How to leave a life
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
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