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When Your Heart Says Go: My Year of Traveling Beyond Loss and Loneliness
What sort of mad longing besets a woman―nearing fifty and recently widowed―to sell everything she owns, buy an around-the-world airline ticket, pack a single suitcase, and set off alone on a year-long journey without a plan or agenda? When Your Heart Says Go answers that question.
Set in 1990–’91, Judy’s story takes readers from San Diego through eleven European countries, the then-Soviet Union, and finally India, during the lead-up to the first Gulf War.
Explorations of foreign locales and interactions with strangers and acquaintances who become a lifeline to friendship are interspersed with occasional flashbacks to Judy’s life with her beloved husband, Tom, as well as his illness and death. Descriptions of sites historic and current serve as both daily life and background for Judy’s struggle to find her way as a sober, single, independent woman in the vast world as it edges toward the collapse of the Soviet Union and war in the Middle East. The outer journey serves as a container for the inner; the more Judy experiences of the world, the more she learns about herself―and the closer she gets to realizing her lifelong dream of being a writer.
Set in 1990–’91, Judy’s story takes readers from San Diego through eleven European countries, the then-Soviet Union, and finally India, during the lead-up to the first Gulf War.
Explorations of foreign locales and interactions with strangers and acquaintances who become a lifeline to friendship are interspersed with occasional flashbacks to Judy’s life with her beloved husband, Tom, as well as his illness and death. Descriptions of sites historic and current serve as both daily life and background for Judy’s struggle to find her way as a sober, single, independent woman in the vast world as it edges toward the collapse of the Soviet Union and war in the Middle East. The outer journey serves as a container for the inner; the more Judy experiences of the world, the more she learns about herself―and the closer she gets to realizing her lifelong dream of being a writer.
256 pages, Paperback
Published October 10, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
September 30, 2023
Lyrical and lovely are the first words that come to mind as I close this memoir wanting more. Judy Reeves writes of love and loss in an Eat Pray Love kind of manner - a story that is sometimes sad, sometimes funny, but always honest and deeply engaging. The vivid details of the places she visited and the strangers she met is written in gorgeous, exquisite detail. Thank you for sharing your very endearing story with the world, Judy. More, please...
April 13, 2024
When Your Heart Says Go: My Year of Traveling Beyond Loss and Loneliness by Judy Reeves
“The point of traveling is to put away arrogant knowledge and stand arms open to the wind as it teaches you to let go and live.” Gore Vidal.
The secret sauce of any personal travel/memior/diary writing is the author’s sensibility of course, the descriptive voice, humor and matters of the heart writing. For starters in Heart Says Go we learn that Judy is having the relatable coming-of-age-middle-age crisis due to her fast approaching 50th. And she’s still grieving the loss of her love-of-life husband Tom too – lung cancer. So this is why she books an around the world airline ticket that will take more than a year, hopefully plenty of time, and we’re off.
Having always wanted to be a writer Judy piles plenty of ruled note books into her day pack for travel journaling. Then she decides bring along a years supply of condoms too, wondering wistfully, “how many do you suppose that would be?”
I’m hooked. Who can put this story down? Well actually me as at over 80 I read late until eyes watering I wake up Heart Says Go butterflied open on my chest. But it’s okay as this isn’t a book to be devoured but best savored a few bite sized entries at a time.
We travel along with Judy across Europe, Greece, Russia and then on to India. These stops are interlaced with flashback entries, episodes that start with meeting Tom, both of them hard drinking in the 70’s, then getting sober. They go to AA, another character in the book BTW, and build their seven-year soul mate life together – until the last entry.
Her emotionally intelligent storytelling is a different sauce, spare and moving, even for this old crust, always trying to dismiss matters of the heart with feigned indifference. Guy stuff.
Then Judy sums up Heart Says Go: “…her mother’s pork chops were bone chewers…At Kati Mati’s I want to chew the last meat off her juicy pork chops. This is how hungry I am for life. I want to chew its bones, get to the marrow.”
