St. Helena, California
Friday, September 3, 2010.
The first Friday of the month. Cheers St. Helena, an opportunity to stroll downtown and taste wine from local vintners, takes place tonight from 6 to 9. Several thousand locals and visitors will turn out this balmy late summer evening to walk up and down Main Street sipping glasses of local wine. Pay $35, get a paper bracelet and you get to taste as much as you want.
I saw Todd White, the organizer, at the bocce ball courts last night. He was in an expansive mood as he asked how my last job interview went and poured himself a glass of wine. Wine goes with everything here. On Halloween parents have a glass in hand as their kids go trick-or-treating. The kids get candy, the parents get a pour of wine. Attend a party and thirty, forty, fifty bottles of wine are on the table. One rarely sees a bottle of beer, even more rarely a bottle of distilled spirits. Bottles from Napa, bottles from Sonoma, Mendocino, bottles with fancy labels, bottles with no labels at all (the cork might tell you who made it), bottles people produced themselves, bottles given to them at work.
During the twenty weeks of the year when people play bocce, team members lay out enormous spreads of food and dine while they play, a clutch of wine bottles on every table. Some players even roll while holding a wine glass in their free hand, making a sort of jaunty, devil-may-care statement. One team lays out table cloths over two tables, sets down plates, cutlery, glowing lanterns, and dines after the match by lamplight.
Todd moved here from Atlanta, operates a winery and likes to make things happen. The first Cheers happened in April of 2009. Despite the rain people turned out – several thousand. Merchants and restauranteurs were thrilled to have the business and Todd become a sort of local celebrity.
One evening I dined at the bar at Cook, a small restaurant on Main Street and my favorite hangout. I often walk in there alone, sit at the bar and within minutes find myself in conversation with people I’ve never seen before. After a while, we’re swapping winery stories, then swapping wine. Here, have some of this.
Swirl, sniff, inhale, sip, slurp, swallow. Inhale. Exhale. Mmmmm. Nice. Now have some of this . . . .
That evening I found myself talking to a stunning young woman from back East, who was traveling with her mother. Her mother was just barely less beautiful. Both women were well-dressed and had enough precious gems on them to fund a small bank. They were enjoying their vacation. The owner of their B&B up the street told them to come here. He eats here all the time, they explained. Ah, Todd White, I say, a peach of a fellow. Everyone knows Todd.
There are no degrees of separation here.
After a while they turned and asked what a lot of people ask: The Napa Valley is obviously a great place to vacation, and we're having a great time, but what's it like to live here? Like, what do y’all do here? I mean, besides eat and drink?
Well,uh . . . um . . . hmmm . . . . We, uh, eat, we drink, we hang out, we dig each other; um, hike, bike, play bocce ball (you know Joe DiMaggio’s dad played bocce ball, worried that little Joey played this silly base-a-ball) - swim. Some of us are pretty serious runners and bikers, I guess. You know, I often feel like I’m a character in an extended Winnie-the-Pooh story. Different characters show up from time to time, like Kanga and Roo coming to the forest, and are enfolded into this enchanted fairyland of a place. That’s the way it’s been for me. We tell stories, we hang out, we enjoy. You know, we don’t really do much here . . . And we're very happy.
Todd’s operation has gotten smoother with each passing month. As I sit here in the Bakery on Main Street, white-clad members of the Cheers crew cruise up and down on new bicycles that look like the old Schwinn I had as a kid. One stops to post a map of St. Helena to a tree. The map lists port-o-potties, places to buy tickets, where the bands play. Tubs full of ice and free bottles of water appear, along with extra trash and recycling bins. Security for the operation is light, but efficient. Reports of out and out drunkeness have been few in past months.
A couple of Mormon elders walk by. Two fund-raisers for Oxfam-America walk into the Bakery for coffee. I wave to a friend making a cell phone call outside of his office as I leave. I will be standing where he is with a bunch of other Rotarians this evening to talk about Rotary. Small town America gets ready for the festival.
* * * * * * * * *
That evening people thronged the sidewalks. Rotarians from distant cities stopped by to say hello. Afterward I went with Cindy and Dave to a Mexican place for tacos. We talked briefly above the din of how we each got here. Cindy came up just for a summer some four years ago to get away from Los Angeles and decided to stay. Dave came up from LA over a decade before. Neither wants to live anywhere else at this point. I decided to spend time doing massage and bodywork in some Bay Area spa several summers ago, flung out dozens of resumes and got a response from one in St. Helena. I had never heard of the town before, although I must have driven through it. I still spend winters in Washington, but for the rest of the year, this is home.
