Monday Prompts: there is something here for us.
April's theme: going after our dreams.
Welcome to Monday Prompts, where I share a poem, a personal story and reflection, and offer journaling and creative writing prompts for your week.
This series is usually only available for paid Substack subscribers - this week’s Monday Prompts is available for everyone, to get a taste of what to expect from my daily posts for May’s ‘The Poetry Of Everything’ workshop. Enjoy!
xo jess.
‘Instructions For Traveling West’ by Joy Sullivan
First, you must realize you’re homesick for all the lives
you’re not living. Then, you must commit to the road
and the rising loneliness. To the sincere thrill of coming
apart. Divorce yourself from routine and control. Instead,
find a desert and fall in. Take the trail that promises a view.
Get lost. Break your toes. Bruise your knees. Keep going.
Watch a purple meadow quiver. Get still. Pet trail dogs.
Buy the hat. Run out of gas. Befriend strangers.
Knight yourself every morning for your newborn
courage. Give grief her own lullaby. Drink whiskey beside
a hundred-year-old cactus. Honor everything. Pray
to something unnameable. Fall for someone impractical.
Reacquaint yourself with desire and all her slender hands.
Bear beauty for as long as you are able, and if you spot
a sunning warbler glowing like a prism, remind yourself –
joy is not a trick.
I arrived home last night after an unexpected six weeks on the west coast, and was greeted by various unopened packages sitting on my bed - the recurring order of protein powder, a spontaneous cardigan purchase (it was on sale, come on), a book from a friend, and the long-ago pre-order of Joy’s ‘Instructions For Traveling West’ were waiting for me. The irony and lump in my throat of reading this title after this long stretch on the coast that feels and doesn’t feel like home: indescribable.
I cracked the cover and read the first two poems early morning before heading to a poorly timed 8am doctor’s appointment. My heart is itching to read this cover to cover - if you need me right after this, that’s where I’ll be.
I’ve been thinking about home, and going, and leaving, and staying. I’ve called Toronto home since 2009, and though I’m from BC, barely know my way around Vancouver. I had a brief stint in San Francisco, and sold all my belongings in preparation, because who ever leaves California? (Me, apparently). I’ve been back in Toronto for four years and keep thinking each year will be my last. I’ve barely been anywhere, and I am always leaving. I feel the most myself by the water. I consider what kind of life I am living other than chasing a dream that, on some days, feels like it’s on the next page, or has arrived, and other days feels like it is in some slumber land, never to find its way to reality.
I’ve started over a few times. I’ve stirred shit up to make myself feel like I’m alive. I’ve bolted from love over and over when it feels too real, like they’re looking directly into the light. I have felt like my hands were empty, that this life is mostly empty, only to go for a walk and realize that the world is still with us, that there is beauty everywhere when we stop and look for it, that life will hand you fury and joy and heartache and monotony and invite you to make something out of it for dinner.
At any time, even when it feels like we’ve missed it, that nothing good and nothing magical and nothing living will ever come our way again, there is something to measure, something to feel, something to experience, that will prove to us again that there is something here for us. Sometimes that something is to change everything about the way we’re living. Sometimes that something is to stay in this place a little longer. Sometimes that something is to not worry about a thing and trust that it’s going to work itself out. Sometimes that something is doing something nice for a neighbor. Sometimes that something is walking towards a different destination. All we have to do is say yes.
This week’s prompts:
Are there lives you’re homesick for?
Write about committing (or not committing) to the road.
Write about your ‘newborn courage’
Write a piece inspired by the line, ‘joy is not a trick’ (be sure to credit Joy Sullivan :)
‘The Poetry Of Everything’ starts on Wednesday, May 1st! Do you love Monday Prompts? Receive 31 days of them with this special project, and gather with other writers on Sundays for four two-hour writing workshops on Zoom. There will be a private online Substack platform for the group to share your daily work if you choose to do so!
Sign up for prompts only, or the whole shebang with the workshops too. All info & registration can be found here.
“I’ve barely been anywhere, and I am always leaving.” Wow, do I resonate with this.