Three things from DAH. 

DAH is me, David Anthony Hance. It's not easy being green.

First up this week, Greening …  
We had big rain on the US Pacific Coast in October. Now, the hills are greening. After months and months of golden brown, the greening hints of hope. We've a long way to go until Spring, by which time these hills will likely be browning, barring rain we don't anticipate. But I find hope when and where I can, these days. And the greening in November has me hoping. Hope justified by … not much. Tender blades of grass, greening the hills? That's hope? For me, yes, that's hope.  
Why is Grass Green?

Second up this week, Gradualism …  
"Like anything worth doing in life, happiness takes time and patience and consistency" (Mark Manson, author of Everything is Fucked: A Book About Hope). My grandparents preached patience, as did my parents and teachers. That philosophy of gradualism apes theories of evolution … small changes over a long time. The total time of a single human life, however, is brief. Patience can be taxed as gradual change comes slowly. Is it coming at all? "We do not want our freedom gradually, but we want to be free now!" (John Lewis, at the 1963 March on Washington). Impatient or disbelieving in gradualism, some try shortcuts. Breaking things is an approach of revolution. Big change forced fast. That isn't what my grandparents, parents, and teacher preached. But even they would agree that some sticky plasters need pulling off quickly.
Patience Is a Dirty Word

Third up this week, Gewürztraminer …  
Long, long ago, in California's Anderson Valley, when Edmeades Winery was operated by Deron Edmeades (Jed Steele, winemaker), I was introduced to Dry Gew (pronounced "goo") and Sweet Gew. Edmeades bottled both: a dry (not sweet) varietal Gewürztraminer and a sweet (sweet) varietal Gewürztraminer. I worked for the Fetzer family in those days. We only bottled a Sweet Gewurz (we never shortened it to Gew), which was very, very popular. My taste, then and now, was for dry Gew. Alsatian, or West Coast wines that really were dry (I usually have to guess based on the alcohol: If it's 9-11% it's probably sweet). There are still a few nice Anderson Valley dry Gews. Handley, Husch, and Navarro are easy-ish to find. Alsatian Gewürztraminer is available at many grocers. Rich and spicy (think apple pie spice and tropical fruit), it's one of my choices for Thanksgiving. 
Know Your Grapes: Gewürztraminer

And a bit more:

Rain, by Don Paterson
(from the May 26, 2008 issue of The New Yorker)

I love all films that start with rain:
rain, braiding a windowpane
or darkening a hung-out dress
or streaming down her upturned face;

one long thundering downpour
right through the empty script and score
before the act, before the blame,
before the lens pulls through the frame

to where the woman sits alone
beside a silent telephone
or the dress lies ruined on the grass
or the girl walks off the overpass,

and all things flow out from that source
along their fatal watercourse.
However bad or overlong
such a film can do no wrong,

so when his native twang shows through
or when the boom dips into view
or when her speech starts to betray
its adaptation from the play,

I think to when we opened cold
on a rain-dark gutter, running gold
with the neon of a drugstore sign,
and I’d read into its blazing line:

forget the ink, the milk, the blood—
all was washed clean with the flood
we rose up from the falling waters
the fallen rain's own sons and daughters

and none of this, none of this matters.


And that's all for this week.
From Mary Oliver’s poem Sometimes …  

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it. 

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