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a cluster of bungalows sprung up on these streets. They were built by hand in the California Craftsman tradition—casual houses for weekends by the sea. They were within steps of the steep stairs that led down to the sand and came with the promise of a screen door slamming in the breeze as sunburned kids scurried down to the beach. On the street I had chosen to speed down that afternoon, there was only one beach bungalow left. It stood in the middle of the block on the south side of the street surrounded by Mediterranean mansions, modern glass boxes and Spanish-style villas.
    It was for sale.
    I parked the car at the curb and rolled down my window for a better view. Even though the houses surrounding it were all far grander and more modern—houses that had been remodeled just like mine to accommodate families who had a pressing need for travertine-tiled entryways, high-capacity washers and dryers, and walk-in closets big enough for a bed—the bungalow felt like the most important house on the street. It had a presence to it. It sat on its piece of ground as if it had sprung up organically. I had spent so much time over the last year looking at slick photos of big houses and scouting out materials and appliances in huge showrooms, that I had forgotten what an authentic home even looked like.
    The house sat on a small patch of lawn behind a white picket fence. It was wrapped in white clapboard, and each of its windows was outlined in hunter green trim as if drawn in by a child. The front porch was like an invitation. It extended from one side to the other—a long, wide expanse large enough to hold a porch swing, a bench, a table and two chairs and six pots of lavender, with their chaos of long purple stems. A gently arched beam framed the opening of the porch, held up by square tapered columns. Two tall windows flanked the large front door—each with an etched transom above it that looked as though it came from a completely different time and place. In the center of the front door was an enormous pine bough wreath tied with a red bow.
    The yard was lush and overrun. Along the front of the house was a riot of winter flowers: lavender, salvia and tiny white-dotted rosemary. Running down the side yard nearest to me was a cement driveway with a strip of grass in the middle, and at the end of the drive was a garage with big, wide doors whose windows matched the ones on the front door. Eucalyptus trees towered above the house from the backyard, and there were palm, lemon and lime trees along the drive.
    The thing I thought about as I sat in my car, transfixed by that house, was a piece of art I’d seen seventeen years before. I’d gone to a conference on early childhood education in Portland, Oregon. During one of the afternoons off, I went to lunch with a group of new teachers at a restaurant across from an art gallery. We sat outside eating our sandwiches and I kept looking at that gallery as if someone were looking back. Hanging in the window were enormous black-and-white canvases depicting trees—an oak tree, a pine tree, one of those cypress trees that jut out over the water in Monterey. They were just black branches on a white background, sparse and eerie. After dessert, I went across the street to take a closer look. It turned out the trees were drawn with ballpoint pen on paper. The artist had made a hundred thousand tiny strokes, creating shape and shade with nothing more than little black marks. I stepped into the gallery to gawk and hungrily sought out the price tag of the pine tree, my favorite. It was $10,000.
    I can remember so clearly the feeling I had standing in that gallery looking at those trees. I wanted one. I wanted to take one home with me and put it on my wall, but $10,000 was almost half my salary. All I could do was stand and stare.
    “She’s crazy,” someone said, from somewhere just outside my car. I flinched and looked out the window to see a white-haired woman in a pink sweat suit walking two