One True CONSTANT
On a recent trip to Sedona, Ariz., I walked into a spa seeking some kind of chakra-balancing treatment (when in Rome, right?). The attendant pushed for a new offering, shinrin-yoku ,or “forest bathing,” a 1980s Japanese wellness fad that’s only recently made its way stateside. Apparently, “bathing” is a figurative term for mindfully “taking in” a peaceful forest atmosphere through a guided sitting or walking meditation. While I appreciated the clerk’s hard sell, forest bathing didn’t sound any different than what I ritualistically attempt each morning beneath the towering eucalyptus-and-cypress canopy of the Presidio, three blocks from my house. “Got anything with crystals?” I asked.
Living in the Bay Area, nature is our one true constant. For the fabled sights we enjoy daily — fog billowing across the Golden Gate, redwood treetops grazing the stratosphere, the frigid Pacific crashing against high bluffs — visitors will happily travel long distances across empty plains and vast oceans. Like us, they’re seeking a connection to something more magnificent than what their urban labyrinths or sleepy suburbs can offer.
For this issue, we selected stories that honor the undefinable bigness of nature. A renovation of a historic house at Big Sur’s Esalen retreat
(Back From the Brink, p. 34) evokes the elements, down to the pitted kitchen backsplash, intended to echo the rocky coastline. The lofty volumes and long sightlines of a modern, hacienda-style home in Portola Valley (Where the Wild Things
Are, p. 40) are designed to frame a seemingly endless grassland. And a glowy meadow and hidden marsh in Point Reyes were among the backdrops for chairs you wouldn’t normally see in the great outdoors (Postcards From the Outer
Lands, p. 60). With nature this majestic, a few front-row seats seemed like a good way to take in the views. Consider this “California bathing” at its best.