Jessy Easton is a published author and business owner who grew up in the Mojave Desert. She is a featured writer in our No. 13 Bench Warmer issue with her piece From the Meth Lab to the Red Carpet. We chatted with Jessy about her writing process and how she took this year to better her craft.

Tell me a little bit about yourself, where did you grow up etc?

I grew up in the Mojave Desert off Route 66 where the road to school was a dirt road. My mother was in and out of prison for most of my childhood, serving felony charges for robbing over three hundred houses all over San Bernardino County. Dad built a meth lab in our home to make money to pay the bills and take care of my brother and me. When I wasn’t visiting Mom in prison alongside her roommate Susan Atkins from the Manson cult, I’d spend my days out in the desert wasteland next to our house, making up imaginary worlds with my brother. Condensed down like this it sounds like I had a rough childhood, and maybe I did compared to some, but that’s not how I remember it. It was full of adventure, independence, and chaos that made me who I am today. My parents were flawed and didn’t always make the right decisions, but their love was big and as a child, that’s all I really needed.

Can you tell us a little bit about your companies Eason Rhodes and Rhodes Wedding Co.?

Easton Rhodes is a digital marketing company that focuses on telling stories to help people and brands develop their message, grow their community, and increase their engagement. We use a multitude of creative mediums such as creative writing, photography, videography, and podcasting to build out a story across social media and digital platforms. I’ve focused most of my efforts within the women entrepreneurial space and have had the honor of working with many inspiring thought leaders such as Kara Goldin, Founder and CEO of Hint Water. She is an unstoppable force who runs an important lifestyle brand, spreading the message of health, wellness, and living a life undaunted. My well of inspiration never runs dry.

Rhodes Wedding Co. is an engagement ring and wedding band company that designs one of a kind pieces that tell the world’s great love stories. I founded it with my husband who hand carves each and every ring. We wanted to make a product that is unique to each couple, an heirloom that tells their story and can be passed down for generations. I focus on the creative direction of the brand as well as sales, marketing, and community growth and engagement on Instagram. I love working with talented and intentional brands in the wedding industry and building relationships with our couples to create something that is special to them.

How did you get into writing?

Writing has always been a way for me to understand my own thoughts. I lean toward the darker themes and narratives within my life and writing through them frees up space in my head and soul for light. I’d always written just for me, for my own sanity.

Growing up, people always said that I should write a book based on my life, but I always shrugged it off. It wasn’t until I met my now husband that I actually set out to do it.

“Why don’t you write about it?” Perry said.

“About what?” I asked.

“This. Your life. Everything.”

“Why would anyone want to read about that?”

“Because a piece of it is in all of us.”

Perry gave me the support and encouragement I needed to move through the past, exploring the joy and the struggle, to expose the story of my life and also my mother’s life. Of her unwavering love for me and her struggle to stay clean long enough to show it. Of my fight to understand her and accept the love she had for me all along, so that I could finally start a life of my own. My finished memoir, The One Who Leaves, explores some of the most raw and unseen aspects of drug addiction, redemption, and what kind of women we become because of, and in spite of, our mother’s love. I’m currently querying agents and hope to have a home for my story someday.

Through writing this book, I’ve connected with my social media community and have found others who have had to navigate the chaos that often comes with loving someone who struggles with addiction. It became clear to me that this story is not just my own. This story is for those who are learning to push the boundaries of love to the edge of everything, past the dark places they’d never thought they’d go in order to find themselves in the process.

What inspired your book From the Dust?

It has been a beautiful and fulfilling way for me to connect on a deeper level with my community. They have been so incredibly supportive through this whole process and I wanted a way to give back to them and offer deeper pieces of myself while I wait to hear back from agents. From the Dust is a compilation of stories, a sort of prelude to my memoir. It’s a crack in the door, an invitation, a tiny offering, a glimpse into the greater, more expanded truths that I unfold in my memoir. The project as a whole is a collaborative work, blending mediums of art (and life), storytelling through prose and song. I’m offering the book alongside a cassette tape by my husband who, apart from a jewelry designer, is a very talented singer/songwriter and composer. It was a dream to be able to create something together. He wrote the songs inspired by the stories from the book, making the project a multi-medium experience. We sold out of the first edition and are now offering the second edition on my site.

How do you find the inspiration to write during these uncertain/weird/strange times?

When I was writing my memoir I had such a rigorous writing schedule that I followed no matter what. Getting up at 5 a.m. to write for at least five hours every morning and finishing every night with read-throughs and revisions. When I have a goal I work unwaveringly until I achieve it. But this year all those goals dissolved. I had to focus on my mental health, opening up space for the BLM movement and black stories, and making money to supplement the income we were no longer making with Rhodes Wedding Co. since all weddings had been canceled. No one was getting married. No one was getting engaged. It’s been a hard year for love.

Instead of focusing on getting words on the page, I’ve focused on bettering my craft. I’ve taken writing classes through Catapult and Trust and Travel, joined virtual book clubs, worked with intuitive writing coaches like Tiffany Clarke Harrison to break down barriers I had for myself, and devoured fiction like I never have before. I’m trying my hand at fiction writing for the first time and it’s been both challenging and liberating. It’s been my saving grace this year—inhabiting worlds that aren’t my own.

I’ve also written a few essays that I’m currently seeking publication for and have put countless hours into researching and querying agents for my memoir. It’s an emotional process, but a necessary one. Even through the rejections, the eternal waiting, and failed hopes I know I am a stronger writer and artist, further equipped to take on whatever lies ahead of me. This year, I’ve learned to let go of expectations and to persist anyway, regardless of the outcome.

What do you think of when you hear the phrase Bench Warmer?

Myself—a girl from a nowhere town who sat on the sidelines of her own life because she was overwhelmed with all the things that had gone wrong, all the things she couldn’t control. Through my adolescence I warmed many benches, blending into the discouraging landscape, trying to make myself invisible. It wasn’t until I got out of the desert that I realized my potential and the opportunities I could grasp.

What inspired your piece From the Meth Lab to the Red Carpet?

Building off the theme of what a Bench Warmer is to me, this piece was a natural overflow. At it’s core, it’s about following your dreams or simply following the thread of joy in your life, no matter how small. For me, that thread was music and I followed it until it got me out of my shithole town, away from the chaos of where I came from, and into a life that was my own. An alternative title I had for the piece was, Someone Like Me because it was hard for me to believe that someone like me could live a good life, a big life. But then it happened. The piece is a reminder to those who have come from nothing and nowhere that your dreams matter, your wants and needs matter, and you don’t have to sit on the bench of your own life. All it takes is one moment. Tiny steps of actions can lead to a big and fulfilled life.

Where can people find your work?

I recently released the second edition of From the Dust and it is available for pre-order on my website here. Beacon readers can use code BEACON at checkout to receive $15 off. Also, I’d love to further connect with readers on Instagram. Send me a DM at @jessytai and let’s share stories and truths and musings.