wine, knowing now, pages and pages, FREED
waking early to write. Brewing coffee now, or about to, and seeing me now. A father. I have kids. They look to me for… something. What. Maybe everything… coffee in front of me. Like the morning. Meetings and possibilities. New pages and people. This last glass, Cabernet, telling me to slow, not be so quick to know.
Today, interesting feel and pace. About to go to speakers group, which I haven’t been to in a while. Been in the Field much more. Writing notes to self, on sales and selling, and sales philosophy, and other ideas that pass through my head like wandering herds somewhere.
Smell something. Lunch. Getting hungry. But will speak on no fuel. Will speak from that deliciously delirium and madness that sets in when you get hungry, when the hunger passes a certain point.
Promised son I’d get him a basketball jersey, a Warrior’s one with his favorite player, Steph Curry’s name on the back. He’s so excited with the prospect of having that jersey. I need get it for him. I will.
Shorter sentences and paragraphs, my current thought and pace map. Getting up. Restroom, water, or coffee. Something to sip. Cut back on caffeine. So water then.
4:47. Soon to go to mall, get presents for Jack and Emma, have a glass of something while there, at that microbrewery or bar or both, whatever it is. Love the idea of writing and sipping wine in a new spot, or even better some spot I haven’t been to in some considerable time.
Going to check on new hire then come back, finish this entry then leave. Thinking of taking home this birthday bottle of Tin Barn Syrah, possibly popping tonight. Possibly.
Putting Syrah in bag. Backpack quite heavy, now. And here I go, into evening. Needing to write more, needing more time to write, taking more time to write, and in bed early so I can in the morning run. Hopefully.
Foley Sonoma Grenache last night and knowing I have to finish this book. By week’s end. How. How can I possibly do that? Wake earlier. Write more. Wine orders me to set not goals or aims but sentences. Sentence yourself more harshly and firmly in your writing life and decision.
Done, I say to her.
Avowing more pages, today and always.
Starting bills, with day, or day with bills. Budgeting the winery in my head. Am I getting serious about this, about having my own little label, or wine shop, selling and talking about wine, writing about the Road there. Yes. No need for question marks. Question rhetorical, or if not rhetorical then antagonizing.
Paid credit card, which is all but done. Money aside for tasting room, the Merlot I want to make this vintage…. Two barrels of Merlot, same everything, just to show how each barrel is its own life, voice, world, “ecosystem”. Its own beat. And what better than with Merlot.
Pinot from last night, still some left. Thinking about bringing in, but would rather keep here for my own experiment to see how it lives, survives the 24 hour rest, any oxygen sneaking in through sides of cork and bottle’s neck’s inner face. That’s what I’ll do.
Getting in shower in a bit, then up to Jimtown to write, walk a vineyard…. Start my wined day. Take notes for meeting tomorrow with sales exec guy.
Back to money doc…. How money just flies away, as Dad joked with me long ago. Joked but wasn’t joking. Have always seen my dad as sort of a money master, and he’s proven to be such, as long as I’ve known him. Wanted to move us to San Carlos, build house, he did. The Sunriver home, made happen. I’m 40 now, time to be more stringent and lone with money, singular projects. Why not just have one, be lone. With my wine Room…. Thoughts and thoughts, watching my babies on the couch watching Sandlot, a film that rewinds my mind so many years it makes me harshly realize where I am, at fucking 40.
Wine gives me a second start, a re-start. Focus on her, what she wants, what she’s drawing, what light she discloses and words put to page. Nothing can hurt you with her songs playing, with her scenes queued.
What wines will I get tonight. What do I want? Why am I thinking about it so much? Just walk in, no plan. Wine is about reaction, as is winemaking, I was just thinking. Sure you’d love the conditions of every vintage to be perfect and the growth to be even and shatter to be either minimized or somehow strangely optimal. “Winemaker shatter”, I heard someone once say. Still don’t know what that means.
Wine teaches us to react to what’s at our 12, what’s around us. Stop wishing, stop planning so much if at all, and step into the story, react. That’s what composes character, that’s what brings more life and enables us to gift ourselves with new and renewed speak and pace, more sensibility.
Ready for the work day, more ready than I think I’ve ever been on a Saturday. And it’s from this, sitting here at my usual table writing about wine and wine speaking to me even when I’m not with her.
…not just about wine, but this, life, what I’m to do and how to be a more consistent and found character for my family. Family… this is all for them. Not for me, at all. Sure I enjoy wine and writing about it, but it’s more than that. Like the time when my friend Chris and I went to John Ash and had each a red, he a Cab I think and me the MacPhail Pinot. We tasted back and forth, shared, discussed and deconstructed as Chris at the time was the Lab Lead at Roth, while I was the tasting room narrator helping manage the room and just selling. Titles didn’t matter, we didn’t try to eclipse the other. We spoke, we listened. We lived in that moment at that table with people around us, pairing what we ordered with wine with our small bites. I see that happening in my Room, the tasting room I eventually have. People in, talking, about wine or not. As long as there’s life present, there, to its own music and beat.
No new wine, last night. St. Francis Cab, I think the ’16. Need to be better about noting vintage, I know. The wine was more gripping and seemingly aggressive and with its own loving growl and scratch. The oak and “varietal” character didn’t and still don’t matter to me. IT was the wine and me there in the kitchen, again, like the Chardonnay the night before. I saw the wine and felt her walk, communication and order. Cabernet conversation, from the pen and paper, the walls and counter. Everything was where it should be. Like the piece I wrote yesterday on Dave, I was just thankful to be alive, there, in the kitchen with the Sonoma Cabernet realizing I’m alive and that I’m sipping that with intention. The story clearer to me as a writer of wine and nothing else. Wine is the definition from denotative and connotative peaks for me and my Now.
Coffee, I mean latte. Feel something with today, and that’s the decision to re-write ALL negative presence, sentiment, tell, pulse, anything in my story. First sip confirming. The book, my book, from wined thought and wined possibility, my eventual bottles, telling my story and having my babies and family help with everything from the wine itself to how it’s told, narrated, not sold. Part of my message, as wine teaches me, is to be about dispelling naysay. Or, re-writing it. Using the existing momentum to reach what you see for self. To be free, as I am with this write. I’ve definitely assumed such an act and walk more so getting older, with writing and everything. To just create, act and move. Be free in flight and when on ground. And those bringing that scowl and lowering tone to your standing, accept it and love it, wildly embrace it. Then, you RE-WRITE IT.
Not sure how much I’ve written this morning, but it’s up there. Thinking about wine and what I could do with it, with her story. Making wine eventually, maybe, but writing her story and definition, her theory and philosophy and pages, her narrative, my vin-sown story…. All of it, from the vineyard, from walking between rows, meeting new people in the tasting rooms and doing those tours where I ask them about their relationship with wine and what brought them here… taught. I’m being taught.
Wine is an education vehicle and ideological map. The best thing to do, explore. Study if you want, buy tons of wine books or go on Wikipedia or whatever, but explore. Buy some bottles, and write what’s said to you.