And no, Judy is not paying me to write this review, even though we’ve been going to Dime Stories here in San Diego (writers read their work for three minutes) for over 20 years.
So to balance the encomium I offer this small complaint. Heart Says Go feels unfinished. This is because of our involvement in Desert Storm the Muslims in India are beginning to protesting violently against America and Americans. Time to go home, whatever home will be when she gets there, her journey and journaling not quite finished.
“Always judge a book by the richness of its content – but isn’t the unfinished story sometimes the most beautiful symphony?” Unknown.
So what writers compare with Writer Judy? There’s the brilliant Liars Club, by Mary Karr that started the resurgence of interest in memior in the ‘90’s. And of course the fine personal sensibility of the prolific Anne Lamott (without the Christianity) who also wrote about travelling in India and its brutal poverty. Anyway, if you like a women’s fine sensibility and magical voice, pretty sure you’ll be a fan of When Your Heart Says Go: My Year of Traveling Beyond Loss and Loneliness too. Dick Cummins
“The point of traveling is to put away arrogant knowledge and stand arms open to the wind as it teaches you to let go and live.” Gore Vidal.
The secret sauce of any personal travel/memior/diary writing is the author’s sensibility of course, the descriptive voice, humor and matters of the heart writing. For starters in Heart Says Go we learn that Judy is having the relatable coming-of-age-middle-age crisis due to her fast approaching 50th. And she’s still grieving the loss of her love-of-life husband Tom too – lung cancer. So this is why she books an around the world airline ticket that will take more than a year, hopefully plenty of time, and we’re off.
Having always wanted to be a writer Judy piles plenty of ruled note books into her day pack for travel journaling. Then she decides bring along a years supply of condoms too, wondering wistfully, “how many do you suppose that would be?”
I’m hooked. Who can put this story down? Well actually me as at over 80 I read late until eyes watering I wake up Heart Says Go butterflied open on my chest. But it’s okay as this isn’t a book to be devoured but best savored a few bite sized entries at a time.
We travel along with Judy across Europe, Greece, Russia and then on to India. These stops are interlaced with flashback entries, episodes that start with meeting Tom, both of them hard drinking in the 70’s, then getting sober. They go to AA, another character in the book BTW, and build their seven-year soul mate life together – until the last entry.
Her emotionally intelligent storytelling is a different sauce, spare and moving, even for this old crust, always trying to dismiss matters of the heart with feigned indifference. Guy stuff.
Then Judy sums up Heart Says Go: “…her mother’s pork chops were bone chewers…At Kati Mati’s I want to chew the last meat off her juicy pork chops. This is how hungry I am for life. I want to chew its bones, get to the marrow.”
And no, Judy is not paying me to write this review, even though we’ve been going to Dime Stories here in San Diego (writers read their work for three minutes) for over 20 years.
So to balance the encomium I offer this small complaint. Heart Says Go feels unfinished. This is because of our involvement in Desert Storm the Muslims in India are beginning to protesting violently against America and Americans. Time to go home, whatever home will be when she gets there, her journey and journaling not quite finished.
“Always judge a book by the richness of its content – but isn’t the unfinished story sometimes the most beautiful symphony?” Unknown.
So what writers compare with Writer Judy? There’s the brilliant Liars Club, by Mary Karr that started the resurgence of interest in memior in the ‘90’s. And of course the fine personal sensibility of the prolific Anne Lamott (without the Christianity) who also wrote about travelling in India and its brutal poverty. Anyway, if you like a women’s fine sensibility and magical voice, pretty sure you’ll be a fan of When Your Heart Says Go: My Year of Traveling Beyond Loss and Loneliness too. Dick Cummins
December 28, 2024
Full disclosure: I know the author personally.
I read a couple books in between starting and finishing this one. I'm glad I came back to this book and really gave it my full attention. Even though I know the author, I met her a couple years after the period at the end of this memoir. And honestly, I didn't know anything about her previous life before I met her at The Writing Center in San Diego (Hillcrest, to be exact). She is a fascinating person and someone I consider a mentor. I wish I had known her in the time before we met because I feel we have so much in common that sometimes reading her words about her travels felt exactly like something I'd write or do or an observation I'd make.
