Notes from the Swiss Alps- No. 3: What the Sauna Taught Me About Belonging

Hi friends,

This is a long one… totally understand if you don’t read until the end.

Have you ever moved somewhere completely new?

I live in a tiny village in the Swiss Alps with a population of roughly 166 people, give or take. It’s the highest village in the valley, connected by one winding road to a handful of other small villages below.

But living here feels like stepping into another world — quieter, slower, woven in ways I’ve never experienced.

Everything is different here.

In a place where everyone knows everyone, there’s no privacy — yet privacy seems to be what everyone quietly craves? Even nature keeps to itself, living quietly among us.

I can’t imagine what it’s like to grow up where every move is known — where you scan every room for familiar faces because not saying hello could cause unnecessary drama. It’s one of those unspoken cultural norms: you greet, you engage. Of course you do.

But here, you can’t leave the house without seeing at least several people you know. People aren’t just co-existing; they’re interwoven into daily life. There’s a beauty in that — one my California brain, used to living among tens of thousands, is just beginning to understand.

Holy shit. There’s no hiding here. Everyone knows who you are, even if you don’t know them.

I find myself wondering — at what size does a town grow large enough for anonymity to exist again?

The Girl From California

I am “the girl from California.”
I never realized that was an identity until I moved to Switzerland.

California is an energy — and I carry that frequency within me.

My roots grew from young Northern Californian redwoods scented with Pacific fog.

They grew curious as I spent my childhood and weekends walking barefoot along the wild, raw coastline of West Marin — always drawn back to the horizon’s clear, endless line.

They stretched through golden, oak-covered hills and taught me not to fear diversity.

They braced me through droughts and wildfires, through stillness and abundance.

Those roots haven’t broken — I don’t think they ever will — but they’re stretching.
I’m learning how elastic they can be, and the difference between overstretching and expanding.

The Sauna and the Missing Element

My skin has grown drier and drier since moving here, and I’ve blamed the mountain air — until recently.

A dear friend — one of those rare people you instantly know will become family — surprised me with a day in the Dolomites at a spa. She took me to a Sauna Masters Competition in one of the most breathtaking places I’ve ever seen.

Spa culture here is alive and well — steeped in ritual like a tea bag in steaming water: saunas, steam rooms, thermal pools.
But what unfolded that day was far more than a “spa day.”

It was ceremony.

Inside the sauna, each element has a role to play:
the smooth, aromatic wood that holds the heat;
a small pail of fresh water with a beautifully carved wooden ladle;
the hot stones that sizzle and hiss when the water touches them — creating steam that dances and swirls through the air.

Earth. Fire. Water. Air.
The sauna is an element keeper.

When you enter with intention, it reveals which element within you has gone missing.
And I realized mine was water.

I’ve been holding back my own water — resisting the emotion of sadness and grief that comes from being farther and farther away from California, the place I once called home.

I’ve been drying up my tears for fear that if I let them flow, I might break a dam so deep I would drown.

But as the heat wrapped around me and the water hit the rocks, I understood: the elements never leave us — they only wait for permission to move again.

The answer, as always, is in nature.

Our lives move in rhythm with the seasons — the wind, the rain, the light.

I feel like a little sprout here, unsure what kind of tree I’m growing into.
Maybe not a tree at all.

What I learned from my friend and the sauna is that growth requires connection.
The first tiny root can only take hold if the soil reaches back — like invisible hands meeting in the dark.

That’s what I must do here: allow connection, vulnerability, and trust.
Create a new mycelium network — a new way of belonging.

What I Miss Most About California

What do I miss most about California?
The familiarity — and, of course, my people, my family, my friends.

It’s the one place I know inside out. Maybe we all feel that way about where we’re from — we understand its quirks, its pulse, its timing.

We know which grocery store clerk seems to always be having a bad day.

That if you get to the bakery right when they open, you will probably be the first in line for the cinnamon rolls that are still warm from the oven.
Which post office line will steal your afternoon.
Which corner by Whole Foods always causes chaos because someone inevitably forgets there’s no stop sign there.
And we know, instinctively, that if someone doesn’t know this — they’re not from our town.

We know the DMV is never quick even with a scheduled appointment, and that the cop with the radar gun always hides behind the same bend.

Then there is that special population that remembers when things were different here: smaller, slower, more open spaces.

These small frustrations + joys — the ones we all silently share — are part of what belonging feels like.

The Road That Connects Us

Here, the cars that pass our house come from over the mountain pass or up from the valley below.
They pass through — but the people stay.

To visitors, this road is a scenic byway.
To those who live here, it’s a lifeline — a narrow artery threading together the handful of villages that share this small valley of fewer than 1,500 souls, linking them to the neighboring communities over the pass and to the valley below.

When the sun sinks behind the mountains, stillness returns.
And in that stillness, I feel it again: the heartbeat of the Alps — steady, ancient, alive.

Learning to Listen

I haven’t yet experienced what it feels like to move from winter to spring here in the mountains — we’ve only just had our first real snowfall.

I don’t yet know the song the birds sing when they’re curious about you.

I’ve only met one squirrel so far — after a long, steep climb through the forest — a reddish-brown one whose chirps and tongue-smacking clicks warned me that the nut in his mouth was his, not mine.
Maybe we will meet again.

Beyond the alpine cows and sheep, most of the wildlife here remains hidden, quiet, and watchful.

I’m learning to listen to it.
To myself.
To not hold back the tears that want to come.

I’m learning that to embrace the water is to allow my journey to flow — wherever it may lead.

And I’m also learning that it’s okay not to be okay — and, even more importantly, to let others in instead of building a dam within myself.

With love,
Bridgette