Landing in Amsterdam, I pressed my face to the window.
The tulip fields were below us — wide stripes of magenta and yellow and red cutting across the flat Dutch landscape. A painting. A pattern you couldn’t possibly see if you were standing in it.
I’ve been thinking about that image ever since.
A month in Spain. Granada first — Moorish architecture, ominous Semana Santa processions swaying down narrow cobblestone streets, centuries of history pressing in from every direction. Then Barcelona. Loud, electric, alive.
And somewhere in the middle of all of it, something started coming into focus.
How much I love the mountains. The bright blue, wide-open sky. The stillness. The rush of the river. The crunch of the trail with Mila by my side.
I’ve always known it. But the bustling cities — the crowds, the noise, the gray stone — made it suddenly, unmistakably clear. Sometimes you need the contrast. A month away from wide open spaces to feel, in your bones, how much they’re yours.
I didn’t go looking for that realization — I just needed a little altitude. A little distance from the life right under my feet.
But here’s the other thing that came into focus, unexpectedly: my love for San Miguel.
Our family lived there for two years. I’ve been back numerous times as a family and with groups of women. And being away — in Spain, of all places, another city — I kept thinking about it. The color. The warmth of the people, the culture. Some places just keep a piece of your heart.
Distance is funny that way. Sometimes it shows you what’s broken. But sometimes — if you’re lucky — it shows you, with sudden clarity, what you love.
This October 28th, I’m going back. Día de Muertos. A small group of women. A boutique hacienda that will be entirely ours — rooftop yoga, breakfasts together, a home base to return to. From there: hot springs, face painting, the Catrina Parade, markets, the kind of evenings that are hard to explain and impossible to forget.
I know Mexico has been in the news. I want to say clearly: I have been taking women I love to San Miguel for years, and I have friends on the ground there I trust completely. It is its own world — walkable, welcoming, filled with artists and families and a spirit that is genuinely hard to find anywhere else. I wouldn’t keep going back if it weren’t.
Four rooms remain. Early bird pricing closes May 1st — just days away.
If something in you has been wanting a little distance — from routine, from the noise, from the life you’ve stopped fully seeing — maybe this is the trip.
Hit reply if you have questions. I love talking about this one.
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