we, knowing now, pages and pages, FREED
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…
No nap, today, fought against pull and push to do so. Thanksgiving over, wife out shopping at one of those shopping special eve whatever’s. Me, home. Wine. Just finished glass of Claret. The night passed with such cruel progression. Indifference. Babies asleep upstairs. What movie do I watch, my dilemma. My life’s trouble. Think of how fortunate I am with my family and to have such family, to be sitting where I am, here on this we seek to shed, new one one the way… Day of giving thanks, I need to show more giving of thanks, being thankful.
Tonight, I do intend exploring more wine. No aim to wake at 4am or 4:10 like this day. No. I may actually just sleep in. I will. What do I mean, “may”? May have to punch out. Take the night as it approaches me, describe and translate it, or in such order reversed… then wake tomorrow with more thought. More story. More ME. Tired now, forgetting I’ve been up since 4-something. Think 4:10. Has it been that long? Yes. It has. Me, that writer. Now. Time to Self and I sip wine and be here, writing. A writer.
Does the writer want apple pie or Chardonnay? Both sound like they sound, their own precise appeal and connection. I’m not torn between both but urge to be curved by both, somehow. 9:08. Feel like bed but I won’t. I can’t. But more, I refuse. Why can’t I be a human, just have dessert or drink wine. Is it that complicated? Are my thoughts the hinderance, the block and or impediment? I think it may be just that. Not in any kind of a writing swoop, and I can’t figure anything of it out. How does pine figure. What type a figure be me, I, this writer.
I feel like I’m not doing a thing, while doing too much. A mess. Should have taken a nap.
Wine never needs to frame complicated. Wine should never direct prolix. She’s inviting, approachable, narrative and affectionate. What’s surrounded by curved glass reads a presence, a prophetic face and storm of versifying lines.
After a day, working, wine waits, debates her approach to me, my life and day and immediate room. The room, now, connotative in resonance, assurance, a perceptive seat. I’m at a table with her, being instructed, listening,eating leftovers and coaching me on Now, this doesn’t have to be layered or codified, and sort of sophisticated set.
Haven’t touched this glass. But the visual and nearness has me. Inward recite, and known night, thrown toward a lone vinified light.
9/19/18
Guy with guitar, just stared playing again.
Doesn’t know why he hasn’t played in so long. Can’t remember when he played it last. When he bought it.
He just plays with the chords. Plays. He just got home from work. Clock hurls time at his eyes, 9:47. He has to be in office at 7:15 for a client meeting. He doesn’t care. He plucks, picks, strings. He thinks he’s playing chords dragging across the strings, but he doesn’t know. No cares. He’s playing. Just playing.
He writes a line. A chorus, or start of verse. He does this from now till one again, but not like this. Not with the strings out. “End of day, a little way from anywhere…” what next. No idea. Back to strings.
Last night not opening anything resplendent. Just taking the rest of the Cabernet I opened night prior. And, frankly, it said nothing to me. Nothing at all. An idea for a short, from my character Kelly as you might forecast, her first day in the wine industry, being walked around the crush pad and seeing the production crew cleaning and steaming barrels, sulfuring some lots before harvest arrives. She thinks to herself the she wants that, to make something, to give something life, to contribute to wine’s vivacity and composition. My relationship with wine changes, as I age. No longer, and I mean NO longer, do I want to be in that tasting room. I want to write her, wine, and that’s it. Kelly, the avatar for all wine should represent. She’s in the industry as an invaluable antithetical.
He sits down at his desk. That same desk. He could do it, today. Why not. Why not today. He missed the drives by the vineyards, his parents’ house that overlooked that canyon, and again with vineyards just down the road, Highway 12. Int he East Bay all there were, freeways. Traffic. Angry people honking and not caring if they almost hit you with their car or actually do hit you. He’d tell Rick that he was quitting, today. How much notice should he give? How should he do it? Should he tell him, just tell him, or give some kind of lead in…
“When you get a second, I need to see you.” Rick says, hovering over his desk. He always did that, but Jack usually saw him approaching. But this morning he was so deep in his ‘what would he say’ inner laboratory and workshop that he forgot he was at his own desk.
