Unraveling, with Brooke Baldwin

Dearest Unravelers and Unravelers-to-Be – 

Hello beautiful humans. How are you today? I’m sitting here on my old NYC sofa (in LA) wrapped in blankets and just feeling THE coziest. Woke up at 5:30am — gotta say, I love an early morning. Who else is an early riser? I used to be such a night owl (remember being in college when we wouldn’t even start going out until midnight?!). Funny, I was watching Michelle Obama on Amy Poehler’s podcast yesterday, and she was like: “Yep, Barack and I have dinner at 6:30pm, and by 8pm I’m already fantasizing about crawling into bed!” She sets her thermostat to a cool 68 degrees, is all about slipping into her “cool sheets” and whenever her night owl / former-President husband comes to bed she basically threatens him with murder if he so much as thinks about changing the thermostat. Anyone been there?? Oh yes, the thermostat was a huge sticking point in my previous marriage. (I swear it’s not the reason I’m no longer married…) But especially when you’re a lady of a certain age when your body starts to give you the middle finger, men: don’t f*ck with the thermostat. 🔪 🔪 🔪

Okay, that’s my PSA for the day.

Let’s talk about the power of meditation and how it relates to our Unraveling. Anyone meditate out there? I bet a bunch of you do. I’m a really good mediator most of the time, but this last stretch I’ve been terrible. Between stuff piling on here at home and before that, flying to New York to basically be emotional support for Peter as he’s been the dutiful son caring for his 92 year old parents, I just haven’t made the time for myself. And it’s really caught up with me. By the way, all of you caregivers of elderly parents will appreciate this: wanna know the latest with Peter’s parents? After Peter and his sis worked dutifully and diligently to move their parents out of their decades-old cozy apartment in New York and into assisted living in Connecticut (close to Peter’s sis)… their parents took one look around at the 80 and 90-year olds in the facility and did everything shy of staging a coup. The end result: they’re now moving back to NYC and back into their apartment. After everything. At least they’ll be happy — even if that means being back in harm's way. I mean, any 20-something in Manhattan has to be Jedi-level fast to dart out of the way of those maniacal food delivery bikers. Can you imagine being 92 and trying to cross the street?! Anyway. God speed. My heart goes out to Peter and his sister. It’s been more complicated than I’m sharing — suffice to say, it’s been, as Peter put it: “a horrible adventure.”

So I finally made time for myself to meditate this morning. And as I did, something surprising happened. Does this ever happen to you? A vision, a feeling, a song, a face emerges in the sacred space of breath? You know what came to me? This image of me as a little girl, maybe 12 or 13, savoring my alone time (I’ve always enjoyed my alone time) in our hammock in my backyard of my childhood home in Atlanta. I had my Sony discman — remember those? And I played this one CD over and over and over. Arrested Development’s groundbreaking 1992 album called 3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life of… 

The music encompassed themes I (a 13 year old privileged white girl living in suburban Atlanta) would know absolutely nothing about: Black identity and empowerment, poverty and social injustice, spirituality and hope, and community and ancestral connection. But what came flooding back today as I was in mediation was how this album made me feel. This music planted very early seeds for me about injustice and race and God. Issues that I think a lot about today — and covered so much of in my years as an anchor at CNN. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the last story I covered before signing off the air: the trial in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. I’ve also been reading Tina Knowles’ Matriarch. The first section of her book is all about the injustices but also the beauty of growing up Black in Galveston, TX. All of this is deeply swirling within me.

I sit here today with so many of the same questions — but my backyard hammock, that album and my discman marked a pretty impactful time in my young life. I remember when the lead singer Speech started following me on Instagram some years ago. I DM’d him very briefly thanking him for impacting me as a little girl.

As I think about my Unraveling today — I find myself thinking so much about my earlier years and moments like that, mulling issues way bigger than myself at the time and developing a real sense of curiosity and urgency around them. Those seeds that (I believe) were Divinely planted early are seeds that feel profoundly relevant to who I am today, what I want to do and who I am becoming and unbecoming… in my Unraveling.

My point is — PAY ATTENTION. I’m finding in my Unraveling, these are breadcrumbs. The things that mattered so much to us as children are just as relevant, just as powerful in our lives today in our coming home to ourselves.

I’m curious what your hammock / Arrested Development moment is. Drop a comment below. What was it and how is it shaping your Unraveling today?

Not to bury the lead, but I have some BIG news. It’s the kind of news that JUST HAPPENED this week. And it’s now living entirely in my body. And while I am insanely excited — I am also slightly terrified. (Read: TERRIFIED.)

Would you like to guess what it might be?

Here are some options:

1. I’m getting married (again).

2. I’m giving a TED Talk.

3. I’m going back to TV.

4. I’m unfreezing my eggs and going for it.

Keep scrolling or subscribe to find out!!!