Seasons

annikajroberts
6 days ago
4 min read

Hello and happy December! It’s been too long!

I have now been living at home and unemployed for a whole month, so I suppose it’s time to start writing again. As many of you know, I moved back to Washington at the end of July after two incredible years over in Italy. I got to spend the month of August catching up with friends and family, resting, and reflecting, then September rolled around and I headed to a little town called Walla Walla for harvest.

This was my second crush as a harvest intern. I spent two months working at Mark Ryan Winery and had the best time ever. The team there was so kind and generous with their knowledge and resources, the other interns were so sweet and fun, and I really could not have asked for a better experience.

Harvest has become my favorite time of year (besides Christmastime). Even though days are long and you spend most of them wet and cold and sticky and sore and exhausted, there is nothing better than getting to do a job that allows you to create something while using your brain and your body. It’s so rewarding even to have the smallest hand in making a bottle of wine.

I’m going to write something kind of weird so bear with me:

One of my wildest experiences in college was at a meditation seminar through my sorority where we had to spend 20 minutes meditating on a raisin.

A raisin was placed in the palm of our hand and we were instructed to close our hand around it and close our eyes.

“Think about this raisin. Think of all the steps and all the people it took to get this raisin into your hand.” She let us have a moment of silent thought before guiding us along in the first five minutes of the practice. “Think of the hands that planted the vines, and then think of the hands that tended them. Think of the hands that picked the fruit and put it into bins. Think of the driver that took the grapes to the factory where they were cleaned and further dried and sorted. Think of the people who produce the packaging that the raisins come in, and the person who designed the label on the package. Think of the people who sold the raisins to the stores, and then the people who stock store shelves. Think of the sales clerk who sold them to me so that I might place it in your hand today…”

The next 15 minutes were whack (we spent them feeling the raisin and moving it around in our hands, then looking at it, then smelling it, then listening to it, then finally putting it in our mouths where she made us hold it there without chewing for three minutes before eating it), but the first five taught me a lot.

Think about that with a bottle of wine. It’s a similar process, but with so many more steps. The vine growers spend the year pruning, watering, monitoring, and protecting the vines in order to get the best grapes. The pickers work long hours to collect all the fruit. I only was involved in part of the winemaking process, from the time the grapes arrived at the cellar. We destemmed them and crushed them, we analyzed them, we added yeast and nutrients, we punched down and pumped over, we tasted, we drained, we pressed, we barreled, and we cleaned and cleaned and cleaned. And after it’s aged and bottled, we will finally get to enjoy the fruits of our labor.

The point of this story: It takes a lot of time, a lot of people, and a lot of unseen work to make a bottle of wine.

I fell in love with wine largely because it reflects life. There are slow seasons where you might not see what’s happening behind the scenes, but the vines are still growing, or the wine is still aging. There are seasons for pruning or thinning the vines and leaving behind what won’t bear good fruit. Then there is harvest season—where there’s crushing and pressing and it feels like you can’t get a break. The thing is, all the seasons have to happen in their time in order to get the end goal: the new wine.

Right now I personally am in a slow season. I’m back at home, I’m unemployed, and I feel lost. My first few weeks post-harvest I was super depressed, and honestly I am still experiencing an undertone of that, but thankfully now it’s my other favorite time of year: Christmas!!

Aside from the cheer of the lights and the cookies and the trap remixes of classic songs, it’s advent season. A season of waiting and expectation, of preparation and anticipation. A season of hope and peace and joy and love. A season of light in the darkness.

I may be in a season of waiting for whatever comes next in my life, but I have hope for the future because I trust that God has a plan, I have peace in the present because I believe He is with me and working in ways I can’t see, I have joy in the trials because trials produce perseverance, and I have confidence that I am deeply loved by the Creator of the world (and that He loves you too).

Life is all about seasons! But, as with wine, all of them are necessary and work together to make something great!

A little extra:

Though the winter is long, even richer

The harvest it brings

Though my waiting prolongs even greater

Your promise for me like a seed

I believe that my season will come

- Seasons//Hillsong

https://youtu.be/cFEwV77n1Ng?si=cUAJBqnEc5VpBIqm

In the crushing

In the pressing

You are making new wine