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A fly died in my glass of wine.
I have half a mind to ask Google or chat what prophecy this portends.But first...The wine was a 2019 Pinot Noir Rosé, Clos Griotte, a wine I discovered at Muse, a small wine shop off Northwest 23rd. I went there to meet a friend, a woman a decade younger but shaped like me by Boy George, Sasson, Bonnie Bell, and MTV. A time when we danced our nights away, blissfully unaware of the guardrails holding us upright.I sometimes wish she had been my college roommate. The one I was assigned was cut from a different. Early in the semester, I invited the entire hall to watch on her portable black and white TV, the Movie of the Week, The Graduate. She walked out after Benjamin’s opening scene, announcing to the room that she didn’t “get it.”My new friend, sharing the wine with me, feels like home. Her voice carries the same familiar lilt and cadence as my dad’s, pronouncing ‘car keys’ like ‘khakis’. And like my dad, she can hold my attention with her tales of growing up on a tiny, jagged island in the middle of the Atlantic- not too far away from the one where my father was raised, slightly north, about five thousand miles.Making a new friend comes differently now. Giddy excitement gives way to cautious anticipation. I move slowly, aware that certain truths cast shadows that don’t always flatter, and that honesty, even with ourselves, requires a more gentle hand than it once did.But what does this have to do with the prophecy of the fly?It was late September, the nights were growing longer; the chill arrived earlier in the evening and lingered later into the day. All the flies were taking their final flights; it’s just the way of things.This fly chose my glass to dive into..."Wine is a grand thing. It makes you forget all the terrible things." ~ Hemingway. I don't actually subscribe to this, but for the fly, I believe it was true.
