Week 17: Each Ecstatic Instant

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A rustic still life of blue cheese and red wine is randomly printed on the cover of Billy's notebook. It sits next to a passage from the Bible that, I presume, encourages one to meditate on the profundity of life's simple pleasures. And so Billy answers the call.

"What is wine?" he asks, eyes fixated on the notebook cover.

I ponder his question, trying to decide how to best explain fermentation to an 8 year old.

"Well," I begin, "there's a teeny tiny mushroom called yeast, and it loves to drink grape juice. When you leave grape juice out, this yeast starts to grow inside, swimming around and drinking all the juice."

"Whaaaat? A mushroom?"

"Yeah! Weird huh? Now what happens when you drink a lot of something? What do you need to do?" I ask.

"Pee!"

"Right. After you drink something, you pee. After this mushroom drinks all the grape juice, it needs to pee too, so it pees in the bottle, and that's what we call wine. Wine is mushroom pee!" I conclude triumphantly.

"Eww why do people drink mushroom pee!?!" Billy asks in a fit of giggles.

"Because it makes them happy." I answer simply.

"But why does my mom say drinking wine is bad, if it makes people happy?"

Because a wise woman once wrote:

For each ecstatic instant

We must an anguish pay

In keen and quivering ratio

To the ecstasy.

For each beloved hour

Sharp pittances of years,

Bitter contested farthings

And coffers heaped with tears.