I didn’t mean to fall in love again. I really didn’t. I had already given my heart to Muir Beach—the mist that wrapped around me at night like a wet woolen blanket, the way the sea threw itself against the rocks with such theatrical desperation, the sense that the land itself was doing a deep spiritual work and inviting me to lie down and repent of my youthful desire. I studied Internal Family Systems at Muir Beach. I was recovering from the PTSD of my medical life and wounds at the Muir Beach hospital. I survived a divorce and raised my child in Muir Beach. I was shot by a pit bull and healed without surgery, despite doctors assuring me it couldn’t happen- at Muir Beach. Muir Beach and I had a good thing going. Muir Beach was my closest relationship. I have never a lot in this world. I have never it is not enough because of this little world. We had vows, Muir Beach and I. Salt and fog and dedication.
I knew each season when all the wildflowers bloomed, and I waited with a lover’s eagerness for every new plant. I knew all the edible plants and where they grew. For a short time during the closure of the epidemic, we ate only in the land of Muir Beach, and since it was spring, that food was abundant, delicious and nutritious.
I knew all the animals by name- the den of foxes under the porch and the little foxy babies, the bobcat wandering my way to catch a glimpse of the sunset, the mother deer who broke her leg, I fed her for months until she disappeared one day, the coyotes singing their howling music, the migrating whales breaching and scattering my little moodle. pups that could quickly dive when a Moose approached.
Because it was combined with my daughter leaving the nest, my fifteen-year-old housemate returning to the family on the east coast, and my little Father moving to Portugal after living next door for more than ten years, I was saddened by the loss of this place, which took the heat from all the other losses and caught me crying and howling like coyotes and I planted my tears in Thensons Beach, Thensons Beach.
So when I moved north and found myself to hear things in West Sonoma County—Bodega Bay, Sebastopol, Graton, Forestville, Healdsburg—I told myself it was just a phase, a throwback, a flirtation, a good distraction while I grieved what I had lost. Nothing serious, really.
But then one morning I woke up in the 1870’s Art Barn where I live now- and I felt: that illegal flutter, that soft animal happy, that feeling of seeing the world that you must not know yet. This is how the stories begin. Not with lust, but with ease.
West Sonoma County doesn’t throw itself at you the way Muir Beach does. It doesn’t mean, “I LOOK, I BEHAVE AND YOU LITTLE ONE.” Instead, it says, “Have some coffee. Sit down. We’ll get to the mystery after breakfast.” The water is calmer here, the horizon is wider, the light is more forgiving. You don’t need to earn your place. You are already welcome.
That’s where the case started.
Because Muir Beach was amazing and demanding and versatile in a way that made me feel spiritually amazing for surviving it. Loving Muir Beach feels like a singer who likes to text you but writes hurtful poems about the moon while you drink too much champagne together and wait for the lunar eclipse from the Muir Beach Overlook. Loving West Sonoma County feels like cheating with someone who is really emotional, who owns a truck, wears cowboy boots that were actually cow poop, knows how to fix things, and doesn’t cheat when it comes to doing cool natural junk, like gardening, wine, honey, apothecary medicine, not to mention building barns, making music, and creating art.
Jenner was the first to really cross the line with me. I told myself that I was going to drive, I was just passing by towards Sea Ranch, I was just admiring the apple trees that I was passing, I saw how the light slanted between them was like being blessed. However, the sight of the raging Russian River, swollen from the post-floods flowing into the Pacific, took my breath away at first, deepening it as I took it as medicine. I noticed how my shoulders loosened, how my nervous system—which was clenched like a fist because of all the bad things going on in the world—began to relax.
That’s when I knew I was in trouble.
Next came Forestville, green, green and scheming, as if whispering, “You can rest here. Nobody’s keeping score.” Our temporary Airbnb placed us next to a stream that flowed into the Russian River, where frogs sang evening songs and cicadas kicked as the sun warmed, like a warmed-up concert hall for which no one had to buy tickets. At night, the stream talked in its sleep—emergencies, little dramas, the sound of water watching itself. In the morning, the light was shining on the trees as if it should be somewhere better but it decided to linger. I sipped my coffee slowly. I stopped exercising for the rest of my life. My nervous system, which had long been accustomed to bracing itself, began to believe the rumors that nothing bad was going to happen here.
Graton followed, that place historically known for its bar brawls, all understated charm and quiet skill, like a friend you don’t know you’re in love with until you see them laughing with someone else. Graton doesn’t brag. Not optimized for Instagram. It just shows up in a good position and makes things happen. There is a humility to it, a sense that it has lived a certain life, thrown a few punches, taken a few hits, and decided to quiet the hell down. It feels like the city has been treated and the twelve step on a few things but it doesn’t make a big deal about it. I found myself trusting you right away, which usually means you know something is dangerous in the best possible way.
