Saturday
Packing for Paradise
When you’re lucky enough to be packing your bags for Rancho La Puerta on a cold, wet Seattle morning, the Ranch’s suggested packing list reads like a sneak preview of the bliss to come.
Swimsuit? Check.
Sunglasses? Check.
Hiking boots? Check.
Spa appointments? Check.
This time, along with my yoga pants and toothbrush, I’m bringing along another item that should come in handy:
Husband? Check.
It’s Couples Week at Rancho La Puerta, and I’m about to share my favorite place on earth with my favorite person on earth.
Of course, couples flock to this world-famous fitness resort all year round, but the Ranch has a tradition of devoting several weeks especially to those of us who travel through life in twos. The unusually high ratio of men to women is obvious on the air-conditioned bus that takes us from the San Diego airport to the Ranch in a buzz of conversation and laughter. Already I’m liking the fact that the week has attracted more males of the species. After all, why should women have all the fun?
Minutes after an easy border crossing at Tecate, we arrive at the Ranch’s gates. The staff greets us with warm smiles, fresh lemonade and cool, moist hand towels. Our bags are magically taken care of; all we need to do is pick up our keys and water bottles, and head for our Villa.
As we walk along a path lined with flowering oleander, rosemary and cacti, each turn revealing new vistas of the spectacular gardens and grounds, it’s a thrill to see the Ranch through Greg’s eyes as a first-timer.
We open the door to 11 Villa Luna—our own “Moon Villa.” As you probably know by now, the Ranch is no typical hotel-style spa. Our private haven for the week is a spacious brick hillside casita with a raised bedroom overlooking a living room with fireplace. Windows look out onto our huge terrace with a front-row view of Mount Kuchumaa, long known as the “exalted high place” among the local tribal people. Surrounding us is the Ranch’s 3,000-acre nature preserve, a protected place of unspoiled beauty as far as the eye can see.
We’ve arrived in time for a late lunch and the guest orientation, where we meet a couple from Wisconsin. It’s her eighth visit to the Ranch, his second. The first time she brought him here, he wanted to know why she’d waited so long. He hikes, swims, takes a mix of yoga classes, and says he loves the terrain.
After a swim in the secluded Villas Pool and a four-course dinner with fresh tilapia, we walk back to Villa Luna under an indigo sky so dark and clear that, for the first time in years, I can see how the Milky Way got its name.
The 80-degree day has turned into a lovely cool evening. Greg lights the fire that was laid for us in the fireplace, and we put our heads together over a schedule that begs the perennial question at Rancho La Puerta: How to fit in everything we want to do? Pilates? Mountain hikes? Nia dance? Sports massage? Seaweed wrap? Meditation? Cooking class?
We zero in on a few priorities and agree to live the rest of the week by the code I established my first time here: one delicious day at a time. The week ahead feels as wide open as the star-filled sky. I feel a kid-in-the-candy-store anticipation as we snuggle to the sounds of crickets, coyotes and a crackling fire. I can’t remember feeling this happy and excited since—well, since my first stay at Rancho La Puerta last spring.
Quote of the Day
“Live each present moment completely, and the future will take care of itself.”
Yogananda
Written on the stone by the track
Sunday
Hot Stones and Tennis Balls
I anticipated our day of arrival so much that I nearly forgot the glorious feeling of the first morning at the Ranch. We wake up at dawn and step out onto our terrace as the sun bathes Mount Kuchumaa in a golden light that fills the atmosphere, and the day, with promise. Where is all of this energy coming from?
This is Pilates Week at the Ranch, and our first class is a 9am level 1 mat class with renowned guest instructor Rebekah Rotstein, founder of Incorporating Movement in New York City. We immediately feel at ease with Rebekah and her goal for the week, which is to ground us in the fundamentals that will serve us well through a lifetime of injury-free Pilates.
Lying on my mat and reconnecting with my abs one pelvic tilt at a time, I realize there’s also some important mental work going on. Thanks to Rebekah, by the end of the first hour I have made the profound shift from being “outside looking in” to feeling in my element and eager to know more. Isn’t this the gift of every great teacher? Greg is thrilled that we have five more consecutive days with her.
