Driving up to Ojai for the first time in over a year, after a junior year filled with cobblestone streets, rainy rose gardens and adorable little French children, having flown geographically and culturally very far away from this unique spot of southern California green, the unassuming beauty of the landscape took me by surprise.

That classic mountain ridge, last seen on a Thacher Christmas card on my desk halfway across the world, felt both so familiar and so new. New in that I may never have realized the quiet majesty of this landscape: the blood-orange and plum sunsets that fade to watery pink for the stars to curve the sky like the top of a snow globe. The drying pepper tree’s leaves may have lost their initial allure, but now with the gift of perspective, what was once just a familiar backdrop can become a conscious invitation to peace, bliss, meditation…