From Eviction to a Crossing: When Survival Becomes a Site of Transformation

Observation of transitory moments, that when they do arrive, cut the cord to so many of the things that came before… from what is yet to come. And it is a damn good thing the fairies know where we are.

Here we are, without a proper ceremony nor cliffs notes on the path forward. The quiet drive home after the last day of steady employment, with a half smile on my face, my belly full of butterflies swimming around in my goo, and the silence of my footfalls as I climb the stairs because the elevator has been inoperable for 4+ years.

Housing Instability for Artists and Death Doulas Is Rising

Transporter doors open up in the strangest of places.  They used to look like contracts of dread, accidental broken glass, upended dreams leading to some unforsaken land that will crush you.  This time I started an intentional journal to track the daily emails, the bank balance budget, actions to sit with a nothingness mind and cease my running away.  Days continued to months.  The jig was finally up, the landlord plus debt became like an overextended final act.

For nearly a decade, I worked as an independent contractor in a role that provided a stability not found before in my 40 years of working for others.  It was not luxurious or high stakes, but it was just more than enough.  I was able to live, make visits with my family and friends, contribute to my communities, and make choices for my continued education.  The last one mattered ever so much.

What Happens When Stable Contract Work Disappears

Along the 8 year employment journey, I made it through the lockdown, sweating the entire way.  Then, it happened, due to broader economic shifts such as tariffs, restructuring, decisions made far outside of my control, the work disappeared.  I cleared out my locker and the air smelled different outside the shop.
What the hell…

What followed was an effort of such sheer massiveness, unlike what I was used to after other unhoused realizations hit me in the gut.  This time my kinetic energy level was sustained and relentless, not taking but giving.  The daily job applications, networking across industries, embracing over twenty years of experience in art, care work, and community engagement.  Within a month after the belly butterflies, I was selling personal belongings, taking on underpaid labor, and continuing relationships until…
until the bottom dropped out of the passenger side floor.

The Hidden Reality of the Gig Economy for Care Workers

There had been no lack of discipline, no lack of skill, no lack of care, but because we are living in an economy that increasingly fails the very people who sustain its cultural, emotional, creative, and communal life.  My past was in my way?  I have asked myself so many questions, dug up costumes from the back of the closet, and I have also buried bodies of thoughts with the strife of humanity strapped to their backs.  I have had to listen to the derogatory excuses thrown at me and eaten shame from the laps of disappointment.

It is intensely difficult to not understand that this story, this is not an isolated story.  This is an antique hardcover in the stacks of every library.  I am not a genius to recognize patterns and processes across the United States and beyond. Artists, death doulas, caregivers, and independent workers have been experiencing years upon years of precarity.  You have to be bendy, support your unsustainable system, mask up and risk your life to be of service to the collapse hanging over every worker’s head like a meteor target.

Eviction Is Not a Personal Failure, This is a Systemic Pattern

And this crossing I stepped into, this is where the story begins.  I do not have the motorhome, nor each moment completely in a row, step by step.  The ways I knew before are no more.  Poof!  When I try to search for them, another expansion takes its place.  To say that gratefulness is the word, misses the target.  The plan seems to be that this mindset works and maintains balance, tiny slips out of place sometimes, but my personal community keeps me safe from the mud.

A Death Doula Perspective On Liminal Space and Transition

In my curious understanding, there are traditions where this liminal space is honored as a necessary passageway or crossing point.  A place of discombobulated, upside down living, yes, however, the possibilities for peace lead the way.  There is an entire world upon worlds inside every living thing.  It lifts our face to the sun and screams into the open forest void.

In deathcare, these transit spaces with other living things understand these spaces intimately.  We sit with people, places, and animals in transition.  We witness the space between what was and what will be.  We know that transformation often looks, at first, like loss.

Beginning Again: From Survival to Possibility

This project emerges from that same understanding.  Rather than treating eviction as an endpoint, my choice is to hold ceremony regularly, move into spaces where my work continues to grow within myself and overflows throughout community engagement.  My barefoot feet have crossed into a deeper forest of my expertise.  There is a comfortability with a home that is not fixed.  It is an opportunity to integrate nomadic wanderings with archival documentation.  My aim is stability and what that looks like in motion.  An embrace with movement in order to sturdy the foundation for something collective.