Healdsburg came in late, unapologetically beautiful, with its painted lady Victorians, Westside Road vineyards, highfalutin confidence, and the best shoes, which I daresay I wasn’t surprised by. Healdsburg knows it’s good. It doesn’t apologize for the way the light hits the hills just like that, or how the wine tastes like someone who prayed over it. It has the power of a woman who has finally found her best angles and is no longer pretending she didn’t. And yet—offensively—it’s also kind. She is not a good girl. Like: “Yeah, I’m amazing, but sit down, I just made you a ham and brie focaccia sandwich.”
We landed right next to Bodega Harbor, where the air smelled like salt and matter, and the water held a quieter wisdom than the wild Pacific sound of my former life. The port is idle; it listens. Boats roll as if hoping for something invisible to hold them. Sorrowful mists rise above the sounds of the surf, sounding like a siren that lures sailors to the rocks, as the mist slowly creeps in, as if begging for permission. Crabs fling themselves on the beach at low tide, like teenage girls hoping for a prom date. Starfish cling to seaweed-covered rocks in Doran Regional Park, showing off their pastel colors if you’re patient enough to wait until the king sinks to the bottom, at which point you can walk where you’d normally swim.
Here, the world does not need to be changed. It assumes you are already moving on. There is a place for happiness without regret, beauty without suffering, spirituality without the need to fall down and cry about your own insignificance. The world says, “Be here. That’s enough.”
Meanwhile, Muir Beach haunts me.
I remember the way the fog rolled like a holy procession, the way the cliffs wanted to be respected, the way the world said, “Pay attention.” I feel like I abandoned the compassionate but wise teacher in the kindergarten art class with the juice boxes and the giggles.
But here’s something no one tells you about loving the world: different places love different parts of you. Muir Beach loved my longing, my pain, my willingness to be undone. It loved my sincere devotion and my tendency to think too much about God. He asked me to kneel.
West Sonoma County loves my body, my appetite, the part of me that wants to plant something and watch it grow without recounting the entire arc of the tomato, the caretaker in me who named the chickens Henrietta and Gladys. I don’t need to prove anything. It just hands me a Gravenstein apple and says, “Eat.”
Spiritually, this has been confusing. I was raised to believe that love means drive, sacrifice, and a certain amount of suffering that you can turn into wisdom. But this world—these hills and oak-lined streets and barns that look as if they’ve forgiven themselves for aging and don’t intend to get Botox—keeps giving me something strong: relief. There are mornings here when the light feels like a blessing that needs no repentance. Even the fog when it comes is soft, as if it penetrates rather than interferes. The world is not good. It is collaborative.
And slowly, embarrassingly, happiness has been sneaking up on me. I’m laughing so hard here. Not the polite, spiritually mature laugh of someone who has read many books about endurance, but a kind of snort. The kind that happens when your dog does something funny in the vineyard and you realize no one is watching and it doesn’t matter, when the winemaker’s dog sniffs your dog’s butt and no one cares.
I have started talking to the trees again. Not the intense, confessional conversations I had with the redwoods of Muir Beach, which held me when my father and mother died and allowed me to cry in their caves. These conversations are just like logging in. “Hey, oak. You look strong today.” The trees look great with this. They don’t need me to bleed for them.
One day last week, I was driving Bodega Highway on my way home from Sebastopol, and I noticed that the crime had increased. Not because I had stopped loving Muir Beach, but because I finally understood that this was not the case. The heart, it turns out, is not a single human organ when it comes to space. It expands. It makes room. Learning new dialects of love. Even though I am monogamous with my partner Jeff, I can be polyamorous when it comes to being close to the world.
This world is wide, and so is my heart. Muir Beach will always have my respect, but every day, I realize that West Sonoma County earns my love. Someone taught me how to kneel. One teaches me to stand, barefoot, hold ripe and dripping, not laughing at anything in particular.
And maybe this is what maturity looks like—not honesty in suffering, but honesty in life. If loving this world is wrong, I don’t want to be right.
*If you are anywhere near Sonoma County and want to be included in local events here, such as foodie potlucks, Art Barn writing groups, IFS parts processing groups, art workshops, or anything else I can find how to create here, sign up for the local list here.
**If you’re feeling inspired to come together to make intentional altars in Sonoma over Valentine’s Day weekend, we just announced and only have 20 spots available, so sign up now if you feel called to join us. Learn more and sign up for YOUR PURPOSE ALTAR here.
