I read all day for a living, but lately I’ve been having trouble finishing a novel. It’s not that I don’t enjoy reading. I just can’t seem to stay with anything for very long.
I’ll read a few pages, check my phone, get up to do something else, then return to the book and realize I haven’t absorbed a word. I’ve been snapping at my partner. At social events, I find myself awkwardly scanning the room. At night, I wonder if I remembered to lock the back door.
My brain, in other words, is tired.
There’s a name for this: directed attention fatigue, a phenomenon that can happen when we spend too much time concentrating, filtering distractions and forcing ourselves to stay focused. Whatever the clinical terminology, I know what it feels like.
So I decide to try something radical: I leave.
For two days, I head to Costanoa, the coastal resort just off Highway 1 near Pescadero. The eco-resort opened in 1999 as “luxury camping” under Joie de Vivre. Highway West Vacations took over operations last year and has updated the accommodations and dining.
Plus, there are baby goats.
The drive takes less than two hours. With the windows down and the sea breeze coming through, I stop in Half Moon Bay for lunch before continuing south, catching glimpses of the ocean along the way. When I turn onto Costanoa’s tree-lined road, my nervous system is primed—for inaction.
Costanoa sits on 40 acres adjacent to 30,000 acres of state parks and protected wilderness beaches. There are RV hookup sites; tent villages; glamping bungalows; the Pebble Flow, the company’s all-electric travel trailer; Douglas fir cabins; and North Lodge suites.
I choose the North Lodge, where my room has a deep soaking tub, a plush king bed and a balcony overlooking a vast expanse of trees. I sleep better than I have in weeks.
The Cascade restaurant, refreshed along with the rest of the property, is housed in a log cabin and serves seasonal American fare for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The prices are upscale rustic, but the portions are substantial and the service congenial. I leave satiated.
There’s a general store, fire pits, heated bathhouses and saunas. Guests can also enjoy hiking trails, bike rentals and lawn games. Depending on the season, they can take part in sunset s’mores, pizza classes, paint-and-sip sessions and yoga.
And, of course, there are the goats.
Costanoa has a permanent herd of pygmy goats, with new kids arriving each spring. I visit them several times during my stay, feeding and petting them. It becomes one of the easiest ways to spend an afternoon.
The resort makes it easy to fill your time. But I’m here to do the opposite.
That’s where forest therapy comes in.
During my stay, I join a forest therapy session with Wendy Figone, a local somatic ecotherapist and longtime Costanoa visitor who contracts with the resort for private groups and corporate retreats.
Forest therapy is different from simply taking a walk in the woods or practicing forest bathing on your own. It’s a standardized, guided experience, usually about three hours long, in which the guide leads participants through a series of invitations designed to slow them down and reconnect them with their senses and surroundings.
Figone says people often have trouble sitting still without reaching for their devices. The goal of forest therapy is to get people out of their “monkey mind,” slow them down, and help them breathe and listen.
“There’s always something happening in nature, but we miss most of it because we’re in our heads,” she says.
That idea becomes the throughline of our walk. Figone encourages us to notice the wind, the sun filtering through the trees, the sounds around us. Nature is always happening, she says, but we often miss it because we’re thinking about something else.
“It’s about learning how to catch your own invitations,” Figone notes.
The invitation might be the wind moving through the trees or a patch of sunlight. It might be a sound or a feeling in your body. The point is to notice what is already there.
For Figone, that awareness isn’t just something to practice on vacation.
“It’s learning a skillset and then, just like you’d do yoga or go for a long walk, you would practice strength-training your attention,” she says.
I like that idea. Maybe because I’ve arrived at Costanoa feeling like my attention is something that’s been taken from me, rather than something I can practice directing.
By the end of the session, I’m not transformed. I’m still me. I still have emails to answer and a novel I’d like to finish.
But I’m quieter. Peaceful, even.
And maybe that’s the point of getting away for a couple of days. Not to become a different person, but to remember what it feels like to be where you are.
Figone says Costanoa offers just about everything people need to be quiet, slow down and take care of themselves. Being away from the usual routines puts people in a different state, she says, and vacations can make us kinder.
I’m not sure about all of that.
But I do know that by the time I leave, I’m already planning my return trip.
And, yes, I’m probably going back for the goats.
Costanoa, 2001 Rossi Road at Hwy. 1, Pescadero, 650.879.1100; costanoa.com. Seasonal tip: Costanoa features a Winter Escape package for stays between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31. Forest bathing is also great in the rain. Book sessions with Wendy Figone at somaticecotherapy.com.