Some details about the book. The main part of the story is, as the title suggests, the author's year of traveling abroad - going through many countries/cities in Europe, then in Russia, and finally in India. Considering this happened in 1990-91, I am amazed at how she was able to get around without the use of a handheld computer (haha). It's a great look back in time before the internet and devices and the euro when travelers used American Express offices to get any mail that might come for them. But the purpose for her journey is a response to her widowhood, having lost her husband in 1987, and a quest to find her new place in the world. So we also get some glimpses into her marriage and those last days with him. We also get to know her. It was interesting reading about her in these years before I'd met her because I still knew her; I recognized this Judy and felt immensely proud of her for this momentous thing she was doing. I also loved reading her takes on the cities I have also been to - how much of them haven't changed in the 30 or so years between our trips.
It's obviously not required to know the author to take this story in and to bring it to your heart. What she writes about in response to her travels, her grief, her yearning for solitude, the kindness of strangers and other people she meets and shares experiences with, and ultimately learning who she is at that moment and what she wants are universal themes that anyone can connect to. She is aware of herself in ways that many people may not be as she navigates foreign cities and unknown languages. She finds refuge with fellow AA members at various meetings in all of these locales. And all the time, she is writing, reading, introspective but not hiding. It's a beautiful, heartfelt journey that I'm so happy she was able to make.
I read a couple books in between starting and finishing this one. I'm glad I came back to this book and really gave it my full attention. Even though I know the author, I met her a couple years after the period at the end of this memoir. And honestly, I didn't know anything about her previous life before I met her at The Writing Center in San Diego (Hillcrest, to be exact). She is a fascinating person and someone I consider a mentor. I wish I had known her in the time before we met because I feel we have so much in common that sometimes reading her words about her travels felt exactly like something I'd write or do or an observation I'd make.
Some details about the book. The main part of the story is, as the title suggests, the author's year of traveling abroad - going through many countries/cities in Europe, then in Russia, and finally in India. Considering this happened in 1990-91, I am amazed at how she was able to get around without the use of a handheld computer (haha). It's a great look back in time before the internet and devices and the euro when travelers used American Express offices to get any mail that might come for them. But the purpose for her journey is a response to her widowhood, having lost her husband in 1987, and a quest to find her new place in the world. So we also get some glimpses into her marriage and those last days with him. We also get to know her. It was interesting reading about her in these years before I'd met her because I still knew her; I recognized this Judy and felt immensely proud of her for this momentous thing she was doing. I also loved reading her takes on the cities I have also been to - how much of them haven't changed in the 30 or so years between our trips.
It's obviously not required to know the author to take this story in and to bring it to your heart. What she writes about in response to her travels, her grief, her yearning for solitude, the kindness of strangers and other people she meets and shares experiences with, and ultimately learning who she is at that moment and what she wants are universal themes that anyone can connect to. She is aware of herself in ways that many people may not be as she navigates foreign cities and unknown languages. She finds refuge with fellow AA members at various meetings in all of these locales. And all the time, she is writing, reading, introspective but not hiding. It's a beautiful, heartfelt journey that I'm so happy she was able to make.
April 15, 2024
Remarkable, heart-rending, funny and brave
Reading memoir is an intimate experience. For me, even closer than reading a novel with a first-person point-of-view, for in a memoir I’m invited to pull up a chair, sit close, and listen well as another’s story is unspooled. It’s like one of those rare late-night conversations when the nutty storytelling gradually sloughs off bragging and posturing and becomes simply honest and made bare. This was my experience reading this remarkable, heart-rending, funny, and brave memoir, WHEN YOUR HEART SAYS GO. Imagine
the courage: With a heart broken from a dear husband’s death, author Judy Reeves chooses to take a year-long solo trip around the world. In this fragile portal between what was then and the unknown of what could lie ahead, she ventures out to discover what now? Who am I now? I found myself savoring each of her stops, pausing between locations to enjoy the descriptions and characters she meets—and yes, like a good story, the narrative is so alive and colorful, I imagined myself in her shoes. This story is even more impactful because I know that sometime after this trip author Reeves did find new meaning and community through offering writing retreats for women and more. Being human means encountering and navigating crossroads. The perfect inspiring memoir topic.
