Pause before poetry, prose.
Looking for more conversations…. I’m thinking far too much, I know. So bad that I’m writing how much I’m thinking which is even more counter-everything. Productive, intuitive….
2:16pm. MY job is prospecting, funnel building and not how those Facebook infomercial, pseudo-guru types talk. No… this is a collective communication that strays and sways any way it may. I follow the talk, keep it alive however I can. Productivity yes but a sped and rich movement from result to result and deliverable to deliverable. I’m studying work, what I do here at Sonic, and all this is, any sales position really, but this AE act most notably is avoiding silence however you can.
Words always present, always movement. Always aims and targets, a consistency of embodiment. Work, knowing Now, FREED. Me.. finally. The wine industry could never produce this.
Feeling the 7-mile run from lunch. Want some cold brew coffee, a sparkling water. Will walk to back room, pause for a sec. Know my topic, finally. Not wine, not even writing, but WORK. Right here, in this chair, with these post-it’s, this pen and journal.
Keep talking, keep meeting and connecting.
First sip of cold brew and I’m rebuilt.
project
9/13/19
Done with first initial appointment on my own. Confidence is present, but I want to learn more. About the technical facet to this business and what Sonic does. Do I want to be a Sales Engineer? No, but sort of.
Just settling into office, not letting self think too much about any one singular entrapping thing. Not that anything is entrapping, but I know what I mean by that. You might not, but don’t fret. Last night looking at students while I was lecturing, seeing them take notes and much more orderly than I do in the little pages, at least up until a certain point yesterday, I take out the bigger journal, I did, this morning from car. It was just sitting there in the trunk of the foul Prius, and the intention to the bigger journal has always been full lines and full pages. A pressuring of self which will always prove to be lucrative and productive, and more than productive, loving the labor of love and evidence of such.
Got self a latte, Olivia a Chai something with hazelnut. I don’t usually celebrate Fridays, but I do this one. And not from having tomorrow, technically, “off”. There are no days off, only a writing of self and more and more writing of what’s around me. Reading Road last night with the 1A seats, everything they think and the questions they would share with me concerning Dean and Sal and their relationship, I think of me and my travels here in this office, at Sonic, in the AAE/AE character. Everything connecting. “Everything is Everything”, which sounds despicably simple and banal, but all the same valid and informative.
Distracted by conversation…. Why not. One of those days, or not just one, but now, this time at my desk. Appointment later to go over morning appointment. Learn more, and be fearless in my pursuit, YOUR pursuit, of education. Going to take a break in a few, or not a break but moment to write. Write more and keep writing. Start the book… thought from last night. What on? Wine, of course, and the wine writer at a tech company. First person… no, third. NO… FIRST. Okay. So that’s decided more or less. And don’t sell the book. Keep moving.. be like your students, more like your students and less like yourself. Study, simplify. Last night having some Rose, then the rest of the Grenache which was only about a glass and a quarter. I don’t want the tasting room anymore, but then I do. Then I shift my approach and thought throws to just go in and have fun. Deliberately try NOT to work
Wine writer in a tech company. And how I spoke of what we offer business clients was with the same heart and vibrantce, the same ebullience as I do with wine, and literature, and writing, reading, to the students and how I urge them to make the semester about their story and not the curriculum coffin or some demands from the department, or the school.
Me
Now
Day 9. About conviction, about defiance, about all of us finding what we’re searching for. Coltrane playing me and eased track. Didn’t record my spoken word piece yesterday. Was distracted by that bottle of Inspiration Syrah, the quiet of the house, and thoughts of writing about the wine industry. When in my office, I see such a book taking shape, in not much time either. Citing everything from the ridiculous pay, to the overwhelming focus on anything but get wine, to patterns and posturing from those patterns.
A truck passes me on 128. Hate typing on my phone, but this is what I have currently. Hoping for a day not at all busy. Not at all preoccupied with the winery making its number for the month, but more my sanity, my sentences, this project and others.
This week in the office, I’m going to loudly and communicatively accelerate all movements and sights. Why can’t I be the highest selling AE in my first year? There is no law or rule or policy prohibiting such. Actually, Sonic is the atmosphere that enables and emboldens such a progression to take place. Whatever we do for work, we need not only make it our own, but have it teach us and be a measure of effort. We should always seek to against ourselves compete.
Bed early tonight. Wake at 5, 4 if you can. At the end of 100 days, there will be a visual of such altitude, such attainment. If I’m not the highest earner, I’ll have shocked everyone with what I’ve done. Make calls, SET APPOINTMENTS…. just say hi. Forget about return, certainly immediate return. That’s a foot shot, I’ve learned, and an error the wine industry continues to seemingly want to make. And I e never figured out why, why they expect such instant transaction and metrics ascension. I’ve given up trying to learn, now focusing on my Sonic story and sense of new sense and story, character.
This writing spot, little spacious and sizeable inlet, used to write here in 2012 as I mentioned, and later in 2017 when working at the Foley camp. Now, story is different. Not at all fearful to question and defy regularity and policy, not that I was before. But Sonic has shown me that one idea can prove purposeful and provide a purpose which pervades till your final day. Such is now, such is me, such is my poetic and newly purposed immediacy.
What do I want from the day. Peace. Ideas for this week. Ideas on growth, branding and rebranding but more than that…. CHARACTER. Story. Life. Revolution. Start acting like a revolutionary, I said to myself and some other people at Sonic a few months ago. Today…. watch. And won’t do so with malice or a burn-bridge intent, but to have my identity known. For all in contact with me, not just for me. If I’m not making sense I apologize….. you’ll see what I mean, shortly.
