Full Bodied In The Vineyard by Nicolette Dane

Author:Nicolette Dane [Dane, Nicolette]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-08-21T06:00:00+00:00

I had taken to wandering through the riesling vineyard closest to the winery whenever I felt like I needed to collect my thoughts. It was amazing to have a beautiful vineyard in your own backyard. Rows and rows of grapevines, growing the fruit for this year’s harvest, coming at the end of August and early September. The white grapes were looking fully formed as I walked along the rows and admired them. Reaching down, I plucked a grape from its bunch. It was aromatic and flowery. I popped it into my mouth. It was fruity up front with a lightly acidic aftertaste.

It had been about two months since I’d come to Traverse City and the Leelanau Peninsula, though my days often seemed long, in a good way, and it felt like that two months could have been more like three or four. I was loving it up north. I felt like I was beginning to find myself. Even though it seems impossible and even though my wine intake had most certainly been up, I was actually thinning out around my midsection. I think it was the absence of the usual stressors that life handed me back in my old world. I didn’t really worry about much up here, maybe apart from the subtle doubts about Alina and my apprehensions around Mattie, both probably unfounded and just remnants of my old anxieties.

The sun rose high in the sky that early afternoon as I sauntered along and thought about what had become of me. It was nice and hot out, probably pushing 90 degrees, a light coating of sweat glazed my skin. I wore flip-flops, my feet dusty from the earth below, short athletic shorts that showed off my previously pale thighs, now becoming browned from all the sun I’d allowed them, a loose-fitting tank over my torso, braless underneath, blowing in the indistinct breeze. I felt relaxed. I felt free. I felt almost tranquilized by how pleasantly things had been rolling along. I smiled.

I knew then that I couldn’t go back. Sometimes you reach a point of no return and I had reached that point. My old life seemed so far away, so distant, so unappealing. I couldn’t go back to the pretensions of Royal Oak, the bustle of trying to carve out some expected life in the suburbs of Detroit. I didn’t want a fancy house in West Bloomfield, I didn’t want a career in marketing, trying to sell people stuff they really don’t need, spending my days gaming the advertising system of social networks. I didn’t really care about any of that. But at the same time, I wasn’t quite sure yet what I did care about. But it was coming. I could feel it coming.

That’s the thing. It’s easy to get caught up in doing something for work, for a paycheck, because you think that’s what you’re supposed to do to be happy. You work hard, you do things that don’t really interest you or don’t really matter in the grand scheme, just so you can put a little more money in your bank account.

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