Anyone in San Diego who considers themselves a writer is probably familiar with Judy Reeves — if not by name, then through her work. She’s co-founded two literary organizations (The Writer Center and San Diego Writers, Ink); written books and columns; edited collections and anthologies; won numerous awards and recognition for her work, including “Judy Reeves Day” in San Diego in 2010; and continues to teach writing at workshops, conferences, and retreats. Now, she’s releasing her memoir, sharing the story of navigating grief and learning to listen to herself.
“The story has been taking shape for years — memories in my journals, fragments in my writing practice notebooks, short stories, flashes both fiction and nonfiction, personal narrative essays, even poems,” she says of “When Your Heart Says Go — My Year of Traveling Beyond Loss and Loneliness,” being released Oct. 10, with a special launch event from 4 to 6 p.m. Oct. 21 at the San Diego Central Library. “As many writers know, the final version of a story may not find its way to the page until it’s ready, or maybe until the writer is ready. Still, the other tellings weren’t warm-ups; they were different ways of discovering and approaching the story.”
In it, she tells the story of becoming recently widowed and choosing to sell her belongings, spend a year on her own traveling through Europe, and the questions and answers she found along the way. Today, Reeves, who is 80, lives in North Park and has two adult children and five grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She continues to write and teach writing to others, and took some time to talk about the physical and emotional journey she took 30 years ago, and where it’s led her today.
Q: Can you take us with you, back to 30 years ago, and share a bit of what was happening and what you were thinking about, that led to the journey that informed this book?
A: I fell in love with Tom in the fall of 1978 when he auditioned for the voice-over of an audio-visual I was producing. We were both 36. We had only eight years together before he died of lung cancer in January of 1987. After, I sold our home in Jamul, bought a condo in Pacific Beach, and got very busy; busy was a way of coping in this new life. Three years later, busy wasn’t working anymore. I was longing for something I couldn’t name.
Q: Where did you spend the first stretch of this journey? And what do you recall thinking and feeling about what you were doing?
A: I arrived in London on Aug. 1, 1990, and over the next months wandered through The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Austria, Hungary, and what was then Yugoslavia. My journal was my constant companion. In it, I wrote of my loneliness, my fears, and doubts. I asked endless questions and penned long and meandering entries on the effects of solitude.
What I love about North Park…
North Park, Morley Field, and Bird Park at one end and cafes, restaurants, shops and bookstores at the other. Wonderful old homes of many styles — Craftsman, Spanish, Mission, Mid-Century — each uniquely landscaped with flowering and growing things. Friendly neighbors who smile and say hello when you on the street and let you pet their dogs.
Q: In a description of the book on your website, it says, “Months of solitude and loneliness challenged me to examine my old ideas and explore my deepest longings in the search for who I might become in my new life. This is my writer’s origin story.” That feeling of loneliness sounds like it would be difficult to deal with, particularly after the loss of someone as close as a spouse. How were you coping with it during those early months of traveling?
A: A naturally friendly and gregarious person, I was surprised to find myself preferring time alone, writing in my journal, locating cafes where I could be among others, but still alone. In “Letters to a Young Poet,” [Rainer Maria] Rilke tells us, “What is necessary, after all, is only this: solitude, vast inner solitude.” I was learning this. For the first time in decades, I wasn’t “busy.” My pen and the empty page offered a place to wonder, to ask questions and respond at length. Also, I’m a member of a 12-step group and there was always an available chair at English-speaking 12-step meetings.
Q: What were some of the old ideas you began to challenge?
A: I always identified myself as “I’m Judy Reeves and I …,” followed by where I worked or what I did. I began to question this and wondered if I could say, “I’m Judy Reeves” and that would be enough. I asked is there another way to earn your way without having a “job”? And must you be published to be a “real” writer?
Q: You talk about trying to find who you would become in your new life; looking back, who would you say that Judy was? The Judy who existed before this trip?
A: The “before” Judy didn’t trust herself and her choices. She allowed others to make decisions that affected her in important (and unimportant) ways. Outwardly confident and self-assured, inwardly she doubted herself and her abilities and talents.
Q: And how has she evolved?
A: Those months of finding my way in places where I didn’t speak the language, of making mistakes and living with them, brought me to a place of more self-confidence, more self-awareness, and from that, more independence. I learned to trust myself.
Q: What do you think she would say about where you are today?
A: She would say, with confidence, “I’m Judy Reeves.” In fact, she does it all the time.
Q: Your website also mentions that by the time you were 8 years old, you had decided that you were a writer and spent more than 25 years working as one before your year in Europe. How, or why, did this trip become your writer’s origin story?
A: I was a writer for hire, the voice for someone or something else. I began to explore what I wanted to write, and to write in a voice that I began to recognize as my own. I read and studied novels and essays and poetry of writers whose work I ired and respected. Those books and those writers became my teachers. I set myself on a course to become the writer I always knew I would be.
Q: Do you feel like you’ve made it to the other side of loss and loneliness? What does this look like for you? And is there anything you would tell your younger self about what it’s like now?
A: Though I think loneliness might be a human condition, I feel like I’m on the other side of that particular loneliness; I’m comfortable and at peace being alone. As for the loss of the man I dearly loved, that still visits every now and again, especially Sunday evening twilights. I might read to my younger self a note I always keep nearby, “That I am here is a wonderful mystery to which joy is a natural response.”
Q: Can you talk about why it was important to find and build a community of writers? What has this done for you, both personally and professionally?
A: Human beings are communal creatures; we need the company and comfort of our own kind, others who understand our challenges, celebrate our successes, and offer sympathy for our losses. When I returned from that trip, I didn’t have a “next thing” I would do, except I knew I would write. The idea of creating a writing center came to me in the same way the idea of going on that journey did — suddenly and completely. Contributing to and building a community of and for writers has given me a life’s work and has ed and nurtured my own writing.
Q: What is the best advice you’ve ever received?
A: Many variations of “Be present in the present.”
Q: What is one thing people would be surprised to find out about you?
A: Lately, I’ve been hearing, “You’re 80!?” I even find this surprising myself.
Q: Please describe your ideal San Diego weekend.
A: It’s mid-October, warm and sunny. After morning yoga, I meet a friend for coffee. Later I get some writing time in. Saturday evening is a theater date. Sunday morning, I teach a workshop at San Diego Writers, Ink and have lunch with writers after, then a late afternoon walk in Balboa Park where the liquidambars are flamboyant and the sun is golden. I have no plans for the evening—maybe I’ll finish that book I’ve been reading.