We fill our first morning with more fitness classes—and epiphanies. Who knew that two deftly-placed tennis balls could release so much pent-up tension? (Adios, nagging headache.) Or that a progression of seemingly small movements could result in the flexibility we feel after just one hour of Feldenkrais with Donna Wood? For those of us who equate gain with struggle (we know who we are), this is revelation. Maybe change doesn’t always have to be hard work, I muse; maybe all it takes (!) is the awareness, and intention, to set a new trajectory.
The afternoon is warm and sun-drenched—perfect for a swim before I head to the Women’s Health Center for a Relaxation Massage. Marite intuits just the combination of pressure, pleasure and lavender oil my body wants and needs. There are many reasons why Rancho La Puerta is continually rated among the top spas in the world, and I am experiencing one of them. I float out of Marite’s treatment room on a cloud and promptly add another massage to my three spa bookings.
Meanwhile, Greg is getting a Hot Riverstone Massage, and is similarly inspired to book more spa time. He’s impressed by the Men’s Health Center, which mirrors everything we women have across the way—complete with treatment rooms, lockers and showers, steam room, sauna and sunning area with outdoor shower and whirlpool.
By dinner, our bodies, minds and spirits are testimonials to the Ranch’s rejuvenating powers. And this is only day one. Already Greg is saying, “Let’s not go home.”
Quote of the Day
“Only breathing is required. Everything else is optional.”
Nancy, Release and Mobilize class
Monday
Happy Trails
I’m standing on a massive rock overlooking the Quail One Trail as the sun rises like a giant red mandala in the sky. Within minutes, it has burned away the mist cloaking the foothills, suffusing the landscape with a painterly golden light. A coyote lopes across the trail ahead and disappears into the brush. Above us, ravens and hawks catch the air currents, gliding along their own, invisible trails in the sky. We are breathless, not from our hike, but from the dazzling beauty all around.
Quail One is an easy two-mile trail that winds through the meadow at the base of Mount Kuchumaa and takes us back to the Ranch through a grove of oak trees along a dry stream bed. This is a place where the rocks and other inanimate objects are said to be imbued with spirit. The landscape is alive. If I were writing a novel, it would be a central character.
Back for breakfast, we shed our hoodies and vests for another day of perfect T-shirt weather. A more ambitious group of hikers returns from Pilgrim Trail, a longer and more vertical mountain trek. Everyone’s energized; everyone’s hungry. Omelet with fresh salsas and tortillas? Oatmeal with warm milk and a dozen ways to garnish it? Both, por favor—along with fresh orange juice and luscious papaya.
Greg, a former chef and restaurant consultant, is impressed by the bounty and caliber of truly fabulous food. Any worries he had about bland food or bird-sized spa portions were allayed the day we arrived. Every meal is a profusion of variety and vivid flavors with a wide array of grains, legumes, fresh fruits and vegetables, much of it harvested from the Ranch’s own organic farm. It’s easy to stay within the well-planned caloric intake if you choose—or to add something delicious whenever you need a little extra fuel. Food is made and meant to be enjoyed here; there are no diet police at the Ranch.
After our standing 9 a.m. Pilates date with Rebekah, Greg heads off with his Nikon and sense of wanderlust. A day of exploring and photographing such natural beauty is his idea of bliss. Mine is to head for more classes (I promise: Postural Therapy is more fun than it sounds) and an afternoon with a novel by the Villas Pool. We’ve settled into the rhythm of the Ranch—not driven to do it all in the first few days but savoring the moment and allowing ourselves the rare pleasure of unscheduled time for mind, body and spirit to set their own pace.
At the evening’s guest reception, we sip fresh sangria and hear stories that refute any misguided notions that men and spas don’t mix. The beauty of Rancho La Puerta is that the week here really can be whatever you want it to be.
Quote of the Day
“The Angel of sun enters my solar point and gives the fire of life to my whole body.”
