The Glass

img_7604Late, and wine and music, thinking about the day and week ahead.  Day off tomorrow from office new but class later.  Going to put thinking in mode of close, already for semester.  The writing daddy thinking, thinks now, bigger than in past sittings.  Tonight, Pinot Noir.  Went to winery he just in the last month left, yesterday.  He misses it, wine, the industry.  Would he ever go back?  Fuck no, he says to himself.  He says it loud so he can hear himself think it and say it, and feel it more before the next sip.  He’ll have his own winery one day, something small.  That small little tasting studio and room where people, anyone, can just taste wine and talk.

He closes all the other docs on his laptop.  Focuses on his memoir or note or memoir-ish novel piece, he throws more Pinot into his circuitry.  And I’m tired already, even though I did manage a nap earlier, and after having some coffee.  Guess the writer needed it.  Mike looks at the wine, remembers his last days at that Chalk Hill spot, going into the vineyard his last day with the TR manager to do his exit and she saying this is how it should be done as he’d always talk about the vineyard and everything in it, how he’d walk it everyday.

He’d write it.  That tell-all.  Or something like a tell-all.  He wasn’t trying to expose anyone or call anyone out, or do any tabloid shit on his blog, he just wanted to write the wine industry, the bar the glass the towels the inventory.  Each turn, jot on a paper clipped by a spreadsheet metal clip-y thing.  He looks again at the glass and writes more notes about it, what he thinks someone from, maybe somewhere like, Indiana would say.  Some small town Indiana person, now a rich oil or farm behemoth.  “That’s nice, that’s like one of those Pinots that tells you what Pinot is, what it’s all about… I’ve had Pinots like this before, I’ve had a lot of them…” He’d heard lines like this, so many times before, someone trying to sound like something, some wine something, an expert or “connoisseur” or “aficionado”, or just a fucking EXPERT.  But it’s in his head.  He knows he has to write this down.  All of it.  He sipped the Pinot faster, pour another glass or sip right from neck. It’d changed, 

Wine speaking to him in octaves applauded, in his thoughts.  Empty glass, full head of wine visions, walking a vineyard again like he did at every wine he’d ever worked at.  He doesn’t know where he is in this session, and he doesn’t care.  The mocha, maple, cherry and milk chocolate from the wine speaking even several minutes after sipped.  He sees himself light up after writing about glass’ occupant, even after gone, even before letting it sing through a bottle’s neck like he were Kerouac.  Much to tell, more now later.  As a writing daddy ought do.  Much anew do.

9/23/18

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0502

That’s better. Still not 4 but this is the kind of hour I need to wake at in order to get that kind of start in and on day. Today, to be a long one. Starting in office new then driving to SF, then back to office, Santa Rosa, then to class later, 7 to about 830. The solution, not that there needs be a “solution”, as there’s certainly no problem, is to write everything down. What a surprise I say that. But how about actually do it. Not that I don’t, but how about more zeal this time. More singular and definite words, short sentences. More specifics in what I see in the city, on my drive. Where is my voice recorder? Hate using this phone while driving, if you should know, and you should. Not sure why you “should”. Truth, I’m reminded. Truth in the day, these long days. Not sure why it’s on my thinking’s terrain to points of sleep inability. Why am I up? Why am I not asleep right now? What’s on my mind I ask myself. What. Is it the office? Is it the day itself, the drive? Any angst with this new job? I came downstairs to write, hear kids talking and I tell them to go to bed, both in our bed. What am I thinking, this writing daddy, this writer who sees something in the present present. But what. Sip coffee. Not yet. Wait. This hour, the dark of the room and the outside, and everyone out in the vineyards now harvesting their lots. I SHOULD be up. And not just this morning, but every morning. Think I recognized it– It’s that, this. I’m writing a piece on the morning itself, being more tuned in the morning, for it. There is nothing to fear in this day or any other. I have more than a head-start or head’s start on Tuesday. However you write it. I already have the whole day, or have the opportunity to. And it’s not even 05:20.

Coffee. Slow communicative sip, pull from dark puddle. Me, couch, no sound. Awake to have more of day itself. Challenge it. Have it. Know it, already. Beat it at whatever game or field, board it thinks its own. It’s mine, I promise self. All mine. Had a thought of calling tonight’s class, but no I swear to self. Go. Go in tired. Remind them, show them, those enrolled, what a long day is. Teach, if anything, about work. About self. About deciding what the day will say. The day itself has NO say. That’s all us. Me, up now, thank the Craft, not so much collecting or gathering thoughts but being with self. Quiet time, like I tell the babies when they have an unreasonable volume about them at an inappropriate hour or any hour.

39. 40 next year. And still in a search of sorts. Think I found something, actually I know I did, with tech. This new office. A tech company and office and being around characters with more technological acuity and awareness than I’ll ever have. Not that I can’t be them but– No. I can’t. And I don’t want to. I shouldn’t have to. No one there is making me, which I love and more or less can’t believe. They want me to be me, this writer and blogger. They hired me for me. Realizing that this morning could be one thing keeping me up, disabling me from going back to sleep aside from the coffee. This morning I’m 39, tomorrow I will be too, but one morning I’ll be 40, then older and older. Age is only age if its acknowledged and credited. What if I stopped crediting it. What if I decided age is unaccredited. Like some two-bit, hair-brained for-profit college. I can do that. This morning teaches me to only see what I want. To work harder. Just now, I grieved a bit, that I didn’t start writing right when I came down but rather used the restroom briefly. 04:50-something. Can’t do that. Here I am, I’m awake, what are you going to decide to do. Am I “figuring out life”? No. But I’m definitely not letting it tell me what’s possible, what I’m allowed to do. What I’m capable of doing.

