Falling in Love at Spirit Hill Farm

My friend asked me to come here, to Spirit Hill Farm, so I could write a coffee-table book about the place.

She’d been telling me how special Spirit Hill Farm was since I’d first met her years ago, and while “special” registered, what she meant hadn’t.

Spirit Hill Farm is in Graton, but it also seems to be in Sebastopol. If you stand at the driveway and roll a marble to the left, it will go to downtown Graton (eventually) (to the whole handful of buildings). If you roll the marble to the right, you’ll go to Sebastopol.

I’ve been reading about the history of Spirit Hill Farm, and in the 1800s, a family settled here after traveling from England to live in Rhode Island. They then traveled by wagon across the country. It’s, as you might imagine, an incredible story, one documented not only by the husband, but, because she felt he left women out of his story, his wife (written over the years on scraps of paper).

I found Spirit Hill Farm deeply upsetting my first day here (and subsequent days). It was too much. There is the main house, the guest house, and the sugar shack (tiny living at its best—the bathroom is open to the sky!). There are acres of apple trees and grape vines. Kiwis hang from vines in the back of the main house. There is an organic garden. Lavender. I forgot to mention the olives!! Spirit Hill Farm produces its own olive oil and soap made from olive oil.

There is more, but I’m sliding into upset again, and so I’m going to leave you with that first taste.

I am living in abundance. My body and mind are working to acclimate.

I have spent the week in the guest house. At one time it was a motorcycle garage, and every night I did yoga on the original concrete floor (with a mat!). Every single thing in this house, in this place, is lovely. Intentional. Weighted. Things feel heavy in a valuable, beautiful way. There’s so much to touch. The hooks. The curtains. The edge of the wooden table. The coffee cups. The spoons. The farm doors made of metal. Everything feels chosen.

I got a migraine after a few days and jumped into the (unheated) pool to try to shock my body into clarity. It worked. I think what had happened was that the energy of my outside world was not matching the energy of my inside world, and so my body was reacting. I have had to change in order to feel in balance with my surroundings because here, at Spirit Hill, I believe the place resonates at a pitch that says home. That says safe. That says wonderful.

The biggest, most important things are often the things we keep secret.

But I have committed to writing in a way where I am like a window to the world around me. I want experiences to go through me, not to have myself get in the way.

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting by the pool. The chair cushions were stored inside because of all the rain we’ve been having, so I was sitting on the metal supports. I had on a scarf and my winter coat, and I was on a call. I was processing that I had less than a full day left at a place that had surprisingly turned into what felt like home. I looked over towards the grape vines and saw a young deer watching me.

“Hi,” I said.

We sat like that for a while, watching each other. Its coat was puffy. It looked like it had recently had a wash and dry. I wanted to let it know it was safe with me, that it could walk up to me and I would not hurt it. I wished it would come closer. I wanted to touch its head, the side of its body.

I thought about the space between us, how that was the thing I wanted to overcome. I thought about how life feels so different when you fall in love. How suddenly things that normally preoccupy your thoughts don’t matter so much because you are in love. I thought about the strangeness of the term to fall in love. If one falls in love, that means they were originally out of love.

The deer was love, but so was I, for we were made of the same essentially humming parts. If I fall in love with the deer, if I fall in love with Spirit Hill Farm, that implies I was somewhere else beforehand.

And that can’t be right.

I wrote a letter to Spirit last night, and I thanked it for this place. I wrote knowing that I was writing to something that was both in me and outside of me. I was writing to it all.

When the deer ran away, I lost nothing. I had not fallen in love with it. I had not needed it to come closer to me because it was already inside.

I am leaving Spirit Hill Farm more aware of love, of the love that is me.

I feel like a 16 ounce cup that is holding 32 ounces. I’m walking a little weird. This is going to take some getting used to—feeling this full, this startled, this grounded.