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.

Smell the sagebrush, listen to the wind, bask in the warmth, shout across the desert.

Bonus episode produced, sound designed, and scored by Julie Hotz.

Similar to a guided meditation, here is a guided walk in the woods, to a high alpine lake. In response to COVID-19, most of us are confined close to our homes, in our homes, or wherever we can find a place to hang tight. This means a lot less outdoors time for a lot of us, which can be really tough mentally to be away from places that restore and give us so much, in a time when we need it the most. There is a collective homesickness in the air. So this guided walk is to help take you to a place, a home, that is inaccessible at the moment, you can walk around here, sit with your thoughts and feelings, and enjoy the sounds.

If you would like more of these guided meditations reach out and let me know!

For all the show notes, including pictures of Gale and Lora, go to the episode landing page!

UN/ROOTED is back from a little hiatus, a mid season hiatus! We’re picking back up where we left off, 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.

In this episode we talk to Gale Straub, the founder of She Explores.

Find out more about Gale on her website. Follow @galestraub on Instagram and Twitter.

Check out the She Explores, and follow She Explores on Instagram and Twitter.

Listen to the She Explores podcast. (Listen on Spotify, Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.)

Read Gale’s full article “On Constants and Holidays”

We also talk to Lora Straub, Gale’s twin sister.

Follow Lora on Instagram and you can find some of her poetry here.

We hear a few seconds at a live venue of the song Juniper Arms by Adam Torres.

Listen and Watch Juniper Arms.

Learn more about Adam Torres.

Watch his Tiny Desk Concert here.

Listen to him on Spotify.

We talk about #vanlife. Here’s some resources:

Diversify Vanlife Instagram

Gnomad Home: “Diversify Vanlife and How to be a Strong Ally”

The Vanlife App

Women on the Road Podcast

A take on the monetization of #vanlife through social media (2017 New Yorker Article)

This episode contains a brief mention of sexual assault.

National Sexual Assault Hotline/Website (RAINN.org)

Most people have experienced some sort of homesickness. In this episode we talk about both short and long forms of homesickness as I arrive in NYC and settle into a full blown state of missing the west coast. 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.

Some tears are shed, Cheryl Strayed is mentioned, and questions are asked: Is homesickness more about missing people or a place?

You can follow Vanessa on Twitter @vanessapamela and on Instagram @vanessatakesphotos, sign up for her newsletter "I Miss You" and view the newsletter archive to read all the "Home" newsletters (the letter quoted in this episode was "Home, VII").

Read Vanessa's full piece "I Don't Know How to Say Goodbye, So I Wrote You This Instead." And check out the latest issue of Autostraddle 'Outsiders'.

You can find Shelly on Instagram @shellyblacketer, where you'll often find photos of cute Kai.

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.

Follow Mary Ann Thomas on Instagram @postcardsfrommat

Buy Asking for Elephants, the chapbook that Mary Ann co-authored with Daniel Baylis: Independent Option! Corporate option (Amazon).

Want to hear more of Mary Ann Thomas… check out these podcasts:

She Explores Episode 83: Bike Touring is About More Than Just Bikes

Real Talk Radio with Nicole Antoinette: Mary Ann Thomas on Long-Distance Cycling, Vulnerability, and Giving Yourself What You Need.

Or read some of what Mary Ann has written:

She Explores: Road Trip in a Red State

Autostraddle: Unlikely Hikers: Creating Space For Everyone On The Trail, One Group Hike At A Time

And thanks to @AddyPolet for submitting a voice memo that was included in this episode. Find Addy here!

Also, I made a short playlist Spotify playlist based on some of the music that I listened to while writing the “Movement” episode script. Find the playlist here!

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 pack up all my stuff, get ready to move from Los Angeles to NYC, and say my goodbyes.

We talk to my childhood friend Bonnie Burke, who moved from Texas to New Jersey as a kid, did she think her move was as glamorous as I envisioned it to be as a kid?

