Zibby welcomes viral TikTok poet Josie Balka to discuss I HOPE YOU REMEMBER, a breathtaking poetry collection about love, loss, envy, hope, relationships, body image, nostalgia, and the universal longings that live deep in our souls. Josie shares how a therapist’s advice to open her heart completely changed her perspective on life. She also reflects on her creative process (it’s mostly spontaneous and done in her iPhone Notes app!) and emphasizes the power of simple, conversational writing.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Josie. Thanks so much for coming on Totally Booked. I'm so excited to be talking to you about I Hope You Remember. Congratulations. 

Josie: Oh my gosh. Thank you so much.

And thank you so much for having me. 

Zibby: Oh, it's my pleasure. I loved watching you with your hardcovers in the very room where I'm interviewing you now, um, holding them up and thanking all your fans, and it's just so exciting. It's contagious. There it is. 

Josie: Yeah. I'm so excited. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh. I have to tell you personally that I read the arc of this during the LA fires, right?

It came out like the arcs came out last December or something, right? 

Josie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Zibby: And it got me through the whole thing. It was all I could read. 

Josie: Oh my gosh. 

Zibby: That was the only thing I created. 

Josie: Thank you so much. That's so sweet. 

Zibby: So now it will forever sort of be linked to the thing that helped me through the most.

Josie: Wow. That's what I, I, that's, I have like speechless all about. Thank you so much for saying that. I can't believe what you guys went through over there. We were just watching on the news from here. I was in LA recently for the first time I went to a bookstore. It's beautiful. Oh. But like, I just can't believe that that happened.

Zibby: I can't either. I was here when it happened, but anyway, whatever. But thank you. Okay. Josie, tell everybody what your book is about so we can, and then, and we're gonna dive into how you got this incredibly amazing voice of yours. 

Josie: Okay. Um, my book is just kind of about, it's very emotional. I think I'm a very emotional person, so we decided to break it into three chapters.

I always get the order wrong. Longing. Loving. Longing and loving. Yeah. And, uh, just because it was kind of, all my emotions are always all over the place, which is the way that it was, and originally I was like, we should have this scattered. And then it was like, uh, okay. Not everybody's brain is like, okay, to go from this topic, to this topic, to this.

Um, so it's basically just like love, friendship, lost love ships, toxic relationships, like body image issues, body image positivity, like everything kind of tied into one. It's like an all over the map of being alive kind of poetry book. 

Zibby: Yeah, that's a good way to say it. It's so emotional, in fact, that I can just watch one of your videos on TikTok and cry.

Like today, I cried about the dog video as I sat next to my dog. Like the, like how all the dents and the floorboards are what you're gonna miss the most. And I'm gonna, I can't even talk about it. I'm cry. 

Josie: Oh my God. It's so Dogs. Dogs are like such an emotional point. Our dog's getting older. Like how old is your dog?

Zibby: 10. Almost. 

Josie: Yeah. 

Zibby: Our dog is almost 11 nine. 

Josie: And we look at him and we're like, you're getting old, their hair gets gray and suddenly all these things like the scratched up hardwood and the little like, I don't know, I just start thinking about all them in like more of a nice way instead of a thing that you wanna change.

And I think that's kind of a theme of kind of the way that I like to write things when it comes to your pets or anything like your body, your relationships, is to kind of twist it. Like start with a thing that is probably negative to you, but like turn it into something that could be positive. 

Zibby: And then at the end you always tie it up with like some sort of life message.

You know? Yeah. You like, you're like the things that annoy you or the things you're gonna miss the most. And I was like, because it applies to so many things, you know, it applies to my kids growing up and like everybody has their things, right. And it just touches that nerve. You just, you just like go in there and touch the nerve of everything. 

Josie: Oh, well thanks. I, yeah, I like to, uh, look at things through this lens. I heard somebody say this once, and I feel like a lot of what I write now that I'm saying this out loud, I've never thought of this before, but like is from the perspective of you in 50 years, like looking back, being like, my God put me back in the moment. You know? 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Josie: Like I loved that body and that dog and that house and those kids at that age. And you know, just like everything that you have right now will be something that you look back and you want back in some form or some capacity.

And I think me being so scared to like get older and grow up and like move on with my life is part of the reason why I am writing all this kind of stuff. But yeah. 

Zibby: Can you tell me more about, so when I read the book, I honestly, and not to, embarrassed myself, but I I hadn't been following you. I didn't know of you.

