Before Bottling
Spending the day appreciating the day. Not enough gas to make it to winery so I'll have to leave this Yulupa coffee spot early. Think I have around 45 or 43 minutes to write. Wine industry telling me not to move too quick, but I have to, stresses of money and life but then the day, visions of the vineyard I filmed while driving to downtown Healdsburg yesterday just after 4pm, everything in every vineyard tells me to re-plant. Re-write. So I’m here in the old neighborhood Starbucks re-writing 37 years. Break pattern. I keep talking about 4am as my wakeup time, how I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it. Well, now I need to. This morning I was pulled from sleep by something at around that time, but let myself fall back into dreams, odd dreams of SRJC and me on campus, waking with my mouth open and hearing myself mumble something. Today’s already taught me, and reassured me, that everything I need to get ‘there’ is already here. The sentence from Mom, again and again echoing while waiting for the mocha— “Make what you have work.” As always, Mama’s sagacity proves itself more than apt, more than applicable, and more than just ‘relevant’.
Kids dropped off, now time to get REALLY crEATive. Always tell my students at the JC that “creativity solves everything.” Period. And that period’s intentionally part of the quote, not because some might see it as mechanically correct, but the emphasis and declarative feel’s necessitated. Need to actuate what I advocate. 39 minutes and 38 seconds left in my sitting. People around me, but I always observe that, them. These other characters I don’t have time to get to know. I’m getting whatever I even think I want from today. Selling wine, building business, teaching— Teaching myself to keep the mood aloft, to keep selling, and that selling is not selling. Especially with wine. Appreciating this day. I get another day to build, to re-write, to keep writing and exploring everything around me. But how do I break the consistencies? What do I do different? Have one idea, but not going to write it here, on this page, or screen in blog.
MLK said that stars are only visible in darkness. True. And I’m seeing everything… all the possibilities. I do more than merely dwell in them, but thrive in them. You should as well, reader. Defy your mood if it’s ever low. Just say, “NOT.” Period. Be firm with yourself and harsh with your occasional low self-estimations, should you ever have them. Log everything. Find a lesson in everything. People next to me… lady on this long sofa-like wall seat while man across the little square table, both are on phone, in their phones, those little screens, missing everything. But not me. Little boy across floor, at one of the tall chairs, elbows up on that long table, looking out window. Probably no focus in thought, he doesn’t have to. And maybe I don’t either, have to be so focused all the time. I have to record. Everything. As vineyard managers write everything down about their vines and the winemakers with their little ledgers with all the notes and numbers of what the juice does during fermentation…. me as well.
If wine is my thematic, metaphoric anchor, then see this as a racking, moving the entity from one barrel, one ecosystem to another. Change the profile, change the makeup, change the chart. No filtering, don’t want to strip anything away. But, precise re-calibrations need fruition.
Try it. Let me know your results.