A [bottle of] Port in the Storm

On Saturday night, Al and his wife and I went over to share a meal with Jo and his family. If you haven’t been following along, Al and Jo are my production partners for new batch of Nashville demos. In addition to being a great guitarist, Jo’s also a great cook. So we were all looking forward to it.

I was also looking at it as a chance to toast all the music we’ve made together these past few months, especially since it would be the first time all three of us were in the same room together for any of it!

After getting the invite a week or so in advance, I started thinking about this bottle of port I’ve been saving for over seven years. I kept it tucked away in a kitchen cupboard with a post-it note saying “DO NOT OPEN” in case any guests happened to get simultaneously curious and thirsty.

It wasn’t a particularly fancy or valuable vintage. In fact, it had quite a modest little price tag. But, over the years, its value had grown immensely in my head.

You see, the bottle had been a gift to my little sister in 2003; and she died in a car crash in 2004. So I’ve been holding onto this bottle with the idea that I would use it to toast some grand accomplishment. My greatest feat. Something that would really honor her memory and our bond as best as I could possibly imagine. 

Only problem was, every time I reached a goal, I’d ponder it and think to myself, “No, this one’s not big enough, I’ll wait.”

In 2006, I ended a lifetime of procrastinated travel dreams and told my boss I was going to Thailand for a while. I also 'popped next door' to Australia, dove the Great Barrier Reef and made a great friend in Melbourne with whom I still keep in touch today. Upon return, I sat down with my buddy Dave to mix my first solo record, which I’d self-produced over the previous two years with two microphones and an old PC in my apartment, and help from some amazing friends and musicians. I launched that in April 2007 and was incredibly happy with it, yet it didn’t seem like enough reason to crack open that bottle of port. Later that year, I also fulfilled a boyhood dream and bought my first motorcycle. No toast. Last October, I concluded over a year of working with amazing indie producer Don Kerr on my second record, and I launched it at a big party for my 40th birthday! A friend flew in from LA to sit in on drums for a couple of songs. Some of my dearest friends joined me on stage. My mother even came to town for the show. I thought for sure I’d break the seal on the bottle that night. But yet again, it just didn’t seem big enough.

So, I'm sure you can imagine, as I was getting ready to leave for dinner at Jo’s on Saturday, it was pretty hard reaching for that bottle. I was thinking “Well, we’ve only finished the demos. It’s not like anything’s come of it yet… can hardly justify toasting that.”

It’s strange, the things we hold onto. Or, more so, the ways we hold onto them.

Finally, it occurred to me that, instead of waiting to toast the perfect ending, maybe Maureen’s memory would be better served by toasting a beginning.

So I brought the bottle along, and that’s what we did. “To Nashville and many more great things ahead.”