I just was like, oh, this looks like a good collection of poetry and I didn't even realize that you were young. Do you know what I mean? Like, I didn't know anything. So because your voice and your thoughts are so wise, like they're so full of soul and so wise that not that young people can't be wise. And it's not like you're 12 or anything, but just like, how did you get this way?

Where did you come from? What is our story? 

Josie: I feel like, I mean, I'm not that y I'm, I'm in my early thirties. I'm 31, but like I. I don't know. I think it's kind of happened over the last little while and it, it's kind of weird. I feel like I just fell into this place where I started to understand myself and understand the world a little bit better.

And I don't know if my frontal Loeb like finished developing or something and then I was able to see straight. But I remember I used to have this therapist and she's very spiritual. She's called it open heart therapy, and she would always talk about having like an open heart and I could not wrap my head around what that meant.

I was just like, I don't get it. And she was like, just open up your heart and you'll see that like you'll see everything in a different light and you'll be able to attract things. And I was like, I don't understand what you're talking about. Like that makes no sense. And then there was literally one day where I was like, oh, an open heart.

I feel it like it's there. And I don't know if it just like took time 'cause I wasn't even really focusing on learning what it was, but I, I think at that point it kind of opened me up to see things from a different perspective a little bit. 

Zibby: How have you been seeing things before, like, and have you always been a poet?

Like, do you consider yourself a poet? 'cause you aren't, you know, 

Josie: I, I, I consider myself a radio host. That's my main job. So I like, consider myself that mostly. And then I guess this kind of, yeah, it's hard to put a title to it. Like, it's hard to believe it. I have a bit of imposter syndrome. No, but I guess before I was pretty closed off and, and very negative like everything what's happening to me instead of for me and like there was just no looking ahead and only looking back. And I guess that I do that a lot, like I do a lot of past revisiting, but I do a lot of revisiting of the past still, but kind of in a way that I see that it was for a reason, you know? 

Zibby: Hmm. Can I just read like this one excerpt from your, from Loving at least.

Sure. Um, I mean, I could really be any page 'cause they're all equally beautiful. But what did being loved by me feel like? What was it like for you during the time that I thought you hung the moon? What was it like to sit across from someone who thought you could do no wrong even while you did the wrong things?

Did you feel privileged while I felt pathetic? Did you feel important? While I felt insufficient? Did you feel loved? While I felt lost. I don't ask because I hope it was awful. I ask because I hope it was worth it. I hope for you the storm felt cozy. I hope my umbrella went to good use while I stood in the rain.

I hope I made you feel good about yourself, and I hope you feel warm when I crossed your mind because it makes you think of a time when somebody loved every single thing about you, because I did everything except the fact that you didn't love me back. Oh! 

Josie: That, it's very interesting to have, I've never had somebody read me something I've written.

Zibby: Really? 

Josie: I've, I've only ever read it on paper or read it out loud, so that was crazy experience. So thank you for, you just did like a whole open up, a whole new world for me. But yeah, I, I forgot about that one, to be honest. And wow, I like it. 

Zibby: Right. It's good. 

Josie: Thanks. 

Zibby: Toss the imposter syndrome aside. 

Josie: Honestly, I was like, well, that you have such a nice reading voice that Yeah, that's, that was a crazy experience.

Thanks. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh. Oh, I didn't mean to totally freak you out, but, um, no, it was great. When you wrote this, for example, how close was this to when you felt this way? Like was it, you were just thinking back on this time, or was it something you wrote in the moment that you like pulled out of a drawer and you kept writing?

How? How close are we to this. 

Josie: Feel like often I'll hear something or see something or drive past something or think of something that reminds me of a feeling that I felt I wrote all of the poems in this book in the last couple of years while I've been in a relationship. I got engaged in November and we're getting married in October, so.. 

Zibby: Have you oh, so exciting.

Congratulations. 

Josie: Thanks. And like, uh, obviously these aren't about him. Uh, 'cause that would be a huge problem. But like, there are some ones that are like about being in love and those are about him and like the feelings that I felt when I've been in love. But it's mostly just feelings that I remember. And I honestly think that not feeling that way anymore is the reason that I'm able to like, sit down and.

Put it into words because it's not happening. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Josie: And there's just something that happens with these big emotions that you feel where they get so simple to you after they're over and you can actually look back and be like, whoa, that was me doing everything and you doing nothing the whole time. And I see that now.

