First impressions

Having never been to the Palm Desert area before, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked it. The spa was a mini oasis with it's combination of plants and water features. And the 100 degree "dry heat" wrapped around my body like a comforting blanket.

While I had come to spend time with myself, there were other people who were choosing to not eat for a week or longer as well including:

The Los Angeles cliches-

• The male chauvinist constantly on his cell phone by the pool making "deals", talking about his money and using the spa staff as his personal office assistants.

• The name-dropping, status seeking, very blond girl with dyed eyebrows, eyelashes and lips who usually goes to the Ashram, but didn't feel up to it this year, and thought a week long fast would be easier. This is the same girl who when asked in class "how often she does yoga" launched into a 10 minute speech about how early she has to show up to the very popular and celebrity-ridden yoga class in LA just to get a space because that class/instructor is so "fabulous".
  
• The newly joined couple who met via their shared therapist and spent most of their time away from the spa shopping and going to movies. Given that everyone else's energy levels dipped during the fast and theirs remained at a constant hyper level throughout their stay, I am of the belief that they were taking additional "supplements".
  

The anorexics-

• Girls so tiny that I absolutely do not understand how anyone approved them for a week-long fast. Their bones literally rattled when they stepped on the vibration machines.

The crunchy-granolas-

• Perfectly nice, but a much more into the spiritual side of the spa offering than I was. These are the people who lined up to attend sessions such as "Balance and the Medicine Wheel" and "Sacred Healing".
  

The cancer survivors-

• These women had all just come through harrowing experiences and were now re-starting their health regimens with a stay at the spa. While their stories were inspiring and their outlooks great, I did not spend that much time getting to know them since having lost my Grandmother the month prior to cancer, I just wasn't into discussing the disease over and over again like they were.

The loners-

• This is the group that most aligned with. We were perfectly happy to say "hi" in passing, but generally kept to ourselves during our stay.

All of us were here for our own reasons, and all of us would (hopefully) take away what we needed from our stay.