I've been Published ! A Story For Winter: Finding Love Again

Yeah and so excited to have a short story fiction accepted at calvadeofstars for writers. I always appreciate feedback… a story for winter. Enjoy. Judith

Finding Love Again

by Judith Dreyer

I’m sitting here at the winery in the tasting room that overlooks the vineyard while grey clouds fill the sky and hide the sunset. Dozens of birds flit through the trees, strut through the grassy field, and fly through the vineyard leaving spots of bird poop filled with seeds everywhere. I have cleaned the tables and chairs on the outside deck twice in the short time I’ve been here while enjoying the afternoon haze and mild temperatures.

I can’t help think that my life has a romantic flavor to it. Here I am in a vineyard, quiet and stately, that awaits winter’s coming and going so it can bloom again. Clouds pass by and keep the air mild though the sun goes down as if behind closing doors. The tasting room, clean and orderly, waits for a holiday shopper. Evening slowly pulls down the shades of the day as I sit and read a novel while waiting for the owners to return from errands. The owners have the room ready for their family’s Christmas celebration only a few days away. Petit Verdot, Vidal Blanc once lovely grapes on a vine now transformed into wine fill the shelves near me. Here I am in a lovely quaint setting. A romantic one too as the soft illuminations both inside and out light my heart in this place where I have landed.

As I sit in the silence here I feel a feeling of love being reborn within touching places that have chains and locked doors, rusty and oxidized that still remain. I feel something this gentle evening that seems to softly rattle those chains and jimmy the doors. It seems as if a golden thread from love’s source seeps through the cracks under doorways and through keyholes finding its way in somehow no matter how I resist. How this happens I cannot tell you but hope enters in and catches me off guard this evening. I feel softness, a tenderness stir in my heart reaching places I thought hopelessly blocked. I feel the breath of love in the wind. It caresses my cheek touching me. I sense romance in the air tonight too. Ironic isn’t it? It seems as if I needed to feel love heal and then stir within me, in this magical silence before I can open to love again. There is no man by my side as I close up the tasting room and head home; no one to greet me when I open the door to my home. Yet it is love I capture in my beating heart that I will hold close as the chains rust away so I can reopen the doors to love again.

First published at calvacadeofstars@wordpress.com on 2/28/2012