From the Communion Cards of the Essene School
The founding inspiration for Rancho La Puerta
Tuesday
Deborah’s Gift
We’re stretching. We’re strutting. We’re shouting. We’re dancing with Stephen Brown, Nia instructor extraordinaire.
Do you know Nia? It’s a high-octane mix of the dance, healing and martial arts. As with every class, the instructor makes all the difference, and Stephen is a bundle of pure, positive kinetic energy. Exuberant, funny—and did I mention cute? In no time at all, he has the packed gym answering his call-and-response affirmations. Are we smart? Yes! Beautiful? Yes! Powerful? Yes! (Do I wish we could take Stephen home with us? Yes!)
Time to cool our jets with a Soins Velours body polish for two. Greg and I part ways as Conchita escorts me to a private treatment room, complete with its own shower. I melt into the massage table as she scrubs me from neck to toes with a loofah, followed by an aromatic potion of plants, flowers, sea salt and oils. After a warm shower, my newly surfaced skin is as soft as a baby’s bottom, if I do say so myself. But Conchita is not done yet; her finishing touch is a body massage with botanical oils.
With Greg similarly scrubbed and buffed, we drift back to Villa Luna, where you can imagine what all this silky, glowing après-spa skin might lead to.
We tear ourselves away from our Villa for dinner and an evening with Deborah Szekely—the living legend who launched the modern health and fitness movement and co-founded the Ranch with her husband, Edmond, in 1940.
Deborah is a testament to the importance of diet and exercise in a healthy, productive life. She gave herself the gift of a personal trainer when she turned 87. (“If not now, when?”) But clearly, in her eyes, diet and exercise are the means to a fulfilling life, not the end. She encourages us to “find a pattern that works and get it out of the way,” so we can get on with “doing the things that matter to you and give you joy.”
To our surprise, she focuses most of her talk on a whole other dimension: time. According to her, the biggest difference among people is what we do with our time—“our most valuable possession.” She shares the secrets of her calendar and colored pens—a simple but rigorous system for reflecting on the previous week and studying how she spent her time. She also periodically “walks through” her future, which she says, “is still mine to make.”
Deborah’s words have set the wheels turning as we walk back to Villa Luna. We didn’t expect to gain a new perspective on time this week, but we have. Gracias, Deborah!
Quote of the Day
“The most important gift I can give you is your ownership of time.”
Deborah Szekely
Wednesday
Cooking in the Kitchen that Sings
This afternoon, I’m communing with a bed of chard and learning a great chef’s secrets to creating a feast for 16 in a setting as fresh and vibrant as the food growing in this garden. I’m taking a hands-on cooking class at La Cocina Que Canta—The Kitchen that Sings—with award-winning cookbook author Marie Simmons.
Greg and I have admired Marie since her days as senior food editor of the late, great Cuisine magazine. Since then, she has written a number of best-selling cookbooks and received both the Julia Child and James Beard awards.
The Ranch’s cooking school and culinary center is an inspiring place to learn from such a pro. Deborah Szekely’s artistic daughter, Sarah Livia Brightwood, designed La Cocina to be a feast for all of our senses, and it is—from the herb-lined paths to the flowered-filled courtyard that leads into a state-of-the-art kitchen and light-filled dining room. The enormous chopping block island easily accommodates 16 enthusiastic students, who are donning aprons and ready to cook.
First, we’re treated to a tour of the Ranch’s six-acre organic farm, the source for many of the fresh vegetables, fruits and herbs we’ve been savoring at every meal. Salvador Tinajero walks with us through rows of spinach, chard and herbs and encourages us help harvest our ingredients for dinner. There’s something deeply gratifying about gathering the food that will grace our table, and meeting the people who have planted and nurtured it along the way. Salvador entices us to taste the greens we just picked; the warm late-afternoon sun intensifies every color and flavor.
We take our bounty into the kitchen, where Marie introduces us to the ambitious-looking dinner menu we’ll prepare together. She deftly assigns teams for each of the eight dishes, and we gather around the island to begin.
