“To Shake the Sleeping Self: A Journey from Oregon to Patagonia, and a Quest for a Life with No Regrets ” by Jedediah Jenkins

I was at Basecamp Books in Roslyn, where Ed and I went for Sunday breakfast, when I saw this book and read the raves by Cheryl Strayed, author of WILD. I couldn’t resist.

Jedediah is thirty and rather directionless when he quits his job as an attorney for a non-profit and decides to bicycle from Portland, Oregon to Patagonia. Never mind that he’s not an experienced cyclist. Nor that the bicycle he purchases for the trip is not top-notch. Nor that Weston, the man he barely knows and decides to travel with, is no more experienced than he. They pack as little as they can and head out.

He tells his story beautifully and generously shares his struggles, both with the tough, external physical world and the diverse people he encounters, and with his internal distress around knowing he’s gay, a huge No No in his fundamentalist Christian home and church, and absolutely disavowed by his mother, with whom he has a complicated relationship.

I loved his accounts of the people he meets and the places he spends time, but loved even more how honestly and straightforwardly he relates his thoughts and emotions. He’s both complex and simple. He wonders. And changes his mind. And gets all mixed up. And messes up. And recovers beautifully.

And he woke my sleeping self. The part of me that’s given up much traveling other than road trips, due to being, as Ed’s dubbed me, “The Princess and the Pea.”

The Princess does feel every blasted pea in every hotel bed and has been known to spend weeks in Europe in a semi-conscious, jet-lagged, depressed fog. But seeing Jedediah feel like Death Warmed Over in a torpid jungle and then recover and feel deeply that it was all worth it, inspired me. And shook my sleeping self. Reading about how he, though often overcome with how hard the trip was, found beauty and meaning that made the hardships worth it, brought me several steps closer to taking that Alaska River Cruise. Or flying to Portugal. Or Amsterdam.

I’m glad I couldn’t resist TO SHAKE THE SLEEPING SELF. It’s a fine, engaging read.

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