W&L — Smaller steps

With an ever-growing prompt, finding the right place seemed like it would be even harder. So, we thought about smaller steps, closer at hand. We moved in with our friends (at the property they'd bought with Mary). It's a multi-unit building and we started living across a courtyard from each other.

We built Raised beds for Zack & Gabby and planted seedlings in the spring. I used the yard to build more furniture. We enjoyed the spontaneity of seeing each other at odd hours, pursuing small projects together and sitting down for lunch or dinner together without much planning. Emma and I traveled and returned and it felt good to be back.

Here we were: living together, in a small but beautiful way, in the center of SF, with Zack and Gabby. Would we be silly to look for something else? Zack and Gabby chose to live in a way that aligned with what we had been looking for. It was feeling right to live alongside each other. But, due to its size, our arrangement did feel like it had an expiration date, somewhere between one and five years, depending on kids.

The experience rekindled our love of the city and reinforced a desire to live near friends (and to stay close to Zack and Gabby!). We realized that we really didn't want to buy a single family home. We wanted a multi-unit project. Something with a story, but on which we could leave our mark. We felt that the right place would speak to us if it arrived. But even recognizing that every place would have some tradeoff and being open to that reality, I started to wonder if we were asking for too much, or for something that just didn’t exist. The good news was we had a good thing going at home. We were prepared to be patient.