"dark wine reminds me of you..."

vino
Originally uploaded by ata08

i spent the day (full of meetings) looking forward to the night (full of merriment!) ---a drink to celebrate the birthday of a former co-worker and friend. a few of us took the subway to canal street, and walked west, to church lounge at the tribeca grand.

for as long as i've lived here, i've held an affinity for that little stretch of city, where tribeca becomes soho.

and when i am there, it is 1991, and '92,' 93, '94...and i'm walking home from my job at the da's office. sometimes wiping tears, overwhelmed by life and love and loss and lost love... sometimes huddled desperately against the wall of a brick building, with winter winds kicking around me, trying, failing, trying again and again to light the cigarette that i feel i need more than anything in that precise moment to keep my sanity...sometimes giddy and skipping...sometimes, like a real grown-up, new york gal...but always, i think--i know--always quietly amazed and aware of how lucky i was that "this" was part of my daily life. "this" being that simple act of walking home, on that particular route (west on franklin st, north on church, past canal, north on west broadway...then north and west--many different ways--to jane and hudson...) ...the walk offered clarity and inspiration and peace (yes, even the canal street part!)...the neighborhoods, the buildings, the streets felt historic but full of art, and promise...

all that i miss.

i missed it more acutely today, and was even more nostalgic tonight, perhaps because of the hour...

but nostalgia did not overwhelm the current joy of my every day life--my friends. i work with some dear, dear people. and i was happy to be in that "old neighborhood" of mine, with them.

(though the argentinean malbec i had there? rather terrible....ah, well.)


here's tonight's poem:

"Vino Tinto," in Loose Woman.
by Sandra Cisneros.


Dark wine reminds me of you.
The burgundies and cabernets.
The tang and thrum and hiss
that spiral like Egyptian silk,
blood bit from a lip, black
smoke from a cigarette.

Nights that swell like cork.
This night. A thousand.
Under a single lamplight.
In public or alone.
Very late or very early.
When I write my poems.

Something of you still taut
still tugs still pulls,
a rope that trembled
hummed between us.
Hummed, love, didn't it.
Love, how it hummed.

in vino...at home

rainy friday night in nyc, round about 7, and i'm home alone, with a bottle of trapiche oak cask malbec 2005, a pile of magazines and printed articles to read...

i couldn't be happier.

(a note about the wine: the fella at my local wine store wholeheartedly encouraged this selection--it's his favorite of the range of malbecs he's tasted recently. i've had some good ones of late, but i'm surely no expert. he contends this is more structured than the ones i told him i've had (alamos 2006) and have waiting for me at home (finca la linda 2006), and that the oak aging makes all the difference...i already knew it wouldn't match the crazy smooth chilean malbec that my boss and her husband served at their holiday soiree...the name escapes me--i really need to learn how to have and hold my drink...but i'm certainly enjoying this. it's jammy, yes, fruity, yes, and ooooh the peppery finish. all, as advertised. )

i've been a little whirligig for the last six weeks!

a trip to paris, then slammed, slammed, slammed with work, one home improvement debacle after another (right now the accent wall in my bedroom is BLACK, which has to change...i will not bore you with the bubble-yum-pink-kitchen-disaster), and general hobnobbing ...

lots of fantastic art, good eating, and drinking = lots of things to write about, reflect on, but no actual writing. sigh...

on top of all of THAT, i found out that one of my favorite food writers, dara moskowitz grumdahl, will no longer be penning her column for the minneapolis/st. paul city pages. damn!!
so tonight, i will be catching up on her columns, including this--her last--and checking out the opening entries of her new blog, while i await her longer form work in the minnesota monthly...

i will also be catching up with the one and only concrete elbow...

the rest of the weekend will be devoted to reading magazines (back issues of new yorker, corby krummer in the atlantic, wired, dwell...and [for work] men's health, women's health, runner's world, best life), thinking about ways to advance my career (?!!), shopping for things that will make my now not-so-new apartment look warm and inviting, and make it capable of hosting friends for wine and cheese, or coffee and cinnamon rolls...

and i will do yoga.

and eat a luxurious brunch.

and meditate on my recent grand experiences.

and see if any of the one thousand photos that i took during those grand experiences are worth posting.

and, perhaps, write...

but surely, for tonight, i am staying home.
i will not go out into that rainy night.
i will enjoy this fine wine.
and my alone time.