I moved into an apartment in an old mill building in Biddeford, Maine in February of this year. Although I have a daughter, grandsons, and a brother and his family who live in Portland (twenty minutes away), I knew no one in this town.

I stayed in touch, of course, with my friends in Northampton, MA, where I had lived for 34 years, and had book-coaching clients all over the US whom I met with over Zoom. But...