Wine and Fire

There are days that follow you.

Commuting homeward on the 110 can be a pleasurable experience; rising above the world, riding alongside the dimming pastels that fleck the horizon. I know I'll soon be done with what's behind me, sticking my hand out of the window to caress the wind blustering outside knowing that I am free. Yet, those days are dotted into the mundane life of typical people. Often, the commute is a narrow passage where if thoughts had form, they would be a plumage of smog that seeped out of car windows, twisting off into the heights of a sky gone unseen.

But if you could follow that stream of smokey consciousness, you would see that it would lead to a cozy strip of asphalt called, "Kipling Place." Lined with blue duplexes affixed with windows that cast a cheerful warm glow, porch lights, Live Oak trees whose branches hang comfortably above the second story windows and neighbors waving as they pass you by, it is impossible for the woes of the day to survive the threshold of the welcoming scene.

As I pull into the drive, there is a lively abundance of music and laughter that airs on the crisp breath of twilight and woodsmoke. The car door slam punctuates the end of a bad day as my feet carry me inside. A door swung open reveals amiable friends and neighbors pouring generous glasses of red wine. My husband embraces me with a kiss and grips a glass tumbler into my hands as he wraps an arm around my shoulders to lead me outside.

If a sigh of relief were to be materialized, it would undoubtedly come in the form of my back yard tonight. There are lights that border either side of the fence, they flank the blue green grass that glistens shyly in the Autumn moonlight. As an air-strip leads an air-ship to beautiful foreign locations, so does my lawn as I walk toward the incandescence of the fire pit, the licking flames a beacon of age old comfort. A series of wooden lawn chairs encircling the fire become occupied with my friends spinning conversations about nothing of great importance, but of everything that matters.

As I peer into the dancing blaze, I drink deeply of my wine. I feel the Cabernet sting my lips and tongue with it's delightfully tart bouquet, my breath steaming away into the brisk air. The smells of wood chips and embers tickle my nose bringing a sweetness to the tart aftertaste. Wine and fire. A delicacy that is best enjoyed with friends in the chilly emergence of Fall time.