Life in Wine
No doubt there are hundreds of clever ways to compare wine to life, or life to wine. I'll let others do that, or I'll attempt it on a day when I'm less sad, or lazy, or snowed in. For now, I'll just say that I can't imagine a life without wine; that is, I can't imagine MY life without wine. I'd sooner give up cheesecake, or sour cream, or Tucson sunsets.
Okay, maybe not Tucson sunsets.
Life is choice; is acceptance; is plateau or tsunami (the word 'o the week, and much preferable to Iraq; devastation; immoral war; Bush; Gonzales; Rumsfeld; lies lies and damned lies).
Life is choice. Why not choose wine? Why not choose that which tastes good, which warms the belly, softens the humors, blunts the edges of a painful world, provokes conversation (at least for the first two glasses) and promotes the bonds of friendship?
Speaking of friendship: For New Year's Eve, Andie and I schlepped two bottles of red to Laura's, to celebrate her fourth anniversary with Porkchop. One was a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon recommended by the wine freak at the Osco at 75th & Wornall (yep, the Osco), a soft Chilean beauty whose name utterly escapes me at present; the other a simple El Viaje Syrah -- both bottled in 2000, the year our happy couple met.
It was a purely symbolic gesture, as Laura opted for a very wet Ketel One martini (her second of the evening), and Porkchop stuck to a mug o' Guinness. Still, Andie and I enjoyed the fruity charms of Dame Dona Whatshername, and all of us were sufficiently freshened to slope to the living room for a rousing, amusing hour of karaoke. Porkchop is an accomplished singer, of course (appearing at Jilly's this Saturday night!), and Laura is a Leo. My own vocal talents are conspicuously absent, a sad deficiency in an otherwise richly gifted individual (okay, I can't draw, either), but Andie. .. oh Andie, redheaded extrovert of my heart. We couldn't peel the microphone from Andie's warm white fingers. (Girlfriend was way sore-throated in the morning. Although perhaps that was the Macanudo with which she puffed in the new year.)
Nor did we try. Even though we had to listen to WAY too many songs from Grease. And Sonny and Cher. Still, Porkchop and Andie were more than passably good on their unrehearsed take of California Dreamin'. I don't know who was the Momma and who the Papa.
Andie and I saw in The Year of Our Lord 2005 with a private turn on the dance floor to Hallelujah, k.d. lang's cover of the Leonard Cohen ode to painful love. And speaking of painful love, you don't know pain until you learn that your love of 20 years is dying. Oh, she's been fading slowly for a while now, growing ever skinnier and slower, her stark beauty dimmed by the ravages of time. I've been in love with her since we met, all her demanding, spunky, peevish intensity and huge green eyes combining to send a bolt of pure passion through my heart. I love her more than wine itself.
And she's dying. Squeezing my heart 'til it drips tears of lemon. These next few months are going to test me more than her, I suspect. I've always been there for her, and that won't change. But I will. I can't conceive of a life without her, although I know it's coming. I've always known it was coming. Known that I courted the largest loss of my life in loving her, known that the price would have to be paid.
For Brandyn, love of my life, I wrote this elegy. I wrote it a number of years ago, when I could still breathe through the wind of pain whistling through my bones. I wrote this for me, for her, at a time when I drank as many white wines as red. That time is behind me, although Brandyn isn't. Not yet. Not quite yet.
Out of death
you sprang
into my life/my house
irascible, querulous, demanding.
How could I know
you'd outlast four loves
two therapists one marriage
watch me through my transformation
unchanged?
In your annual descents into madness
morphing into a white-fanged demon
of a vicious sudden moment
I hid my fear, swabbed the wound
waited for reason to return
held to the unshakable debt I owed:
your steadfast gaze seeing me through
those suffocating sweat-soaked nights
of doom and lies
when I sank in mortal sadness
you climbed on my chest
quieted its frantic panicked beating
with your soothing ready rumble
carrying me safely into morning.
Owlish one, you promised me twenty years
do you remember?
And oh the laughter
your loud admonitions
to quell my own loud anger
or off-key singing
your tarantula dance
sibling cuffs
peevish prance
honey bear mantra
on the rumpled covers
happily growling
your greedy imprecations
for oil, milk, treats NOW!
And I tell you these things now
in this Elegy for Brandyn
I do not wait for that day
when your heart stops
when you leave me
my voice will flee me
my pen lie crushed/mute
I'll propose bargains with god
pacts with the devil
I'll trade all the snowfalls
that ever were or will be
to have your soft footfall
padding across the room
your insistent satin nose
nudging me
your velvet paw
stretched out to touch my face.
And how will I ever sleep again
what comfort can the night offer me
without your sweet face near mine?
You promised me twenty years
that day you squalled into my life
but I prayed for more.
She just came in to fuss at me, so I'm off to tempt her waning appetite with some cream. Who cares about lactose intolerance when you're 100 years old and in chronic renal failure?
