Optional day, for 1-on-1’s for final submission for term. Moving a bit slow, and I don’t know if it’s from not sleeping so good, or what, but I need to be more like my teaching self this morning, and always, with everything. Yes, I’m a writer, but I do teach, or at the very least share ideas with students for sakes of generating discussion and forwarding a piece of writing, right? ‘Nother sip, and another… pretty sure one of those burned my tongue. Oh well. Keep writing, I tell myself, look at the seats in front of you, all empty. Of course I take the obligatory picture with my phone, and post it here and there, and then get back to writing. “GET BACK TO WRITING!” I yell inwardly like a dragon boss that knows everything and sees everything and documents everything. Can you imagine if winemakers were on their phones the whole time, when the fruit came in and during blending trials, and during bottling, or between rackings? Feel like I need to be a salivating t-rex boss with myself when writing— “Put your phone away.” I do, and don’t. Have it at my right side, as I’m waiting on a message from someone in the wine world, but I focus on where I am, where I feel most fiery and right— the classroom. Honestly, I’d be fine with no students showing today. Go into backpack and brandish my Carpe Journal. This backpack… too cluttered. Too encouraging of clutter. I always say I’m going to empty it, and never do. What’s that about? Laziness? Some sort of codependency of some kind, one I’ve never had or felt before but somehow now find the writer in the grips of? By the end of today, I will hold some grand answer, some key to something. Sitting here now in Emeritus 1614 I have no answers, and no specific questions. So I show the Carpe… only use that journal, now I find, in certain intersections.
Only hear lights humming, cars passing, the pushing of these laptop keys. 07:19. I hope no students show and not so I can work but rather to indicate to me they’re in a place with their work where they’re comfortable and advanced. They’re firm in their topics and they don’t need my help. The instruction I’ve offered to this point has been sufficient. Tired of writing about wine, in some pulses. Then others, I just want to throw every poetic inkling I can muster to the screen or lines. The classroom itself, this room, those empty seats, are teaching me. And again, what I’m not sure. But this is a huge meditation for the writer, this morning, now moving with more swiftness and yes probably because of the coffee and the understanding that this is not forever. That what I want doesn’t have to be a want. It can be an immediacy. A Now. Something that extends day to day… and isn’t that what wine entails, certain visions and dreams, if you will, materializing, no longer consisting of dreamlike dreaminess? That is, can be your day-to-day? “Questions, Answers” I just wrote on today’s page in the Composition Book. One questions: “What do I want?” Answer: “Everything I want.” I’m not going to list them here, but those knowing me know what those are. 07:26, and still not a single enrolled rolling into 1614. Not a problem. So many questions…
New winery assignment today. Will take notes on everything, and at lunch scribble under that one tree and stare out at Alexander Valley like it’s its own Oz. And it is, I’ve always felt. A response to Napa’s boldness and consistent proclamation of dominance and self-assurance. Birds, winds, leaves, shade… perfect for the writer. Cars seem to pass faster outside. Probably late to class. I’m in class, but am the only one. Everything out, but no action. No performance. But I’m still me— fiery, ready, eager and promised.