Gwendolyn Elliott

>>>>> Featured image: Bennington Lake on a recent walk. <<<<<

I’m long overdue for what now feels like a semi-annual blog update. While admittedly I’m not that great at refreshing this feed, at least I can feel good (and hopefully you do, too) that I’m not spamming your inbox…

I last published here in February, what now in the year of the Fire Horse seems like an epoch ago. Anyone else feel like time condensed into a highly-concentrated, fast-moving, and intense spectrum of experience this year?

Part of me has pushed off writing here simply because I have been busy. I have a new schedule at Rotie Cellars in Walla Walla’s sub appellation, the Rocks District of Milton-Freewater, where I have been working since February hosting guests, leading tours of the estate vineyard, and helping to write tasting notes.

I studied for the WSET III in the spring (and frustratingly passed only half of the exam in April). I have been writing about wine regularly for Visit Walla Walla, and Decanter, too, where, of all things, I have started to score Washington wine and cover the industry as its Washington state wine correspondent (my next piece will be in the forthcoming November print issue).

We had a fairly big basement update this year. This coincided with our region’s worst fire weather in history, which was an intense period of anxiety, and we had terrible air quality inside our home and out. As usual, the kitties kept me on my toes. There were some small trips here and there, wine events, other vineyard tours, and, wonderfully, two beautiful weddings. All these things filled what I suppose you can call the “growing season” since the last time I popped in here. (Random photo dump below.)

Yet in this crazy moment, in this crazy world, another part of me would like to write something profound and meaningful, something beyond a point by point life update, or a piece of original wine-related reporting (I have versions of each in my drafts folder). Something more, well, expansive, that attempts to connect the subject of this blog to something…bigger.

I don’t know why, maybe it’s because I love intersections, the place where things meet, where discovery can take place. Or because I’m an incorrigible Philosophy student, plying my trade in an increasingly automated world where it’s hard to plug in such chunky, analog thoughts.

Here’s a little story along those lines.

A few weeks ago in Portland, Toby and I went to see Fruit Bats, one of our favorite bands, on “The Landfill” tour. The band is the project of singer/songwriter Eric D. Johnson (who I actually interviewed a million years ago when I was working for ArtistDirect), an artist who may have written the best, sweetest, saddest song about a dog I’ve ever heard (and yes, there’s stiff competition in this category that includes “Maggie’s Song” by Chris Stapleton).

(Above: Some visiting pups on Rotie’s patio.)

In any case, the day of the show, we were exploring downtown Portland and saw EDJ, aka Mr. Fruit Bats, walking down the street. It looked like he was headed to Powell’s bookstore. We checked off “See EDJ in the wild” on our bingo card and went about our day poking into local shops.

Later that night at the show, Toby won a signed tour poster—free, and signed, it was the only piece of autographed memorabilia among piles of tee shirts and vinyl for sale (or so the merch gal explained to us—apparently only one is raffled off each night of the tour). We bought three records and a Roy Lichtenstein-inspired tee shirt, but it felt pretty magical to win the poster. We both loved the idea that perhaps the most valuable item to a fan is given away for free every night, channeled to its lucky recipient by pure chance.

A few days later, I notice a snap on Fruit Bats’ Instagram; it’s a picture of a book by Alan Watts, with a Powells’ receipt as a bookmark. Maybe this was the book EDJ picked up on his visit to Powell’s?

As it happens, Alan Watts was a transcendental writer and thinker who had a big impact on how I see things. Reading “Nature, Man, and Woman,” it was his simple explanation of phenomena I have sensed myself, put calmly and concisely into words, that I’ll never forget. I’ve long since lost the copy I had, but it was along the lines that human beings function as if they are superior, better, more intelligent, smarter, faster, and more efficient than the natural world, which we dominate and relentlessly exploit, or try to, at every level of society. But, he argues, this idea of being “separate” from nature is a myth.

The truth is that we are nature. Nature itself is our common human heritage, it’s the source of our evolution from primordial goo to fish to apes to man. When we try to separate ourselves from it, when we try to VR and AI ourselves into happiness, we just feel lonely, disconnected, and lost. Just because we experienced the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and the Atomic Age doesn’t mean we’ve somehow outgrown what, and who, we are: animals.

The source of our struggles and difficulties we face as a society, Watts says, are because we fail to recognize our place in this natural scheme, that we remain determined for dominion and control when we should have learned long ago how to cooperate instead.

Often, I think of rocks when I come across Watts’ name, as I’ve written before: about his lecture on the physical world, and how, in a way, time can be seen as a process of rocks coming alive (I’ve related this to aspects of geology that have been foundational to my understanding of Washington wine).

(Rocks photos courtesy of Phavong Phichith)

It’s perhaps harder for a rock, than a rock star, to be interesting. But then again, give any rock enough time, say 17 million years—the approximate age of the basalt cobblestones I clamber over each time I lead a vineyard tour—and it might become the reason why Milton-Freewater, Oregon is known for its defining, world-class Syrahs.

Maybe none of this is interesting, and I’m writing into the void, or getting lost in my own navel gazing. But that’s OK, because I can find meaning in rocks, and from rock stars, from the things that are free, and by observing such things and finding joy and wonder in somehow being a part of it.