Okay, maybe not Tucson sunsets.
Life is choice; is acceptance; is plateau or tsunami (the word 'o the week, and much preferable to Iraq; devastation; immoral war; Bush; Gonzales; Rumsfeld; lies lies and damned lies).
Life is choice. Why not choose wine? Why not choose that which tastes good, which warms the belly, softens the humors, blunts the edges of a painful world, provokes conversation (at least for the first two glasses) and promotes the bonds of friendship?
Speaking of friendship: For New Year's Eve, Andie and I schlepped two bottles of red to Laura's, to celebrate her fourth anniversary with Porkchop. One was a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon recommended by the wine freak at the Osco at 75th & Wornall (yep, the Osco), a soft Chilean beauty whose name utterly escapes me at present; the other a simple El Viaje Syrah -- both bottled in 2000, the year our happy couple met.
It was a purely symbolic gesture, as Laura opted for a very wet Ketel One martini (her second of the evening), and Porkchop stuck to a mug o' Guinness. Still, Andie and I enjoyed the fruity charms of Dame Dona Whatshername, and all of us were sufficiently freshened to slope to the living room for a rousing, amusing hour of karaoke. Porkchop is an accomplished singer, of course (appearing at Jilly's this Saturday night!), and Laura is a Leo. My own vocal talents are conspicuously absent, a sad deficiency in an otherwise richly gifted individual (okay, I can't draw, either), but Andie. .. oh Andie, redheaded extrovert of my heart. We couldn't peel the microphone from Andie's warm white fingers. (Girlfriend was way sore-throated in the morning. Although perhaps that was the Macanudo with which she puffed in the new year.)
Nor did we try. Even though we had to listen to WAY too many songs from Grease. And Sonny and Cher. Still, Porkchop and Andie were more than passably good on their unrehearsed take of California Dreamin'. I don't know who was the Momma and who the Papa.
Andie and I saw in The Year of Our Lord 2005 with a private turn on the dance floor to Hallelujah, k.d. lang's cover of the Leonard Cohen ode to painful love. And speaking of painful love, you don't know pain until you learn that your love of 20 years is dying. Oh, she's been fading slowly for a while now, growing ever skinnier and slower, her stark beauty dimmed by the ravages of time. I've been in love with her since we met, all her demanding, spunky, peevish intensity and huge green eyes combining to send a bolt of pure passion through my heart. I love her more than wine itself.
And she's dying. Squeezing my heart 'til it drips tears of lemon. These next few months are going to test me more than her, I suspect. I've always been there for her, and that won't change. But I will. I can't conceive of a life without her, although I know it's coming. I've always known it was coming. Known that I courted the largest loss of my life in loving her, known that the price would have to be paid.
For Brandyn, love of my life, I wrote this elegy. I wrote it a number of years ago, when I could still breathe through the wind of pain whistling through my bones. I wrote this for me, for her, at a time when I drank as many white wines as red. That time is behind me, although Brandyn isn't. Not yet. Not quite yet.
Out of death
you sprang
into my life/my house
irascible, querulous, demanding.
How could I know
you'd outlast four loves
two therapists one marriage
watch me through my transformation
unchanged?
In your annual descents into madness
morphing into a white-fanged demon
of a vicious sudden moment
I hid my fear, swabbed the wound
waited for reason to return
held to the unshakable debt I owed:
your steadfast gaze seeing me through
those suffocating sweat-soaked nights
of doom and lies
when I sank in mortal sadness
you climbed on my chest
quieted its frantic panicked beating
with your soothing ready rumble
carrying me safely into morning.
Owlish one, you promised me twenty years
do you remember?
And oh the laughter
your loud admonitions
to quell my own loud anger
or off-key singing
your tarantula dance
sibling cuffs
peevish prance
honey bear mantra
on the rumpled covers
happily growling
your greedy imprecations
for oil, milk, treats NOW!
And I tell you these things now
in this Elegy for Brandyn
I do not wait for that day
when your heart stops
when you leave me
my voice will flee me
my pen lie crushed/mute
I'll propose bargains with god
pacts with the devil
I'll trade all the snowfalls
that ever were or will be
to have your soft footfall
padding across the room
your insistent satin nose
nudging me
your velvet paw
stretched out to touch my face.
And how will I ever sleep again
what comfort can the night offer me
without your sweet face near mine?
You promised me twenty years
that day you squalled into my life
but I prayed for more.
She just came in to fuss at me, so I'm off to tempt her waning appetite with some cream. Who cares about lactose intolerance when you're 100 years old and in chronic renal failure?
posted by Winetaster | 8:06 AM
2 Comments:
Laurie said she couldn't post here, so I thought I'd try. No anonymous comments? How do I fix that?
i'm sitting here with tears in my eyes after reading about Brandyn. you're very gifted winetaster, thank you for sharing your gifts with us. i have a feeling i'm going to become a loyal reader. bananafish.
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