With the loud buzzing and furiously huffing hot air from my blow-dryer scooping up batches of my damp hair and depositing them warm and vibrating across my brow, along the back of my neck, dangling along my collarbone I saw it. I stood there in my jammies, my eyes tired….weary, my body feeling like I had been training for a marathon, (um, okay that’s bullshit, I have NO idea what that would feel like. I mean c’mon who are we kidding but I was physically spent) drying my hair after taking a much needed and appreciated moment of quiet in the shower and the reflection in the mirror over my left shoulder there it was, my bed. I clicked the off switch on my now hot and abnormally loud blow-dryer, spun around and took a couple steps closer to the place that I begrudgingly stumble off too, often far too late in the evening/morning…the place that since childhood I had seen as an enemy, a place you ended up surrendering to and….well it looked so damn inviting.
The pillows still squished and askew from the night before, the bedspread in a lump at the foot, the sheets crumpled but swaying a bit in the breeze that was coming off the fan in the open window…the moon casting a bright but soft light on the deserted basketball court, and the faint smell of warm cement catching the wave of outside air, skidding across the quivering sheets and inviting me to come closer. I glanced at the clock and literally felt my heart sink deep in my chest, 10:30. “I can’t go to bed at 10:30! Hell there are nights when I am heading out to meet someone for drinks or a glass of wine at 10:30. What am I eighty?!” But I didn’t walk away. No in fact I took another step closer….and another and another. The sound of the television in the front room now just faint enough to keep me company, the early morning meeting, the eleven hour workday, the foiled attempt at hot tub time, (not so relaxing when a couple twenty something Euro hard bodies, in Speedos no less, a couple in shorts and t-shirts…and beer bring their 3 kids to your stolen moment of bubbling hot water, wine and relaxation under the moon) the screaming-to-compete with the fan television in the front room and yet another failed attempted at communication which resulted in a fight with someone I love very deeply. All of it now standing behind me, the accumulative weight of each feeling like two giant paws now resting squarely on my shoulders, the sheer mass of it all slowly pushing me closer until, I surrendered.
It’s been one hell of a couple weeks for me, some of it good and some not so much but rolling with the punches is an art I learned to master years ago. Things rarely get me down for too long and I can ride those high times for weeks on end but lately the yanking of up and down has been so dramatic. Almost violent spikes of elation and deflation often leaving me wondering if I am right side up or upside down…trying desperately to find a still second to figure it out. Last night that, “Still second” asserted itself, demanded that I shut down for just one evening….just shhhhh. It started with my body, me feeling as if it was moving without me, taking each step closer to the place where it was to lay, still, untouched…not wanting to be noticed or even to expend one more ounce of effort…..shhhh. Next it was my mind, one minute it was buzzing in fragmented blips, none coherent or complete enough for me to make any sense of it….to solve, fix, and prepare for anything. My mind slowly began shutting down the open tabs. One by one the projects; the things I wish I had said, the orders I need to place, the email I was drafting….each one shutting down one after another….each one vanishing into the shhhhh.
When I woke this morning I found myself still safely tucked away where I had left me, curled up on my left side, the sheets weaved between my thighs, the too-soft-to-rest-your-head-on pillow pressed closely to my chest, my arms tightly hugging it close to me….still in the shhhhh, for a minute. The second I moved my body my mind began opening the tabs once again but somehow…somehow they seemed a little more in focus, a little easier to make out and manage. As I made my way to the kitchen to jump into a cup of coffee I passed my little wine fridge, its gaping holes a reminder that I need to do a little shopping and as I breezed by a little gold caught my eye. I stepped back, took the second to look instead of promising myself to check it out later and to my surprise I saw something that will be my high to ride for the rest of the day….my golden ticket, a bottle of Pierre Peters Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs tucked away and forgotten about. I yanked it from its hiding spot and slipped it into my fridge, no matter what the rest of this day holds for me….I am going to spend this evening touching, loving, admiring and tasting a truly great love…….
Bring it
What you got?
I have a grand night’s sleep and
A Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs
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