Patience

When I bought a couple grapevines, I didn’t think the second one would survive. It was a spindly, ill-tempered little thing, and did nothing the first year. It only sent out a few anemic leaves the second, and I thought it was done for. Still, I fed and watered and sang to it, hoping. The kids, used to me giving plants a long time to bounce back, shook their heads and left me to it.

This year, the spindly little bastard has exploded, and there are at least six bunches of grape-buds buried in its depths. The other vine, the luxuriously healthy one, still isn’t producing.

Sometimes it just takes a while for the fight to show any results. Keep singing, keep watering, keep hoping, keep fighting.

Eventually, there will be wine.