There’s a particular stretch of coastline here in the Monterey Bay that feels like my own secret world. It’s not hidden, exactly, it’s just a bit of a walk. And that walk makes all the difference.

Sunset State Beach, nestled between the Moss Landing stacks to the south and Manresa Beach to the north, holds a kind of hush that I crave. Most visitors stop at the access points, but if you’re willing to wander, the crowds thin, the noise drops, and something exquisite begins to emerge: space. Spaciousness in the body, in the breath, in the mind.

This is where I come to reset.

Maybe three mornings a week, I make the drive with a thermos of tea and no particular agenda other than to arrive, to this moment, to myself, to the horizon. Often, there’s no one else in sight. Just pelicans slicing through the sky, sometimes dozens at once, and the rhythmic hush of the Pacific rolling in.

Barefoot grounding is non-negotiable. I step onto the sand and let it wake up my feet, recalibrate my spine, return me to something ancient and alive. I pick things up, driftwood, feathers, seaweed tendrils, anything that calls. It’s a simple way to let my body remember that it belongs here.

I’ve painted many of my Monterey Bay-inspired pieces from this stretch, not always directly, but energetically. The pelicans, the long sweeping lines of ocean, the soft hazy light that kisses the dunes, it’s all encoded. This place breathes into my work. And I breathe better because of it.

There’s also something scientific beneath the soulfulness. The Earth’s Schumann Resonance, its subtle electromagnetic pulse, has been shown to align with and soothe the human nervous system. It’s measurable. But I don’t need a study to tell me what I already feel: after just 15 minutes with my toes in this sand, I’m different.

And then there’s the horizon. I make myself look at it, eyes lifted, scanning the blue edge where ocean meets sky. Neuroscience tells us that lifting our gaze, especially to long vistas, reduces our sense of threat and opens the parasympathetic pathways of calm. I feel that truth in my body. Every time.

So while I love my studio, and my podcast mic, and the daily work of art and voice, this, this quiet stretch, is the ritual that holds it all together. It’s where I remember who I am when the algorithms, inboxes, and invoices start to blur the edges.

And I suppose I’m sharing this not because it’s for sale, but because it’s real. And maybe you have a place like this, too, or maybe you’re looking for one. A place that doesn’t need to impress anyone. A stretch of sand where you get to just… be.

Here’s to the quiet ones.

The long walks.

The recalibration.

And the return.

Lisa