I like to look at real estate. We have no immediate plans to move but still, I like looking to see what’s possible, what we might be able to afford, where we might land next. Two summers ago a house popped up that, since then, has felt like “the house that got away”. I’ve thought of it often—one level living with a sun-room and fireplace and a finished basement for extra space, character with wooden beams on the ceiling, a two-car garage, and a bonus: a pool in the backyard. Twenty minutes closer to the place I work, just a few blocks from some good friends. While not my dream home (that would be a Tudor with lots of nooks and crannies), it felt like the house that we could raise a family in and quickly became the house I’ve held up as ideal.
The house is back on the market for $100K more than what it was listed in July of 2020. The hot housing market has cooled and it’s already dropped $15K in price. I keep a tab open with the listing and refresh throughout the day, simultaneously hoping that it’s sold so I can stop thinking it’s a possibility and also that it’s still there, that maybe it’s dropped another $15K, maybe even $20K. That a miracle could happen and we could just. make. it. work.
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From the time I was born to when we bought the house I currently live in, I moved twenty-five times. My father worked for the federal government and every couple years he’d get a promotion which meant moving—from North Carolina, to upstate New York, to the heel of New York, to the lower jaw of New Jersey, to north-east Pennsylvania, we lived in rented apartments and condos. A trailer. A few houses, a couple of which we owned for a year or so. All this moving, and perhaps a born-with disposition, created a restlessness in me. Every time I’ve moved as an adult, I’ve thought, OK, but what’s next?
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My husband inherited a 1969 Dodge Charger from his father who passed away in 2016. One of the first things I learned about Jonathon was that he loved the Dukes of Hazard and that someday a bright orange Dodge Charger would be passed down to him. In our friendship years, the Charger felt like a myth, a legend, a thing that worked to construct the character, the person of Jonathon. Something invisible but always there. Like running, it’s core to his himness. When his father passed, we had to find a place for the not-currently-running Charger (our garage is too small) and thankfully his sister had some extra garage space. We towed it 2 hours from Duluth to his sister’s place and, as we drove away, Jonathon said, “Well, looks like we’re going to need to buy a place with a bigger garage.” And I replied, “I think that’s the most American thing you’ve ever said.”
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A week ago we were visiting my dad and his wife who are both ill and declining rapidly. Grief. A week ago we were out on a pontoon, my three nieces out tubing, their hair flying, their faces grinning. They’re at an age where summer is absolute magic. Joy. A week ago a man climbed up to a rooftop, propped up a semi-automatic rife, looked through the weapon’s sights, pulled the trigger and destroyed hundreds of lives. Another mark in the slow butchering of America. Joy that turned rapidly into grief.
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Like I said, our garage is too small. So is the kitchen. We have two cabinets to store food. One cabinet to store Tupperware. The pots and pans are outsourced to the dining room and are contained in an old pie safe I bought off Craigslist and painted strawberry-milkshake pink. There’s approximately 1.5 feet of usable counter space. The bathroom is minuscule too. We have to do a funny little shuffle dance—you go first, shut the door half-closed and then I’ll slip in— to both get in with the baby for bath-time. OK, our whole house is small. I continuously have bruises on my arms and hips and thighs from bumping into furniture that’s just a tish too big. And yet there’s so much to love about it; we’ve poured a lot of tenderness and resources into this place. We painted it from it’s fading brown and white to a crisp blue and white. We redid the entire side yard—had it graded, put in a retaining wall, planted arborvitaes for privacy, fenced it in so the dogs could run. We took out the octopus boiler and put in central air. We redid the hardwood floors. Jonathon has refurbished several of the old, original windows. We put together a nursery and we brought home a baby, something we weren’t sure we’d ever get to do. For better, for worse, we both feel this house is a project we can’t stop fixing even when I tire of the never-ending updating projects.
And our neighborhood is lovely. We live close to a creek and a coffee shop and a florist and a movie theater that plays old movies. 6 restaurants in walking distance. A community center and playground Our doctor and our vet. If I’m ambitious I can even walk to the grocery store and library. It’s a small town feel in a big city. It’s something I once dreamed of, living in a highly walkable neighborhood with greenspace.
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Here, I must acknowledge my privilege for even being able to explore selling and buying a bigger house.
Central to the American Dream ethos is owning a home. The European colonizers—most of white American’s ancestors—did not have the opportunity to own land in their home countries and so they left when they heard America had fertile land “just for the taking”. You only needed to work hard (solidifying the ideology of a meritocracy). This myth, this ingrained core belief in one’s American-ness, often ignores that it’s intertwined with slave labor and genocide. Of killing and manipulating and torture.
It’s something I believe is core to America’s identity crisis. If America is a character, a person, one of its core traumas that it has not yet healed from the first colonizers, and then settlers, oppressing others in the name of fleeing oppression. It’s something that we all have to live with no matter how uncomfortable it makes us. No matter how often we deny or say “well, my ancestors didn’t…” Or, “that was long ago, I’m not harming anyone” if you are white and you are middle and upper class then you are directly privileging from it. This country was built on cotton and it was built on Ford’s assembly line and it was built on outsourcing labor to those who can be exploited.
