Our house

We found this house a year ago. I keep thinking about that as I look around at the trees with no leaves, at the flowering camellia, at the abundance of clover. Of course it doesn't look the same as when we first saw it because our eyes have changed. We live here now.

I found out I was pregnant for the second time in November 2013. Our older twins were not quite six months old. We found out it was twins again in early December. We were freaked out. My husband decided we should buy a new house. I had never bought a house before and though I very much wanted to move out of Martinez, it was hard to imagine a move with two small babies and a pregnancy. Plus, babies are small. We wouldn't need more space right away. I also had not quite worked out where I wanted to live. I say "I", not we, because I was the one with the problem. The one who yearned to be closer to the city. Closer to my friends and my family, closer to an urban lifestyle, closer to someplace with an edge. Away from the suburbs. My wonderful friend who lives in Oakland kept sending me links to great, fixer-uppers near her and I would admire them. The money meant nothing to me. . not because money was no object but because I have just never had a good sense of the cost of things. Living in San Francisco for most of my adult life, I was used to paying $1500 a month in rent for a one-bedroom apartment with no parking. That was a deal because I knew the landlady. I also came into this marriage with debt, despite having no reason to be in debt aside from expensive tastes, a love of restaurants and a habit of buying plane tickets with only the slightest provocation. My husband had no debt except for the responsible adult kind--a mortgage. I'm lucky I had other attractive qualities to balance out my part of the package.

I looked at houses in Oakland and tried to figure out neighborhoods by mapping the addresses in context with my office. My husband looked at houses in Martinez, Pleasant Hill and Concord. I did not want to live so far out here. Didn't want to commit to it. But. We had talked about our dream houses and his had a pool with a diving board. Mine had a fireplace, which we could have found in many other cities. A pool was harder because we would need the space to build it. And ideally warm enough weather to actually want to jump into it. I mostly wanted to be able to walk to a cafe where I could people-watch.

One Sunday we loaded up the twins and went driving to check out the houses on his list. At that point I had already conceded that we would be staying close to where we were. In Contra Costa County, in the 925. Where we would be able to afford to buy a house and I would have the option of staying home with the kids. We saw six or seven places, each totally different in different neighborhoods. Some he went into while I sat with the kids, some we just looked at from the outside. We imagined our lives on those blocks, x number of minutes from the freeway or from Peets or from the movie theater. We drove on. I was scrolling through Zillow, looking at different options.

As we headed to the last house on our list I entered a new Search Nearby and a house with a 19,000 square foot lot popped up. That must be a typo we thought. Want to stop and look? Sure, why not. We missed the turn, heading up a road we'd driven down before on our way to the public pool in Concord. A u-turn meant waiting for many cars of oncoming traffic and we almost decided against it but instead swung around and turned down the street we were looking for.

The street is very long, with a speed dip and a yellow bike trail sign. We pulled up in front of the house and he got out to peer through the windows. He liked it. I liked it from the outside too. I called and left the realtor a message and we drove on to the final house. Ten minutes later as my husband checked out the inside of a small but pretty house I got a call back. The realtor could be there in fifteen minutes. Did we want to? Yes, please. We drove back, waited for him as we talked to the babies and changed diapers. And within an hour we were putting in an offer.

Wait, what? I mean, I was new to this whole thing but wasn't there usually more to it than this? It was magical. The house, I mean. I've written here about the courtyard. That in and of itself almost sold me. Walking into the front door really did it though. Rich, warm, shining wood floors and a high, pointed white ceiling. Light pouring in through large windows. Oh. I could live here. I didn't expect to find a place that felt like me out here. And it kept unfolding into dreams of a future that was suddenly actually possible to envision. For the first time since finding out about my second pregnancy I could see a life that did not make me feel full of panic. More than that, I could see four little kids running and hiding and seeking and playing together in these rooms, in these yards, under these trees.

Here we are, a year later. With twin daughters who are exactly the same age as their siblings were when we found it. Which is fun and funny because they seemed so big to us at the time. We laid Lily and Cyrus down on the carpet in what would be their room, what is now their room, and let them look around and take it all in. It seemed like they liked it.

I never thought I would live in the suburbs. Scratch that, I vehemently did not want to ever live in the suburbs. I love San Francisco. I love it with a physical ache in my heart that is like the love you feel for a person. When I lived there as an adult, almost every day I would stop and admire how gorgeous it was. I love the people, the energy, the food, the neighborhoods, the ocean. I love walking the streets. I love the parks, the sunny days when everyone is out soaking it up with every frisbee toss, picnic, outside beer, and bike ride in them. I miss it and I don't agree when people say "Oh, but it's so close".No one in San Francisco thinks Concord is close. Close is IN the city. Anywhere else is far.

All of that and yet, I am so happy here. Last night I changed out of my spit-up covered clothes and put on a slightly cute outfit so I could walk around the corner to a neighbor's house for a glass of wine and a jewelry open house. As I walked through the inky darkness, I smelled wood smoke and felt crisp, soft air against my skin. Two mornings ago I picked a tangerine off the tree in our backyard, peeled it and handed it down to my barefoot daughter standing in the long grass. She ate every juicy bite.