Because I, in the moment, I really thought you were gonna wake up one morning and start treating me the same way that I treat you. So it just, obviously such a classic say like, hindsight's 2020, but I can look back and be like, oh, that's exactly what was happening and I know how I felt and now I can see clearly how you felt 'cause you were showing me.

And it just kind of makes it easier to write about. 

Zibby: Can I read one more mind? 

Josie: Yeah, of course. I like that. Yeah. No, go. 

Zibby: You wrote. One day, the people who love you will receive the news of your passing. Their phone will ring and they will find that the most important person to them is not here anymore. This is not something that might happen.

It is something that will happen. You will be a voicemail that people listen to again and again just to hear your voice. You'll be a picture in a frame that stops people in their tracks breathless in the hallway. You'll be the root cause of countless moments of insurmountable grief for the people who love you the most.

And it is not later that you become, oh my God, I'm gonna cry. And it is not later that you become someone who would leave a hollow pit in the center of someone's world with your absence. No time is needed to make you into someone who has changed people's lives to a point where they question whether or not they could go on without you.

It does not have to be 50 years down the line for the lack of you to be inconceivable because you are so important right now as you are. I know it's a twisted way to look at it, a destructive point of view for the sake of pointing out something positive. But the space you take up, no matter how big or small, is far too grand to ever be filled.

It won't be you belong here. There is nobody better for it than you. Oh. 

Josie: Well, thank you for reacting to it that way. That's so sweet. 

Zibby: I'm telling you, every poem of yours I start crying. It's like, it's so bad. It's, and I mean, it's so good. But, you know, Ugh. 

Josie: I remember when I wrote that one, 'cause I was thinking about a friend who has lost a parent and I, like, they've opened up to me on several occasions about like, when they found out.

And like, I, I just was thinking about them one day and how awful that must have been and, and, you know, um, and how that's gonna happen. And like to either me or my parents. 'cause like, you know, you never know which way to call is. Right? With life, nothing's guaranteed. And I was like, but what is guaranteed?

Like it will happen. Like one day I get a call or you get a call. That this has happened and there's literally no way for it not to happen. And I just like kind of opened my brain up to be like, whoa. Like, and I know it's so simple, like we're all gonna die one day, but you really do bury that in your, in your mind.

Like you worry about things from a day to day, like you hope that your health is good and this and that, but it's just this like inevitable thing. And I feel like, I don't know why, but there's one day they just started to feel really real and I was like, well, one day. My, like future children or whatever, like if I'm lucky and things go as they're supposed to go and I live a long time will lose me.

Like it. That's. Crazy. And they're gonna be so sad about it because I'm matter to them. And like it was just this whole weird epiphany of feelings and then that's what it came out as. But yeah,.. 

Zibby: No, I think about that a lot. I think about death a lot and I,.. 

Josie: I do too. 

Zibby: I think about like. Oh my gosh. Like, not that I'm so indispensable to my children.

Obviously by the, hopefully by the time I die, they'll be able to do all the things they need to do on their own, but I won't be there to make them feel better.

Josie: I know, I know. 

Zibby: So helpless and it's gonna happen and it's so terrible. 

Josie: Anyway. No, it's, it's like, it's such a weird, I think of like death all the time too, and like all the things that I already regret not doing and not saying and all, you know, so it's just, uh, it's just like a weird, a weird thought to have.

But that was kind of my thought process when I wrote that. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh, no, it's all so good. You have all these powerful thoughts and feelings and have found a way to articulate them. In a way that's simple enough for really everybody to get. And by the way, um, I work on it with, you know, I have a whole team of, of people and I mentioned that I was about to interview you and they were all like, oh my gosh, the girl, that girl really her.

Josie: Oh, no way. 

Zibby: Oh yeah. 

Josie: That's crazy. Okay, cool. That's awesome. 

Zibby: So your stuff, I know, you know you're going viral, but like, it's one thing to say I'm viral on TikTok and another to be like, oh no, actually, like everyone sitting around this table has gotten your videos and loves watching them. 

Josie: Wow. That's crazy.

Zibby: So what, what are you going, how are you gonna like use your power for good? Like how are you gonna leverage this? What are you gonna do with this celebrity, this newfound sort of platform, right? Because essentially, yeah, like TikTok Stars are the new celebrities, right? 

Josie: That's a really good question. I like have never even come into the realm of that question before in my head.

What am I gonna do to use my power for good? Well, I'm hoping that just in the. I guess the niche that I've fallen into where it's more so. I guess I just hope that people can use me to feel less alone in the same way that I'm using them to feel less alone. Like, I don't want my followers to be like, oh, she's using us.

