This is The Black Urbanist Weekly, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen Jeffers, an internationally-known urban planner, fiber designer, and contributing editor. This week, I’m sharing a bit of how I continue to find abundance in scarcity of health and wellness, without betraying myself and my health in the process.

This most recent time of lockdown and quarantine isn’t the first time I’ve had to do so in my life. Nor, has this been the first time I’ve had to worry about my health or the health of those around me.

For years I thought was allergic to the sun because it was so hot on my skin. I then learned about people who really are allergic to the sun. However, one time, I slid around our backyard dogwood trees so much, I had a swollen face.

In the moment, I remember my face getting all squishy, and my dad and mom swooping me in the car to what I assume was my pediatrician and to Eckerd Drug for special Benadryl and going to bed for a while until my face became unswollen.

That was the first memory I have of childhood sickness. Other than cases of flu in 1997, and 2013; (fingers crossed) a lengthy cold in the early stages of us considering lockdown in February of 2020; some nasty cuts falling off my bike into gravel that required weeks of penicillin cream, falling face flat in the second grade in front of the school and embracing my new nose shape, and lots of hay fever and colds — I’ve been relatively healthy, as long as I remember to wear my glasses and take my Allegra.

I also learned early, that despite us being in a Black working-class household, health matters. I saw my mom who’d already had a few miracle surgeries (and me, the miracle baby); say enough was enough when her back went out baking holiday cookies and that started her relationship with a chiropractor, along with our primary care team and her OB/GYN. My dad’s stress and our relative privilege with him having a side hustle in the trades allowed him to go to the advertised nice and friendly mental health inpatient facility as needed, even though there were times when we needed state care.

I’ve now learned as I’ve lived with and made friends with so many folks who look “healthy” on the outside, but are just not healthy enough to do capitalism well, that abundance looks like doing what you can to honor wellness and a world that makes it easier for you to forget that your body doesn’t do all the things.

I listened to a meditation recently on the abundance in the midst of scarcity. That meditation was clear that abundance was doing all the things I can do and being grateful for the things I do have in the midst of thinking about what I can’t do and don’t have.

Because as much as I know and have lived what I showed you above, this is the first time in my and many of our lifetimes, the entire globe has been in sync with a common crisis, especially with public health.

And one of the first ways I practice abundance collectively is by doing what I can to make it easier for those who don’t have the same choices. For doing the research to make our planning and architecture work better for those we claim to build for, along with ourselves.

It’s what’s made me create my Black Queer Feminist Urbanist politic — with self and communal care as a political act.

My day-to-day abundance in scarcity means more trail time. Crochet at home and in my masked spaces. Walking through the mall masked. The best iPhone that took these pictures that I’ve highlighted this week. Outdoor fiber festivals. Outdoor music and community festivals. Takeout from all the best places and Whole Foods groceries. Hugging Les as much as possible.

And yes, speaking inconvenient truths, in a way that’s gentle and loving.

I know many of us have moved on from racial and disability justice. Sometimes I have to blink and make sure the calendar says 2022 instead of 2019.

I get why we want to go back. Lockdown wrought unfinished business for many of us.

However, some of that business can still wait. Or, that business needs to be designed so that it can be a universal experience.

I know we aren’t perfect in every space. I was masked, but I wasn’t able to caption or record my remarks at the crochet seminar I did at DC Design Week on Sunday. I’m still working to make sure my alt-text is appropriate. I have been mask-off a bit more in wide outside spaces.

Including this extra image this week because I’m one, proud of this workshop, and two grateful to the team of Eaton DC, Sweet Pea Fiber, and my partner Les for creating another environment where I can be “outside”. (Photo by Les Henderson)

And I feel the scarcity and fear in having to do stuff because people tell you to or feeling like you can’t take time off or still wear a mask or homeschool your children or wear what you want to wear because we live in capitalism and many of us are not in the positions of power to heal ourselves from the entire apparatus. But we do live on the same globe.

Yes, really, the same globe. Let my words today be a meditation bell, a call-to-action, that not only do we need to do the things that make us individually abundant, but that allow our Earth to feed us and heal us and not destroy us as it syncs back into its equilibrium. May we all be well!

By the Way

If you’re new here, I write out my grand thesis of the week above, then I share other articles/videos that were noteworthy for me this week in this section. Apologies in advance for things behind a paywall. Some things I subscribe to and others I grab just before the wall comes down on me. I will start marking these articles and describing them.

Appreciate this breakdown of what an industrial complex is from the women of Zora’s Daughters Podcast This really speaks to me at this moment, as I see so many of us propping up dysfunction instead of empowering people. However, I do want to shout out everyone else I see who is making a true difference. You know who you are and keep on keeping on! Also, shout out to the Arch is Polly podcast and The Streets are Planning Podcast. Yes, for those of you wondering, a return to the mic is coming.

Something else inspiring for me this week was seeing this update on Jewel Pearson’s tiny home near Charlotte. Already my ears were peaked because of Charlotte and a Black woman with a full closet and tub in her tiny home, but this update really speaks to her mission of pushing back against the narrative and the realities of being Black and having a place to call your own, while also in right relationship with the land and resources.

Especially after reading about this Detroit situation of how Tomeka Langford lost her home and it ended up as part of one of those $1/free house programs that were extra hyped in the last decade. The only inspiration here is that the person who got that home after her, who is writing the article, continued to seek after her, but unfortunately other people advised her to stop looking and push forward with legal challenges before getting to this point of joint advocacy.

And once again speaking of Charlotte, time to let the I-277 loop go. Use this as an opportunity for some reparations and restoration, but as we saw in this skylines article(paywalled), it might not happen for real because there’s more incentive to move on to a less equitable future.

And LA, my answer to this LA times headline(paywalled) is that you all can heal and form stronger racial coalitions. I also found this interesting article(paywall) that really digs into how intra-Native relations can be fraught in a country still reckoning with how it wants to see race.

Before You Go

Check out some special announcements from me and friends of the platform.

Advertising in this section has helped people find jobs and new opportunities. It also gets you and your newfound commitments to solidarity, justice, belonging, and equity in front of those who are your backbone and base of those commitments. Learn more on how you can purchase ad space!

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Learn how and what you can book me for 2022 and 2023

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If you want to support me for any reason, but don’t need anything in return, you can donate to my capital campaign, or Venmo or Cash. App me.

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My bookshelf over at Bookshop.org is very much alive and well, purchase your copies of the books I talked about above, plus more that I’ve designated part of the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist canon, the general urbanism canon, and other lists because you can never have too many books.

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It’s scarf season and it’s a great time to learn how to make a Kristfinity Scarf! Or make something out of crochet. Special thanks to EatonDC (where I’m a resident fellow this year) and Sweet Pea Fiber (where you might see me at maker’s night just like on the website on Wednesdays) for helping me make my DC Design Week event this year a success!

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I’ll be live on LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube talking about everything I mentioned above and then some for my Open Studio/Office Hours at 4 eastern. Don’t worry if you can’t watch live, it will be archived publicly on all spaces.

Until next time,

Kristen