Day 8 tells me
to go back to music, speaking words.
One track by day’s end.
Then record.
Music.
Looking back at the writer.
Wine is
my partner narrator.
Kerouac has
all interpretation and meditations leaning toward more. More exploration, more scenes, more looking around and acknowledging Now. Nothing behind, all ahead and in front of me asking to be experienced. What am I doing here, accepting any order, any regulatory, any institution. More, on that Road, the music, lights, cars, families traveling in winter or whenever. Sitting on unfamiliar boards, me…
Again catching self in an overthinking maelstrom
I leave the house. Come to downtown Santa Rosa, to Beer Baron. A place I’ve only been once. Ordered a glass of Sauvignon Blanc, one I’ve never had before and don’t think beyond that. Just enjoying this whim, this sudden cruise downtown. Not sure where the direction of the writing’s going, and I don’t need know. To the characters I was thinking of in the tasting room. Yes…. The two that are behind the bar and want to get out of the industry, starting their own wine gallery. That’s what they call it at first…. I came here just for this, for new ideas and brainstorming, not be at the drawing board but to draw a board of ideas.
All this before class. All of it, of this, my new stories and wine thoughts, wines I’ve tasted recently, yesterday with the St. Francis Chardonnay then some Kobler Viognier when home. Everything in the pages, on them, constituting them.
This place, a serious bar more than a restaurant or any wine bar I could see myself opening. Earlier thinking of self as failed in some wine aims and dreams. As the waitress just now puts down the glass, I find I’m not in any way “failed”. Have I even really started? What if this could be my office, everyday, I think. Come here and work from noon to whenever. Why not.
I stare at the Sauvignon Blanc for a bit before smelling it, and much before tasting. I let it be a symbol, a reminder of wine’s life in my life, its presence and my past and present, all futures. I won’t let self take a sip just yet, but rather draw my characters at their winery, at day’s end, having a glass of Pinot on the patio. They talk about just going for it. Saving whatever they have saved and putting it into some wine business. A brokerage, they think.
But then I as the writer put the idea on hold and think of how I’ll approach them, this story. Their stories. The wine story coupled with their stories and mine. I stop everything and focus on them, Jane and Elly. Jane out from somewhere in the midwest, always wanting to work in the wine industry, years ago and now here and tired of being tasting room locked. Elly, from San Francisco leaving her corporate corner to be in wine’s everything. She’s worked two harvests, then to tasting room as production for some reason just wasn’t her thing. She knew why, and didn’t know why. She loves the winemaking process of course and everything that goes into harvesting and fermentation, barreling-down lots and pressing, even the shoveling of tanks. But the people in the tasting room and the words they’d say, the interactions with people, called to her and wouldn’t let her ignore.
I take my first sip of the SB and focus on me writing, what brought me here. Then the two characters. What we all have in common. They of course, or maybe not so obviously younger than me. I keep writing. Till this is the ONLY thing I do. Writing about writing and people and what they do for work. How work and our jobs, labor, determines so much of our character and how we estimate the world around us.
Think today is the day I finally killed overthought. I’m not editing, or measuring, forecasting or worrying about how anything I write, type, is perceived. I’m just moving and not allowing any stationary sets for this writer or any of his characters. The two girls start a website, for anyone coming to wine country. They see themselves as fashionable intel, something to make people more pleased with their choice to come to Sonoma County much the way I’m please with my election to come here and write. Relax before class. See me in business with son and daughter, eventually. I quit the wine industry but am very much back in it on my own accord and set of terms, rules, and I guess some regulatory rattle.
Second sip. Such real and truthful tropical body and bravado. Nothing invasive or excessively aggressive. This is a character that has me more into my characters and these new characters I’m writing. I return to them and what they want, what would make them happy, what in wine they want to grow toward. What do I want to be, grow toward. Wine, travel, speaking on wine both metaphorically and immediately. Tonight, open something new. Study it. Let wine dictate my own fate, give me direction and more introspection. Tempted to take the night off from class. No. Use it as speaking practice. Not practice at all, the second sip says, and I sipped minutes ago. Can still feel that tropical shock and rush, set of steps.
I pick up the glass and nose what remains, which is a good two sips I’m guessing. 40 next year. That’s where my head is. And then what. Maybe I’ve overthinking that as well. Sure I am. Look at the wine, focus on it… wine writer and journalist, one who actually writes and journals and doesn’t just take a blare of ridiculous shots of himself and other wine “experts” or “writers”. Glass up again, sip…. Follow the stories, MY story. Don’t think at all. Just write. What I tell the students, every semester.
Talking about writing, tonight. That’s it. Beyond simple argument, or any attempt to persuade which was the chapter they had to read in that “Prose Reader”. Or maybe that’s singularly what I should discuss. I think about taking notes, but the wine says no. Be in the moment. Or be above the moment, flying and hovering above simple time and whatever that clock reads, dictates.
Finding that when you write down ideas, they speak back. They instruct you on possibility and presence. They talk back, love back, write back. Thank fun to the Story, and everything, LIFE, for today. For the embrace and blind subscription to whim. To not sink into overthink. To blog and jot against any overthought.
With he glass done, I slow. Thank of the walk yesterday with my son in the vineyard and showing him the remaining clusters on the canes. I had him taste a couple…. I thought of us, in business, how our visions of our company will differ and will be surprisingly in some places identical. All this from wine. Thinking of wine, living wine, writing wine. Wine writing me, since my first day in the St. Francis tasting room, 2006.
10/22/18