Wine inspires me.

 There's an ancient spirit to the experience of drinking and sharing wine. Wine has been written about for centuries. Like books, wine has been forbidden. A glass of wine has been present at each stage of life, and before, and after. Like us, the grapes struggle and fight and survive and thrive. The circle of life of a vine, a grape, and a bottle of wine follows and reflects what we as humans do. Grapes live where we live and die as we die. And yet some outlive us, despite us. Their stories are our stories. And so we should hope they're good ones to tell. 

That there is alcohol in a glass of wine is helpful at times. I'm not afraid or ashamed to admit that. Like anything else, alcohol is neither good nor bad. What's good or bad is what we do with it. But I don't need to defend wine. It is older and wiser than me. Its grapes, its vines. Its process. It is nature itself.

Wine is of the land. Our Earth. Our dirt and rocks and soil and trees and worms and water and wind. 

Wine is a peoples' culture. How they tend the vines, if and how they touch the grapes. Like a child or like one's child. Like a lover. Like a friend. Or like a stranger. A touch is more than skin on skin. It's a breath. A laugh. A look. It's energy around energy. It's love, or something else. 

My tears have salted wine, before and inevitably too soon again. 

Wine accompanies my laughter and sometimes has to encourage it.

A glass of red, a paperback book, my journal, my pen. With these things, I can melt down to my essence and expand my consciousness. Chip away at my own barriers. Release my self-made chains. Dissolve these walls. Dive deeper to expand. Like a mermaid. Like a sea dragon. 

What emerges is a story. Words, emotions, memories. A processed thought. Better understanding. Not because of the wine. But with it. The stories are all inside me. As they're inside you. When it comes out and you read the words for the first time you think, "Oh yeah. That's right. I remember now." It may be new to you, but it's not new to your soul.

There's a comfortable familiarity to the recently discovered that was meant to be found. A thing that warms you from the inside. A passion that makes you feel whole. 

Passion. A complicated word. But I use it often and freely. I know what it means to me. The sum of my life has been a quest to confirm my passions, those things that help me become. Now, some of the way through, I've learned my most important lesson. To recognize my own internal responses when something is or is not a passion and to either embrace it or tell it no. I know, now, the feeling of being whole because I know what breaks me apart. I can sense the things I need and have the courage to otherwise turn away.

I avoid always and never and relish the word sometimes. It's so freeing. 

I love deeply - and I'm learning to with open palms. I grieve just as deeply, and am practicing ungripped remembering. Honoring and yet letting go. Acceptance as a form of self-compassion.

I love a good space. The sunny part of my back porch where I can write and be next to my cats, in the fresh air, and in my own world. My couch, my office, my desk. My stack of yet to be read books. My wine shop. 

I sipped wine this morning, tasting parts of Germany, Portugal, France, and Spain. I learned the stories of the growers and makers, the farmers and artists - the people of these wines. In each pour, a piece of that place in my glass. Not figuratively. Literally. The sun from Germany. The rain from Portugal. The rocks from France. The soil from Spain. 

It's so much more than just a glass of wine.