Chile

Cell-phone-less I enter the airport and check my bag. The stress lately has me worried about almost everything, and even now I can't help but think, what if this bag never makes it to Santiago?

But I'm letting go. In a sense, I'm forced to think about it. As the plane cuts through the clouds, and the landscape below unfolds in patterns, we are all letting go of the earth for a brief moment. Making our way amongst and in-between the towered, cottoned plumes, held suspended in the sky, I catch glimpses of detail in them when light hits a darkened crevice and scatters.

The wine is wearing off for now. It was about 2 hours ago that I finished a glass of the '97 vintage red blend from California. We came across it while hunting for a California Cabernet to gift my host family. I think it's a nice gift. Who doesn't like wine? It's luscious and rich. It's not immediately gratifying, but with patience its complexities are understood, appreciated, and supremely admired. Once opened it begins transforming itself - into so many things - flavors of herbs, spices, fruits or nuts. But perhaps its greatest trait is that it can transform the most adamantly stressed into a near-sighted epicurean. Perhaps on this trip, a little wine will serve to remind me that all of this is about letting go.

-Taylor