High above the Pacific, a hermitage offers a world without distraction, where silence, serenity and joy reign supreme. On to Highway , 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.
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. The place is heaven simply because all the deadlines I was worrying about on the road below, all the arguments I was conducting in my head, the worry about next month, that fear for my ageing mother, are gone, completely gone.
But nowhere has so transformed me as the Catholic hermitage, New Camaldoli , to which I keep returning, more than times over the past 33 years. But simply taking long walks, sitting in my little garden watching the sun scintillate on the water and chatting with other retreatants feels like the greatest adventure of all.
A true trip is one that sends you home a different person from the one who left β more directed, more joyful, more calm β and nowhere has this effect on me as does this simple monastery. The first time I visited β February β the world was much less noisy and distracted than today. There were no smartphones, no social media, no constant updates; email was in its infancy.
