Unrooted

The second in a series of guided walks/visualizations in order to help us find calm in the outdoors, during a time when we are collectively staying indoors more than ever due to COVID-19. This visualization takes us to the desert, the desert of your choice.

Because of the fact that many of us have to stay indoors right now, staying away from some of our favorite places in nature, here is a guided walk in the woods, to an alpine lake high in the mountains. Similar to a guided meditation, may this bring a bit of calm to your day. May it also bring a bit of the outdoors to you.

Just after I’d moved to NYC I was looking for things to make the east coast feel like home, so, when my friend Gale Straub invited me on a snowshoeing trip in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, I clung to the idea like a little life-raft. I talk to Gale about the many things that make up her home, and to her twin sister Lora, who is part of Gale’s home.

Homesick...in a new home: I move into my new apartment in NYC and a giant wave of homesickness swallows me whole. We bear witness to a love story as Vanessa Pamela Friedman moves to the east coast and writes a million love letters to Portland, OR. My sister Shelly looks into her past and articulates different ways homesickness has appeared in her life.

I don’t love packing or unpacking. But I love the in-between movement, the actual act of moving your body from one place to another. In this episode that touches on my drive from LA to NYC, we find a celebration of motion, movement, moving, migration, and all that comes along with it.

In this episode we talk to writer, long-distance cyclist, and travel nurse, Mary Ann Thomas, a queer brown daughter of Indian immigrants, about home, home in migration, and home in movement.

Episode three of UN/ROOTED is a love letter to anyone who has ever had to pack their stuff and move, to anyone who has ever had to watch friends leave, and to all the friendships that can transcend time and space.

In this episode I’m delving into the "home of my heart". After pinpointing this home, we talk to Jolie Varela, founder of Indigenous Women Hike. She leads us through the history and landscape of her homeland, Payahuunadü, and tells about the Nüümü people, her journey along the Nüümü Poyo, and about this special place, the place of flowing waters.

"What is home? Where is home? How do you know you're home?" I begin to lay the groundwork for why I am asking these questions about home, I go back to the beginning, and I talk with a few of my family members…all of whom are seemingly more rooted and have a less fraught sense of what home is.

Welcome to UN/ROOTED, a podcast about home. Here's a taste of what season one will include.