I’m Darren Samuelsohn, and this is The love, journalism Show. Here’s my conversation with the author of one of the most important books on my bookshelf.
First time visiting? Please sign up for my love letter from the beat.
There was a stretch when I wasn’t writing much. The journalism industry was unraveling around me - institutions shifting, jobs disappearing, the ground moving under everyone’s feet including mine. I wasn’t sure where I fit in any of it anymore.
And then I came across a book title: Old Friend From Far Away.
Natalie Goldberg. Of course.
I didn’t go looking for her. The title just found me - the way her work always has. And that book became part of how I found my way back to the page. Back to the journals. Back to the practice. And eventually, to this whole thing you’re reading now.
Thirty years ago, a creative writing teacher handed me another book by Natalie. I’ve never stopped reading it.
Writing Down the Bones turns 40 this year. I’ve given away a couple of my own dog-eared copies over the decades — and I’m apparently not alone, because she has sold millions and gone on to write 16 additional books.
I’ve reached for them at all kinds of moments — when the writing is going well, when it isn’t. When life is going well, when it isn’t. I journaled through love, lost love, new love, looking for love.
Recently, I sent emails to the contacts listed on her website. A couple bounced. One got through. And a few days later, sitting in my neighborhood at the old Heller’s Bakery location — my phone lit up. Maybe Natalie Goldberg.
The shop was closing around me. I had a beaming smile I couldn’t explain to anyone in the room.
That’s what this episode is. An old friend from far away — finally, in the same room.
Natalie has popped into my life through the years, though never in person until now. A bridge. I pulled out a journal at the end of our first full conversation. I had to.
It was a hardbound notebook, one I started filling in the mid-90s — a Jack Kerouac illustration on the cover, the kind of object that feels like it was made for a certain version of yourself. I read her the very first lines:
“Take it all in and do it slowly. Now listen up, stupid — look up!”
She didn’t hesitate. “Sweet,” she said. “Especially slow. Have that slowness inside you. That dreamer.”
A few hours later, alone with the journal again, I kept reading. The pages were full of Kerouac and the Dharma Bums, the Beatles, Uncle Tupelo, Jerry Garcia, Chicago. A 20-year-old taking it all in, doing it slowly, looking up.
And then, tucked into that same section, I found it. Lines where I’m trying to make sense of things, scribbling about books and music and whatever was coming next:
“Advice comes in one word bumps... extreme desire to be superlative... very heartwarming and comforting and well written. Why am I so descriptive? It does help.”
It. The book. Her book. Written on those pages 30 years before I ever thought to reach out.
She was always in there. I just didn’t know it yet.
