I didn’t mean to fall in love again. I really didn’t. I had already given my heart to Muir Beach—the fog that tucked me in at night like a damp wool blanket, the way the ocean hurled itself at the rocks with such theatrical despair, the sense that the land itself was doing deep spiritual work and inviting me to lie down and repent for my youthful ambition. I learned Internal Family Systems in Muir Beach. I recovered from the PTSD of my medical life and hospital wounds in Muir Beach. I survived my divorce and raised my child in Muir Beach. I got mauled by a pit bull and healed without surgery, in spite of the doctors who assured me that would be impossible- in Muir Beach. Muir Beach and I had a good thing going. Muir Beach was my most intimate relationship. I was never too much for this land. I was never not enough for this bit of earth. We had vows, Muir Beach and I. Salt and mist and devotion.
I knew each season when every wildflower bloomed, and I waited with a lover’s anticipation for every new bud. I knew all the edible plants and where they grew. For a short time during the pandemic lockdown, we ate only from the land of Muir Beach, and since it was spring, that eating was bountiful, delicious and nourishing.
I knew every animal by name- the fox den under my deck and the little foxy babies, the bobcat would roamed up my driveway to catch the sunset view, the deer mama who broke her leg, who I fed for months until she disappeared one day, the coyotes who sang their howling music, the migrating whales that breached and splashed, the seals that teased my goldendoodle Moose, like little sea puppies who could dive away right as Moose got close.
Because it was also paired with my daughter leaving the nest, my housemate of fifteen years moving back to family on the East Coast, and my Baby Daddy moving to Portugal after living next door for over a decade, I grieved the loss of this place, which took the heat for all the other losses and held me as I wept and howled like the coyotes and planted my tears on Stinson Beach, with a dozen roses thrown into the sea.
So when I moved north and found myself feeling things for West Sonoma County—Bodega Bay, Sebastopol, Graton, Forestville, Healdsburg—I told myself it was just a phase, a rebound, a flirtation, a scenic distraction while I grieved what I’d lost. Nothing serious, really.
But then one morning I woke up in the 1870’s Art Barn where I now live- and I felt it: that illicit flutter, that soft animal happiness, that sense of being seen by land that wasn’t supposed to know me yet. This is how affairs begin. Not with lust, but with relief.
West Sonoma County doesn’t throw itself at you the way Muir Beach does. It doesn’t say, “LOOK AT ME, I AM SUBLIME AND YOU ARE TINY.” Instead, it says, “Have some coffee. Sit down. We’ll get to the mystery after breakfast.” The water is calmer here, the horizon wider, the light more forgiving. You don’t have to earn your place. You’re already welcome.
And that’s when the guilt set in.
Because Muir Beach was dramatic and demanding and moody in a way that made me feel spiritually impressive for surviving it. Loving Muir Beach felt like loving a brooding artist who refused to text you back but wrote devastating poetry about the moon while you drank too much champagne together waiting for the blood moon eclipse from the Muir Beach Overlook. Loving West Sonoma County feels like cheating with someone who’s actually emotionally available, owns a truck, wears cowboy boots that actually had cow poo on them, knows how to fix things, and doesn’t fool around when it comes to making cool shit from nature, like gardens, wine, honey, apothecary medicines, not to mention building barns, making music, and creating art.
Jenner was the first to really cross a line with me. I told myself I was just going for a drive, just passing through on my way to Sea Ranch, just admiring the apple trees I passed, noticing the way the light slanted through them like a benediction. But then the view of the raging, post-flood swollen Russian River dumping into the Pacific took my breath away at first, only to deepen it when I took it in as medicine. I noticed how my shoulders dropped, how my nervous system—formerly clenched like a fist because of every atrocity that’s happening in the world—began to loosen its grip.
That’s when I knew I was in trouble.
Forestville came next, lush and green and conspiratorial, as if whispering, “You can rest here. No one is keeping score.” Our temporary Airbnb put us right next to a creek that dumped into the Russian River, where the frogs sang melodies at dusk and the cicadas kicked in as the sun got warm, like a percussion section warming up for a concert no one had to buy tickets to. At night, the creek talked in its sleep—small urgencies, tiny dramas, the sound of water figuring itself out. In the mornings, light filtered through the trees like it had somewhere better to be but decided to linger. I drank my coffee slower. I stopped rehearsing my life. My nervous system, long accustomed to bracing, began to believe the rumor that nothing terrible was about to happen here.
Graton followed, that place known historically for its bar brawls, all understated charm and quiet competence, like the friend you don’t realize you’re in love with until you see them laughing with someone else. Graton doesn’t brag. It doesn’t curate itself for Instagram. It just shows up with good posture and gets things done. There’s a humility to it, a sense that it has lived some life, thrown a few punches, taken a few hits, and decided to calm the hell down. It feels like a town that has been to therapy and twelve stepped a few things but doesn’t make a big deal out of it. I found myself trusting it immediately, which is usually how you know something is dangerous in the best possible way.
