The walk told me everything, and the vineyard told me more. That block by the entrance. Accumulating clusters and characters and the air with its brushy and coy song whispered through the canes, leaves as they fiddle with and taunt light. And I just watch, just like the visitors, tourists from Southern California to South Wales. Everywhere, just to look. The pace, unaffected by time its reminding me that I have to be at work soon. Not concerned, only connected to the green echoed visuality and the raw earthly dark tint of the cordons and soil and that sound again, the littlest thin muffle of atmospheric dialogue, it moving the leaves again, toward me and back and I just watch. Take a meek colony of still shots then throw the device back in the carrier and repeat watch, walk, hear and heal in the scene; what the world visits for. Vines, growth, the story and the past to their present and when they sip and look out from the tasting room there’s the realization; that connection, and I’ve always been taken by that. I walk further toward the gate and see a leaf, discolored which I’m sure says something, an ailment maybe or virus, I don’t know. I just stare, look and wonder at the colors, and am I supposed to like this scene or feel some empathy or compassion for the leave, or guilt that I’m photographing it with my phone like so many who see accidents or tragedies or some misfortune and internally are pushed to film it with a phone? Am I that? Am I doing that to this poor leaf, this poor cane, the vineyard? Am I THAT tourist? I put my phone away and walk more, to the gate but stop only feet before and go right, then down another row. Taking a closer look at the clusters I meditate on what glass they’ll be in, where, celebrating what. That tie with the people and the tables and glasses, someone’s house, someone’s occasion, someone’s something… someone’s family. That’s the significance, not the photo, not me, not some magazine that throws scores at the bottle, utterly negating all the effort and time and sunlight and gusts that passed through the vineyards’ expressions and dimensions. Significance and the story of this 2 acre block involves the people coming to harvest these forming wee bunches, in the earliest of A.M.’s, leaving their families at home to arrive just before the sun makes even a slight statement, then they’re trucked off to be crushed, produced and shaped for sipping, leaving behind desolate vines, new end and start. And people will migrate to see that as well. They don’t care what the vines look like or where they are in their “season”, they just want to see, and keep seeing.
Then I open the gate, walk back to the tasting room. At least four looks over my left shoulder, see how the wind pushes those canes and the leaves, and that one leaf, the discolored, moving as it wants and me just staring. I go back. One more shot. And another. Now I guess I’ll work.

(6/28/15)