As Greg photographs the fun, I join the team that will make Swiss Chard Bundles with Tapenade and Goat Cheese, chopping black and green olives and sun-dried tomatoes and mixing them with olive oil and minced garlic. The trick: wrapping this savory tapenade with a bit of goat cheese into leaves of wilted chard, then sautéing these neat little bundles until the cheese is soft and warm inside.
Marie and a team of La Cocina’s gracious staff are alongside us to answer questions, hand us a kitchen tool, and share techniques. Greg does most of the cooking at home, so I’m happy to learn that many of my comrades here are relative novices whose love of food, passion to learn, and spirit of camaraderie exceed their experience. As it turns out, these are all key ingredients to successful collaboration in the kitchen. It’s hard to believe that less than two hours ago, we had no idea what we were going to eat for dinner, much less how our motley crew would ever make it happen.
As we sit down together to enjoy this meal—fresh from the garden, filled with flavor and shared with conviviality—I am nourished, body and soul.
La Cocina Que Canta
Dinner Menu from the Hands-On Cooking Class with Marie Simmons
Swiss Chard Bundles with Tapenade and Goat Cheese
Beet Puree with Tahini and Mint
Curried Tomato and Coconut Soup with Yogurt and Cucumber Raita
Toasted Quinoa Stirred with Spinach, Toasted Walnuts and Parmesan Cheese
Spicy Pan-seared Marinated Shrimp
Sesame Brown Rice Salad
Mystery Recipe (Oven-Roasted Squash and Quince with Orange Juice)
Chocolate Pudding with Agave Yogurt and Candied Pecans
Quote of the Day
“You don’t want to be a slave to recipes. Cooking should be fun, relaxing
and fluid.”
Marie Simmons
Thursday
The Tao of Bingo with Barry
Maybe it’s because we’re Seattleites who know we’ll be going home to months of gray sky and rain but, as the week draws to an end, we find ourselves making more time to soak up the sheer beauty of Rancho La Puerta.
After Pilates and another hurts-so-good Release and Mobilize session with the tennis balls, Greg goes for a hike while I head for a chaise lounge by the Villas Pool to commune with the plants, the breeze and the hummingbirds. I’ve heard that the world’s laziest squirrels live at Rancho La Puerta. Rumor has it that they lie around on their backs and warm their bellies in the afternoon sun. I think they’ve got the right idea.
For all the visual beauty you’ll see on the Ranch’s website, it’s the full sensory experience that conspires to transform you—the feeling of the sun and breeze on your skin, the scent of rosemary and sage in the air, the songs of birds that range from symphonic to comic, and the companionable silence of another guest—a kindred spirit who covets the absence of cell phones as much as you do.
Acceptance, too, is in the air. From mothers and daughters to midlife couples to 70-somethings, it seems that the everyone in this community of guests feels in his or her element here. I think that’s why we see so many smiles and hear so much laughter. The Ranch is working its magic.
Tonight, part of the magic is Bingo with Barry, arguably the week’s single most popular event. Last spring, when I told a couple of women at breakfast that I had not been at Bingo with Barry the night before, they stared at me in horror. “You missed the best part of the week!” one gasped. Evidently this guy even has his own annual T-shirt.
So you can imagine that Greg and I arrive at the “Bingo hall” with high expectations. Barry does not disappoint. It’s true: this really is the funniest man on the planet. Who could guess that a roomful of successful, intelligent grown-ups could get so worked up over a table of mostly funky prizes that Barry has both adroitly maligned and made highly desirable at the same time? One caveat: do not come to Bingo with your hair slicked back from a Scalp Treatment unless you’re OK with being affectionately nicknamed ”Oily” for the evening.
Now we know the true secret to the Ranch’s high number of return guests. Even English fashion legend, designer Zandra Rhodes, did not miss Bingo with Barry on this, her twenty-second stay.
Quote of the Day
“This is turning out to be a really good year for you, isn’t it?”
Barry (to guest who wins Bingo prize worth approximately one dollar)
Friday
Life is a Labyrinth
Greg and I are walking the Ranch’s labyrinth, a replica of the mystical circa-1200 design that graces the floor of Chartres Cathedral. Its path is a metaphor for the journey through life—a journey that he and I choose to take together.
