lin wants me to write something

about our labor day weekend at the vineyard

wouldn't you like to write about it yourself   i ask   

write it as you saw it

but i'm not a poet   she says   none of us are   my dear   i say

lin's words ~

Colin's grandfather is a formidable man, half bear, half lion. Lynn had warned me, he could be gruff. I saw none of that, only kindness and welcoming. Yenny is a dream, a no-nonsense woman. 

Marci and Antoinette and Nathaniel were there as well, but I'll save thoughts of them for another day. 

I'm thinking about family, my own sense of it is vague. I'm still getting used to the concept of being written into existence. It is coming together. If nothing else, Lynn assures me, I can think of these people as my family. She does. 

I don't know how to express myself well enough to communicate my feelings about the weekend. Maybe all I need or want to say is that it was lovely, and more than I could have hoped for. No, it was exactly what I had hoped for. 

She and I, Lynn says, and all of us who gathered for the weekend, are one and the same, and what I think, they think, and vice versa. I can see how that works, or, I'm beginning to see. Like attracts like. Words are often unnecessary. Looks and gestures, smiles and glints, speak volumes, and what is unspoken may be crystal clear. Discord was absent, which, considering the world as I am coming to know it, is rare. It was a weekend of being among caring people who want only the best for each other, who know tolerance and respect, who know that beyond these acres, not all is well,—there is discord.

Lynn has spoken so often about the patio that overlooks the rows of vines, with the golden, rolling hills of live-oaks stretching to the horizon, and the great Pacific beyond (which we can see daily from the city). She planned it so that we would arrive in the late afternoon, wanting to be there before sunset. Yenny welcomed us. Lynn and I walked through the house, like nothing I’d seen before, built so many decades ago by the four of them—Colin’s grandfather and grandmother, now gone, Yenny and Yenny’s late husband, using the materials of the earth—stone, timber, slate. Strong. Enduring. It has endured. Well-worn. Polished. Comfortable.

Lynn suggests I be stingy with adjectives.

When Colin came in and introduced himself, I was a bit taken aback. Lynn and Marketa and I live a very female-oriented life. Here is a man who works the land that is quiet but not shy, clearly strong, clearly capable, clearly unlike anyone I know in the city. A serious man. A gentle man. It was hard to see the boyishness that Lynn sees, but it’s there, deep down. He is a man of quiet confidence. And yes, he was wearing a red bandana to keep his blonde hair out of his eyes.

We took a walk together, just the two of us. He showed me the public spaces, the retail area and tasting room, then what the public can see on a tour, the casks and racks of bottles. In the dimming daylight we walked rows of vines, and that was the best. He explained enough, but not too much. Such a quiet man, yet not. He let me see things as they were, after all, except for the details of types of grapes and so on, rows of vines speak for themselves. I felt at home, that I was meant to be here, more so than any other place I'd been.

We walked until the sun was on the horizon, until we were warm and dusty, then back to the house. 

That was what I had been waiting for, what I heard about from Lynn so many times—an evening on the patio with friends, watching the sun set, enjoying wine and conversation, not an unkind word spoken, nor ungenerous thought aired, in an unassuming atmosphere without pretension, extravagance, assumption or judgment. It is no wonder that Lynn loves this place above all else. 

Marci and Antoinette and her son Nathaniel (a young man, himself) arrived and the party was complete. Lynn and Marketa prepared dinner, having done this many times before, Yenny’s help needed only a little.

What is it that I want to say about the weekend . . .

I was written into this world not so very long ago, months, not years. It was and is new to me. I hardly know what to think. I see the world as a place of difficulty and joy, often a place of indifference, a place to be feared and tamed, tolerated and reaped.  I see kindness and unkindness in tandem. I see cruelty presented in the media, but only marginally in my day. People try to be kind, given a chance. But it is a city life, and this, the vineyard, is a rural life, unfamiliar, not something I could have imagined correctly, nor did I. Is it better, or simply different? I’ve seen so little of the world. 

I'm beginning to see how people have choices, and what they choose defines them. I have made few substantial choices, how am I defined? I have to wonder why we, the three of us, live in the city when there is such a place as the vineyard. I see that such a place is rare, built long ago with hard labor and passion and necessity. Such a place cannot be bought—perhaps it can—but not the spirit. We live in the city because we work in the city. It's our world to make of it what we can. I'm afraid it pales with comparison. Lynn says the city is only a part our world, not to compare, not to judge. The vineyard is our world, too, in the sense that we are always welcome. We are family.

I think that is true. 

Maybe I won’t write about the whole weekend. Maybe the details don’t matter. Maybe a little bit is the same as enough. Maybe, maybe, maybe. 

Maybe the backspace key has grown hot to the touch.