I can't believe it is already the second week in October, 2014. Another year that just disappeared on us. I guess it is because we stay busy and we like what we do. Seems like when you like what you do, you like who is around you and suddenly you realize how many wonderful, wonderful people are around. Here at the winery, it is almost like there are Austin weekends. Last weekend was San Antonio weekend. This weekend was Beaumont weekend. Every weekend is a wonderful mix of people from all over, but a little bit memorable because so many people from a certain area make themselves acquainted. I got to meet the happy smile of Nicholas, now one of my favorite Forever Children. You meet so many people and by Sunday morning, you've got the images of all of them stored away, but names and last names and where they are from, in some cases, dissipate overnight.
But somehow we know they'll be back - we'll see them in a month or two or we'll see them at their next anniversary. They come to become a part of something - a kinship, a place where different people find commonality. No, the commonality is not only based in wine or food. It is based in the need for nature, nostalgia and knowledge. It is part of the search in each of us for the better things in life. Not more money, not more stuff, just a better frame of mind. Something that's near and neighborly, an hour or two or ten of positive displacement of society's rat race, an urge to get away from the TV, the news, the sports and the phone - everything that is drowning all of us slowly, but surely. It's like we trade business cards not for business, but in an attempt to extend the genuineness of the moment. And at the end of the weekend on our wine farm, we simply reflect and realize how blessed we are for those that have truly come and enriched both their and our souls.