Clove watches and observes the shifting surroundings, the different presence schedule, more connection time.  She will stay alongside me while we are in the midst of instability.  We are expanding together.  Our care for one another is true.

Reimagining Home After Eviction

My imagination is intact.  Over the coming weeks, as the movements increase in speed, there is a heap more to share.  If you are part of the deathcare ecosystem in response to social injustice, an artist that finds life near cemeteries and dead things, community organizers who change systems, warrior caregivers in need of a respite, or an observer of social, cultural fabrics…
you have some story to tell in conversation.

Please come find me.

Be a Connection with Conversation and Community

• share directly with your audience

• feature the work and story in a newsletter or social channels

• explore a small partnership or matching campaign

SHARE: https://undertheroot.studio/artist-cat-clove-motorhome-updates

GOFUNDME: https://www.gofundme.com/f/motorhome-for-artist-and-clove

CONTACT: https://undertheroot.studio/contact

Quick Answers to Frequently Asked Questions

What led to this housing transition?

This transition followed the sudden loss of long term contract work due to economic shifts, combined with the challenges of sustaining income as an independent artist and care worker. Despite ongoing efforts to secure employment, housing became unsustainable, leading to eviction.

Is housing instability common for artists and care workers?

Yes. Many artists, death doulas, and caregivers rely on contract or freelance work without consistent income or benefits, making them especially vulnerable to housing instability during economic disruptions.

Why frame eviction as a crossing?

In both life transitions and deathcare practices, a crossing represents a space between endings and beginnings. Framing eviction this way acknowledges the difficulty while also recognizing the potential for imagination and transformation.

What does reimaging home mean in this context?

A reimagining of home means creating then building a form of safety and stability outside traditional housing systems. An alternative that is adaptable, malleable, mobile, and aligned with the realities of our present day workflow.

Have a question not listed here? This project is built through conversation, please reach out or connect.

Writings by Jennifer M Brown of Under the Root

Presence-based death doula goods and support services for individuals and loved ones navigating death, dying, grief, and transitional thresholds.

A House on Wheels, A Life in Motion: Why One Death Doula Artist Is Choosing the Road

This is my present day juggle and the facts surrounding it are not for the faint of heart. This story is about what someone does when loss, survival, and hope collide at once.

I will begin with the endings.

After eight years with one tiny company and heaps of steady production work, as an independent contractor, my position was suddenly lost, evaporated before my very eyes. There was no lack of skill or commitment; the much broader economic forces shifted beneath my feet and disappeared the carpet from underneath. Tariffs changed the landscape and the higher ups made the decision to reign in their budget numbers. After the cut, I was left with not a large enough savings and no unemployment cushion. The absence of stability is what welcomed me when I landed home that night.

I pretended all was well and walked with curious, tiny steps of forward motion. The employment landscape was assessed by locating and targeting employment opportunities with daily applications. My years of experience began to mobilize in search of something sustainable. Community outreach, odd jobs, and selling personal belongings were a way to keep the cupboards full for myself and cat Clove. The volunteer work continued, the studying continued on. I dropped every possible subscription, insurance, and any extras to escape the ground giving way completely.

Until, the math of the time stopped working in my favor; the rent debt needed to be confronted with a decision. The landlord can not wait, eviction followed. The system wants you to believe in your failure and often leaves no margin for disruption in order to do so. I am now in the present moment, every moment, and here is where I shift the predictable, downward narrative into an expedition. A journey where my cat Clove and I are wildly tending to our survival by being within our community of becoming.

The Ending of Predictability

We faced the housing instability head on, again. We have been here many times. Normally, I am pushed into survival mode, grappling for a safe, sturdy home. This time feels slightly different. I am different, with so much help along the way of this life. My narrative no longer has room to be torn apart, thrown to the jail cell of impoverished survival, nor am I able to accept this predictable outcome.

