Jedidiah Jenkins is a bestselling author who embraces outdoor adventurer as inspiration for his beautiful and deeply personal work. In 2021, Jedidiah's wild idea involved a cross-country road trip with his mother, where they examined their mother-son dynamic, their religious and political differences, and their lasting affection for each other despite some of their opposing views.
Jedidiah Jenkins is a bestselling author who embraces outdoor adventurer as inspiration for his beautiful and deeply personal work. When he turned 30, Jedidiah quit his job, and set out on a bike ride that took him from the Oregon coast all the way down to Patagonia. When he returned, he wrote his a memoir about his journey called, To Shake the Sleeping Self. In 2021, Jedidiah's wild idea involved a cross-country road trip with his mother, where they examined their mother-son dynamic, their religious and political differences, and their lasting affection for each other despite some of their opposing views. The result, his brand new book, Mother, Nature.
Connect with Jedidiah:
Episode sponsors:
If you enjoyed this episode:
Jedidiah Jenkins:
Whenever you underline something in a book, it's because you already knew that to be true, but you didn't have the words yet. You didn't know that those thoughts were in your mind, but the words lock the feeling into reality, and that is one of my favorite feelings in the world. And so I was like, "I want to do that someday."
Shelby Stanger:
Jedidiah Jenkins always wanted to be a writer. Reading authors like John Steinbeck, Toni Morrison and James Baldwin helped him understand the world while growing up as a queer kid in Tennessee. Eventually, Jedidiah moved to LA and for most of his twenties, he was on the hamster wheel of adult life. He spent his days working at a nonprofit, went out in the evenings with his friends and sat in traffic.
Although he loved his job and his friends, in the back of his mind, that dream to become a writer still nagged at him. I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-Op Studios production. When he turned 30, Jedidiah decided to turn his longtime literary dream into a reality. He quit his job and set out on his bike for the ride of a lifetime. The route took him from the Oregon coast all the way down to Patagonia. He was on the road for 16 months. When he returned, he wrote a beautiful memoir about his journey, it's called To Shake the Sleeping Self.
Jedidiah Jenkins:
I went on this big trip in my 30th year with the intention of writing about it, not knowing what it would mean necessarily on my life. But even if I'm a shit writer, you might still want to read about cycling to Patagonia. And then if it's good, yay, then maybe they'll let me write another book and maybe another one.
Shelby Stanger:
When you go on a grand adventure that took you a year and a half, that's a big deal, you change. And I read somewhere that you said that the idea for the adventure was that you'd hoped it would change your brain chemistry, which to me is really profound because I mean, I interview so many through hikers on this podcast and they all say pretty much the same thing.
They say, "Shelby, every time I walk 10 miles, set up my tent, look back to see how far I've come from, and then I do it again and again and again and again. I can't help but feel more badass. And that badassery over time changes your brain chemistry and you take that off the trail into all areas of your life." And I just want to know how that, I mean, you already had this bravery and courage to just go do this thing, but how did it change your brain chemistry otherwise?
Jedidiah Jenkins:
I think that our culture, Western American culture lacks real rite of passage. And what a rite of passage is meant to do is symbolize the internal spiritual experience of being a human, of transformation. I mean, pretty much what we have in our culture is prom, moving out for college and getting married as like-
Shelby Stanger:
Graduation.
Jedidiah Jenkins:
Yeah. Yeah. Like rites of passage. And they're not nothing. But I really feel like going on a grand adventure, one that involves difficult travel over distance for an extended period of time, it provides a physical metaphor for the rest of your life of internal growth where exactly like you said, you can move 10 miles and at very least you're 10 miles further than you were. You might be beat up, you might be scratched, you might be exhausted, but look what you did in a day. And that is profound.
And so if I ever have kids someday or just talk to kids anywhere, I will always say, "Prioritize that rite of passage. Go on a grand adventure. In your twenties, I would say later in your twenties." I am not that woo woo, and I'm not trying to hug a crystal, but the concept of Saturn Return, that 27 to 33 window of age. I'm a deep believer in the fact that that is such a transformative season of life.
You're coming out of cognitive adolescence, experiential adolescence of living the life that was handed to you, and in that window you feel discontent and hopefully you're brave enough to choose to get behind the steering wheel of your own life. And then you come out the other side. I don't know, changed. And so for me, I really do. I grew up this gay kid in Tennessee, bullied, not terribly, but some and always feeling inadequate and not man enough or whatever.