But when I post something that I've been through and there's hundreds of comments being like, oh my gosh, I see this. I've been there. I, I feel that I'm going through that right now where I went through that before and I'm through it. If it's something that I'm like currently going through, like selfishly I, that helps me so much.

And I guess I'm hoping that when people listen. To this and, uh, like feel along with me. Like, I hope that they feel helped in the same way that I do when I find out that they relate to it. 

Zibby: So in one of the videos I watched, you said you had like pinned up these, so you're in a little, what looks like a sound box, you know?

Yeah, like a, like an audiobook recording studio. 

Josie: Yeah. 

Zibby: How did you make this room? Are you literally, is it literally just like two panels you put on your wall like. Explain this to me. Are you in your house? Like where are you? 

Josie: Yeah, so I'm in my basement. Uh, like I got really lucky when I moved into my fiance's house a couple years ago.

It's like an actual house. I've always lived in apartments downtown, and now we're like in a home in the suburbs. So we got some space, um, and we don't have any kids yet, so it worked out that I could utilize one of our guest rooms. The problem is, is that I am a project starter, like this room was a work in progress for a while, but it started for voiceover because I do a lot of voiceover work.

So I just set this up so that I could have a place to do it. And now it's like, like this kind of like, there's like shelves and stuff in here. There's a computer and then it goes all around and then the door here. 

Zibby: Huh? 

Josie: Which leads into a podcast studio that I need to put together. But it's just furniture at the moment, like I need to do.

But it's been sitting there for months. Like I have to figure my life out. But yeah, that's, this room is just a closet, like literally a walk-in closet. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh. That is so neat. 

Josie: Yeah. 

Zibby: And where did you buy all the panels? Just online. 

Josie: Amazon. 

Zibby: Really? Oh my gosh. Gosh. 

Josie: At Amazon, I got the little ones. You can get like a pack of like 10 or 20 of them for, I think it's probably like a couple hundred dollars for all of them.

And then this like big one on the door I got from a, a sound and like music store called Long and McQuaid, where you can rent equipment. And originally like, 'cause you know, investing in building a studio isn't cheap. So at first when I went to Long and McQuaid to get like these pads, I also rented a microphone and an interface and I was like paying monthly and like paying all this interest on them so that I could like eventually pay them off with the work that I was hopefully, eventually gonna do.

So that paid off, which is great, but it's been definitely a, a weird journey. I, my co-host at work. Always jokes because he's like, you just come in here and you say you're gonna do something and then you do it. You were like, I'm gonna go buy some pads from Won and McQuaid and do some voiceover work in my closet.

And I was like, you got it. And then I came in a couple weeks later, I was like, I think I'm gonna start posting my poems online. And he is like, great, sounds good. And I'm like, she's all these like weird things that I say and then they've been coming to life. But I think that whole open heart thing that I talked about at the beginning kind of ties into that.

I don't know why. It feels like I opened myself up to it and then it happened. 

Zibby: Wow. That's so cool. Do you have a carpet too? I'm trying to make some, something similar. That's why I'm, I'm asking. 

Josie: Yeah, it's like the same carpet that outside. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Josie: And then I actually have like, just like, like this here on the wall.

Yep. I literally have one like underneath the desk on the floor. 'cause when I got this closet installed with like all the shelves and stuff, it kind of got really echoy in here and I needed to dip it down. So even in these shelves where they're supposed to be booked, I just have like these pads of soundproofing.

But it's actually like, oh, offline, I can totally help you with this.

No, don't worry about it. I love talking about it. It's my favorite. 

Zibby: I'm like, what equipment do you have? Anyway, thank you. 

Josie: No, I can help you. 

I'll send you pictures of everything. 

Zibby: Thank you. Thank you. 

Josie: Yeah, of course. 

Zibby: That's what you should really like. That's one of those things you could do. You could like be it what?

Like an Amazon affiliate and then like anybody could buy these things and you 

Josie: Oh. Like how to build your studio. Wow. That's a really smart idea. You could earn money. 

Zibby: Yeah, it you just apply like you'll get in two seconds. You like apply and then 

Josie: I think I might already have that. I could just go and make like a little storefront storefront. 

Zibby: Make little storefront and then link it to like a post or something and then anybody who bought can like make your own studio and like start recording.

Josie: Wow. Okay. I'll do that like literally right after we hang up the phone. 

Zibby: Then send me the link and I'll be your first customer. 