Rick walks away and back into his office to make a call. “Okay,” Jack thought, “I’m leaving, I’m leaving, I’m going back to Sonoma County.” And it wasn’t just the job, it wasn’t the insurance business, it wasn’t even really the East Bay. He just wanted to do what he wanted, or start on his path to. Wine. Wine. He wants to make wine. He’s wanted to make wine for a few years, now. Made wine with his sister a few years back, but it just sat in barrel and became more or less and experiment, to see how long it could stay palatable in barrel. He dreams of his label.. his bottle types and what wines he’d make. “Cab…. Merlot… a blend… Chardonnay like Rachel.” He always admired his sister and what she’s done, how she got to where she did, just working hard and not compromising, ever.
“Jack! Come here, please.”
Jack’s thought stream and visuals, the inner gallery of possibility and dreams torn in half by the agent’s voice. He walks in, knowing what he’d say. He would do it. Tell him. Take back his life and be back in a vineyard, starting somewhere, doing something, something with wine.. no more auto policies or deductible talk, no more working up quotes for people that know they have to have insurance but don’t want to spend money on something not at all fun…. He wanted barrels, early mornings cutting fruit from vines, a glass.
“Okay, sooooooo…. You forgot to call back a couple clients and they’re not too happy with us. I need you to work up new quotes for Patria Mockey and Derrick Smote, and then I need you to drive out to 68th Avenue and do some measurements on a house. What’s going on with you, lately? Do you even want to write insurance, get your license one day, have your own office? ‘Cause I thought that’s what you wanted.”
“I’m moving back to Sonoma County.”
Rick doesn’t know what Jack just said. Stares. Stuck. “To do what?”
“Make wine. Be happy. I don’t want this.”
exude the most You you can produce.
Right where you are.
Reiterate your reality with beatific bravado and placement. If others question or object, use their words for your pages.
We, as writers, win, always, either way.
She thinks about taking a walk but decides to stay inside. For second, she thought there was an appointment this morning, but then realized it’s Saturday. But she couldn’t be still. She has bills to pay from last week and a piece to finish, one she’s hoping to set in a Marin gallery, the one Carla told about the other week. She lays herself back in bed, grabs the sketch pages from the stand, and starts scribbling. Starting off with lines that slope slightly to right, then turning the movements into a view of Geary Boulevard. But she doesn’t like it. Her first thought is to rip it up, but doesn’t let herself. She brings it with her to kitchen, lets it watch her make a latte.
and thought it was determined. But upon the olfactory greeting he was stumped. What happened in the last few days since ML finished? This, he wasn’t used to. The glass told him to taste. He did. He didn’t recognize his own wine. This was his barrel, no? So many in this collective crush facility– he looked at the tag. His. What was this? He remembered what someone said long ago during that one harvest, Pinot from just off Shiloh– “You never know what it’ll do once in bin, tank, barrel…” He looked at it again. It wanted a sip. So, what– what. It’s wine, what’s the big fucking deal. The compromise, hearing out the wine, more determination of the structuring of it all.. mirrors, how it tastes, how le vin evolves in its character and role and recital.
“Yeah, what’s the big deal?” He could hear it protest. He sipped while shaving. Tomorrow, to do more than he wanted, the notes from the bottle pulled him from sentenced dullness… what now then, cooking his own composure and pace, mediated and made with the mood not of his following. What else to wade in but inner meditations, more measuring of his relationship with his wine. He dumped out the rest, continued revolving in other images and wined routes. Tomorrow would be a long day… inventory, then racking, then paper work for grower contracts. Why did he do this to himself? Nothing was determined, he thought. “The wine can change…I can change…this all can change.” And, for advantage. This would be his thirteenth year as a grower/winemaker. Thir-teen. How did that happen? Where did time go? He was wasting time thinking this way. Get to bed, wake early, run, then to those Pinot barrels, hope they’re more communicative. It was late, all he could do was hope that it wasn’t too late.