Healdsburg strutted in later, unapologetically gorgeous, with its painted lady Victorians, Westside Road vineyards, high falutin confidence, and very good shoes, daring me to pretend I wasn’t dazzled. Healdsburg knows it’s pretty. It doesn’t apologize for the way the light hits the hills just so, or how the wine tastes like someone prayed over them. It has the energy of a woman who has finally figured out her best angles and is no longer pretending she hasn’t. And yet—annoyingly—it’s also kind. Not mean-girl beautiful. More like: “Yes, I’m stunning, but sit down, I just made you a ham and brie focaccia sandwich.”
We landed right near Bodega Bay, where the air smells like salt and story, and the water holds a quieter wisdom than the wild Pacific tantrums of my former life. The bay doesn’t perform; it listens. The boats bob like they trust something invisible to hold them. The plaintive foghorns rise over the surf sounds, calling out like sirens luring sailors to the rocks, as the fog rolls in gently, like it’s asking permission. The crabs throw themselves on the beach at low tide, like teenage girls hoping for a prom date. The starfish cling to the seaweed covered rocks at Doran Regional Park, showing off their pastel colors if you’re patient enough to wait until the king tide lows, when you can walk where you would ordinarily swim.
Here, the land doesn’t demand transformation. It assumes you’re already in process. There’s room for joy without penance, beauty without suffering, spirituality without the need to collapse onto the ground and weep for your smallness. The land says, “Be here. That’s enough.”
Meanwhile, Muir Beach haunts me.
I remember the way the fog would roll in like a holy procession, the way the cliffs demanded reverence, the way the land said, “Pay attention or else.” I feel like I’ve abandoned a stern but wise teacher for a kindergarten art class with juice boxes and laughter.
But here’s the thing no one tells you about land-love: different places love different parts of you. Muir Beach loved my longing, my ache, my willingness to be undone. It loved my solemn devotion and my tendency to overthink God. It 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 narrating the entire existential arc of the tomato, the caregiver in me who named the chickens Henrietta and Gladys. It doesn’t need me to prove anything. It just hands me a Gravenstein apple and says, “Eat.”
Spiritually speaking, this has been confusing. I was raised to believe that love meant intensity, sacrifice, and a certain amount of suffering that you could later spin into wisdom. But this land—these rolling hills and oak-studded roads and barns that look like they’ve forgiven themselves for aging and do not intend to get Botox—keeps offering me something radical: ease. There are mornings here when the light feels like a blessing that doesn’t require repentance. Even the fog, when it comes, is gentler, as if it’s checking in rather than staging an intervention. The land doesn’t loom. It companions.
And slowly, embarrassingly, joy has been sneaking up on me. I laugh more here. Not the polite, spiritually mature laughter of someone who has read many books about resilience, but the snorting kind. The kind that happens when your dog does something ridiculous in a vineyard and you realize no one is watching and it doesn’t matter anyway, where the winemaker’s dog is sniffing your dog’s butt and nobody cares.
I’ve started talking to trees again. Not the intense, confessional conversations I had with the redwoods of Muir Beach, who held me when my father and mother died and let me cry inside their caves. These chats are more like casual check-ins. “Hey, oak. Looking solid today.” The trees seem fine with this. They don’t need me to bleed on them.
One day last week, driving Bodega Highway back from Sebastopol towards home, I realized the guilt had lifted. Not because I’d stopped loving Muir Beach, but because I finally understood this wasn’t an affair. The heart, it turns out, is not a monogamous organ when it comes to place. It expands. It makes room. It learns new dialects of love. Even if I’m monogamous with my partner Jeff, I can be polyamorous when it comes to being intimate with the land.
This land is expansive, and so is my heart. Muir Beach will always have my reverence, but every day, I am coming to realize that West Sonoma County is winning my affection. One taught me how to kneel. The other is teaching me how to stand, barefoot, holding something ripe and dripping, laughing at nothing in particular.
And maybe this is what maturity looks like—not loyalty to suffering, but allegiance to aliveness. If loving this land is wrong, I don’t want to be right.
*If you’re anywhere near Sonoma County and you want to be included in local events here, like foodie potlucks, writing groups at the Art Barn, IFS parts processing groups, art workshops, and whatever else I figure out how to create here, register for the locals list here.
**If you feel inspired to get together to make intention altars in Sonoma over Valentine’s Day weekend, we just announced it and we only have 20 spots, so sign up now if you feel called to be with us. Learn more and register for CREATE YOUR INTENTION ALTAR here.