Owning a home is a path to building wealth in America and yet so many millennials and Gen- Zers are unable to do so. Housing costs have sky-rocketed and many are saddled with enormous student loans. Those below the age of 45 are often stuck—with no college education it’s hard to make enough to afford a starter home and those with a college education are paying high monthly installments towards knocking out that student debt.
As an American, I worked really hard to pay off my debt and build a savings account. But I acknowledge that I had help and that I’m white and I’m a woman and I’m cis-gendered, mid-sized, able bodied. I opted not to take a lot of risks. I often worked three jobs at once. And I was also really lucky to buy when we did.
(Talking about finances is still one of the most taboo topics in American culture but I wonder what would change if we were more open about how we financed major purchases. How much we make, how we made things work. I don’t know. It just seems as though finances are still rooted in the patriarchy—we’re taught it’s shameful to discuss how much we make [or ask others] but sometimes I think it’s because if we knew what others were making, we’d know to perhaps ask for more. And what big boss wants that?)
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We half-heartedly looked at houses when we got married in 2005 knowing we’d never be able to afford one; it was just fun to dream. This was right as house prices were sky-rocketing, barrelling America toward the housing bust of 2007 and the Great Recession of 2008. I wanted to move to another state or overseas but we decided to hunker down and pay off all our consumer debt. We lived in the best apartment in Minneapolis—a view of downtown out our living room and a view of an expansive old English garden from the bedroom. It was right across the street from the Art Institute. In 2009 we started looking at foreclosures and the bank accepted a $60K offer on a little bungalow by a little park. But. It needed work. And we wanted more. So we went graduate school instead.
We bought our current house in what feels like a blip. The market wasn’t really a seller’s or a buyer’s. It was just what we could afford and we offered what they asked. It was house that showed up for sale on the very last day we had to buy something otherwise we needed to find a new place to rent. And we were lucky; we are lucky. the thought of having to double our mortgage (at least) and take out a 30 year loan gives us both anxiety. Housing prices have jumped so much that, as a consumer, houses no longer feel like they are worth the asking price. We are priced out of our neighborhood. Any time I bump into the table, or have to use the stove top as a prep surface, I’m simultaneously frustrated and thankful. I think of the previous owners, Vy and Von who lived here for 65 years and raised four children in this house. I think, if they did it then I can too! Well, not the four children part :)
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The house-that-got-away-and-is-back-on-the-market will sell and not to us. We’re working on a five-year plan for our own house—DIY renovating the bathroom this summer, updating the kitchen next year. The Charger won’t fit in our garage so where will it go? Maybe we’ll stay, maybe we won’t but I want roots in the neighborhood our baby will attend school in. I want clarity and movement and energy towards.
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We all just want a safe place to return to. We want to run errands, see concerts, watch movies, go to parades, workout and have a haven in when we feel secure. We want to be a part of the community and experience joy and delight. We want to ramble with the unpredictability and excitement and then come home to what’s controllable and lay down and rest. We want a nest, a burrow, a cave, something protective, something dependable so we can have the strength to exist out in the chaos of the world.
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Last week we finally got our patio lights up. It took us a week to string two sets of lights. There were the two posts to buy and the holes to dig and the concrete to pour. We had to get the massive heavy ladder out and awkwardly move it around the yard. But finally, we got them up just as the sun set. And they are beautiful. We stood together and looked out at our yard and the lights and Jonathon said, “I don’t want the Charger to dictate our future.” And I said, “I know. It won’t.”
But. When you marry someone, you commit to their dreams as well as your own. Sometimes those dreams conflict but you do what you can to work through them, to support your partner in what drives them, what gives them hope.
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My mother never stopped longing for home, for Virginia. When I’d find her crying and I asked her why, she told me either she was missing Virginia or she was missing her mother who had passed away just after she got married. And I also think of it as home, as the place to return to, something unchanging in all the transience of my youth. The house she lived most of her youth was tiny—2 bedrooms, 1 bath, 800 square feet. When the weather was warm everyone sat on the front porch. My sister and I would rock back and forth in the swinging bench. Most of the adults smoked back then and the smell of tobacco and sand and pines, the feel of humidity on a summer night, the sound of crickets chirping and the fans whirling in the windows is core to my being. Sitting on the porch was a way to pass the time. Neighbors came and went to say hello and gossip a bit. It was front porch culture, something I was sad to learn was not a thing in Minnesota.
The houses surrounding us have concrete steps and, if there is a porch, it is contained in cement, wood, and windows. Our porch is like that and last summer my husband and I took out our windows which opened it up and I spent each morning out there with the dogs and a glass of iced coffee. In the evenings, we’d sit out there and read and wave to our neighbors. It wasn’t quite Virginia—no one came up to sit and shoot the breeze and no one smoked—but in the twilight and with the sound of insects buzzing and my love next to me and surrounded by everything we’ve built and created, well, of course, it felt safe and it felt like home.
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Further Reading: My friend Danielle writes about home often on her Instagram @themusingmum She just started a Substack !