this morning, thinking I had to be at a meeting at 0830 only to learn I didn’t have to be there at all. Which serves as a boost and a boon, giving me time to write right across the street at the winery where I’m based. Retiring… my first taste of retirement, from the wine industry, its slow-moving and barely-communicative facets. No more tasting room, no more pouring for other people. I will miss the words, though. What people say about wine and how they say it, with that tone to their voice. Like I wrote a while ago, I’m closer to wine and even its industry by writing about it, and leaving physically.
Retiring… to focus on teaching and generating ideas with student, philosophy and pedagogy, writing practice and journal habits… and business, and fusing my literary life and presence into the business world. Writing and blogging and holding observations in esteem, as they build character, Personhood.
Yesterday leaving the winery early to write. That’s always my first impulse and inner-shove when I have free time. Write. Why then lately has writing given me such a shake, been such a challenge and near painful to catalyze? Have to write though it, I guess. As I always say to students and write in my entries.
Going through past entries, where I was stressed about something in the wine industry, or in life, or with teaching, with something. Find it interesting. How from day to day we’re all the same character but there’s some sharpened corner, refined angle, or damaged dimension somehow. I’m learning more, while aging. That’s certain. Even now, with no music on as I usually have, I only hear the building’s natural sounds. I think a little wind from the other side of the wall, outside by trees, and the winery’s tanks and, or, pumps on the crush pad doing something, dinging and whooshing, making some released air clunk-sound. I’ll share some of this with those registered for the classes I’m to teach this term, and some notes I’ll just leave here on the blog, or in a drawer, in the Burgundy journal. Only two days away, when I see students for the first time in months, having taken off the summer. Glad I did, as it taught me that I need a drastic momentum shift. Something New. A renewed ME, new story and pages, a BOOK.
No meeting, but I meet with myself. With this page. Just felt a chill, a bluster of terror that I couldn’t write anymore. That either I forgot or I’ve lost some intrigue or interest in and with the act itself, or something. But it’s not true. It’s not me, not the present… nothing of what you’d see in me right here typing in someone’s cubicle. Not sure if she works here, anymore. Work… what we live for. What I feel I only do. So why not have it be not just something you love or are passionate about, but plainly who you are. You’re a winemaker… you’re a writer… you’re a teacher… you’re a doctor. Yes, it’s your job, but it’s YOU. You own it, you own you… you own your onus. Have a meeting with yourself, see what transpires. Write it down.
Following my own instruction, I write it. “I. AM. A. WRITER.” Learning more about me and why I am where I am, what I’m doing. Letting the immediate scene and observational pattern teach me as to what next do.
8/18/18
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…
Earlier than I have been, possibly ever.