December 1 again. I have to admit that I haven’t even thought about this yearly blogging exercise until someone mentioned it to me this morning. And though my first inclination was to let it disappear like so many things in life, a day of thought has brought me around to my iPad and my much-neglected web site.
This will make the eighth year I’ve written one post a day from now until Christmas Eve. At one point I wrote several times during the year as well, but in recent years I’ve been limited to these twenty-four posts. When I open the website to begin, it feels like bringing the Christmas boxes down once again as I’m greeted with the traces of Christmases past, a little tinsel, lights that need to be tested, ornaments that for some reason weren’t used last year, and glitter that I can’t get off my hands as many times as I wash them.
One of the main reasons why I considered letting this holiday tradition die (or at least hibernate) this year is that I’ve never felt that I’ve had less to give. So many changes in the past year, from losing my father, to changing my living arrangements (twice), to feeling the weight of age in my bones (and my back), and so many other changes and losses, even from last December to this. 2019 has not been a great year for me and many that I care about, and I wondered how I could bring anything to this exercise except whining.
However, I have been reminded that in the midst of these challenges, I have a lot to be grateful for. Gratitude is a light that shines in darkness and turns nothing into something. And this is my opportunity in 2019, to shine the light of gratitude on my life through this advent season so I and everyone who reads this will see how blessed a life can be in the not best of times.
So this year (even though I have always resisted having a theme) each of my thoughts and discoveries will be viewed through the prism of gratitude, and I hope over these days that I (and maybe you?) will in fact be grateful for these twenty-four silly posts. I’m excited that my friend Andrea has agreed to do our “dueling blogposts” again this year…more on that next weekend.
So, let’s begin…
I just returned from an afternoon by myself at the Mount Palomar Winery in Temecula. Earlier this year I joined the wine club for this winery in order to receive two bottles every two months. I barely ever drink the wine at home, so I usually give my bottles away as gifts. But the true gift of membership is the ability to go up and taste wine (or have a glass) up to four times a month. I can’t get up there nearly enough to take advantage of my tastings, even when I share with friends, but every time I do go, it’s a wonderful experience. The grounds are so beautiful in every season of the year, and the act of sitting and enjoying a glass of wine, or tasting in the cellar, is an experience that can draw me from the larger world of complications and bring me to that moment, that taste, the look of wine in the glass.
Of course on Sunday afternoons they always have music which assists in these mini vacations of the soul. It’s a wonderful place to people watch and to wonder what stories, happy and sad, are going on around me. The winery also hosts weddings, and it can be fun to watch the pomp and circumstance while sitting in my simplicity. There is also a wonderful restaurant, but sometimes a glass of wine is enough.
I am lucky to have discovered the Mount Palomar Winery, and though my feelings for it are complicated and overlaid with other memories and regrets, it never fails to be a retreat for my soul. I am grateful for the twisted path that brought me there today.
As always I welcome your comments
Photo: Mt Palomar Winery 12/1/2019
Greg! So glad to see you decided to keep this tradition up. Each year I have used it as inspiration for my own reflections on Advent.