My labyrinth is a lesson about casting aside expectations and living in the moment. As I walk the circuitous path leading into the center of the circle, I realize I am always thinking ahead and anticipating where I’ll go next. But the labyrinth has a counter-intuitive plan in play. Just as logic tells me that I should be heading into the center, the path leads me to the outermost rings. What’s up with that? After a few more unexpected twists and turns, I begin to release my expectations and trust that the path will ultimately lead me to the center.
As I leave the heart of the labyrinth and head back to the place where I began, I let go of my drive to control and trust that the path will deliver me safely to my destination. This comes with a huge release of tension, a softening and sense of humility. I feel like a snake shedding a skin that’s become too tight. I feel lighter, having left behind the burdens of expectation and judgment. (Believe me, when I shared my packing list with you last Saturday, I had no idea I was bringing all this stuff with me.)
Greg’s labyrinth walk is richly his own. “On the way in, a fly kept buzzing around me. It was driving me crazy and I kept swatting at it, trying to kill it.
“On the way out, I realized I could give the fly a ride and it would be OK. It didn’t annoy me anymore. That made me think about other annoyances—things and people that make life hard. As I went through the turns and curves, I kept thinking I’d like to go with the flow more—change what I can and leave alone the stuff I can’t.
“I told the labyrinth I’ll be back. I felt like I need more of it, and it needs more of me.”
It seems that our labyrinth experience has been a microcosm of Rancho La Puerta: We return to the same place we started from, only we’re different. It’s all about the journey.
Quote of the Day
“Who looks outside dreams. Who looks inside awakens.”
Carl Jung
Written on the stone by the track
Saturday
Taking the Ranch Home
We wake early up to witness one final sunrise over Mount Kuchumaa from our terrace. The beauty is especially acute because we’re leaving it today.
Packing our bags is not nearly as much fun as it was this time last week. But we’re going home lighter in body, mind and spirit than when we left. We’re leaving behind some habitual stresses and thinking. And we’re “taking the Ranch home” through new insights and knowledge that have become a way of life for the last week. Thanks to Rebekah, we have embodied Pilates fundamentals and learned a core-strengthening workout we can do together at home without anything fancier than an elastic strap. And even though we don’t play tennis, we’ll be picking up a few balls as soon as we get home. If we could beam Stephen Brown and Donna Wood to Seattle, we’d be adding Nia dancing and Feldenkrais to our week.
Every meal has given us new inspiration and ideas for bringing more fresh, seasonal foods and grains into our own kitchen. And although the Ranch’s culinary team can’t come home with us, its cookbook can.
Deborah Szekely’s words about time are coming home with us, too. They were the week’s most unexpected gift—especially powerful because this new perspective on time will allow us to make some of the other changes we have in mind.
In the midst of the busy lives most of us lead, it’s not easy to put ourselves first—and it’s even tougher to carve out the time from two schedules to enrich a relationship. Yet it’s the very pace of life that makes it more important than ever to do so.
As we close the door to Villa Luna and retrace the path that brought us
here last week, I feel deeply grateful that Greg and I have been able to
share Rancho La Puerta with each other. My solo visit last spring was momentous
in its own way. But it takes two to live healthily and happily ever after—together.
Quote of the Day
“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a gift and
not giving it.”
Anonymous
Written on the stone by the track
Our Top 12 List
(10 just won’t cover it)
1. Hiking the Ranch’s trails together at sunrise.
2. Getting stronger every day with guest Pilates instructor Rebekah Rotstein.
3. Discovering the power of two tennis balls to “Release and Mobilize.”
4. Nia dancing with Stephen Brown.
5. Feldenkrais with Donna Wood—quite possibly the fitness world’s best-kept secret.
6. Deborah Szekely’s revolutionary words about time.
7. Bingo with Barry, the funniest person on the planet.
8. Every one of our seven spa treatments.
9. The food. The food. The food.
10. Swimming in the Ranch’s pools throughout a week of sunny days in the 80s.
11. Lighting aromatic fires at night and stepping out on our terrace to gaze at a sky filled with stars.
12. The people of Rancho La Puerta.