There is an idea that comes through as simple on the surface, purchase a motorhome, make the adjustments for livability, and turn the hobbit house on wheels into both shelter, field base, and studio. Underneath that simplicity brews something more intentional; a woven platform for ways to travel and document and connect.

This expedition and journey will not be able to offer potable water if it is just about me. The journey lives at the intersection of expansive systems; an ethereal bond between art and deathcare. And in this bonded space is where explorations are happening with how we understand mortality, ritual, grief, and care across cultures. The plan is to move through different communities, actively listening and documenting, while emboldening cultural humility, ethical practices, and informed consent among our deathcare ecosystem. This narrative holds a space of place where we build a kind of living archive about how humans tend to death and each other.

It feels practical and poetic, as the necessity transforms into a mission.

Clove, the Companion

This newly written narrative does not unfold completely without a witness. Alongside my person is Clove. A feline I rescued six years ago, July 2020. She came from a 50 cat colony in a forest encampment miles away from where she is now. Feisty Felines scooped her up, one of the seven cats that asked to be rescued from that site.

I still have that video of her on the adoption page; she looked terrified, insecure, and absolutely ready for a different life. Clove is small in size but significant in presence for me. She is not just a pet, but a constant in a life that is about to become anything but constant. In these moments where work, housing, and routine have given way to quicksand, Clove represents our continuity.

The Reality Beneath the Vision

It certainly will be foolish to romanticize this expedition and journey. Images of the glorious open road with golden hour landscapes and dewy morning breezes; a wandering creative life unbound by rent or routine. I have been on the road before this and understand the reality can be much more turbulent than a simple and whimsical story. Besides, the underlying tapestry of this project runs far deeper into the ground. The motorhome is only part of the story. With the monies and the urgent time constraints, the most viable vehicle found needs to be titled, insured, repaired, and made structurally sound. It also needs to be safe and functional and weatherproofed for livability. The motorhome is the foundational phase of a far-reaching vision.

A Different Kind of Map

What is standing out to me most is that through the fog of hardship is a lighthouse. Instead of describing these moments as purely crisis, my mind is choosing a vision quest. I am selling my belongings, releasing long standing connections with my past lives, and becoming deliberate with my directional compass. The bridgework of this motorhome mystery tour leads to networks of connections that link people, places, and practices across a broader landscape of deathcare and culture. The map may not properly or perfectly exist yet, however, the actions revolve around moving through the world with listening, documenting, and participating in order to be present within the process of drawing it.

The Ask of Narration

From the core of my being, this is a story written about what happens when stability disappears, resilience resurrects, and a rebuild stands in its absence. This is a heavier lift than one story about one person trying to buy a motorhome. There are difficult questions and decisions to be made on a dime. There are even more unearthing questions which are happening deeper inside about home, place, value, and purpose. What does it look like to keep connecting with meaning and art when the ground is so winding and uncertain?

The Road Ahead

Right now, the goal is modest and immediate. We raise enough to build a safe, functional living space. The larger quest of vision stretches out farther, expanding to a moving home, a present day archive build, and root tending with care, culture, and conversation. Somewhere in the eye of this expedition and journey, between the breakdown and reinvention, a gentle stream of stability is waiting to emerge.

Be a Connection with Conversation and Community

• share directly with your audience

• feature the work and story in a newsletter or social channels

• explore a small partnership or matching campaign

SHARE: https://undertheroot.studio/artist-cat-clove-motorhome-updates

GOFUNDME: https://www.gofundme.com/f/motorhome-for-artist-and-clove

CONTACT: https://undertheroot.studio/contact

Created by Jennifer M Brown of Under the Root

Presence-based death doula goods and support services for individuals and loved ones navigating death, dying, grief, and transitional thresholds.

The Quietest Deaths Are Often the Most Prepared

I have now been present for many deaths. Some felt chaotic and full of scrambling, confusion, conflict over what the person may have wanted. Others felt spacious, intentional, with the humans and animals in the room knowing exactly what to do and were being just that. The difference between these two experiences was not luck or by accident. The reasoning underneath the calm serenity is not the illness, the timeline, or even the family dynamics. It is the keen awareness of preparation.

