Back in midst of the pandemic, a door opened for my family to move to Maine. It was a job - a temporary one - that my mentor would later say I manifested, having spoken for years about “moving home”. So from the other side of the country, in the middle of a lockdown, with a one year old, we scoured the internet for places to live.
At the time, the area we needed to move to had one available rental, advertised on Craigslist. Circumstance would not allow us to travel to see it, and anyway, it would be gone by morning if we didnt jump at the opportunity. So sight unseen, we dug into our savings and sent first, last, and security to a person we didnt know, for a home we didnt know existed. We packed our belongings and our newly mobile son, and arrived at the doorstep of a small, cozy, deteriorating bungalow “in the bad neighborhood by where the shooting had just happened” we would later be told. The house smelled like septic, had wonky floors, and a spider problem. But despite its flaws, we loved this place. It was charming, warm, and right where we wanted to be.
And then on the brink of our child’s second birthday, he developed a rare disease, and we got to learn Maine’s medical system intimately. Which labs have the needles to draw blood from toddler arms, which pharmacies deliver so we didn’t bring COVID home to him. The fastest routes to Maine Medical and a complicated web of extended in- and out-of-network providers. My husband quit his career to care for our son when daycare became a health risk. His illness turned our world on its head, but at least we had the luxury of navigating it in a stable home, with the support of our community.
And then the phone call came. Standing next to the Christmas tree at my Mom’s house: Hot market, old house. Too good an opportunity to pass up. Youll need to be out by June. And for every walk through this winter. Hopefully 24 hours notice. I dont know, just drive around. So, multiple times a week, pack a sick kid in the car in January - prednisone mood swings - drive around for an hour. Over a month of surprise, short-notice “visitors” trying to make their home in Maine. The interruptions, the logistics of leaving. Reminding us this was not our home. Amid all of the driving, the doctors appointments, back to Craigslist. Nowhere else to rent. A network of friends who know friends who know friends who are maybe renting in the spring, well let you know. The exhaustion of looking, working, caring, worrying. The crisis of temporary labor meeting the crisis of housing meeting the crisis of America’s healthcare system meeting the crisis of pandemics. Crisis on crisis on crisis.
In the end, we found another place and in many ways, it was an improvement. We were met with great neighbors and a great community, with a landlord who promised not to put us in that situation again. We found it because a person we knew, knew a person.
Thats it.
We were the kind of people who “did everything right.” We moved closer to home, got an education, had jobs, some savings.In the end, what kept us safe was just some dumb luck and the deep roots of our community.