Book Of The Month: To Shake The Sleeping Self
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A man sets out on a sixteen-month-long biking expedition from the northern coast of Oregon to the southern tip of Patagonia, pedaling 7000 miles with nothing but a bike, his pack, and a faint idea of self-discovery.
Published in 2018, To Shake the Sleeping Self documents the highs and lows, the humorous anecdotes, adventures and revelations, and the moments of self-doubt and boredom, of these 7000 miles. As the age of 30 approached, Jedidiah Jenkins grew very conscious of the speedy passage of time. Looking around, he was increasingly aware of how unceremoniously and nonchalantly a lifetime can slip by into old age without pause.
To Shake The Sleeping Self
Originally Published: 2018
Pages: 352
Available on: Kindle, Paperback, Hardcover, Audiobook
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It dawned on him that those big adventures that people hope for, those crazy thoughts of giving up everything to experience another life and another part of the world–those precious chances slip silently by if you don’t create them yourself. He resolved to give up routine, trust in the unpredictable, and simply see and experience for himself what the world was made of.
““When you don’t know what to do, you travel. You go out and see. You have to rattle the bed, shake yourself out.””
He didn’t entertain grand hopes that he would re-make his identity or “find himself”; he simply wanted to slow down enough to wholly and completely experience the present moment, his relationship with time and the rest of the world, and truly experience life as it unfolds.
His parents had made a similar cross-country sabbatical in the 1970s. His father walked across America, met Jedidiah’s mother along the way and convinced her to join his walk, and became a nationally-known author for National Geographic when he documented this journey. With such parents to inspire his wanderlust, Jedidiah felt deeply it was time for his own experience of change and exploration.
““I have learned this for certain: if discontent is your disease, travel is medicine. It resensitizes. It opens you up to see outside the patterns you follow. Because new places require new learning. It forces your childlike self back into action. When you are a kid, everything is new. You don’t know what’s under each rock, or up the creek. So, you look. You notice because you need to. The world is new.””
Leaving a job, lifestyle, and friends and family, all of which he loved, Jedidiah began planning his epic bicycle ride more than a year in advance. He would begin his trek with an acquaintance he didn’t know well (but biking thousands of miles alone together broke that barrier quite quickly), and they would begin in Oregon.
Jenkins humbly delivers his novel experiences with Latin American culture and his changing perspective of how a life is best lived. His chance encounters with all types of people, from policemen to drug dealers to hospitable locals, are precious and meaningful; Jenkins savors these meetings and the insight they provide. The kindness of strangers, the hospitable offers of a bed and a meal from poor families, and fascinating, fast friendships all detail milestones in Jenkins’ journey.
They biked through highly uncomfortable conditions, all sorts of weather, and all sorts of roads. At times, they feared for their safety when strangers approached, feeling vulnerable in such foreign territory. Jenkins and his companions would camp every night off the side of the highway, hidden by trees, shrubs, or abandoned shacks. They would bathe in streams, or oftentimes, stay at little hostels. They survived mostly on sandwiches, jerky, and crackers, and relished the culinary novelties they got to experience when they ate from the fresh tables of locals.
The physical toil and mental endurance needed for such a journey is enormous. When the glamor and novelty faded after the honeymoon period, there was nothing but the road and gritting of teeth through tiresome, if beautiful, circumstances. The changing countryside of Central and South America was the most beautiful he’d ever seen, and experiencing it in one of the most intimate ways possible, of biking slowly and sleeping by the side of the road, is not one that can be easily replicated. He describes with great intrigue and fascination the differences in culture of the towns and countries he encounters on his southward travels.
““On that bus, I had a lot of miles to stare out the window and think about my journey. About expectations. About destinations. I had wanted my spirit quest to answer questions for me. More than that, I needed it to reveal my questions to me, then answer them. What a burden to put on travel, which in itself is ignorant and indifferent. It becomes so hard to just enjoy the thing as it happens. We make the journey about arrival, not travel. We are so goal focused. We are the dog that won’t stop paddling as long as he sees the shore. But, man, my shore had been hidden by the fog for so long.””
Time does slow down, and while it was routine that Jenkins’ had resolved to escape, he found a new routine in his day-in, day-out biking. As the full title, To Shake the Sleeping Self: A Journey from Oregon to Patagonia, and a Quest for a Life with No Regret, says, he sought his own individual route and balanced relationship with existence and purpose.
Jenkins does an immaculate job of opening the floor to new ideas, admitting his frustrations, insecurities, and the slow transformation of his mindset. He clearly has an open mind, but even within that, he finds room to grow and expand; he doesn’t allow his pride to impede on the possibility that he might just be flat-out wrong about some things. Absorbing the South American culture like a child and a sponge, Jenkins marvels at the stark difference in socioeconomic conditions and standard of living between the U.S. and these more humble countries to the south. As he finds out, “There are so many different ways to be human.”
Along the way, Jenkins aspires to calm his mind and seek a deeper understanding of his childhood and life thus far. He wanted time, and he got it, astride two wheels for sixteenth months with often nothing but his thoughts to keep his company. He turned over in his mind all previously-accepted notions of himself, other people, and the world. He had grown up in a traditional Christian household, and being a gay man, there had been many unresolved conversations and conjunctions with the faith-filled community he had come from.
Many of the unanswered questions and doubts, about faith, sexuality, American culture, and lifestyle, swam inside Jenkins head as he biked deeper and deeper south. He identified as Christian his whole life, pushed aside some aspects of his character and sexuality in order to remain in the Christian world, but the farther he biked, the farther he felt from this relationship and community. His relationship with God took center, not the Church’s parameters on morality.
The culmination of his journey escalates at Machu Picchu, when California friends flew down to join him on this famous summit. Here, his confrontation with his relationship with Christianity comes to a head, and he feels a sever deep within. He feels the earth shift under his feet gradually as enlightenment and wonder open his eyes to things he had never seen or thought before.
““For the first time in my life, I felt that my only allegiance was to the truth. Not to tradition. Not to safety. Not to what I had been taught. But to whatever was true. And that made me feel strong.””
At the end of the sixteen months, he does know he has changed. How could he not, after those miles and moments? He feels his awareness and consciousness expanded, a heightened sense of self-knowledge, and a more intimate relationship with time, God, and his purpose on the earth.
Any readers who love self-reflection, travel stories, memoirs, and even history and geography will get a kick out of this book. It is an inspiring page-turner of a man’s journey, and curiosity will surely take over as you read through the rollercoaster ride of a 7000 international bike ride into the unknown.
To hear more from Jedidiah Jenkins, here is a video interview that his friend, a filmmaker who joined him on the trip for a month and a half, created on the reasons behind this monumental challenge.
Jedidiah Jenkins is now a New York Times bestselling author.