How to leave a life
On why I wrote "Instructions for Traveling West"
Each month, I share reflections on writing, creativity and making slow chewy art. This newsletter is always free.
I didn’t write for nearly 8 years. Well, to be fair, I did write email campaigns and landing pages and flashy paragraphs called brand narratives which read like bad poems but occasionally still made my clients cry. I worked hard and got promotions and always felt a little impressive when I ordered Manhattans on the company card.
But the truth is I began to develop chronic pain in my hands from 60+ hour work weeks. I got so accustomed to stress that I couldn’t turn off the hum of it— even in sleep. I wrote so much for other people, I forgot my own language. My soft edges began to curl in like conch shells, even though I hadn’t seen the ocean in years.
Somewhere in the middle of the pandemic, I started driving west. The instinct was as startling as it was insatiable. I lapped up skylines like honey after famine. Then came six weeks of climbing mountains, avoiding clients and swallowing as much sunshine as I could.
One morning in the middle of Arizona, I sat down with my laptop. A desert hummingbird—its whole body, the shape of a shining comma, hovered out the kitchen window. I told myself to write, really write —for myself. No clients. No strategic messaging. No keywords or SEO.
Just the truth of my life trembling on the page.
That morning, I wrote myself a poem called Instructions for Traveling West. I wrote it as imperative, as incantation.
I wrote my life so I could find the courage to live it.
Afterwards, the poem performed its terrifying magic. Within 42 days, I left a man who wanted to marry me, sold my house, finally quit my job, packed my two cats and all my books and drove west again until I hit Oregon.
Two years later, Instructions for Traveling West became the title of my first collection of poetry (preorder here 🙌). The book begins with this quote from beloved David Attenborough:
Only now are we beginning to understand that all life on Earth depends on the freedom to move.
Honestly, I don’t think I would have leapt without writing that poem or the poems that followed. Without finally admitting to myself that what I truly wanted wasn’t bonuses or executive as part of my title. What I wanted was sunlight, freedom, gray pines, purpose, poetry.
Why does writing terrify us? Because it should. Because poetry is the electric alchemy that lurches our lives into motion. It drives us toward whatever west hounds our horizons. When we name the truth of our desire, we’re catalyzed. Like newly found gods, we bellow furious futures into existence.
Write in holy fear, my friend. The page is a road that glows in the setting light. See your life in the distance—and write for it.
Poem on,
Joy
P.S. Tell me what calls to you. I read every comment with joy. ❤️
My book, Instructions for Traveling West, is finally available for preorder. Preordering lets bookstores know to stock an upcoming book and it signals to publishers that this is an author readers want to keep writing. It means the most. <3
Thank you for sharing this. I often stop myself from writing just based on the fear of embarrassment or it being ‘good enough’. I’ve slowly learned that writing and poems just spill out of me. It’s the thing I do (almost shamefully) at 3am. So I decided to introduce my writing to 3pm. I never once have asked my hand if it’s ‘good enough’, so why am I asking if my writing is ‘good enough’. It’s just as much a part of me as anything else. Since then my life has become richer and richer each day.
Thank you for your vulnerability, Joy.
During the first half of the pandemic, after months of being shut in and working as a therapist in a time when the whole world was in a panicked state, I didn’t realize just how desperate for beauty I was until I was driving across the country to see family in what felt like a life or death need to connect and hug the people I was so scared to lose. On the drive, looking out my car window, the sky seemed huge and the clouds were so gorgeous and the beauty touched me deeply. And I had a thought “I wish I could paint that.” It was an odd thought as I’d never much expressed interest in art previously. But suddenly, it was as if I couldn’t stop the need to be able to paint beauty. So I spent the next year teaching myself to paint so I could fulfill the need to experience beauty and then paint it, breathe life into it, contribute to it if I could. It’s been three years since then and now, I’ve found art, in all its forms, the kind I create, those created by others, poetry, painting, music, a deliciously baked cake, the way someone configured their garden, all of it, well, it’s necessary salt for my life. Connection to the greater universe and all of its beauty is what calls to me. Thank you for sharing your art with the world. I found your poetry sometime in the last 3 years when my art consumption has been voraciously fed and I’m very grateful I did.