Waking early puts you in a different world. In a different role. You’re not yourself, not the same character if you’re used to doing this. There’s a challenge and a stress to it but with concurrent ease, meditation. From where I’m sitting in this house, what used to be my office, I won’t be able to see the sun rise but a gradual lighting and progressive brightness, brightening of the day itself. Which saddens me, but only if I dwell. I don’t let self. I listen to the nothingness heard in my home. Son sniffling a bit, the fridge humming behind me, my thumbs tapping on this phone, its screen. Being in the city, San Francisco, wakes me. Those thoughts. Thinking…. office, drive, walk around city with sales team, meet with them, then drive back…. when lunch? Maybe I won’t get one. Grab something, maybe. On go. No fast food. Haven’t had in over a year and the last time it made me quite sick.

Mood turns. Not sure why. Time rushing. 05:40. Only so much time left. Typo… fuck. My frustration compiles like my pages. What do I want from day. Where am I going with this entry. In tech. With writing. With teaching. With 39…….. Stop. I fracture the inward scold before it holds me, holds anything. Yawn. I’m tired. No I’m not. I’m eager. For the day. For work. For more writing. Speak into phone if you can on drive down. Be careful of course, but don’t fall into a complacency mitt.

More meditation, more questioning, more drawing of what here is now, a month ago in the wine industry doing the same thing over and over and o…… And now, this. Waking before six. A thousand words and for what. What will I do with this. What will I do with me today, these opportunities. The day will tell me, I’m sure. And I’ll tell it something in return– I’m deciding and writing how everything’s to progress and situate. The pages are mine, all of them.

9/18/18

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Not up at 4 as I’d hoped, shocker, but I’m up before 7 on my day off. “Day off” I should write and specify as I’m going into office at 2 to tend to everything T and I couldn’t when we landed the ship back at base. Today will be a day, I can feel. Picking up check at Idlewild Wines TR and getting in a run somehow. Not shooting for 10+ as I did last week. Just a healthy run. Maybe just 6.3-mike measuring run as I used to. Just note, reader and self, that I’m awake, alive, fiery and purposed in my present presence. I’ve been antagonized and self-catalyzed.

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Business.  Building one. 

img_0355What I’m thinking about now, finishing my last little snack. Need something salty, or something.  Not sure.  Shit, I’m getting indecisive again.  Not falling into anymore indecision.  Can’t with business, writing about building one, seeing self as one.  The forward motion has to be the principle motion.  Okay… caved and bought some cheese and crackers from shop here in this multi-purpose/lunch/presentation/meeting room/arcade.  Honestly, this room is unusually impressive to me, and what it contributes to the business and those support it, making everything happen.   I look around and see no one unhappy, no one scowling.  Two guys behind and to the right of me play a game of pingpong, not one of them speaking to the other completely trapped and rapt in their furious and precise back and forth.  Me, my thinking this morning, now, on my lunch where I choose to write about this new job and wha tI see it doing for me.  What I learned before coming in here, about overthought and what it did to me, my writing, yesterday.  How I declared no such occurrence would speak today.  Not even slightly.

26 minutes left in my literary lunch or sorts.  A literary character, with a profuse vino penchant, in a tech company.  An ISP.  There’s something there, and more promising and utterly unlike my blend of vino and lit in wine’s place.  But what.  WHAT.  It’s on the tip of my tongue.  Let it land, I tell myself.  Don’t rush it.  Presenting these ideas after lunch to another manager, of marketing and sales, has me wanting to know what it is.  This, ideas, MY business.  Educating people and showing people, the showing itself, the act, persisting as the educating vehicle.

I’ll walk back into the office as a new character in business, how to grow one.  The idea… right there.. goddamnit, I say to myself, SAY IT!  I’m traveling now between business ideas, potentials and capacities, little poems and blurbs, all short, in my head and I agree with self that if they stay then they see a page.  This office motivates me, continuously, and I find new forms and areas in my creative soul.  Not sure how else to describe it, describe this wine writing identity in the tech world.  In an office and no longer at a vineyard.  Strangely, I’m relieved to not walk the vineyard everyday.  That I didn’t expect.  That, this office taught me.

More notes, the writer takes more notes.  On the guitar character, on the wine he opened two nights ago and finished last night, and class tonight.  Likely I’ll let them go early as I did the ‘100’ section last night, share some ideas, and then go.  Needing a night off, and want to see the babies.  More important than any business venture or effort, attempt. They grow quicker than I want them to.  Time continues to demonstrate indifference with how I see my children grow, age, mature, get more mouthy with me and engage me in debate.  I’m encouraged, discouraged, more in love, then sad.  See Jack and in business at some point, together, Emma too I just think of Jack first as I’ve always seen him as my little buddy, partner in crime, that kind of thing.

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