It was ten
years ago today that the seeds of Almost Pi were sown. My mother passed away on that day, and as she
was only 25 years older than I, her death gave my own life more urgency. She had had dreams that were unfulfilled, and
I knew that it was now time to act on a big one of my own: to build a small home
for myself and Annie somewhere in the magical grasslands of west Marin or west
Sonoma counties.
I quickly vowed
to look at every affordable lot in those two agricultural regions and to buy
one by the end of that year. This was
not a whim – after all, I had been searching for property for six years – but
rather it was a resolve to move forward.
I had to accept that it wouldn’t be “perfect”, but I knew that it would
be very good and the catalyst for a great adventure.
By August I
had narrowed my search to two parcels, one in west Petaluma and the second here
in Point Reyes Station, a small community whose charm increasingly provided the
gravity for my weekend orbits. One warm
evening, I suggested to Annie that we drive out to experience the settings in
the dark. We couldn’t even locate the
land on Spring Hill Road in Petaluma, so foggy was the night. We then made our way to Route One, not far
from Tomales Bay. We stood on the bottom
rung of the horse fence to look over the lot, a gently sloping horse pasture. The downtown sparkled in the distance, the
stars were out, and every once in a while, a car passed by. “This one,” Annie declared. “It’s safer.”
That was
it. By October I owned 3.13 acres with a
lovely view of the Inverness Ridge. It
took another 2.5 years to plan and to build, but as I sit here writing these
words, looking out over the horses nibbling outside my window, I’m so glad that
I followed my heart.
It is
Almost Pi, and it is almost perfect.
