Monday, June 26, 2006
Walking the Line: No, not the Johnny Cash movie -- I mean life... In our puritan New England surroundings one might call hubby and me border-line alcoholics. Transported to Paris we might just be living normally and good-grief why don't we smoke? At the other end of the spectrum, in a Muslim country we would be flat-out flogged.
Admittedly, wine is integral to our lives -- in fact I couldn't actually imagine an evening without several glasses of it. This clearly constitutes dependency. That said, there is some relativity to the dependency aspect in that the French might say that wine is as integral as good food, beautiful surroundings, family and friends -- a taste odyssey not to be denied any human on a daily basis.
Bottom line: we admit that our wine does indeed numb certain aspects of life that become cumulative pressure points for Anna Bloviations e.g. the ugliness of the commute, the ugliness of how mankind treats one another, the ugliness of how mankind treats the planet. In essence for every evening that a glass of wine washes down a delectable dinner, two or three glasses of wine on another night wash down our over-sensitivity to a world we think mad.
But Anna Bloviations' life is relatively speaking wonderful. In a subjective kind of way. No let's qualify that: it is wonderful in a way many people would covet. Safe to say Anna Bloviations will successfully ward off any propensities to go over the edge into a daze of alcoholic stupor any time soon. Which is the only way. Not so for her youngest Austrian brother-in-law who has become a raging alcoholic we hear. He sits every evening in a Viennese 'Gasthaus' and drinks the place to a whirling, incoherent close. His alcoholism has made him paranoid i.e. the family is at fault for his woes. He weeps. He is alone. I think about him a lot now. Wine, like all good things, can tip precariously to darker sides dear friends. Coming from a long line of 'border line alcoholics, we see this painfully clear I'm afraid.
Admittedly, wine is integral to our lives -- in fact I couldn't actually imagine an evening without several glasses of it. This clearly constitutes dependency. That said, there is some relativity to the dependency aspect in that the French might say that wine is as integral as good food, beautiful surroundings, family and friends -- a taste odyssey not to be denied any human on a daily basis.
Bottom line: we admit that our wine does indeed numb certain aspects of life that become cumulative pressure points for Anna Bloviations e.g. the ugliness of the commute, the ugliness of how mankind treats one another, the ugliness of how mankind treats the planet. In essence for every evening that a glass of wine washes down a delectable dinner, two or three glasses of wine on another night wash down our over-sensitivity to a world we think mad.
But Anna Bloviations' life is relatively speaking wonderful. In a subjective kind of way. No let's qualify that: it is wonderful in a way many people would covet. Safe to say Anna Bloviations will successfully ward off any propensities to go over the edge into a daze of alcoholic stupor any time soon. Which is the only way. Not so for her youngest Austrian brother-in-law who has become a raging alcoholic we hear. He sits every evening in a Viennese 'Gasthaus' and drinks the place to a whirling, incoherent close. His alcoholism has made him paranoid i.e. the family is at fault for his woes. He weeps. He is alone. I think about him a lot now. Wine, like all good things, can tip precariously to darker sides dear friends. Coming from a long line of 'border line alcoholics, we see this painfully clear I'm afraid.
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