"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."
Read Joy Sullivan's powerful poem, and learn more about the story behind it
here.
