Contemplating Mendocino

Mendocino, CA Sunset skyline by Rachel Medanic

With the world as big as it is, there are very few places I return to. When it comes to travel and exploration, life is cruelly short. But standing there after 4-years away in an uncaffeinated daze, I said to the attendant,

“Do you know that bakery on this near street that’s a main drag—it’s on this side of the street?”

“Good Life Bakery,” she answered.

When you do things like return again and again, through your single years, then your married ones, and onward through your parental years, you know there is magic and fate at work. This is how it is for me and Mendocino, California.

I arrive into the bustling, cozy Good Life Bakery caffeine deficient and still dealing with the after effects of an intense cold. In an incredibly rare moment, I prioritize their ginger lemon turmeric cayenne hot toddy over coffee. 

Giant pastries and savories contrast sharply with the immediate, crisp morning view outside. Tens of times before I've seen this same violent cascade of Pacific waves pounding sanguine rock cliffs. It's riveting and captures your eyes. Only your stomach pulls you back. 

This never gets old, but I do. I daydream more and more often about whether living here would somehow change the magic treasure of this as “my place.” I have been coming here every 1 to 3 years for two decades.

A quick scan of the local community bulletin board tells me that just 4 years later this is a place I could retire to (yes, still) and have everything I need: a Pilates studio, bellydance classes, performing artists, the mystical and otherworldly. I listen as tall weathered and greying locals in line around me discuss property renovation and the schedule of a new buyer. 

Seaglass sunset by Rachel Medanic

Despite the immense wealth growth in the state (as well as immense growth in the number of impoverished), this place doesn’t change much. Mother Nature occupies center stage. Mendocino  takes back the "gentle" prefix in "gentrification" by staying inside a set of pre-defined lines; Mendo’s physical boundaries are defined by Mendocino Headlands State Park. We humans are just along for the incredible sensual ride, guests in the Goddess’ perch forever contemplating Poseidon.