Sebastopol

The weather was beautiful today and we thought a change of venue was in order for our morning walk, but we chose the wrong venue. The Laguna de Santa Rosa was underwater* and the parking lot definitively closed and locked, so we carried on to Sebastopol and the trail which runs beside the highway. We watched several balloons land in a field of mustard* and talked about how much we enjoyed the time we spent in Sebastopol, which is only 12 miles away from where we live now, but very different in character.

It started as a plan to rent our house in Berkeley and move to Sonoma County for a year to see if we liked it and were ready to make a more permanent move...no commitment, no bridges burned.

It didn't quite work out that way. We cleared out our house of 45 years' worth of clutter and hauled it down to a storage space. We met several prospective renters and didn't like any of them...
We couldn't find a place to rent in Sonoma County that wasn't a fabulously expensive vacation rental furnished like a hotel room.

Too entrenched in Berkeley, we were about to give up on the idea of renting when a lovely compromise presented itself. Actually, it wasn't even a compromise. With the help of friends we found a charming 850 sq. ft. farmhouse in Sebastopol which allowed us to have our cake and eat it too. We stayed in Berkeley during the week and spent weekends in Sebastopol, using a lot of the time to look at houses for sale in the area.

Everyone told us that when when we saw the house we wanted to buy we would know it, but for three years we really doubted it. We spent so many weekends trailing around houses we hated, that we were on the verge of giving up. We changed realtors.  Our new realtor, now our friend and neighbor, advised us to sell our house in Berkeley so we could make a cash offer in a real estate market which was heating up. We couldn't do it....we felt ill. We had a nice life...  why change anything? The only problem was that I felt like we no longer belonged in either place.

It's funny how things come together. Within a month 
we had bought this house (and we knew it the minute we walked in the door) and were packing up a lifetime of memories, friendships and stuff in Berkeley.

The funny thing is, that the place we missed the most was not the house in Berkeley, but the little farmhouse in Sebastopol. 

The fellow in my photo is quite a fixture in Sebastopol with his dog on his bicycle loaded with all his possessions. He used to have feathers in his hair, a jester's collar on his dog and a slightly different array of stuff on his bike. We found him this morning at the farmers' market. He and his dog both look a lot older. Everybody knows him and he is often deep in conversation with somebody. He has a little nest where he sleeps next to the trail where we walked this morning. We all have to find our own place in the grand scheme of things....