Ep. 21 | Tub Talks with Emily Birmingham: Big Sur Local with Nepenthe lineage
Soaking in an indoor bath on the cliffs of Big Sur with Emily Birmingham brings me into deep nostalgia and remembrance of the history of our home. Emily’s family has been calling Big Sur home for the past 4 generations, starting with her great grandparents migrating to Northern California before Highway 1 was even a road. Emily and I have known each other since we were children, growing up adjacent: with me at Esalen, while Emily was at Nepenthe.
Being from a small isolated island-like space, Emily and I discuss how there are unwritten rules of engagement that are autonomous to locals, and could be triggering to tourists. From my own experiences with bringing my new friends and family to Esalen and Big Sur, to Emily sharing her love for New York with her partner, we discuss unspoken social rules, and wherein they can be dismantled. Growing up in such a unique environment, we discuss the changes we experience as Big Sur evolves.
Emily’s family is known in Big Sur culture for having created the famous ocean-side restaurant with an amazing view: Nepenthe. Emily explains how having the opportunity of employment through her family is something she is grateful for, but feels that in order to graduate and continue she has chosen to explore life in her own outlets through working at Post Ranch. Emily explains how, as she continues her life in Big Sur, she makes concerted efforts to explore herself through new hobbies and personal interests, while conceptualizing how to preserve the culture and heritage that her family has stewarded.
Emily’s parents started The Big Sur Arts Initiative. Within the program was “Stage Kids,” a multi-week summer camp for the children of Big Sur to create stage performances. In essence, it was a theater camp. But it was so much more. Within Stage Kids, the kids were given a loose storyline such as “1001 Arabian Nights” and given a week to write their lines, create songs, build a set/costumes/structure, and perform at the local Grange on the weekend. Stage Kids existed as a means of creative expression and simultaneously developed a youth community in an environment where we were physically separated by mountains and sea. For Big Sur, similarly to what we have with Secular Sabbath, the community doesn’t need a physical space for people to share and collaborate. It just needs a shared activity. And Stage Kids is the heart of what Emily and I shared together as children.
The way Emily relates to living in Big Sur now is with quiet self-awareness. She shares examples of how pop culture and exploration of the world outside herself and Big Sur has always been important to her. She has even found a way to imbue pop culture elements into how she relates to Big Sur. For example, in her early 20’s, Emily popped up a tiny shop at Loma Vista where she and her cofounder would create knick knacks for passersbys and locals alike: little pieces of magic that tie in Big Sur to the rest of the world such as a hand-painted matchbox with a collage of Aaliyah on it that I bought from her all those years ago or candles with celebrity faces on them. There was an element of fun, an element of irony, of magic and a tie in with nature to the shop. Emily sees how meaningful experiences are vital to life, and creating meaningful experiences can come in all forms: the comforts of a great pair of socks fitting right, the event that helps to discover potential, or even a concert. Emily explains that in Big Sur, there can be a scarcity mentality - not enough people to date, dinners and concerts feel expensive, housing is limited. But she doesn’t adhere to that mentality. She embraces the things she has and enjoys life. In sharing about her home, the ways she spends money on things that bring her joy like good dinner and special moments, Emily shows us how to break free from self-created limitations or past conditioning. She leads by example, and gets us excited about what’s to come in Big Sur and her life as the road unfolds. Listen now to see through a window into my hometown through the lens of a fellow Big Sur local!
To join Secular Sabbath membership, you can find us at secular-sabbath.com/membership. Joining grants you access to our Inner Circle community of sensory-exploring like-minded people, where you can gather with us locally in LA for monthly meet-up experiences, and pop-up events around the globe, and partake in our exclusive ambient online community.
Ready to dive into the dialogue deeper? Join us on our Discord channel.
See what we get up to at @secularsabbath.