I was walking back home after a day of learning a new aspect of the vineyard yesterday. The “archers” are catching up to the “fixers” and no one is catching up to the vines. So I moved from arching to fixing which is grueling but really fun since I pretty much carried a forty pound four foot long nail around for nine hours spearing dead wood and dragging them out of the ground. I have no idea why I love getting dirty and performing manual labor. For some reason it makes the day seem as if something happened I guess. I can feel all the muscles in my back, arms, legs, and even my neck telling me I did something really hard all day. I miss that fatigue and working middle management does not give me this sense at all. Sure I feel fatigued, from boredom or clients clanging about how horrible their lives are and how we’ve just made it that much worse. Ok, that is more mentally numb than fatigued. Really, now that I think about it, I have enjoyed jobs but I haven’t loved a job since I left the bike shop I used to work at in Big Rapids. Every day there was a new challenge like, “How can I affix this pedal to a stripped out crank with a zip tie?” By the way I figured it out and after we gave him a stern warning to not wait very long before getting it fixed I saw him two weeks later on campus, still riding on that damn pedal.
But I digress, so I’m nearly home and outside of a nagging feeling of loss, I won’t go into that here, I was truly happy, calm even. I feel as if I live here now. I think the feeling has been coming on for days now but today was the day I realized it. I was driving around on Sunday in the vineyards delivery truck just milling about the small towns that encircle the mountain and taking in what the scenes around me would offer. For the first time I wasn’t nervous at the turnabouts or whether the gendarmie would pull me over and whip me with cheese. Nope, this is where I live.
The strange has become commonplace. I’m not nervous now when someone says, “Eric (or American)?” and then rails off a spit of French. I have skipped all decorum at lunch and dinner in regards to me always waiting to be asked if I wanted something since I didn’t want to appear rude. I mean you should have seen the crowd when I got up to go to the other room to get cheese. I sat down with a wheel the size of my head and dug in. I thought they were going to cheer they were so happy as one lady railed off in Alsacien, “He just might be Alsacien after all!” I believe they have put me through many tests here on this little island of wine but luckily I’m such a medium sized dumb animal I have missed them all and in the process won them over.
I mean you know you’re making a difference when for example, the second day of “fixing” we run into a stump that just won’t come out and I say, “Well guys, what do we say about this?” I looked up to find three French men look up from the dead sunken trunk to me and say, “that bitch is in there.” Their accents accentuating the cussing. That was what I said every time the day before when we came upon something that fought way too hard. Who knows, I’d like to believe, that maybe one of these threes final words will be as he lays there ready to take his last breath and has his adoring family all around him.
“That bitch is in there.” Amen.
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