Clouds hover over our home as the leaves on the Maple trees start to turn. Soon, the sun will break and the sky will be painted in blue. There is a quivering in the air with the anticipation of fall. The day is just beginning and there will never be another one like it.
Before the neighbors wake, I take a walk with my dog Ella. She came from the streets of Thailand, poor thing, only one years old. She lives with us now, where all is quiet, sure and still. Thankfully, she has fallen into the arms of safety, love and trust. She sleeps deeply every night in the knowledge of this truth.
In return, she gifts me with time. The time to take meditative walks, to remember what’s important in this life. She nudges me, even begs me to join her and venture into the wonders of nature in the wine country. Mozart plays into my headphones as the violin serenades me through the lush green vineyards toward the back country roads of Sonoma. At this time of year, the grapes are alive with color and bulging with juice waiting to be plucked off the vines. 
I pay attention to the living things connected to timelessness, to a mystical place I once came from many moons ago and where I will one day return; I look at the Sun, the Dahlias resting in a garden pot, the Mayacamas Mountains in the distance, and feel the aliveness of the human spirit, the dog spirit. They are one. We walk a good mile before we had back to our daily routine.
After an hour, I am back at my desk and spend most my hours writing about Sonoma, about the hidden music I hear rustling in the Redwood Trees, about hope and beauty. Somehow, the words mysteriously make their way onto the page.
I write about place, my sense of place. The center of the Sun.
wine country diaries 