THE PURPOSE OF GETTING LOST BY TRACY SMITH

Book Tour Interview with Women on Writing

--- Interview by Nicole Pyles

WOW: Congrats on The Purpose of Getting Lost! How has your background in psychology shaped the way you approached writing this memoir?

Tracy: My background in psychology gave me tools for understanding cognitive patterns — how people process experience, make meaning, and behave in the world. But honestly, the more important thing it gave me was self-awareness. Writing this memoir forced me to look at my own patterns first. And once I could see them clearly in myself, I started recognizing them everywhere — in how strangers moved through a space, how people signaled connection without words. That's really what gave birth to the Geography of Connection. The good news is you don't need a doctorate to do this kind of looking. You just have to be willing to pay attention.

WOW: I love when we can recognize our own patterns in ourselves.  How did the memoir evolve from your first draft to the final version?

Tracy: When I first decided to write this book, I downloaded my Facebook feed — I had been documenting my travel experiences there for the past several years. I had close to 100,000 words and 200 single-spaced pages. I sent it to an editor and thought, great, here is a book. It wasn't until he and I talked extensively that I realized I didn't have a message. I couldn't tell anyone why they should pick up my book of travel stories over anyone else's. A lot of writers have funny travel stories.

So he gave me a homework assignment. The question that turned everything around was deceptively simple: describe the demographic characteristics of your primary audience. I sat with it and realized I wasn't describing a stranger. I was describing women in my everyday life: women who had lost themselves, who didn't feel like they belonged anywhere, who were one life event away from blowing everything up or breaking open. Once I saw her clearly, I saw her everywhere. That became the spine of the book.

WOW: What an inspiring assignment! Tell us about The Geography of Connection and how it relates to The Purpose of Getting Lost.

Tracy: Most people think belonging is something you feel. I’m interested in how it’s something you can see. 

The Geography of Connection is a project that examines what belonging looks like, not as a feeling, but as something you can observe— through behaviors, postures, and movement, and then questions how those signals of belonging are shaped by culture and environment.  

The project grew directly out of writing the memoir, where I started by looking at my own patterns.  That process forced me to look at my own patterns first, to understand where I had and hadn't felt like I belonged. Once I could see those signals in myself, I started recognizing them everywhere — in how strangers moved through a space, how people positioned themselves toward or away from each other. What struck me was how universal the signals were across cultures, even when everything else was different. 

The Geography of Connection is my attempt to build a framework around that — to make that kind of looking accessible to anyone, not just researchers. Because once you learn to see belonging, you start to understand what you've been missing and now you can feel it differently. And that's where everything changes. 

WOW: That's amazing. What advice would you offer women who feel nervous about breaking free from the traditional path, as you did?

Tracy: Somewhere along the way, most women I know stopped being a person and became a collection of roles — mother, daughter, wife, friend, colleague. Those identities aren't wrong, but they have a way of crowding out the one underneath. The woman who existed before all of them.

The first step back is smaller than you think. Maybe it's reading a chapter before washing the dishes. A walk at sunset before the nighttime routine starts. It sounds almost too simple — but what those small acts do, over time, is remind you that you exist outside of what you do for everyone else. And once you see that, once you feel it even briefly, something shifts. You start to understand that choosing yourself isn't abandonment. It's just remembering.

WOW: I love your advice on taking that first step back. What are you working on now that you can share with us?

Tracy: I am currently designing a 90-day place-based inquiry in West Africa — specifically Senegal and Guinea-Bissau. My project is not just travel and it is not academic research, though it borrows from both. It merges the rigor of structured observation with the intimacy of actually being somewhere, living inside a culture rather than passing through it.

The methodology is the Geography of Connection. I'll be observing how belonging is expressed differently across communities — what it looks like, how it moves, what culture and place do to it. But here's what I want people to understand: you don't need to be a traveler or a researcher to do this kind of work. You can practice it in your own neighborhood, your own kitchen. West Africa is just where I'm taking it next.

The 90-day residency is the first chapter. What I'm building toward is a year-long program rooted in the same methodology — but that's still taking shape. The Substack is where I'm thinking out loud, designing in public. That's the most honest way I know to do this work.

WOW: We can't wait to hear more! Thank you for joining us today. Best of luck on your tour!