Thanks, Las Cruces!

 Thanks to Las Cruces, and so much I enjoy here.

Obviously the Organ Mountains and vast skies are the headliners. Watching them redden and darken as the full moon rises above them inspires feelings some folks may find in churches or mosques. Sheer beauty reminding us of Nature’s magnificence. A bright yellow carpet of poppies stretching toward the Organs in May, or the extreme red of claret-cup cactuses add spice, as do the hawks and eagles, roadrunner, coyote, and the comical quail. Getting out into nature, to hike, climb, bicycle, or just watch, is quick and trafficless. You may be completely alone, in just minutes.

We can hike or play outdoor sports year round here. My addictions are pickleball, almost daily, varying times to duck high winds and the worst heat, and growing tomatoes.

I’m fond of more excellent local coffeehouses and small restaurants than I can name here, particularly superb Mexican restaurants. A weekly wonder is the Farmers Market, downtown, each Saturday morning, offering fresh, tasty food and fast friends.

Live theater is more alive here than in most similar-sized cities. Black Box, LCCT, NMSU, and now others produce fine shows. Allen Theaters show big, popular movies, and the Mesilla Valley Film Society, in Mesilla’s historic Fountain Theater shows more varied and interesting films.

We have more than our share of talented artists, musicians, writers, and poets. Try the “Salons” Cleve and Mary hold at Downtown Blues Coffee, or poetry workshops/readings at Amaro Winery, or readings at NMSU, and varied music venues.

We started a community radio station. KTAL-LP started broadcasting six years ago, with discussions of local issues, locally-hosted music shows, and some interesting shows from elsewhere. Visit 101.5 FM or stream us. As newspapers and local talk radio disappear, “Que tal”’s importance here will grow. You can volunteer to host a show or otherwise help community radio.

Politically and otherwise, Las Cruces is still a nice-sized city: large enough to be reasonably interesting but small enough that committed individuals can have an impact. Volunteer municipal and county boards and nonprofits await. (So many citizens caring about community and the marginalized is another local pleasure.) Political parties’ county meetings aren’t crowded. Progressive and conservative “nonpartisan” groups meet monthly. I enjoy the Progressive Voters Alliance. Aside from substance, while some groups’ meetings have one long, soporific speaker, PVA, after a six-minute opening presentation, lets everyone speak – for only two minutes. That’s rigidly enforced, even on state senators. You get introduced to a host of progressive and charitable ideas, causes, groups, and events. You choose which to support how.

Living here also brings us face-to-face with important stuff. First that others were here before us, native folks and Spanish immigrants. Hearing Spanish frequently is a pleasant reminder that we are trespassers in a centuries-old community that ignored borders.

In a small desert city, despite our growth no tall buildings block our clear sight of natural elements such as the course of the sun and moon and the naked shapes of the mountains. We humans are all intruders in a precious natural world that will long outlive us, even though we’re fast fouling its livability. Deer may visit your home, in some areas. Those vast skies are huge paintings. Our occasional rainstorms not only revive our desert but are compelling light shows. Dry arroyos flood.

Life feels more elemental than in larger cities or milder climates.

I like it here.

                                      --- 30 – 

 

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 2 July, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and on the newspaper’s website ("So Many Reasons to Love Las Cruces"), as well as on the KRWG website. A related radio commentary will air during the week both on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/) and on KRWG Radio. ]

[My initial title as I conceived this column was “How to Live in Las Cruces,” but really it isn’t how. It’s just some stuff one old geezer enjoys here. I wasn’t sure I liked the column, but several more controversial columns just aren’t quite ready yet. So I dressed this up as best I could.]

[There’s so much more to mention about my town. Bicycling by the river at dusk with with wife and dog. Proximity to the Bosque del Apache Bird Refuge. Sitting in the New Mexico Wine and Spirits ___, across from the Fountain Theater in Mesilla, when Doug Adamz, Mark Matthias, and Theresa Tudury are making music and telling stories there, or when Rus Bradburd and Dennis Daily are.

[And how could I forget to mention Coas Books?]

[And coffee houses! Dael and I wrote our wedding vows sitting in Milagro, on what was then a visit here, before we fully moved here [back here, in my case], and have had a host of good conversations there. My gratitude for Nessa’s, on Picacho at 2^nd, the pink building I’ve expressed in an earlier column, "Bicycling to the Gratitude Cafe" – 2018. And which I see I mentioned in a 2019 column not unlike this one, "A Quiet Community Sunday"] Grounded has been open more than a year, and is sometimes more crowded than I might like, but they’ve made wonderful use of that space, particularly the outdoors, and done what they wanted to as far as food and drink.]

[And what of the excellent photographers we know here, who do varied but excellent work, from bird to night shots of southern New Mexico?  -- without averting eyes from the ugliness of humankind's treatment of our mother Earth?  And fine galleries?]

[And there are so many Mexican restaurants we enjoy! Chope’s (which I guess I described in an earlier column ("Driving down to Chope's on Highway 28" back in 2015, and from which we were returning when I took the photo to the right, of a pecan field being irrigated), where we enjoy the food, the family, the history, and the home. I loved Las Cruces-style Mexican food instantly, in 1969, and enjoy places that maintain that; but I also like Habanero, (where the chef is from Zacatecas, by way of San Diego, which always reminds me that the lady who first cooked me enchiladas had grown up in the country around Zacatecas) with is “Fresh-Mex” departure from local styles, and the restaurant is located in an old house where people I know actually lived, long ago. Nopalito is another fine local restaurant, old-style. I enjoy their food off the truck at the Farmers Market, and during the pandemic their garden area was a nice refuge for friends and me. I also enjoy La Nueva Casita – and numerous others I just don’t happen to have been back to as recently. And Las Cruces offers a host of fine local eateries, most with a personal touch, among them The Shed, Salud, Cafe de Mesilla, Thai Delights, and Luna Rossa.]

[But maybe the key to enjoying where you are is the “enjoying” part of the sentence, not the place. When we are inclined toward gratitude, or can become so, we find much to be grateful for; and when something inside us is raging like a fire, there’s a lot out there that’ll burn.]