14 April 2008 by Sandy Hemphill
The Saga of the Best Bottle of Wine I Never Drank - Part 4
I drove home. It was a 70-mile trip from my friend’s house to mine. When I got home, I was so tired I just went inside and went to bed. I’d unpack the car in the morning.
Yes, I’d unpack the car in the morning, clean things up after a week away from home, pamper aching muscles, and – finally! – enjoy my west Texas wine as I remembered the events of my west Texas wilderness adventure. This seemed to me to be a perfect way to end such a journey.
I fell into a deep, deep, dreamless sleep, the kind that comes only when a person’s been away from his or her own perfectly familiar, comfortable bed for a while. I was looking forward to spending tomorrow alone, quiet, and enjoying a personal celebration of my adventure as a very hard-working volunteer in a beautiful national park.
I woke up entirely at peace, relaxed, a little achy but nothing to complain about, especially after spending a week sleeping on rocks. I lingered over coffee and breakfast, promised the cats I’d never leave them alone for so long ever again, and then set about unpacking my car and my camping gear. I planned the day so I that I could open my much-anticipated bottle of west Texas wine just about the time the sun would begin to set and that fabulous moon would begin to rise again.
When it comes to packing a duffel bag for eight days in the wilderness, city girls might not be the most adept. This lesson I learned quite sadly.
My giant duffel bag was so full of clothes for all occasions and weather events; books to read and magazines to share when boredom set in (hah!); toiletries, moisturizers, scented soaps, potions, and lotions that were entirely inappropriate; snacks in case there wasn’t any food I liked (another hah!); and a separate pair of shoes for every day of the journey that it was just too heavy for me to get out of the car with any sort of grace or dignity.
It didn’t seem possible that it could be heavier now than it had been when I’d left but I guess my poor muscles had gotten such a work-out over the course of the week that they just weren’t cooperating as I’d expected them to.
I pushed and scooted it. I heaved it, hoisted it, and inched it along until it fell out of the car’s trunk and onto the ground. I dragged it across the lawn, onto the deck, and into the back door.
The minute I unzipped my duffel bag, I knew something was wrong. Very, very wrong. I smelled wine.
I pulled out books and magazines never read, snacks never eaten, shoes never worn, clothes never even remembered. Nestled snugly, I thought, in the bath towels never used, was my treasured bottle of wine.
Somewhere along the journey home, probably as we hurriedly and exhaustedly crammed one bag on top of another, eager to set out on the long road trip home, my coveted bottle of wine had gotten broken.
My unused bath towels were drenched in my precious Cabernet Sauvignon. My bottle was crushed into a few big, ugly, jagged pieces of glass. The bottle’s label, still all in one piece, was facing up, straight toward my eyes, as if to tell me that I shouldn’t have waited so long.
And I probably should not have waited so long. That’s one of the many things I learned on this journey into the wilderness with a group of strangers.
I learned that wine pairs perfectly with strangers and the wilderness, and with strangers in the city, too. And that it tastes great with friends old and new alike. And that every day brings the perfect moment for enjoying a glass of wine, if we just slow down long enough to realize it.
And, like all things of true value, when we hoard them away, keeping them to ourselves while denying the joy of sharing, they somehow find a way of escaping us anyway.
Although I never got to drink a single drop, for all the things it taught me, this one is the very best bottle of wine I never drank.
I’ll remember it always.