watching everyone around me. What they said about the wines and how they saw it with some dish a family member always makes, how Chardonnay would “go so good with that pasta that Amelia makes…” By myself in the room, just the observer. Now home, sipping a Pinot, Sonoma Coast, yes from Roth, taking a minute in this quiet. Home. No one around me… no jazz playing, just me and this Pinot and the syncopated pulses of verse and embracing confessions she lovingly throws at me. The shop is closer, after today. Not that I can feel it, like you might expect me to say, or even see it. It was confirmed, plainly… metaphysically cemented. Today, the tasting room and everyone walking in promised me my shop, where my family and I will elevate our story and framing of wine, our present and time, stand and story, stories.