Josie: Perfect. That's awesome. 

Zibby: There we go. 

Josie: I love it. That's great. 

Zibby: This is a good idea. So this is what happens when, uh, you know, you put two microphones together and see what happens. Oh my gosh.

So I feel like it would be, it will be so easy for you to scale, like writing poetry at in book form because you're like constantly reading them. You must write. You must have so much in store. Are you planning on doing like tons of collections and what are, what's your plan? 

Josie: As of right now, the only one that's like officially out there is this one, but I definitely have since even handing in, 'cause you know the process with books is long.

Zibby: Yep. 

Josie: When you're doing it traditionally. So I handed in the manuscript fi like a year ago. Uh, for this. 

Zibby: Yep. 

Josie: And we worked, we've been working on it for a long time, so, um, obviously I've written a lot since then. I think if I were to do a second book, it would be a little more zoned into a topic. 

Zibby: Mm. 

Josie: That is important to me, and that if it were to ever happen, it would come out not too long after this one, but I, but I don't know.

Zibby: You're being very cagey, so I won't, I won't, I won't push. Where do you write these poems? Is this like a late at night thing or you don't just do them on the fly, right? You write them and then read them, right? 

Josie: Yeah, I do them. I pretty on the fly, like I'll usually write it and then come down and record it right away.

Like usually if you see one, I probably wrote it, recorded it and posted it all in one day. But it comes to me in like weird ways. I tell this story all the time, but like someone told me once that they heard an interview with like Adele. Where she talked about how when she gets an idea for something, it like feels like it, like gravitates into her brain from out of nowhere.

And I feel like that happens to me. It might even be like a line from a song or I'm driving, like I mentioned earlier. So I'll write down the thought prompt like in my phone and then I'll come back to it. When I get home when I'm laying in bed, or I'll come down here and write it on this computer, or I have a walking pad upstairs in the room that I do my makeup in.

And sometimes I'll write and walk at the same time and I'll kind of go through all of the one line prompts that I wrote for myself so I could remember and just decide if anything still resonates with me a couple hours later when I get home. But it's kind of all over the place. But the whole book was written in my notes app on my iPhone, which is crazy.

Zibby: That is crazy. That's so cool though. You know, it's so cool because it can. It makes it feel like anybody can try doing this and like, it doesn't have to necessarily be at your level. Right. But if any, if everybody just starts expressing their thoughts and getting them down on paper and it feels doable.

Josie: Yeah.

Zibby: Then we'll get so much more great art and people will help each other more. 

Josie: I think there's a lot of power in like all different types of writing, and there's like, I've, I guess this is more like prose than poetry, right? 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Josie: But there's a lot of power in it no matter how you do it. And if you're somebody who loves to use like super powerful metaphors and big words, and you know, like different things that have five different meanings and you can go look them all up and take it from all different angles.

And I can still appreciate writing like that. I personally, just, the way that it naturally comes to me is to write in a way that I'd say it out loud. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Josie: So that you're reading it and you don't have to check on any of what any of the words meant. And you like, aren't confused about what any of it means, and you're just like, this must mean exactly.

I. What it means, and this is exactly how I'm taking it. And that everybody who reads it kind of takes it the same way. And I think that with that in mind, if you're not somebody who loves to use like big words or metaphors or whatever, like it doesn't mean that you can't write. 'cause I'm writing these things from a very simple.

Standpoint and very simply put, and I think it's the best thing to remember is if you wanna start writing and you kinda like feel it in your heart, but you don't know how to get it out, is that the only person who's ever gonna read it is, is you, unless you let somebody else read it. You don't have to put it anywhere.

And you don't have to ever be embarrassed when you're by yourself because it's just you. So put it on paper or put it in your notes app or something, and then keep it to yourself forever if you want. But I think like it would really benefit everybody to try, if they have that in them and they wanna do something like that.

Zibby: Amazing. Josie. Thank you. This has been so awesome. I'm such a fan and I just love the way you write and I'm, I don't know. Congrats. 

Josie: Well, thank you so much. It's means so much coming from you. You're an icon in the book world, so I really, really appreciate, thank you. You taking the time to have me on and, and talk to me about it.

And I thank you for reading it like that means. More to me than you know. 

Zibby: No, as I said, it helped me through a really tough time and I feel indebted, so thank you. 

Josie: Well, thank you. 

Zibby: Okay, bye. 

Josie: Thank you so much. 

Zibby: Okay, bye.