Writing father not waking at 4, so the mood already angularized but I won’t let it slow me a bit. Chugging quick the cold coffee, made last night—well, not made cold but cooled over night, left tumbler at work so I left it in tall cup with aluminum atop—and I set my goal for day. Humble three pages. Day’s goal, stories and stories in my head and the magic hour of 4AM taunts me, today me not even so much as giving it a chance to gloat. Woke at 5-something, think 5:45, to get Emma from crib—actually go upstairs and get Emma from crib as Jack came into our room and evicted me from bed as he usually does. 4AM….. Such a warrior, when you think about. Always there, those numbers, everyday. I should meet it, those numbers, that time, everyday. Writers are heralded for their discipline and obsessive routines, at least all those I study are… ‘Nother swig of coffee, listen to Jackie’s Spiderman cartoon. See? Even my son has a routine, something from which he never breaks, morning cartoons and breakfast. What is my routine? How about in addition to the 3 pages today or at least part of it, write a word every hour in the tasting room to elucidate either my mood or feeling, curiosity or dream at the time.
Have to get in shower soon. 4AM, if I did meet you I would have had well over three hours of unabashed writing time. Untouched writing time. Time to write which would tell present and future readers how serious and manuscript-driven I am. But am I? Always questioning myself and scolding where I misstep, like with 4, can’t be a boon in any telling regard. Maybe I need a break from my character and go back to my character, Kelly’s. Last I recollect I had her in an ad firm in the city. She was mostly administrative but they let her dabble in the creative, but only dabble. She paints and draws, of course, sells pieces here and there, but can’t find the time for her craft as she also pours at a wine bar on the Embarcadero. She has no choice but these two jobs, with how much her modern SF rent is. She would get a roommate, but that’s no what she wants. She needs more quiet, she needs more travel, she needs more creative in her life and the Now is where she vows to attain such.
Ah…. Now the writing father feels better. Not thoroughly improved, but enough to feel good about reaching 3 pages. Got Jackie some milk and water, now back to my morning highly critical meditation. 4AM has not dodged out inevitable meeting. And the writing father’s mood, only elevating. Jackie burps… and again… and I laugh. “Excuse me excuse me excuse me,” he says. “Was that a funny burp?” he then asks. I can’t stop laughing, and my disposition is completely repaired this morning. No more mood, please. I can’t bloody stand them. Doesn’t matter. They don’t matter. Today I invest in self, my pages and book, pages for Kelly and everything else off starboard. Wrote at the beginning of the month that ‘maybe I’m taking my self-assessment too seriously’, or ‘personally’. Either way, like Mom sometimes says, “Lighten up.” True. It’s Sunday, not that that matters as I’m headed to work while a trapping total of Americans get the day with their families. My word for this hour, now in my house with my son, 8:19AM— Puzzle. I’m terrible at puzzles but I’ve never had to solve with anything in balance. What’s in balance? How about my family, our quality of life, my happiness, my aim of traveling and taking pictures, writing, more photojournalism… How about fucking everything on the line? Is that enough motivation for me to solve the puzzle, THIS puzzle, this life? I think so. But, really, lighten up. Enjoy your cold coffee, your story, Kelly, her return to your thoughts with that 400-square foot apartment in the Marina. She wakes early, every morning, to just sketch, and sometimes just doodle but make the doodles somehow multicolored and magnetic with the color play and brush, or pencil, strokes. Her dream, having a loft/studio in Manhattan, “The typical artist dream,” she always tells people when they ask what she ultimately wants, avocationally. But that’s what she wants, and being trapped in that office and behind that bar watching people become asses after however many glasses is just the poignant propulsion she needs. “It’ll be here soon,” she tells herself. Every morning.