But are some of you are still hesitant? Well, first off, if you haven’t made flight plans, hotel reservations, secured your entrance badges/tickets and so forth, it’s probably a little late to consider going. However, if you live in Italy or have already, somewhere in the world, made travel arrangements, and you are having last-minute doubts, is there any substance to your fears? I’m going to try and lay it out, just in case you needed it.
I’ve got to say this: with what the world is witnessing right at this moment, I find it exceedingly difficult, if not absurd, to think about writing a post on a wine blog. Oh, two of the greatest Italian wines I’ve had this year? Who could, in their right mind, right now, care? A seminar on Italian wine? Big whoop. News flash: Another wine competition? Yeah, wow.
That, my friends, is where my head is at. I cannot tear myself away from the absolute horror that innocent women and children are experiencing in Ukraine. I feel powerless. It is depressing. It is bringing up memories from the cold war, such as October of 1962, and scaring the hell out of me. For all of us.
So, forgive me for not giving a shit if the pointless subject of Italian wine match-ups with Tex-Mex food is the furthest thing from my mind, at this time. Or the benefits of orange wine made in an artisanal manner vs. the commercial/industrial manufacturing of rosé wines. It just seems inconsequential in the scope of the greater forces of destiny swirling all around us.
Maybe things will change. For now, I’m stuck. I cannot see the forest for the trees. All I can see is the firebomb, the crater, the lifeless bodies of innocent babies being held by nurses who can do nothing to bring life back into their poor little bodies. That’s all I can think about, see or dwell upon. Until the madman who is causing this is rendered silent and lifeless himself.
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"James was a medic who first saw combat when he
replaced another medic killed in fighting in Iraq in 2006. He did two more
tours, in Iraq and Afghanistan, seeing so much blood and death that 10 years
after leaving the military he still attends therapy at a veteran’s hospital.
“But this week, as he watched Russian forces shell
cities across Ukraine, he decided that he had to try to go there to help.
“‘Combat has a cost, that’s for sure; you think you
can come back from war the same, but you can’t,’ James said in a phone
interview from his home in Dallas, where he said he was waiting to hear back
from Ukrainian officials. 'But I feel obligated. It’s the innocent people being
attacked — the kids. It’s the kids, man. I just can’t stand by.’”
- ‘I Just Can’t Stand By’: American Veterans Join the Fight in Ukraine
But sometimes, we must roll the dough into a ball, moisten it, stick it somewhere dark and motionless, and let it rise again with hope for a new start. Or as Eric Asimov, wrote in a recent column, a “new culture.”
And so, all balled up and noöwhere to go, I delved into my post-graduate studies. This time it led me in time, back, to the future.
