5/23/19

Wine.  All I can think about.  Somehow making it, its business and industry do more for me.  Six days from 40.  Feeling immeasurably better than I did.  A little sinus pain but other than that I’m essentially fully recovered.  And the here-and-there cough.  Writing, teaching, how the semester’s gone, and I’m on my own with these thoughts, or not.  What’s in my head I don’t know right now finishing this latte, about 50 minutes from when I need leave and head straight for office.  I’m overthinking, a lot, I just said to self just noticing looking out the window and up seeing clouds wondering if it’s going to rain a-goddamn-gain.

In the Richmond District again, today.  Windy again, more than likely.  How to make today different, as I always say I’m going to.  How…. Maybe take a step back.  Observe more.  Say less.  Make notes, or not.  How about just BE, in the moment on whatever street.

Why am I writing, now.  What do I want.  What do I hope to hold.  Wine, or travel, or both.  Yes and yes, but something else.  What I’m not particularly clear.  Mom has often recommended I stop writing for a bit, collect then return when something constricts me.  Thinking now may be one of those walks, stops.  So, I stop.  Put laptop away, and only note in the Kerouac pages she bought me.

 

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5/22/19

Wrote wine piece of day, and…. Don’t want to say it like that, but I’m re-honing on wine, and only wine.  Write about wine as I always have but with more mad rile.  Last night sipping the Pinot on the floor after what felt like the longest fucking day of my life, I saw myself pouring my own wine and walking my own vineyard with my sister, my kids, Mom and Dad.  Talking about the vintage so far and what we’re going to bottle in a couple days.  Need to open something troublesome, tonight.  Something I shouldn’t.  What. One of the Balletto bottles?  Should I get something at Oliver’s on the way home?  No… use what you have.  Save money, I tell myself.  Keep stuffing 1’s into that envelope, maybe that will get you your tasting room one day, I tell myself over a latte this morning.

Write only about wine.  Write more than just descriptions, but images, what she teaches you.  And yes, wine is my delightful and enveloping witch everpresent set to educate me on my Now and see through all understandings.  I’ll wait till home to see what the writer’ll open.  Right now, just keep seeing the vineyard, me traveling and speaking about my wines, writing about them… the Cabernet, the Syrah, Chardonnay.  All I want to make.  All wine wants me to write about, so the decision is quite painless to find.

9:26.  Fuck…. Gotta leave soon.  Jotting wine thoughts and scenes in the Kerouac journal…. Today at lunch, get out of that goddamn van and write.  Anywhere. Take yourself out to eat.  A certain order. Needs to be done.  Write only wine, what she tells you… the Pinot from last night and the reality you not knowing what to open, thinking you have to plan it but that goes against the story.  Wine is the Now and the happenings you don’t see or forecast.

 

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Pinot on its last night.

Me on my last leg after a longer than long day. She promises reason not the day next. More music, more color and why many would just write off as seduction but a manifold light of such right. First sip, and no compromise. No reduction or descending. Another kiss, reminding life, rooms, memoirs and memories. And present.

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from a journal

First time writing since the hotel, since the night before the run.  Still have whatever bug has commanded my functioning since… can’t remember.  Picking up student papers today, then that’s it.  Not sure when the next time I’ll be conventionally teaching.  9 days till 40.  So much I want to write, from so many singular notes…. Sleeping from 8-something till a bit after 1 today, both from exhaustion from the run and the bug, the run itself in that hurricane or midwest-like storm.  Then I write about the drive back from Santa Cruz and about Santa Cruz itself, thinking about short stories the entire time.  Stories my mother tells me to write, about wine and being in a tasting room, playing baseball when younger, running now.  Music, jazz, going to Oregon, living on the Peninsula, anything.

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Still feeling a bit drained and not of full blare, but I keep moving.  Keep pressing self.  Thought this morning on writing in third person.  Mom tells me she prefers her reading experience to be 1st-pers’ narr’.  And I agree, with wild heart’s velocity.  BUT, as an exercise and demand of me to me for me, I’m thinking of 3rd.  As we do at Sonic when we record observations and communicate something we saw, or something we said, all is done in 3rd person.  I’ve never seen that before, at a place of business.  Certainly the wine industry wouldn’t think to the point of discovering anything in that light, trying something new and breaking template.

Brought coffee over here, closer to me.  Cold, or getting colder.  Have to get some Rosé for wife, three bottles of the Balletto which she had the other night, when I was on the Road for running.  She took the babies out for a date dinner, a fancy dinner as Jack described it.  To KIN Windsor, her’s and my favorite spot locally, it could be argued.  She told me she had two spaced out, distanced, glasses.  She’d never done that before, had more than one.  So, I said to her I know the owner and quite enjoy their portfolio as well so I’ll get a couple bottles.  Wont be tasting when there, I’m sure.  But it’ll get me out of the house, moving, away from the image of me resting, trying to recover.  Hate being like this.

Deep nearly angry sip of the coffee. I get a text but don’t look to see who it is. I don’t care.  Have to keep moving.  Read it quick then back to page.  Feel sneeze approaching… /Done. Not going to disrupt or distance me from me wanting to do something with the day.  When in the hotel, in Capitola, I thought about where I was and why, for running.  How I need to have more of the Road, more writings in random rooms. More Newness, more education, more notes, more exploration and less pattern, less boundaries, ceilings and walls.  Okay, I shake self, time to drive.  Time to move more, get out of this house, tell the sick that you’re sick of it.

(5/20/19)

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5:41am

Capitola, CA.

Parking lot above the police station, suggested by a police officer just a second ago when I pulled up beside him, barely able to speak from the effects of the cold or whatever I have.

More than awake and ready to dominate and control this race. Will get coffee somewhere in Santa Cruz not Capitola when fine.

Will start walking down street and toward start in a bit. Right at 6….

Good thing I double checked. Was in wrong spot. I thought it started in Santa Cruz not Capitola. So here I am. Saw coffee spot driving in. Boardwalk in front of me, some rides, lights, those pointed rooftops you’d see at an amusement park.

5:59. Leaving car. Get bib, then walk around. Hope they have somewhere for my keys. Hope. Should have bought one of those belts, precisely for keeping your car key. Mom’s right as always, as she said the other day– I need be better prepped.

Just saw two women runner walk by.

Leaving car.

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