Reading memoir is an intimate experience. For me, even closer than reading a novel with a first-person point-of-view, for in a memoir I’m invited to pull up a chair, sit close, and listen well as another’s story is unspooled. It’s like one of those rare late-night conversations when the nutty storytelling gradually sloughs off bragging and posturing and becomes simply honest and made bare. This was my experience reading this remarkable, heart-rending, funny, and brave memoir, WHEN YOUR HEART SAYS GO. Imagine
the courage: With a heart broken from a dear husband’s death, author Judy Reeves chooses to take a year-long solo trip around the world. In this fragile portal between what was then and the unknown of what could lie ahead, she ventures out to discover what now? Who am I now? I found myself savoring each of her stops, pausing between locations to enjoy the descriptions and characters she meets—and yes, like a good story, the narrative is so alive and colorful, I imagined myself in her shoes. This story is even more impactful because I know that sometime after this trip author Reeves did find new meaning and community through offering writing retreats for women and more. Being human means encountering and navigating crossroads. The perfect inspiring memoir topic.
November 5, 2023
My Heart Expanded Reading This Book~
I often say I am addicted to reading. Books take me away and fill me up and Judy Reeves’ book “When Your Heart Says Go” did just that and more. I know the author and have read her other books, so I knew this book would be good, but little did I know how much her memoir would speak to me and move me. This gorgeous, poetic, and descriptive book is an unforgettable love story. A love story about Reeves’ soul mate and beloved husband who she loses far too soon and a love story of Self. Along with the gentle and courageous prose describing her life as she bravely travels alone to foreign countries are the heart rending words that capture her life as a young grieving widow who through travel and self-reflection is finding her way and authentic self. I laughed, I cried, and I read way too late into the night. I felt like I traveled with Reeves in such a powerful poignant way, and I will remember this story, this glorious woman, and her triumph forever.
I often say I am addicted to reading. Books take me away and fill me up and Judy Reeves’ book “When Your Heart Says Go” did just that and more. I know the author and have read her other books, so I knew this book would be good, but little did I know how much her memoir would speak to me and move me. This gorgeous, poetic, and descriptive book is an unforgettable love story. A love story about Reeves’ soul mate and beloved husband who she loses far too soon and a love story of Self. Along with the gentle and courageous prose describing her life as she bravely travels alone to foreign countries are the heart rending words that capture her life as a young grieving widow who through travel and self-reflection is finding her way and authentic self. I laughed, I cried, and I read way too late into the night. I felt like I traveled with Reeves in such a powerful poignant way, and I will remember this story, this glorious woman, and her triumph forever.
April 30, 2024
How and where do you find solace after a devastating loss? How do you learn to stay true to yourself yet let others into your life? How do you figure out what and where “home” is? These are some of the questions Judy Reeves grapples with as she hopscotches from southern California across Europe to Bombay and beyond.
Reeves takes us, her readers, with her on both her geographical journey and her internal exploration. The result is a book I will read again and again, for its rich descriptions of the sights and sounds and smells of the places she inhabits and for the keen insights she uncovers about herself as she moves through the world, writing as she goes.
“If writing is what I always come back to, where I always find myself going toward, if this is the place that disturbs me yet also gives me solace, the thing that seduces me and at the same time eludes me, then this may be where I will find the way into the authentic self I know exists” (Reeves, p. 93).
Reeves takes us, her readers, with her on both her geographical journey and her internal exploration. The result is a book I will read again and again, for its rich descriptions of the sights and sounds and smells of the places she inhabits and for the keen insights she uncovers about herself as she moves through the world, writing as she goes.
“If writing is what I always come back to, where I always find myself going toward, if this is the place that disturbs me yet also gives me solace, the thing that seduces me and at the same time eludes me, then this may be where I will find the way into the authentic self I know exists” (Reeves, p. 93).