We also talk about long distance moves and true home with my friend Paul Seetachitt, a filmmaker in Los Angeles, who moved a lot as a kid, and as an adult moved with his wife Barrington (aka “B”) from Los Angeles to Australia, from Australia to Tallahassee, FL, and from Tallahassee back to Los Angeles.

Follow UN/ROOTED on Twitter and Instagram @unrootedpodcast

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.

We learn that the real name of the John Muir Trail is the Nüümü Poyo.

Learn more about Jolie and Indigenous women hike:
Indigenous Women Hike Website
Indigenous Women Hike Instagram

Read more about Jolie’s hike along the Nüümü Poyo last summer (2018):
Hiking the Nüümü Poyo: An Act of Love by Indigenous Women - by Tazbah Chavez

Learn more about the Bishop Paiute Tribe.

Additional resources:

Native Land Website: a great resource for learning about who’s land you are living and recreating on. (Also available as an app for your smartphone!)

Suggested book to read: Dispossessing the Wilderness, by Mark David Spence

Environmentalism’s Racist History - New Yorker

From Yosemite to Bear’s Ears, Erasing Native Americans from U.S. National Parks - Collectors Weekly

A Brief History of L.A’s Indigenous Tonvga People - LAist

Also in this episode:

We listen to a voice memo from Hiranya de Alwis Jayasinghe, and she tells us what home means to her. Read Hiranya’s blog here: Life Moves in Cycles

As an adult, I’ve had trouble putting my finger on home, but last year really made me take a deeper look into the question of “Where is home?” The idea for this podcast was born out of struggling with the concept of home as I unexpectedly moved from Los Angeles to NYC last year. Instead of trying to sweep the discomfort of homesickness and uncertainty under the rug, I wanted to lean into the questions of "What is home?" and “How do you know you’re home?” I believe everybody has a home story and I've always been fascinated by these stories… whether someone has lived in the same place their whole life or they live on the road, whether home is a physical space, a smell, a food, a community, or something that is unknown.

Though this season will include a lot of my own story, it is just the thread that links many stories together. Each week we’ll hear from different people who will share their perspectives on home.

In this episode: "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.

**Featured in this episode: **
My paternal grandmother (Mimi)
My Dad (Ed)
My sister (Jenna - @jixi)

Shout out to my Mom and two youngest sisters who didn’t appear in this episode but are just as big a part of my life. xoxo

Listen to the first episode below (or find it on your favorite podcast app):

CALL FOR VOICE SUBMISSIONS! I want to hear what home means to you, to include your thoughts in an upcoming episode. Is “home” a specific place, a ritual you have, an object, a person, a food, a smell, a mindset, or something you’re still trying to find? All answers are welcome, whether traditional, funny, out there, or heartbreaking. Record a short voice memo on your phone or computer and send it to [email protected]. Don’t forget to include your name in the voice memo. I won’t be able to include every voice submission, but I can’t wait to listen to them all. (Fine print: By submitting a voice memo, you are allowing UN/ROOTED to use your submission in whole or part, in any upcoming episode.)

If you enjoyed this podcast please: Leave a review or rating on your favorite podcast app, follow @unrootedpodcast on Twitter and Instagram, tell a friend, or share about it on social media.

Show hosted and produced by Julie Hotz @julieahotz All music for this episode was composed by myself.

Unrooted is a podcast about home—the places we find ourselves living in and moving through, literally and figuratively, expected and unexpected, temporarily and long term. We touch on belonging, homesickness, gentrification, borders, the history of the places we love, etc.

In season one host Julie Hotz will take you on her cross country move, we’ll explore homesickness, embrace a new city, weather unexpected surprises, and become comfortable with uncertainty and new transitions. We have conversations about home with friends near and far and hear the home stories of people across the country and the globe.

You can follow UN/ROOTED on Instagram and Twitter. Hosted by @julieahotz.

Website.