To Shake the Sleeping Self: A Journey from Oregon to Patagonia, and a Quest for a Life with No Regret

by Jedidiah Jenkins

The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or perchance a palace or temple on the earth, and at length the middle-aged man concludes to build a wood-shed with them. —HENRY DAVID THOREAU

But as you get older, and the patterns become more obvious, time speeds up. Especially once you find your groove in the working world. The layout of your days becomes predictable, a routine, and once your brain reliably knows what’s next, it reclines and closes its eyes. Time pours through your hands like sand.

But travel has a way of shaking the brain awake. When I’m in a new place, I don’t know what’s next, even if I’ve read all the guidebooks and followed the instructions of my friends. I can’t know a smell until I’ve smelled it. I can’t know the feeling of a New York street until I’ve walked it. I can’t feel the hot exhaust of the bus by reading about it. I can’t understand the humility of walking beneath those giant buildings. I can’t smell the food stands and the cologne and the spilled coffee. Not until I go and know it in its wholeness.

When you have a weird name, one that’s uncommon enough to stand out but not a nightmare to pronounce, people remember you. And when they remember you—especially when you’re young—it builds confidence. You feel special, worthy of being remembered. I don’t know if this is true, clinically speaking. But I’ve always felt comfortable in a crowd, and I think it’s at least in part because people remember my name. And that I am loved by God and God’s friend, I guess.

The factor that I overlooked was the finiteness of time. This concept is invisible to a child. Kids may know logically that they will one day be old, but they can’t feel it. It sounds like a rumor.

They had the American dream in the twinkle of their eyes. Both had been rewarded, even if only for a moment, with the fame that comes from taking a chance, risking it all for an idea that awakens the soul.

I wasn’t the stereotype my church had been taught to fear and reject. I was their friend first. And they couldn’t kick out their friend.

I loved Jesus for not taking my friends from me. The least I could do for Him was keep my lips and hands and penis to myself.

Then I thought, why do some Native Americans wear suede coats with frills, or headdresses, or why do some black people wear picks in their hair or do-rags? Why do businesspeople wear ties? I have no idea. I’ve never asked.

Even after all this time, The Sun never says to the Earth, you owe me, look what happens with a love like that, it lights the whole world.

Jordan’s story reminded me of the James Baldwin quote: “It was really a matter between me and God. I would have to live the life he had made me to live. I told him quite a long, long time ago there would be two of us at the Mercy Seat. He would not be asking all the questions.”

An awareness of my own hypocrisy stung me. I hadn’t noticed this in myself. And from this thought, it spread in me an empathy for my mom, for the people in my church. If I, being in a category of oppression, could still mock another who is laterally the same as me, then how common must that hypocrisy be? And in being that way, they are not intentionally evil or bigoted, but groupish human beings wired to question difference.

Did I feel more awake and young and alive? Yes, I guess I did, but had I experienced page-turning revelations? Some flag to plant in a new continent of understanding? No.

I think it’s funny he writes a best seller that is no good and confirms that his experience isn’t page turning! It’s all rigged.