Showing posts with label Napa Valley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Napa Valley. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
Christmas 2009/Epiphany 2010
In Search of a Sense of Place
California Journal
At Christmas time in the year of Our Lord 2009, I was still in the Napa Valley, in the city of Saint Helena, the mother of Constantine, having lingered there longer than ever before the flight east. The only return flight I could get with my frequent flyer ticket was on New Year’s Eve; San Francisco non-stop to Dulles. My airplane caught a 125 mph tailwind on the way in, making for a four-hour flight from the West Coast. Upon arrival, I took a short cab ride on a rainy, cold night to one of those great Washington young people’s group homes that always throws a party on New Year’s Eve, to celebrate the evening with numerous people from one of two churches I attend here. Thus my transition from West to East was swift and merry.
Way back in April when I first arrived, people told me that if I wanted to really understand the soul of St. Helena, I should go over to Crane Park any week night and blend into the crowd at the eight bocce ball courts. I indeed found quite a crowd, not to mention picnic tables covered with cheeses, olives, spreads, crackers, cold cuts, pasta, flatbreads, salads, dips, elaborate desserts and, of course, bottles of wine; mostly from Napa, bottles from tasting rooms, bottles from private cellars, bottles with unusual labels, bottles with no labels at all. The Grgich Hills Winery team showed up once a week with an entire washing machine flat of stemware and a dozen bottles from the tasting room. Oh my. Strike up a conversation and soon a glass is placed in your hand, wine poured, delicacies offered. Mmmm. Such generosity with food and wine I have never before enjoyed.
Eventually I joined a team (sponsored by the Episcopal Church, which I often attend): The Holy Rollers. We weren’t particularly good, but we ate well, and improved as the season wore on, finishing sixth out of ten. The last evening for bocce occurred about a month ago. We lost the first two games to a much better team, but came back to win the last one, which was a kick.
St. Helena really is a friendly little town. One can walk into Cook, the small restaurant on Main Street beloved of locals, have a seat at the bar, and find oneself engrossed in conversation. One’s glass is not infrequently filled with whatever someone brought. The menu is rather limited, a simple, type-written sheet of paper, but I have grown to love the place. The chef comes to me for treatments at the spa and I know all the staff by name. Market, another good small restaurant with a longer menu, is up the street. Eddie, the greeter and seater, a peach of a fellow, will remember your name after a couple of visits. I have never lived in a place where it is so easy to meet strangers.
I have been blessed with wonderful clients at Health Spa Napa Valley, even though the economic situation has reduced the number quite precipitously. Most clients come in, say relatively little and get on the table. I breathe deeply and begin. I move my hands, forearms and elbows from head and shoulders down to the feet and back up. Slowly. Repeat. Breathe. I’ve decided that a good massage really is a work of art, something more like a musical composition than a medical treatment, a concerto for the human body in three parts, face down, face up and sideways. The tune we play together depends on the instrument: some people are flutes, some violins, horns, cellos, occasionally a bass violin or grand piano. Most depart with a thank you and a smile on their faces and I move on to the next, or go for a swim before heading off to the bocce ball courts, or Cook, for an evening of conviviality.
Sometimes something magical happens; a deep exhalation, a sigh, a release, a shudder. Clients occasionally teach me something, or reward me with something intangible beyond the cash payment. One client this summer was a defensive safety on a top ten college team in the 1960s. He liked to talk, so we talked football; and beyond football to sportsmanship, honesty, the life lessons taught by competition. I have done advanced academic work in the general field of moral philosophy, but he was the teacher in this conversation, as much by his attitude as anything else.
This season’s liturgical highlight was a Chanticleer concert at a big old Catholic church in Petaluma. They entered the darkened church in tuxedos, carrying lighted tapers and singing a Gregorian Chant, followed immediately by Josquin Desprez’s Ave Maria:
Ave Maria, Gratia, plena,
Dominus tecum, Virgo serena.
The darkened church, the illuminated altar to the Virgin of Guadalupe, the height and depth of the voices, blending, soaring, welling, gently but surely shaking the rafters and the foundation; thoughts of my mother, all mothers, all parents, the Holy Family, all families, all children, all caring, all loving, all yearning, all suffering, all striving . . . Somewhere deep inside the voices released the wellspring of tears yet made life a glorious blessing.
O Mater Dei, memento mei. Amen.
A few days later I drove down the coast to Esalen for Christmas week. A week at Esalen is always good, but this was even better than usual, a workshop called SoulMotion, led by Scott and Zuza Engler. For most of our six hours of “class” each day we simply moved to music, slowly working out all the kinks and tightness of our workaday lives. We ate good food, amid much exuberant conversation. We soaked in the famous hot springs perched fifty feet above the ocean. Periodically in class, we would pause to share in small groups or in the larger group. After a few days the sharings emerged from deeper and deeper places.
In an abnormally cold Washington this January, I am warmed by good memories.