October 17, 2023
The courage, strength and determination it would take after losing someone you loved so deeply, to sell up everything and buy a single, one way ticket around the world is almost unimaginable. But then, if you are Judy Reeves, that is exactly what you do. A journey that takes Judy to so many places, always with a coffee in hand, or on her way to get one, you almost feel as if you are walking beside her as she relates her journey with honesty and raw emotion. The places she went, people she met, all told with such sensory detail that you feel there, in that moment. We each deal with grief and loss in our own way and Judy does so with dignity, respect, tears, heartache and humour. Her return a little earlier than planned due to the Gulf War, and a change from her original plans with a friend, led Judy to do what she does best. Be a writer. I am so grateful she did.
November 16, 2023
It’s not unusual for me to read a book in two or three sittings. But with "When Your Heart Says Go", I didn’t want to rush through to the end. I wanted to take my time and soak up the atmosphere of each exotic place Judy visited. I wanted to savor the coffee and pastries of Paris and bathe in the sunshine of a Greek beach. And yet, the real time issues she dealt with each day were so reminiscent of my own life trials that her struggles resonated with me on a deeply personal level. Sprinkled throughout the story the reader learns of Judy’s past — the triumphs and the heartaches. Watching Judy weave her way through the painful times, to find her way to the future of who she would be, is a journey I’m glad I was allowed to share. Evocative writing as only Judy can give us, and a lovely reminder that life can still be joyful even after loss. I highly recommend it!
September 25, 2024
After the loss of her spouse, the authors, sells her human possessions and departs on a journey around the world. She travels carrying memories investigating sites and facing life’s existential questions
A keen observer of the inward and the outward wherever she may be, in Budapest, Mykonos or India she grieves, examines significant relationships and casual encounters with fellow travelers. some puff away and others leave a mark.
Solitary days and times with groups, conversations, earthy and sensual moments, tears I found myself recognizing the questions, visiting my memories and journeying along with Judy Reeves. This is a book to savor. I read it slowly, relishing the wonderings, wishing there is more.
A keen observer of the inward and the outward wherever she may be, in Budapest, Mykonos or India she grieves, examines significant relationships and casual encounters with fellow travelers. some puff away and others leave a mark.
Solitary days and times with groups, conversations, earthy and sensual moments, tears I found myself recognizing the questions, visiting my memories and journeying along with Judy Reeves. This is a book to savor. I read it slowly, relishing the wonderings, wishing there is more.
December 31, 2023
This memoir offers readers a detailed and engaging account of a journey across Europe, India, and an inner journey of a woman exploring what comes next for her and how to discern that. Go on an irresistible journey with Judy Reeves across the globe. Eat almond croissants, sip cappuccinos, and dive into the reading life of this female global citizen shaped by the culture and events of her times. This book will stay with you. Highly recommended for all readers. Instant classic.
December 16, 2023
I love this journey into facing loss and choosing to be reborn. Reeve's vivid descriptions of her world trip take us with her as she encounters the places and people who help her open up and become the beautiful person she is! The book is a testament to both the power of writing and the human capacity to find resilience and move forward. Thank you, Judy Reeves!
November 6, 2023
Heartbreaking, heartwarming, and inspiring, this poetic memoir takes readers on an extraordinary journey of love and loss and life.
October 28, 2024
Inspiring story of surviving life's passages.
September 19, 2024
I thoroughly enjoyed Judy Reeve's memoir. Reeve's skillfully and beautifully takes the reader into the depths of her loneliness while sharing the beauty of her travels; the people, sights, sounds and smells. She shows us that we are all travelers, searching for our truest selves. I highly recommend When Your Heart Says Go.
January 17, 2024
Gorgeous! Judy takes grief by the arm as she wanders the world eyes wide open and curious.