What Preparation Actually Looks Like at the Threshold

When someone has leaned into the groundwork for their death, you can feel the resonance in the room and in the softness on faces. There is less panic and second-guessing. Quite a bit less of questions around what do we do now?

Most of the questions have already been discovered, answered, and shared:
What does this person value and desire at their transitional threshold most?
What kind of care do they choose at this time?
Who is their trusted loved one to make decisions?
What will help them feel care and support?

The precious loved ones and community are not guessing with answers to these questions. They are following a treasure map that the most important participant created for them, and that preparation most often has changed every thing.

I supported a person who had spent quite a few months preparing for their death. Instructions, ideas, additions, and deletions were made nearly every year. They were not dying imminently. No, they truly were gracious and placed a heap of care into how they were meant to meet their transitional threshold.

They clarified their values. They spoke with their loved ones and their community members. They documented the wishes. They laid groundwork for their priorities and essentials. They imagined the details of environment that they desired. More recently, they stepped into the remaining weeks, and there was no scrambling nor chaos.

The community of loved ones had a firm grasp on what truly mattered to their person’s death. They understood that the choice was comfort over intervention. They were aware that their person wanted ambient music and nature sounds, shadowy lighting, the smell of fresh air, and their sibling’s hand in theirs. The community did not have to linger with questions above their heads. They did not have room to argue. They did not have to later entertain the wonder if they had made the right choices. They just had to be with each other and that is specifically what their person wanted.

The Cost of Remaining Elusive

On the flipside, I have also witnessed what happens when someone has not dug into preparation. The loved ones and community gather. Decisions need to be made and yet no one knows what their person wanted and wished for. One person blurted out, they will have wanted everything done. Another person stated, no, they will have not wanted to suffer like this. And just like that, suddenly the room was not about their person dying. It had become about the other’s conflict.

The person took their last breath. The community of loved ones were left with guilt, regret, and unanswered questions. Did we do the right things for them? Will they have wanted the dying process to look and feel like this? Why did we remain elusive with this topic? Why did we not have open conversations when we had the time?

This is some of the cost of avoidance and not just for the person dying but for the peoples left behind. I write these narratives not to impose guilt, to impress and embolden agency. The security of your wishes are protected and desired, if not only for yourself, for a community that is showing up for you as you have done so for them.

What People Wish They Had Known Earlier

There are some common themes that continue to show up from loved ones, communities, and family members after a death. They mention that they wish there had been more conversations about their wishes earlier, and they wish for more time. It is extremely rare that I hear that they are disappointed that there were conversations about their death priorities, values, essentials, and goals or that the conversations about their preferances made things worse.

I have named the preparation, death groundwork. When someone decides to have the groundwork done early, it is profoundly gentle and most of all offers clarity. It removes pressure instead of adding it to the mix. Because preparation done in crisis is brutal. It gives people all kinds of feels and is rushed. It hangs heavy in the air without breathing room. It often comes too late to make the choices you really want. Whereas, the people who prepare early and who have the awkward conversations, who clarify their values and who document their wishes. They do not regret it, not once.

The people who wait, do not carve out time, or do not feel a source of agency? They almost always wish they had started sooner.

The Relief That Comes with Preparation

A breadth for you to ponder a handful of things:
Preparation is not morbid, not pessimistic, not giving up or in. I believe death groundwork to be one of the most generous, life affirming things you can do for you and the community surrounding you, especially you. You are able to meet death with clarity, and even companionship, instead of the chaos. Your community is spared from impossible decisions and unnecessary guilt. Your preparation creates the conditions for presence instead of panic. That seems to be what the quietest deaths have in common.

The Invitation

If you are reading this and your ears begin to wiggle, a smile or something in you has begun a stirring, or if you find yourself thinking well this is interesting and I want to do that. And if you are listening to your body’s desire for grounding, I am here to help build a bridge with you.

