Teasers

“I don’t care about what the experts say about the notes of the wine,” our wine tasting host, Tyler, railed passionately. “I’m only interested in what happens in your palatte.” Music to our ears, my husband and I settled back into our seats, mildly pleased with ourselves as the unwashed masses with minds of our own.

As we discovered our taste for French wines, one guy in the audience (let’s call him Sanjay) was rising to the occasion, stepping up to be the born French connoisseur, spitting out acronyms like “GSM” and names of remote French villages that produced $8000 bottles of wine. Between Tyler’s subtle salesmanship and varying shades of our wine appreciation, Sanjay’s loud mouthed commentary briefly threatened to drown the room.

But thanks to Tyler, I ended up enjoying all the teasers of the event. All for $20.

The Job

After it was over, I marvelled at Tyler and how well he’d handled Sanjay. Dealing with such crowd can be hard work, but Tyler poured us wine after wine with rare sensitivity and proficiency. He knew his job, I thought, as I opened up to some self-reflection…

How often do I confuse the job with work? Honestly, all the time. When I’m cooking, I’m grading myself on following the recipe. When I’m hiking, I’m crushing it on the trail ahead of everyone else. When I meet a defect, I want to squarely fix it. When I find a problem, I want to solve it. Work might have a way to pump up the adrenaline. And I’m an adrenaline junkie, it would seem.

Does it make for good work? Sure. Does “facing it squarely” deliver instant gratification? May be. Does it get the job done? Unclear. But if I were an artist, I’d wager that this is the voice that I’ve come to recognize as mine.

The Voice

“The real issue is not how to find your voice, but… getting rid of the damn thing,” Philip Glass once quipped. I’ve tried to get rid of my pestering “face it squarely” voice, I promise you, but the only thing that’s worked for me is to be in the moment. To fill the moment with attention and openness.

Tyler seems to have mastered this, presumably from hosting dozens of wine tastings and dealing with all kinds of characters. I wonder if the wine helps too?

Like the notes of wine wafting to our noses, there’s no intellectual sophistication in the moment, just the experience that no one else can have. And like the flavors dissolving on our tongues, there was no judgement, just a sense of what must be done… attend to your experience and let others attend to theirs.