High above the Pacific, a hermitage offers a world without distraction, where silence, serenity and joy reign supremeI get into my car outside my mother’s home and drive up into the mountains. Past the estate where Ronald Reagan kept his Western White House, past Michael Jackson’s Neverland and the mock-Danish town of Solvang. On to Highway 101, which stretches all the way from Mexico to almost Canada, and then, after an hour, on to Highway 1, the two-lane road that winds around the coast of central California. Very soon there’s nothing to my right but dry hills and a few cows grazing in golden meadows, nothing to my left but the great blue plate of the Pacific Ocean.I pass the turn that leads up to gaudy Hearst Castle, at the top of one of the peaks, and then the beach below the road where dozens of elephant seals lie along the sand like fallen boulders. At last I come to a single-lane path that winds for two miles up to the top of a hill. Each curve discloses a fresh view of the blue-green waters stretching to the south. Not a soul to disrupt the stillness. The silence, when I arrive, seems almost to vibrate, a positive presence. Continue reading…