I’ve always believed in the power of what I call “unstructured time”—time to wander, time to gently ponder, time to live without an agenda. Judy Reeve’s memoir immediately struck me as a gorgeous example of unstructured time. She shows us a way of being in life where we allow ourselves to quietly process our experiences while also staying engaged and curious to what is now before us. As a writer, it is what I often need to do (on a small scale) to allow the ideas that are all bundled up to sort themselves out. Judy masterfully shows us this. She also shows us what it means to live with grief as a companion, rather than something to get past. As Judy travels the world, she brings grief along with her and allows it to color her and our experience—in a good way. We are left with a feeling of intimacy that transcends the physical. One final note, I loved learning that there were AA groups all over the world and that they are a sure way to meet simpatico people wherever you are.
I’ve always believed in the power of what I call “unstructured time”—time to wander, time to gently ponder, time to live without an agenda. Judy Reeve’s memoir immediately struck me as a gorgeous example of unstructured time. She shows us a way of being in life where we allow ourselves to quietly process our experiences while also staying engaged and curious to what is now before us. As a writer, it is what I often need to do (on a small scale) to allow the ideas that are all bundled up to sort themselves out. Judy masterfully shows us this. She also shows us what it means to live with grief as a companion, rather than something to get past. As Judy travels the world, she brings grief along with her and allows it to color her and our experience—in a good way. We are left with a feeling of intimacy that transcends the physical. One final note, I loved learning that there were AA groups all over the world and that they are a sure way to meet simpatico people wherever you are.
December 11, 2023
The author was on a year-long round-the-world journey, but she summons her day-to-day life in the iconic and exotic locations with such clear evocative prose that readers will feel swept up and carried along, as I was.
I sipped espresso and shopped for books in Paris, munched freshly baked strudel in Salzburg, shivered in a Leningrad graveyard, and soaked up the sun on Greek beaches.
But for all the book’s beautiful settings, it transcends travelogue to become a writer’s origin story. For along the way, Judy Reeves was in the process of discovering who she’d been, revealed through the prism of who she’d loved—from her parents to her children to her husband Tom, the love of her life, lost to cancer just three short years before this trip.
Equally important, she is discovering who she is meant to be going forward, and what a calling fate has in store for her, should she be willing to step up and accept that mission.
When Your Heart Says Go is a trip worth taking—book your tickets today and I wish you bon voyage
I sipped espresso and shopped for books in Paris, munched freshly baked strudel in Salzburg, shivered in a Leningrad graveyard, and soaked up the sun on Greek beaches.
But for all the book’s beautiful settings, it transcends travelogue to become a writer’s origin story. For along the way, Judy Reeves was in the process of discovering who she’d been, revealed through the prism of who she’d loved—from her parents to her children to her husband Tom, the love of her life, lost to cancer just three short years before this trip.
Equally important, she is discovering who she is meant to be going forward, and what a calling fate has in store for her, should she be willing to step up and accept that mission.
When Your Heart Says Go is a trip worth taking—book your tickets today and I wish you bon voyage
December 8, 2023
In "When Your Heart Says Go," Judy Reeves transforms the profound loss of her spouse into a poignant global journey of self-discovery. Her book is more than an account; it is an invitation. As I turned its pages, I found echoes of my own life reflected in Reeves' experiences, encounters, existential questions.
It's a book that encourages one to savor each word, each sentiment, each question. There is a gentle cadence to Reeves' prose that compels a measured reading, allowing the reader to fully immerse themselves in the "wonderings" that unfurl with each chapter, each stop, each encounter. Indeed, as the final page turned, I was left with a yearning for more—a testament to the book's profound impact on the soul-searching reader. "When Your Heart Says Go” is not just read; it is an experience, and it is undoubtedly a journey to independence worth taking. This review is based on an ARC.
It's a book that encourages one to savor each word, each sentiment, each question. There is a gentle cadence to Reeves' prose that compels a measured reading, allowing the reader to fully immerse themselves in the "wonderings" that unfurl with each chapter, each stop, each encounter. Indeed, as the final page turned, I was left with a yearning for more—a testament to the book's profound impact on the soul-searching reader. "When Your Heart Says Go” is not just read; it is an experience, and it is undoubtedly a journey to independence worth taking. This review is based on an ARC.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews