The Last Word On Nothing

My friend Laura provided me an instructive moment of delight yesterday when she confided that she’d just opened a jar of 2007 “Plum Yum,” a jammy concoction made of Italian prune plums from my orchard. She said she’d been trying to break her lifelong habit of saving special things for special occasions. “Trying to drink the fancy tea, use the fancy soaps, eat the meaningful jams and preserves,” she told me, while reporting that that the 2007 vintage is still delicious. 

Her dispatch made me reflect on how much better it is to enjoy things than to save them. For the longest time, I kept the embroidered quilt Grandma Friesen had made for me stored in a closet, because it was so special. After many years and several moves, I thought what’s the point of having it, if it’s always stored out of sight? So I started using it on the bed, and it now has a few stains but allowing it to be part of my everyday life is the very thing that makes it so special. With it in my living space, I get a chance to think of Grandma every time I see it. I missed those opportunities when it was hidden away in a box. 

I think of the kitchen table that Dave hand made for me out of cherry wood for our 10th anniversary. It’s our everyday table and it has accumulated so many stains and scratches, and I love it so much more than if it were in a special dining room we rarely used. (We don’t actually have a formal dining room, but still.)

Dave is a winemaker and people often tell him they save his wine for a special occasion. That doesn’t make him as happy as they might think, and not just because he’s got another bottle to sell. He crafts the wine to be shared. He wants it to be the thing that makes you feel special, no matter how ordinary the day.

Coming home from ScienceWriters2026 earlier this week, I rewatched the classic 2004 film Sideways. (It aged well!) In the movie, Paul Giamatti plays Miles, an aspiring novelist who is depressed about the state of his life. (I had remembered that the scene where drinks from the spit bucket had been provoked by angst over his love life, but in fact it was sparked by his despair over learning that his novel was rejected by publishers.)

Miles is a wine snob who has been saving a bottle of ’61 Château Cheval Blanc for a special occasion. When he tells this to his potential love interest, Maya (played by Virginia Madsen) she retorts, “You know, the day you open a ’61 Cheval Blanc… that’s the special occasion.” 

For Miles, that special occasion happens at a fast food joint, where, in a moment of despair, he drinks the wine out of a paper cup. It’s a sad scene in the movie, but in real life, I think that’s exactly right. Really, there’s no better time to pull out that special thing you’ve been saving than a moment when life isn’t feeling special at all. 

Image: drinking special wine on the front porch on an ordinary evening.