Sipping some of my wine, the ’12 NDC. That’s New Dad Cuvée, if you forgot. And I get not so much weepy, but .. no, not nostalgic.. just reflective, and realizing that I can make wine and have my own label and write about it if I wish and create some new story for this writer. Discerning this moment and how the wine amalgamates with my current sentiment.. the adjunct war, coming to an end as I want it to– no surrender, no armistice, no walkaway. I’m sipping, here in the nook, to a bottle I, with much help from my friend Blair, produced. And I have to settle on varietals, I know. Don’t want Pinot. Just Cab, and SB, and Merlot.. that’s it. All Bordeaux. This sip… The Cabernet romps silence the Grenache assertions (and Grenache is the lead voice in this assembly, as I recall..). I feel this wine is its own occult oscillation, with the dark notes and visual, with the undercurrent of conviction and avant-garde story.. this wine speaks to me, and I made it!– Well, with Blair’s help. I’m not winemaker, but I’ve made wine with the activity and prowess of professionals. And here I am, after a day completely enraptured in the thought of wine, and I think more, about the winery I today visited and the Pinot I took home and the other wines I tasted in that rustic garage-like cove, making me think of what I can write and what I can do with wine and what I can write to while I do what I do with wine– postmodern repetition and mirroring; the Plath realization looking at the puddled cogitation in this bowl, this night’s pouring vessel. I’m just rambling I know, but like I said this was a night and day of wine…
Tomorrow, Ross’ funeral. I guess I’m ready, and I guess that’s why I’m sipping with such fervency. Who knows. I’m not blaming Uncle Ross, not at all, I’m blaming me, and my inability to decide that death is integral in this existential equation. I’m the problem, as I’m a writer; I’m to blame, I’m a writer, and death is everywhere, and I can’t hide from it; I’ve evaded it once, defeated it, to be technical and keep score, but I know it wants another scuffle with this Beat, so what do I do? For the moment, just enjoy the wine Blair and I made..

Now: still with caramel and raspberry and minty earth and herb. Need to share this, and the Merlot Blair with me aided, with the Arista faction. And soon. Saturday, then.. decided, for the next episode of the ‘cast Tome and I shoot every week.

Scattered in my thinking and I know tomorrow wil try me but I’ll continue, and stay in writer mode even though Tobias Wolff said in that lecture, specifically, that if you’re a writer at a funeral you should take time to grieve, not observe– but I have to disagree. I can’t just de-activate it, as some do, or can, or think they can.

So the wine’s done, and so am I. So till tomorrow, where I bid adieu to my uncle, my father’s brother…..

(4/9/15)