News from Jules | 10.11.2023 | Where the Heart Is
As of today, Oct. 11, 2023, it’s been two years since I had my own home—an urban studio apartment on the train line with a sunset view over the West Hills of Portland, Ore. An odd anniversary by our society’s standards, but one that celebrates a milestone in my journey toward living in harmony with nature, and my true nature.
For these two years, I have been houseless, yes, but I have not been homeless, due to the serendipitous hospitality of countless best friends, friends, friends-of-friends, and even a few folks that I had only known for 15 minutes—all willingly sheltered me as I continue finding my way as a writer and as an artist.
When I first put my belongings in storage two years ago, I thought it would be for six months, a year tops, until I could relocate from the city to a small town nestled in nature. But, that is not how this journey has played out.
Perhaps because it hasn’t just been a journey of “traveling from one place to another” for two years, but an odyssey—“a long and eventful or adventurous journey or experience” or “wandering usually marked by many changes of fortune.”
It hasn’t been about me taking advantage of others’ resources or receiving the good karma for my own generosity to friends, friends-of-friends, and even strangers who needed a place to be, something to eat, a ride, an open ear, or a hug.
Actually the opposite. This odyssey is a love story of kindred spirits trusting and believing in me—and simply doing the right thing to take care of each other.
I continue to think I can do it all on my own. I come up with an ideal plan, then inevitably surrender to what actually happens.
The Universe continues to remind me how much support we all need.
The first move was out of necessity, as I could no longer afford the apartment without a six-figure job. A few weeks after I was laid off in July, 2021, one of my best friends and I hiked a favorite trail on Mount Hood. Naturally, our conversation quickly progressed from small talk to real talk. We discovered that her plans to quit Nike and travel were perfectly aligned with the end of my lease. I could housesit for the fall while she traveled and prepped the house for Airbnb before a longer international sabbatical. I moved in on her last day of work.
With the fortuitous time, space, and resources to focus on writing again while I discerned my next steps, I dove into a book concept that fall.
What I thought would be a writing season, turned into a wellness season as I continued to reset my mind, body, and spirit after so much heartbreak in 2021—a failed mountaineering attempt, infertility, job loss, a break up, and, of course, the general chaos of a pandemic during the climate crisis of late-stage capitalism.
Then in the new year, more close friends in Portland needed a housesitter while they traveled abroad for several months. Once again the timing aligned perfectly. The day they returned, I departed on my road trip east for a seasonal job at a retreat center in New York.
Originally, I planned to go north through Idado, Montana, South Dakota, the Great Lakes, and into New York. But, then I got the worst possible text from my best friend during her sabbatical: Her Dad died in a car collision. And her paternal grandfather also died, the next day.
I quickly rerouted through Idaho, Utah, and New Mexico so I arrived in Southern Colorado the day before she flew in. Bearing the biggest heartbreak of all, she—and her fiancé and her mom—welcomed me with open arms to stay a few days at the family’s rural ranch and attend one of the memorial dedications that week.
“You come back, you hear,” her mom said as they waved goodbye from the driveway when I sadly had to keep going. That seemed unlikely, but I loved the invitation.
For the next five months, I lived in seasonal housing at Omega Institute, a 250-acre retreat center in New York’s Mid-Hudson Valley, as I continued to recenter myself and dealt with mysterious health issues. The timing aligned quite imperfectly for exploratory surgery the week before the retreat season ended, but I did it anyway. I was back on the road west just 10 days post-surgery, but all was not well.
Twenty-four hours before my third discharge from the third hospital in three weeks, I talked on the phone with my best friend and her fiancé from my hospital bed in New York. One surgery, one procedure, three ultrasounds, seven CT scans, a dozen IVs, and very little sleep during nine days in the hospital alone, I was a shell of myself.
“What do I do? I can’t drive and I don’t have anywhere to go,” I sobbed to my friends over speakerphone.
“Come here,” they said in unison. “You always have a place to go.”
I booked a flight and landed in Denver, Colo. 48 hours later to rest and recuperate for a couple of weeks before finishing the drive west to Oregon for Christmas.
Just so, when I mentioned via text about how my plans for staying in Taos, New Mexico, this October weren’t working out, my best friend reminded me: “We’d love to see you! You’re welcome to stay with us anytime for as long as you want.”
Once again, these three weeks in Denver provided the fortuitous time, space, and resources to focus on writing and planning my next steps while enjoying the company of some of my favorite people.
See photos from this story of abundant hospitality on Instagram.
After all, home is where the heart is. Stay as long as you need to, come back anytime.
This is just one of the stories of the blessings I’ve received during the past two years’ odyssey of being houseless. I’ve lost count of how many beds—and couches and air mattresses—that I’ve slept on and how many thank you cards I’ve sent.
Housesitting in Portland, my road trip East, living at Omega, my road trip West, home for the holidays, my car breakdown in Portland, housesitting on Black Butte Ranch, staying with friends in Bend, and my recent road trip of the West.
From my first stop in Arcata, Calif. when one of my other best friends made matcha tea for us every morning to our family reunion on Whidbey Island when my brother and sister-in-law cooked three farm-fresh meals a day to my stop in Portland when close friends had the fridge stocked with my favorite kind of beer to my most recent stop in Wyoming when my climbing partner filled my cooler with food and made me take an extra blanket before I hit the road.
And the especially serendipitous hospitality that helped me weather many storms throughout the past three months:
A former coworker’s under-construction beach house during a night of high winds.
A friend’s couch, laundry, and company when solitude shifted to loneliness.
The cowboy’s son’s bunk bed during a night of torrential rains.
Another friend’s guest room—on the very first night she moved into her new home—when hailstorms passed through the area.
The artist’s open-door policy—literally no gate on his private road or lock on his house—to any and all travelers when the overnight temperatures dropped toward freezing.
I joke that I’ve become a “professional houseguest:” Help out with dishes and laundry, take out the trash, strip the bed and clean the bathroom, show appreciation, and leave it better than you found it.
It’s the least I can do for the abundant hospitality sheltering my body, easing my mind, and feeding my soul. A vivid reminder of why caring, connection, and generosity are so important for me—and for humanity—in this odyssey toward living in harmony with nature.
We need each other.
We can’t do it alone.
Perhaps this is why I haven’t been living in a studio apartment by myself for the past two years, but out here in the world, adapting to my circumstances, finding inspiration, and being so blessed by the hospitality of so many.
May your heart open wider this week.
Love,
Jules