Cindy Lozito

I'm slow to wake up because I stayed up too late reading Crying at H-Mart. I came to this book very late, but it was worth the wait. I can still feel a ball in my throat from the emotional last chapter I read before I finally shut my eyes to go to sleep.

I reflect on the Pinterest board I put together for fall and try to conjure up some pin ideas in my head as I browse through my closet with my phone's weather app open. I decide it's a good day for a short sleeved shirt, balloon pants, a thrifted sweater vest, and a French knot bandana I designed to seal it all together. I pour myself some homemade cold brew and prepare a tiny piece of toast with cream cheese and everything but the bagel seasoning – a light breakfast because I need to make room for my friend's early birthday dim sum celebration later this morning.

In the time between now and dim sum, I try to squeeze in a work session to keep chipping away at a mural concept I've been working on. This will be the largest mural I've designed to date, at Sanctuary Farm Phila in North Central Philadelphia. I feel less nervous about this mural than I have about previous projects, in part because I have more murals under my belt, but mostly due to how much I love the stakeholders I met at the Farm. A few weeks ago we chatted by the farm's picnic table about the power of urban farming and how it's helped create a space of physical and emotional healing for the community. I think about the warmth of that day as I draw tulips and collards and purple green beans on my iPad in my South Philly studio.

The morning flies by, and soon I'm on an Indego bike heading up to Unit Su Vege in Fairmount. I am blasting Birdy's Young Heart from my iPhone that's bouncing around in my purse as I pedal. This album is the embodiment of fall for me, and I try to listen to it at least a few times every October. I check my phone once I dock to see that my friend Hannah has just arrived, and I'm pleased to be on time for our lunch date to the minute.

Hannah is an incredible photojournalist and a dear friend, and we haven't seen each other since my wedding a couple of weeks ago, so we have a lot of catching up to do. We talk about the photo industry and relationships over plates of steaming dumplings and veggie dishes. The Sesame Seitan is perfectly crunchy, but the Sweet Phoenix Buns are on another level. The bun dough is perfectly fluffy with a luscious egg custard paste at its center, creating little bites of heaven for us.

After lunch, we pop into the Whole Foods across the street, where I buy a bar of cedarwood soap and Hannah finds papaya seed enzyme capsules, which she heard helps with digestion. I realize that my hoop earring has fallen at some point while docking my bike and I feel lucky to find it on the concrete before I make my way back to South Philly. The Philadelphia gods shine down upon me on the ride home by parting the clouds briefly during an otherwise cloudy week, and making it such that not a single impatient driver beeps at me for the entire ride – a true miracle.

My inbox is unusually quiet during my afternoon work session in the studio. I try to take this as a sign to be grateful and focus on the task ahead, because for once my workload of mural, illustration, and teaching opportunities feel very balanced. I listen to Miranda July's All Fours, which frankly I'm not enjoying all that much, while I make more progress on the mural concept. I try not to get too excited with how much I'm liking how it's coming along, because so many changes can happen between design concept rounds and it's best practice to not get too attached. But I'm really hoping they like this one.

I take my dog on a quick walk before hurrying to Seven Nails on Christian Street in case they have availability for a gel manicure walk-in, which they do. I feel a low-level sense of melancholy watching Dieu, my technician, shave away at the ballet pink nail color that carried me from wedding welcome party to now. My post-wedding blues have mostly lifted, but I still find myself latching onto little details, like the felt flowers my sister made that I now display in mini-vases in my kitchen, or a rotating set of iPhone background photos from the batch my photographer sent for our preview. While I was not much of a wedding-obsessed girly in my youth, my wedding day exceeded my expectations so much that I am hellbent on rhapsodizing about it for as long as appropriately possible, and then some.

I leave the salon at around 5:40pm, a block of time I like to call Sesame Street hour because there is no chance I'll step out into the street without having a conversation with someone I know. Sure enough, I run into my neighbor Jerry, and we chat about TooGoodToGo, an app where you can salvage food that would otherwise be thrown away at a discount. We discuss our favorite deals in the neighborhood, and I leave him on his merry way to go pick up TGTG pizza from a place on Chestnut Street.

I stop into Fine Wines and Spirits on South Street to peruse the aisles for a good red. I can never remember any properties or qualities about wines I like, so instead of choosing by a pretty bottle design the way I usually do, I read shelf descriptions on a handful of bottles before deciding on a Spanish red that promises notes of blackberries and boysenberries. We'll see. I take a quick photo of Josh wine to text to my friend Josh before ambling to the grocery store for my last errand of the day.

I score an enormous jar of Castelvetrano olives at the same price as jars half its size and feel overall pleased with my loot of snacks at checkout. The audio guestbook service my husband and I used for our wedding just emailed to say our messages are ready, and I have an image of us popping a cork over cheese and crackers to listen to them in our living room that I'd like to create. The olives definitely complete this vision.

My husband and I rehash our days over such a tasty dinner. We've been doing The Rounds now for a couple of years and added a "Rescued Produce Basket" to this week's order, which made an appearance in tonight's dish. I can't really tell the difference between rescued produce and what's considered shelf-perfect because the vegetables we get from this basket always look great, and it's fun to have a mid-week surprise. My husband is a kitchen wizard, so he conjures up a mixed greens salad with roasted beets, fennel, carrots, pan-toasted pepitas, goat cheese, and a chimichurri. Delicious, and also the right appetizer for our evening snack spread.

The voice messages are so charming, silly, funny, and genuine. I don't think either of us realized they would also serve as a recorded document each portion of the evening as it happened ("Usher is playing, so I'm going to have to go and engage with that situation"), which serves as a fun bonus to these heartfelt marriage wishes. I end my evening a little wine-drunk and pleased to have more memories I get to collect and savor.

Cindy Lozito is a muralist, illustrator, and cartoonist based in South Philadelphia. You can learn more about her at cindylozito.com or @acleartrace on Instagram.