The Growing Season Book

Excerpt from Chapter One, “Somewhereness”

“Welcome to Nk’mip Cellars. Where are you from?”

As part of my apprenticeship, I got to spend a few days in the tasting room, exploring the hospitality side of the industry. Before offering the first pour to a person or group who had approached the tasting counter, I was encouraged to ask people a bit about themselves — where they were from, whether they had tasted here before, whether they had any strong preferences in the wine they enjoyed.

This isn’t a revolutionary idea, of course. It’s Customer Service 101. A courteous attempt to build some kind of connection — to show someone that they mattered as a person, and that they weren’t only a potential customer. I took this bit of training to heart. Partly because, despite my occasional (and usually futile) efforts to convince myself otherwise, what people think of me is something I can’t not care about. But also because, as we know, such questions always have the potential of leading a conversation to new depths.

The question of where a person is from is fascinating on many levels. Ask it, and chances are you’ve been there, too.

So at the very least you can talk about that while you’re pouring…

Vancouver? Really? I’m from there too. What part of the city do you live in? I’m in Mount Pleasant.

And did you want to start with the Pinot Gris?

In a tasting room, that may be as far as the conversation goes in terms of place. But if you sit across a table from a friend to enjoy wine over a meal, the possibility of a mutual knowing increases dramatically. Curiosity plus time equals more curiosity.

“Where did you grow up?”

I recently shared a meal with a new pal and we got to talking about places we’d lived.

At one point he asked, “Did you grow up here?”
Which is similar to “Where are you from?” and yet much different.

When someone asks me where I grew up, I usually say “Sort of all over the place.”

In the grand scheme of things, this is not totally accurate.

What I mean by “all over the place” is that I have moved around more than the average person I’ve met. I went to nine different schools between kindergarten and grade twelve. Three of those were in grade one alone. During that time I lived in eight different homes. And while the places I “grew up” in were relatively close together — especially when you consider how big the world is — their climates were vastly different, both meteorologically and metaphorically.

I spent a number of my childhood years in Fresno, California. Smack dab in the middle of the state. It’s also a desert. Our neighbours mostly all had pools in their backyard, and as kids we ran willy-nilly around the cul-de-sac with no shoes on without a second thought.

I have this vivid memory of heading over to one of my friends’ places on a hot, sunny afternoon. We were going to go for a little dip in the pool. I arrived at his place and reached out to ring the doorbell, and a black widow spider was sitting right next to it, less than an inch away from where my finger had been. I told myself it was definitely the poisonous kind—that if I had touched it I probably would have died, even though I had no idea if that were true.

Was that the moment I became afraid of spiders? I can’t really say for certain. But I know that memory shaped me in some way. It still gives me chills to think about it.

I also lived in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan for a time, which is the opposite of a desert. The stories I’d heard about the Canadian prairies were the ones you probably heard, too: that it was a land cursed by perpetual winter, like Narnia, under the spell of the White Witch. It’s not true. They do have summers — glorious ones. But the winters are very long and cold. People literally plug in their cars so the engines don’t freeze.

We moved there as I was heading into my grade eleven year. To my parents’ credit, they prepared my brother and I well for it. Our first exposure to Saskatoon took place in summer, and I have zero doubt in my mind that this was an intentional move on the part of my folks. (Well played, Mom and Dad. Well. Played.)

It was perhaps more important than they even knew, because first impressions matter. Had I walked off the airplane and been met by a temperature of twenty below zero (minus forty with the windchill), I may have put up more of a fight against moving there.

First impressions matter, because this move was a tough one.

I wasn’t always part of the most popular crowd, which was fine. But friends are a big deal when you’re sixteen. It feels good to belong. In the summer of ’87 I was finishing grade ten. After a couple of awkward years, with a face full of acne and a few bumpy romantic beginnings —

“Hey Jill, would you like to go to the Christmas banquet with me?”
“Well, I heard Damien might ask me, but if he doesn’t, then sure.”

— I’d found my people. I was involved in sports and music, and had good friends in each of those circles.

It was far from perfect. It was high school.

But to be uprooted from that place of security and belonging at my tender age was a bit painful.

In what ways, and to what degree, did that particular change in geography contribute to my need to feel connected? I can’t know for sure. But as I survey the relational ground I’ve walked upon during the course of my life, these moments of transition have become markers and signposts worth paying attention to.

Did the vastly different climates have an impact on my upbringing? Did geographical change play a role in who I’ve become? Obviously yes. So did yours. And so did many other factors…

The books I read.
The music I listened to, sang, and played.
The artwork I was exposed to.
The friendships I shared.
The faith I inherited.

The question that remains is how. You don’t have to be exhaustive about this. What matters is to acknowledge that the depth and richness of who we are as human persons is enhanced, appreciated, and brought into the open, when we consider the many influences that shaped and formed us.

What does all this have to do with wine?

(That, dear reader, is a question we’ll come back to when The Growing Season is published. Sign up to stay in the loop here.)