2021-05-31
We Are Blessed

WE ARE BLESSED

Today we had a small gathering of 40 or so of our neighbors and new friends in honor of Memorial Day and in celebration of our landing in Cerrillos. These videos are the vestiges of an afternoon-into-evening well spent, with Mike and his dog Sarge (short for “Sergeant Pepper”) capping the soirée with a meditative performance, followed by a duet.

What impressed me the most about our gathering is that seemingly everywhere we go and live - whether it’s Manhattan or Peekskill and now, Cerrillos, New Mexico, there are amazing people all around us.

I was speaking with a couple this evening and one mentioned that normally people are not attracted to a new area to live by other people. I begged to differ, explaining that along with my spreadsheet of 36 variables for towns and cities we considered, ultimately it was round two of my due diligence, when I began reaching out to many in this our new community, that it was the fact that everyone was a hoot and a holler and a boot full of scorpions that got us all excited about the prospect of moving to the high mountain desert.

I supported my contention by regaling how our local community activist in Peekskill, Tina Volz-Bongar, was really the linchpin, the ringer, and firebrand that inspired our move from NYC to the top of Westchester. We figured if she represented the caliber of people that we might call neighbors it was well worth the transfer from having Central Park across the street.

And indeed it was, because we had access to Bear Mountain, the Blue Mountain Reservation and the Hudson River within minutes as well, and, in addition to getting to know an extraordinary group of super people in the friendliest town in Westchester.

Likewise at Hacienda Dominguez & Chelenzo Farms, we are blessed to be surrounded by the magnificence of Mother Nature and the marvel of our amazing, inspiring, talented and charming neighbors, the gamut of which extends from a cadre of film makers and artists to a legendary truck driver, a former nuclear physicist, a suave heart surgeon-pilot-polo player, a master brewer and pizza maker, a former educator extraordinaire-cum-aspiring writer, a psilocybin-inspired author, the inventor of the flesh light, an assassin-for-hire/hitman from Virginia, an ex-master frame maker and even a professional traveling French horn player and his dog...just to name but a few.

And we’re just talking professions, passions and avocations here. The extraordinary experiences and stories and perspectives of each and everyone of our guests was likewise impressive and critical part of that welcome mat that makes us feel at home again.

Gracias, obrigado, domo arigato, thank you and merci to one and all throughout our ventures from one coast to almost-another. Y’all make life wonderful.