I’ve been gardening a lot, trying to spend time closer to the earth. And it has had me thinking about why, even in times when all our man-made systems are failing, so many of us are still pushed further and further from the earth that can sustain us. And it has had me exploring these connections to our current political environment, and efforts to force us all into a definition of “health” that keeps us isolated from others and ourselves.

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Well here's one of those. A little teary update from Boston

Here’s another little video I made the other day, just processing some thoughts around healing. Every day I take a few long walks and often that’s when my mind decides I can handle thinking through some of the hard things, and it’s not very fun.

I think most of us are feeling pretty damn unsafe right now and trying to figure out how to care for ourselves in these unsafe times. I hope that this helps in some way. If you need captions, auto-captions for Substack videos are best viewed on desktop.

Love you all.

Ijeoma Oluo: Behind the Book is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Note: for some reason the auto-captions often only work on the desktop. So if you aren’t seeing the captions on your phone, give that a try. I hope that Substack expands these capabilities soon.

Ijeoma Oluo: Behind the Book is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.