We Will Be Ephemeral
Brooklyn’s Williamsburg Bridge is covered with literature- stickered, markered, painted, sprayed- advertisements, advice, outbursts of rage, romantic proclamations. My amusement during morning runs, as though the rippling East River, Domino Sugar factory sign, or wild island of Manhattan and all of its monkeys aren’t sights enough.
Fee fi fo fum – Niteowl – Skates and Thieves – Imitation is ecstasy – What’s poppin’ slime? – Skate All Cities – I Jew New York – Cry Laughingly – Watch me while I *!#* your mother – Maybe I’m Amazed – Iraq? – Honduras? – Love is always the appropriate reaction.
This is my favorite though- We will be ephemeral. Or, as a wise friend reminds me, Momento mori- remember you will die. Mostly invigorating/ a little grim/ only the truth. Two pretty-sounding phrases reminding us to pay attention to sensations of the skin, scent, palate. To ideas that come to us and hold steady for long enough to make a change. Hard to keep so many of the most pleasurable things alive for long- sweetly fleeting- we’re left chasing some sort of always.
The chase keeps us going though. We fill our worlds with art that brings us outside of ourselves, music that brings us back, words that move, food that feeds more than just a physical hunger. We keep company with people who encourage us to dream big, and affirm our complex personalities, even the weird parts. When we don’t have these things, when we don’t even remember to try for them, life sucks. When nothing is around, we fish for recollections. So the things they are made of- they better be good.
Including the wine. When we drink wines that never really leave us, we give ourselves memories that sustain. What is your forever wine? Mine is Ezio Voyat’s Le Muraglie Rosso. Layer after layer of spellbinding something.
The grapes- Petit Rouge, Dolcetto, and Gros Vien (indigenous and exclusive to the Valle d’Aosta).
Coming from a cloistered growing site (the name is derived from the Italian le mura– the walls) in Valle d’Aosta’s province of Chambave where the ancient vineyard’s natural foliage is allowed to grow among a precious few sub-alpine acres planted to vine. Voyat, who took over the land from his father in ’61, passed on in 2003. Any vintage you can find is truly something special.