You do not need a crisis to prepare. You do not need a diagnosis. You do not need anything other than the recognition that death is coming for all of us, and while it is one of the most natural thresholds for all living things, you will much rather meet it consciously and curiously. Take the time to create the conditions for you to be supported with your lightness of being. The quietest deaths are the most prepared ones.

Why Death Groundwork Gives Your Nervous System a Rest

Most people avoid death groundwork because they think it will make life feel more weighted and heavy. They imagine that thinking about their own death will create more fear, more anxiety, more dread. The opposite of those imaginings are actually true.

The Hidden Weight You are Carrying

There is a specific kind of tension most people carry without realizing it and it has been normalized, accepted, and lives rent free in the background of our lives. It is quiet and constant and barely noticeable until it has nearly disappeared completely. This weight shows up when death is mentioned casually or in passing. It makes itself known when a loved one gets sick or when you see an article about estate planning and immediately scroll past it.

You find that your body braces, your breath shortens, and your mind says not now and moves on. The avoidance of your death is not because you are weak or unprepared. You are avoiding it because you do not have a comfortable place to put the notion of death. Unfamiliar things that we have no language or structure for feel threatening even when the truth is that they will not harm you. The weight of being unprepared carries fear and is exhausting. Death is inevitable. Death groundwork is your lantern for the path.

What Groundwork Actually Does

When you develop groundwork for death, you are not inviting death to come more quickly. You are carving out a space for your nervous system to have somewhere to land and be safe. Some of the phrases that support the space are:
I have thought about this.
I have some clarity.
I know what I do want.
I know what I do not want.
I have communicated it to the people I trust.

Your body will indeed register these phrases as safety. Death does not suddenly feel fine, the unknown becomes slightly less unknown. You have turned the scrambling into orientation and the bracing into breathing. I have been ever so grateful to have watched this shift happen over and over. Someone shows up with me carrying so many years of avoidance. Their shoulders are tight, their breath is shallow, their mind spinning with the knowing that preparation is something they are supposed to do but unclear as to where or how to begin.

We have a conversation that prompts its beginning. We clarify what matters most. We imagine the transitional threshold. We make a few key decisions. We document the essential. We have not solved all the things, but the weight of undone work has been lifted away.

Groundwork as Relief, Not a Burden

Death groundwork is the relief valve for uncertainty. Not in a morbid now I am ready to die way, instead, in a now I can stop thinking about this and actually live way. Because once some groundwork is there to support you, you are no longer spending mental and emotional energy avoiding the inevitable. You are not carrying guilt about conversations you have not had the space to have. You are not worrying about leaving your loved ones with impossible decisions. You are not holding your breath every time death comes up.

You have done the groundwork and now you are free.

The Practical Benefits

Beyond the emotional relief, groundwork also offers practical benefits.
For you there is clarity about what you want, agency over your own transitional threshold, and a steadfast confidence that your wishes and desires will be honored. For your loved ones, the guessing is extinguished, conflict over what you may have wanted disappears, and any scrambling to make decisions in a crisis is averted. Your care community feels much less chaos or regrets and a whole heap of unnecessary suffering is dramatically reduced.

These are not small, insignificant things. They are the difference between a death that feels warm and comforting and one that feels chaotic or out of control.

You Do Not Need to Do Everything

Another gigantic misconception about death groundwork is that it has to be complete to be valuable. It does not. You do not need a 50-page document nor do you need every contingency mapped. There is no need for perfect certainty in every single decision.

Some of the few key decisions that remove the most common points of crisis:

• Who you trust to make decisions if you are unable

• What quality of life means to you

• Whether you prioritize longevity or comfort

• One person who knows where your documents are

Those few choices are some of the ones that matter most when death arrives. They are the difference between chaos and clarity, and they do not take months to figure out. They involve the willingness to embrace your decisions.

The Freedom Waiting for You

If, by chance, you have been avoiding death groundwork because you think it will make your life feel heavier, I do want you to know that the weight you are carrying now, the weight of avoidance, is heavier than the work itself. Death groundwork is liberation. It is the gift of ground beneath you. The relief of knowing. The freedom of living without constant background fear.

You do deserve that.