California Journal
At Christmas time in the year of Our Lord 2009, I was still in the Napa Valley, in the city of Saint Helena, the mother of Constantine, having lingered there longer than ever before the flight east. The only return flight I could get with my frequent flyer ticket was on New Year’s Eve; San Francisco non-stop to Dulles. My airplane caught a 125 mph tailwind on the way in, making for a four-hour flight from the West Coast. Upon arrival, I took a short cab ride on a rainy, cold night to one of those great Washington young people’s group homes that always throws a party on New Year’s Eve, to celebrate the evening with numerous people from one of two churches I attend here. Thus my transition from West to East was swift and merry.
Way back in April when I first arrived, people told me that if I wanted to really understand the soul of St. Helena, I should go over to Crane Park any week night and blend into the crowd at the eight bocce ball courts. I indeed found quite a crowd, not to mention picnic tables covered with cheeses, olives, spreads, crackers, cold cuts, pasta, flatbreads, salads, dips, elaborate desserts and, of course, bottles of wine; mostly from Napa, bottles from tasting rooms, bottles from private cellars, bottles with unusual labels, bottles with no labels at all. The Grgich Hills Winery team showed up once a week with an entire washing machine flat of stemware and a dozen bottles from the tasting room. Oh my. Strike up a conversation and soon a glass is placed in your hand, wine poured, delicacies offered. Mmmm. Such generosity with food and wine I have never before enjoyed.
Eventually I joined a team (sponsored by the Episcopal Church, which I often attend): The Holy Rollers. We weren’t particularly good, but we ate well, and improved as the season wore on, finishing sixth out of ten. The last evening for bocce occurred about a month ago. We lost the first two games to a much better team, but came back to win the last one, which was a kick.
St. Helena really is a friendly little town. One can walk into Cook, the small restaurant on Main Street beloved of locals, have a seat at the bar, and find oneself engrossed in conversation. One’s glass is not infrequently filled with whatever someone brought. The menu is rather limited, a simple, type-written sheet of paper, but I have grown to love the place. The chef comes to me for treatments at the spa and I know all the staff by name. Market, another good small restaurant with a longer menu, is up the street. Eddie, the greeter and seater, a peach of a fellow, will remember your name after a couple of visits. I have never lived in a place where it is so easy to meet strangers.
I have been blessed with wonderful clients at Health Spa Napa Valley, even though the economic situation has reduced the number quite precipitously. Most clients come in, say relatively little and get on the table. I breathe deeply and begin. I move my hands, forearms and elbows from head and shoulders down to the feet and back up. Slowly. Repeat. Breathe. I’ve decided that a good massage really is a work of art, something more like a musical composition than a medical treatment, a concerto for the human body in three parts, face down, face up and sideways. The tune we play together depends on the instrument: some people are flutes, some violins, horns, cellos, occasionally a bass violin or grand piano. Most depart with a thank you and a smile on their faces and I move on to the next, or go for a swim before heading off to the bocce ball courts, or Cook, for an evening of conviviality.
Sometimes something magical happens; a deep exhalation, a sigh, a release, a shudder. Clients occasionally teach me something, or reward me with something intangible beyond the cash payment. One client this summer was a defensive safety on a top ten college team in the 1960s. He liked to talk, so we talked football; and beyond football to sportsmanship, honesty, the life lessons taught by competition. I have done advanced academic work in the general field of moral philosophy, but he was the teacher in this conversation, as much by his attitude as anything else.
This season’s liturgical highlight was a Chanticleer concert at a big old Catholic church in Petaluma. They entered the darkened church in tuxedos, carrying lighted tapers and singing a Gregorian Chant, followed immediately by Josquin Desprez’s Ave Maria:
Ave Maria, Gratia, plena,
Dominus tecum, Virgo serena.
The darkened church, the illuminated altar to the Virgin of Guadalupe, the height and depth of the voices, blending, soaring, welling, gently but surely shaking the rafters and the foundation; thoughts of my mother, all mothers, all parents, the Holy Family, all families, all children, all caring, all loving, all yearning, all suffering, all striving . . . Somewhere deep inside the voices released the wellspring of tears yet made life a glorious blessing.
O Mater Dei, memento mei. Amen.
A few days later I drove down the coast to Esalen for Christmas week. A week at Esalen is always good, but this was even better than usual, a workshop called SoulMotion, led by Scott and Zuza Engler. For most of our six hours of “class” each day we simply moved to music, slowly working out all the kinks and tightness of our workaday lives. We ate good food, amid much exuberant conversation. We soaked in the famous hot springs perched fifty feet above the ocean. Periodically in class, we would pause to share in small groups or in the larger group. After a few days the sharings emerged from deeper and deeper places.
In an abnormally cold Washington this January, I am warmed by good memories.
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