top fermented with a full body

Posted January 13th, 2008 by Michelle

I’ve been feeling excessively emotional lately. Yesterday morning, I started leaking tears during shivasana at the end of my yoga class; yesterday evening I accidentally watched the end of Titanic, one of the Movies I Think Are So Bad They Make Me Angry, and yet, that made me bawl too. I’ve been missing my family terribly, and I’ve also been having that flight impulse that I had so much this past late fall and early winter- a desperate drive to flee the life I’ve built here. I think it’s mostly due to job-related stress, but that stress is enough, I think, to make anyone want to permanently check out. Every now and then, in my darkest moments, I wish for some calamitous but not permanent thing to happen to me, something outside of my control that will mean I can be released from the stress of my work, so I can start over again. That sounds utterly horrible, and to be clear, dear universe, I don’t actually want that to happen. But I’ve never lived anywhere as long as I’ve lived here, and I’ve never stuck out something so difficult as the job I have now, not to these lengths. I’m accustomed to being able to pick up and start over, and I don’t really want to do that now, but I’m having trouble finding ways to release my anxiety, and my stress level cannot be good for my long-term health.

But rather than write further about my stress level, anxiety, and emotional state, I have a recommendation:

I first experienced Grimbergen beer in a little restaurant in Bruges, Belgium, during a trip to Europe with my mom about eight or nine years ago. We sat down, ordered this beer because it was the only thing on the menu I could sort of pronounce, and upon having our first sips, decided that dinner- or other sustenance- was not necessary. For two days, we had this beer with every meal. It is that good. The blonde is crisp and slightly honeyed; the Optimo Bruno is dark, lush, and almost sweet.

Four years later, I was at the Astoria Beer Garden with my brother Sean and about twenty friends. At the time, I was living in Hollywood, but visiting NY for my birthday. I went to order a beer- and there it was- my sweet Grimbergen, available by the pitcher. It was 2 AM. I called my roommate Hayley, back in Hollywood, and suggested we move to NY. Three weeks later, we did.

Tonight, I went to my local wine shop. It’s a huge warehouse of a place, with terrific bargains as well as old-growth Burgundies. It also has a refrigerator full of imported beers. There, waiting for me, was a Grimbergen blonde. So, years later, here I am, living in Napa, once again, enjoying this nectar, and thinking about is how my life has changed since I first discovered it. Nothing, absolutely nothing, has happened as I expected it to. When I think about the current stress in my life, I wonder if, in five years, I’ll look back and be able to confidently say that I defeated the latest bout of dragons in my life. I hope so. I mean, I’ve gotten this far, and I’ve had a helluva lot of dragons to slay in the past four years. But I feel like now I’m facing some of my most difficult foes, and I’m doing so largely alone. I’ve got coaches and supporters and friends and a therapist, but at the end of the day, it’s just me.

So, to prepare for the week ahead, I’m sipping a Grimbergen, drawing a bath, and going to bed early, though that by no means being able to fall asleep early. But I’m doing the best I can.