As I breathe in the grape sweetness of wine in the making, my eyes dance at the miles of the vines kissing the horizon.

Dents form on the sides of my mouth and give way to dimples. I cannot disguise my smirk, gushing like grapes in the wine vat.

 

I feel like Diane Lane in Under the Tuscan Sun when she says , “I got my wish .Everything I asked for …”

Fifteen years ago I could not afford a “happy meal” for my kids and now I am here. I got my wish.

Diane’s character runs parallel to my life. Divorced, loses it all,sad, wandering without direction, jumps to a foreign country( I think California qualifies as foreign ) but like all Rom-Com movies , the heroine’s train changes track .

Ms. Lane narrates at the end of the film , “They say they built the train tracks over the Alps between Vienna and Venice before there was a train. They built it anyway. They knew one day a train would come. Any arbitrary turn along the way and I would be elsewhere. I would be different.”
And so would I.

Diane’s soothing voice closes the film like dew on magenta grapes.
“Unthinkably good things can happen. Even late in the game. It is such a surprise.”
I tilt my sun hat to cover my blushing. The last few years have been a complete surprise. I never envisioned that my sour grapes would turn sweet .

“I don’t know where the path is leading but I know who is leading the path .” Proverbs 4:10

Embrace the twists of turns of life and dare to be surprised. I intend to.
Maybe like the movie, a Tuscan Villa has my name on it with an American gentleman who lives in Florence, ready to carry me over the threshold.
If that is God’s plan, I’ll be all in ; like a grape stomper-barefoot and all.