Remember that within every situation are perspectives and interpretations. There are always many versions of every tale, and all versions should be considered (take note though, that considering something is different from actually believing it).
So here is my version (one of many) of how you came to be…
It was my birthday. Your Tito Malay cooked a scrumptious birthday dinner for the group. He cooked T-bone steaks stewed in thick gravy, a marble potato salad, tossed pasta, and there were lots and lots of red wine.
Later, the wine ran out and Malay had to pull from his hidden stash so the party could continue. He brought out a wine called GAGO, a Spanish wine and a gift given to him by your Tito Harn and Tita Pam during his birthday three months back. And that Gago wine, aptly named considering the effects, is a badass wine.
Your Tita Pam would always exclaim jokingly whenever the story of your conception comes up that Gago wine is the fertility wine. It might be. Why not? Whatever works, right?
‘Whatever works’, sounds like a statement for the clueless and desperate, which I am in different instances during that tumultuous year of 2011. And the torture of being aware of being clueless and desperate (about stuff not related to making babies) is eased (temporarily) by an overdose of wine. And at that moment, Gago wine is at hand. With it, along with glasses of of Jacob’s Creek, Stone Cellars and Frontera, a level was b/reached and I arrived at a point of no return and liked it.
Someday you’ll learn about tipping points and thresholds, and reaching this point or level could both be good and bad. That night, the threshold was passed and control was lost and you were made. I would like to believe that it was a good thing. Of course it’s a good thing. It could even be argued that it’s the best act of drunken courage I’ve ever committed in my life. And there you have it. I have you.
That’s basically the story of your conception.
Sorry if I had to share this story with emphasis to wines, but I think it’s a funny, if not inappropriate, detail of your creation story. There’s a more romantic version, I could tell that someday, but it wouldn’t have the element of the ‘wine’ in it and without it I would lose my point.
Wines, spirits, liquor, and beer play an important role in human life. They are sort of friends, acquaintances, enemies, addictions, relievers, and remedies for many things you’d learn for yourself when you’re old enough. That night though, those red bottled spirits played different roles for different people. It made others sad and in denial, it made some naughty in an awkward funny way, it made others happy enough to confront certain doubts they had within themselves. And no matter how people expressed it, it somehow revealed what people wanted.
My favorite wine quote came from the Italians: In vino, verite - in wine there is truth. Wine honestly reveals a part of yourself that you would have repressed or denied in sobriety. That time I knew what I wanted and I honestly admitted to myself that I wanted you. It was my birthday anyway and you would be my gift. And that’s what happened on my 28th year on earth. I closed my eyes, made a wish and drank, and it happened.
Today is March 5; it’s the first Monday of the first week of summer in 2012. Three weeks from now you will be born. Three weeks from now, I’m going to pop a bottle of bubbly (Gago is just too strong, and the name is too weird) and maybe light a Cuban cigar just like in the movies. I will drink to your arrival to consciousness, puff away to your first breath, and celebrate the start of a lifetime that we’ll be sharing together.
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