inward jot
Need to collect. And I am. Here in home after over hour mission taking kids to school and back. Traffic. Bad, bad crash on 101 South. Thought about time and life and how no one knows anything about anything when it comes to time and life. The When of it all. I wrote earlier, on this “Wild Wednesday” as I call it, “Quicker… Don’t think. Just throw.” How I’m feeling. Closer and closer to the next number, 39, and I’m not one of those people that’s ashamed of their age as it says what it says. So what does it say? Nothing. Nothing at all. I don’t notice myself slowing even a little. Not even minusculely. This morning, home after seeing a bit of an accident which forever I’m sure changed someone’s life, situates me in this this kitchen, this quiet house, not even thinking ‘bout when the write has to be one campus. I’m typing to type but as well to learn from the morning, the drive to school, even my son in the back grieving, “Ugh…. Dada, we’ve been in the car for ever…”. I learn from his estimation and appreciation of time. Everything is meant to teach me, teach us… teach YOU, reader.
09:11. And rather than fixate on and form in what time it is. I dismiss time, life and the possibility it could end sooner than I want it to, and just live. Live wildly. Some people boast they hack their way into a certain reality or role. I’m just doing it. Not going to do it, as I’ve always been doing it. Just going to intensify, and from this second cup of medium roast, I do just that. Hours before the possibility of having any wine, I see myself differently. A writer. A writer who wishes, who does a lot of promising and wishlisting in his paragraphs. No more. Pas plus. The kitchen is my office now, and I soon see me in my office, either in Railroad Square somewhere or downtown Healdsburg. Going through photos of the vineyards, more fantasies and possibilities… selling wine and speaking from the vineyard, about what I see in life as taught by wine and its vineyard blocks. Everything is meant to teach. Everything around me DOES teach and I’m receptive and in beg of such pedagogy, but the wait… the wait for…. Well, that’s ceased. Now, oui. I’m free.
What if something life that happened to me, on the freeway or elsewhere. Wait, it already has, when I was younger, 16… in the hospital, life’s remainder a question, and here I am close to 39 and I’m at times wondering and guessing and wishing. Stopped. Learning I have my life and my days are more than effusive and promising, promised in the yay-say constantly encircling my immediacy. My story. At an intersection close to home, I felt something, like losing my breath in the elation and enthralled chords of realization, knowing, affirmed in my place, this sitting and what comes after. I have everything, all the needed and proclamatory ingredients. Now, throw. My whole life to page. Me, wine, pages and pages as I say on the blog but it’s more than wine my fingers ferment through these keys. It’s learning, the addiction to education and learning from everything that’s already around you. YOU, reader. Look to your left, right, ahead. Think about those observations. And not just a quick dismissive ponder, but a furthered and thorough meditation. See? There’s more there. More of you in that sitting and sight.
This morning I chitter in not so much victory but decidedness. With jazz through the speakers, looking at pictures I’ve taken over the past three or so years…. Wine’s at the center, the aorta of it all. But, more. More than wine, just something poured from a bottle or even the vineyard itself. It’s you, in that pulse, that breath, that turn of your head to see another vine, or the toys your kids let ton the floor to your left. Collecting here at the kitchen island counter, I wrap myself around and in the student’s stride. Learning…. Not theoretical, but actual. Notes to self to discover more self and make self a SELF. Taking time, and not like the path to a graduation. This demands a willy-nilly investment in your own mind. You, reader. Seeing you as already There, your There. Now your present, at that intersection where you understand your character and story.
Sometimes I call myself a wine writer, or Wild Wine Writer, but I don’t know if that’s all I am, decisively. So what am I? What do I want to be? This. This character at his kitchen table before teaching two JC classes, before getting in the shower. Writing. Writing what he learns from his days and observations and sharing them to help people. To encourage all readers to yodel in the yay-say and live in a way that negates the nay. Wine and its world certainly help with such, but it’s not the aorta, more then mainframe of such actuation. I’m seeing… hearing… with this Hank Mobley track, I’m composed in my composition, my characters angle and tangibility. Me, here, now in kitchen and already through cup 2. Before getting up for the third, I think about what we’ll be doing in class, and the significance of it, the more stretching and reaching, universal application. Rough Draft workshop, where students read and review their pieces, then having five days to revise as they see need. With the refection of this morrow, I only see my education in the wildness of this Wednesday further promulgating.
I’m alive, I’m writing, I’m a writer, sharing my observations with YOU. Looking at time and eased in the ease of having plenty for self, or maybe not enough, I don’t know — that’s why I’m writing. Rather than taking a nap, which I very well could do if I saw so fit, I’m active, doing, not any longer wishing. Well, so well. And, collected.
(2/21/18)
