to see you, very somewhere else, like deep woods
Maine or the mesas of Western Colorado, and you come out of your cool,
simple, beautiful house and you are radiant. Living another life. And
deeply satisfied.”

I think of this email all the time. It was written on August 8th, 2002. So long ago, and in such a different time, that I had to search my “friends” email folder rather than my “family” folder to find it.

I suppose that I have to remind myself that it’s the journey to that simple, beautiful house, as well as the simple existence of it, that should propel me to not despair. But until I follow that path, to deep woods Maine or Colorado or Spain or Africa or maybe right where I am, I will be neither radiant nor deeply satisfied. But the path is obfuscated by great wine and renown and the honeysuckle climbing over my garden wall.