4 am is an hour that most of us find cold, strange, and unfamiliar.
For our good friend Graham, it’s a daily invitation to rise and greet the dawn.
The northern California rays peak above the wooded scape outside his window as he finds himself awakened in a bed atop a frame constructed of pallets reclaimed from local wineries. No one else is awake except the neighboring squirrels chattering gregariously right outside. He takes his time grooming, dressing, then mounting his bicycle and beginning the breezy 3-mile ride to his place of “work”; the sprawling natural masterpiece of reds, browns, and greens that we’d otherwise call a winery.
In these still, grey, early moments, thoughts sometimes run through his head of all the misadventures that preceded this moment - the early end to his college career, job applications turned down - but he keeps riding
His eyes fixed on the rutted, dirt road.
The moment in front of him.
“The biggest thing about wine,” Graham told us, “is about what currently exists in front of you. Truly living in the moment and being present. Nothing matters. Zen. Total bliss.”
Like the road and everything those rubber bike tires lead to.
Before all this; before next year’s Pinot and Cabernet had been casked in oak; back when in other’s minds when he may have been nothing more than a college dropout, he found simple joy sitting around his mother’s dinner table with friends and family. Those moments of community and plenty helped him redefine his dreams of creating a community of his own; a community built on the bliss of a shared, sensory experience.
"You want to be proud of something you've made - proud of every moment that's happening...
Making something that's making other people happy. That’s at the beginning of it all"
That’s where it starts for a tailor too. Not with a burning desire for anything grandiose.
It’s not even about being a commanding voice in the fashion world.
For us, it’s so much simpler than that.
It’s about finding a way to engage with the colors and textures of the spaces and materials around us.
It’s about people and the experiences that bring us together.
It’s about making something, standing back, and knowing...
It is good.
See All the photos from our trip to Scribe Winery on our Tumblr: off days