Starting the day
waiting on some appointment. While here, I figure write. Why not. Haven’t hit 3000 words in a while and I know that I have to write every chance I get if I’m to make that kind of progress, but that mark. Tired of thinking, tired of promissory statements to self and to readers of this blog. So I just act, start seriously on the Kelly novel. While getting ready this morning I thought about her, her last day in the ad office in the Marina, her drive back up to her new apartment in Santa Rosa, what she must be thinking, before her first day in the wine industry. She doesn’t know what to anticipate, if she should be nervous or not…
Tired of writing the same thing, and that’s what I feel I’ve been doing. I write where I am, what I’m doing, but that often is much of a repeat. So what do I do but go outside myself. To someone else. Another character. Writing has always just been something I’ve done with not much anxiety or holdup. But lately I’ve been held up. Why. Bored. I guess, no? Bored with the same workday, the same drive, the same sameness of everything around me. Thank the Craft for this new job, new office, new best, new people. Even this office is something to write … me merely here for some physical or something for my new role, but others here for something more pressing, serious or even threatening. Reminds me of how delicate this all is. How fragile I am, my life is. Someone’s name called, but not mine. Goddamnit– Wait though, what am I worried about? My last day in the wine industry is in 9 day’s. NINE. If they fired me, lovely. That’d be something to write.. something new.
Pinot last night, Failla. Didn’t do much to me, really. Surely didn’t inspire me to write about it. It was just another wine. Now I’m certain, more than I was before, that the wine industry and world, possibly even wine itself to some extent, and I need break. I think of my babies and how they see me, how I want them to see me. Last time they visited me in that bloody tasting room I cringed, felt momentous lay embarrassed and queer, them seeing me pour and having to ask that new twigg-twit if I could spend a little time with them. Well that’s fine. And I’m DONE. And never going back. This new “job” will be my last ever. Same feeling as going into your senior year of high school.
Ugh…. when will they call my name? Hate waiting. In a waiting room. Not where I want to be. But I’m here. May as well make use of the writer’s time and write. Right? Another name called. Guy two seats down from me. Will surely be late to winery. Oh well. Relieved I can afford that feeling. And I can. Last step in this whole pre-first day around-tower circle.
Clifford….
NO! Mike!
8/14/18
On my break,
time self intake.
A self-take, break from all
negative wakes.
Some random Cabernet
I bought off a winemaker based in Livermore. Might be my only glass, being so tired from yesterday’s event and all the speaking today. Just swore to self that this sitting would be the one that does something. What. What? I ask the Cab. I provoke one sip and it doesn’t answer. So I’m done for the night. Clocking out. Not sure I deserve to.
thought
Happiness Written
Mine.
Prompt
Write out your frustrations.
Under 300 words…
Writing tracks.
Be back…
First verse done. In the mood to only free write and compose more verses, something to read, and I need to read, I know. Collect the tracks, all my poems and record them, read wherever I can. Why did I come to the coffee shop? Why did I decide to write here in the corner? A man and what I believe to be his son, at left, son writing or doing some writing or math exercises in some workbook and the dad either critiquing or coaching, can’t tell and don’t want to know. Don’t want to focus on them who why am I?
The wine industry— could be at my end. What else is there for me, here? Should only write, and I will. Last night opening something from my “cellar”, or the shelf that I only have reserved for those bottles I’m to “lay down” or set aside for some occasion or dinner, having whomever over for dinner but then I thought, “No.. now’s fine… now is perfect for a writer to open something he ‘shouldn’t’.” In the wine industry, no one wants to pay, few offer any kind of benefits arrangement. Granted, the company I currently work with is nearly obnoxious in their generosity, so don’t think I’m citing them in this citation. No… talking about so many others. This one winery that has expressed an interest in my work telling me just last night that they wouldn’t match what I now earn, nor would they provide benefits or any 401k anything. This is my gripe, this is my ticket, my citation. Why I’m freewriting this morning and writing verse, poetry, being as anti-form as I can, battle any norm or pattern’d pattern and template for what should be done.
Today’s tracks, all about the moment, about me, what I want and what I’m thinking, now, in MY story. The only way I’m going to travel and see the world, read my work and taste wines from places I otherwise wouldn’t is if I completely break from this industry mold and circular cyclical cycle. Off to verse 2 in a bit.. what a poet does— the man and his son leave. Whole corner to self, but now I notice the air conditioning blowing directly down on this agitated poet. So, write about the cold… cold states, both Dakotas, Montana, parts of Oregon that I have seen completely under snow. What this reminds me of, what I hope to feel writing at some lodge overlooking a snow-doused field.
More poetry than wine today, in the tasting room, do know. More work on my pieces than that place, the tasting room which I so eager seek to escape. I want more, like anyone else, as I’ve told so many people. So what’s keeping me, I wonder. Is it the pay and benefits thing? Probably. Well, yes. But what if I could get it on my own? What if I didn’t need these favors, this “compensation”? What if I could just get it all myself? Through poetry, through music… through thought, seeing my life differently, my role in the game and the theatre of wine country with a different lens and leap? Oui…
7/20/18
A glass
at the end of the day, and several thoughts.
Writing tomorrow, early, and only more elevation from there, here.
On lunch,
and in no mood for where I am. And I hate saying that. What am I afraid of, I keep asking. There is no cause for a timid form. When back from lunch, I’ll be a new and renewed character. I swear, I swear this time… this time I’m going to make this my time, my time where I’m in no way held in any one place. Why did it take me so long? Don’t think like that… this is perfect timing. More than perfect.
