How to Plant a Vineyard, Part 27: The Gulag Archipelago

Sometimes a winemaker prays for rain. Not for rain that will give life to the vine, but for rain that will give life to the winemaker. Because then such a creature has a chance, if only for a moment, to return to the world of the living, to get up later, to drink a slow espresso, to take a long bath, and to shave (if it’s him, unless she shaves too).

The only side effect of shaving is that the child does not recognize his father: his voice seems familiar, his movements seem the same, but this uncle looks so much like his father!
It’s like this, I probably don’t need to hide, that the vineyard becomes a kind of gulag, a sentry of one’s own conscience. One rises before dawn, bundles up in protective layers, pulls on felt boots, and sets off into the abyss to fulfill the daily quota of what one did yesterday and what one will do tomorrow. Because each task is a never-ending saga, and when it somehow comes to an end, the prospect of three more tasks still takes away the joy of completion.
And yet, the man gets up and goes. He pounds the posts with a pile driver thousands of times, unwinds kilometers of wire in sun, rain, or fog, curses at the too-tight sleeves, the soaked gloves, the decoiler gone mad. And yet… If someone were to ask him what you were doing, wouldn’t it be better to write prose in the embrace of central heating and a comfortable sofa? Not at all! – the creature replies with a twinkle in his eyes, wire in one hand and a hammer in the other.