And just the satiation of my subconscious knowing, "Wow, I did a really hard thing." At least I know in my core, in that scared 13 year old little boy way that I did a thing that I'm proud of and that I'm tough. And so how did my bike trip changed me? A, it made me a writer and it made me willing to take risks. It made me willing to try and fail and then find out, what if you succeed? Did you ever think it might work? What a scam. And it made me feel like I'm brave. And that's a nice blessing over your life when you can say that about yourself.
Shelby Stanger:
What was your why? How did you finally get that courage to be like, "This is it, I'm going to do it even if I fail."
Jedidiah Jenkins:
That's a great question. Truly, truly what it was, my why was my fear of regret was greater than my fear of failure. I just have always looked at old people in a recliner and thought about my life from that perspective of like, "Do I want to be sitting in this recliner proud of all that I've done or regretting all that I didn't do?" And that has just been such a motivation for me, full stop.
And so I think the clarifying reality of approaching 30, which twenties is just prolonged adolescence for a lot of us. I mean, I have this very strong belief, at least in my life, that my teenage years were my brain being told who I should be by society. My twenties were me trying to act out that instruction and realizing that it doesn't work for me. And so then your thirties are then turning the ship and trying a new story. I just really felt when I was 27, 28, 29 like, "Wow, a 30-year old is an adult."
It's not cute anymore to be like, "La, la, la. Where am I? What am I doing?" I was like, "I want to be at least moving in a direction that I chose." And if I fail and I do this trip and I try writing a book and I self-publish it, and only my mom and three of my best friends read it, then I'll know, you know what? I tried that. I wrote a book and if I hadn't, I would be 70 and be like, "What if I'd written a book? What if I became a writer?" And I'll never know. And I was too scared to try. But I thought that the risk of not taking the risk and the fear of regret was my true why.
Shelby Stanger:
Jedidiah took a risk and dropped everything like his apartment and his job to fully embrace this wild adventure. And it paid off. His memoir about the trip, To Shake the Sleeping Self, became a New York Times bestseller. In the book, Jedidiah wrote about his daily interactions with locals, his political perspectives and his experience coming out to his conservative family. In fact, his mother Barbara made a memorable appearance on the trip that left him with a new perspective. Is there a story you like to tell from that first big adventure?
Jedidiah Jenkins:
Well, there's a moment. It comes near the very end of the book where my mom flies down to celebrate the end of my year and a half journey reaching Patagonia. And so she wants to hike Torres del Paine with us, which is a 12-mile hike. It's far. I mean, 12 miles is far even flat. And this is going up, up, up. And she's got her two walking sticks and I'm there with my friends Bridgett and Sophia and we're 30, so we're walking faster than her.
She was 67 at the time, but she's fearless. She's like, "I'll go at my own pace. Y'all go up there. I just want to be in nature and don't wait for me. I don't want to take up your time." So we scamper away. And then we started at noon and they said maybe it would take eight hours or something. The trek, even if you're going slow. And it's Patagonia in the summer, so it's light until 10:30 PM.
Anyway, my mom is taking so many breaks and going so slow that we think she's stopped and turned around because we waited at the top a long time. So it's 7:00 PM, 8:00 PM and we start to head back like, "Oh, I guess she went back to the base and wait for us." And then there she is finally reaching the top. And it was so shocking to see her. We were so proud we were crying. And she is shot.
Her knees are throbbing. She is in so much pain, but she was committed to finishing. It's the most inspiring thing you've ever seen. A lot of the book, To Shake the Sleeping Self, is me processing choosing my own life in spite of the conservative religion and this very strong, amazing mother that I have. And she is very religious and loves Jesus all the way times 10. And so being gay and questioning your faith and all those things has been very hard for her.
But her and I are best friends. So anyway, we're walking down. My friends are like, they go on because my mom is now, she's basically shuffling her feet like a penguin because her legs hurt so bad. And I realize we still have another two hours of hiking and it's getting dark. We're alone. My friends have gone. And right as it gets dark, it starts to hail and rain, pouring rain, and it's pitch black. When I say, I mean, we're in deep nature. There's not one streetlight.
And this is something when you live in the city or you live in the United States, most of the United States, there is more light than you realize at all times. There is light leak, there is glow of a city, there's a street lamp. When you are in true nature, it is pitch black. I could not see my hand in front of my face. And my mom was very scared and I was just like, "What is going to happen to us?"
And I remember in that moment, I mean, I won't say the end of the book, but I just remember in that moment this shift of, "Wow, this woman who has unbelievable power over me and always has is this fragile little human on a trail and she's scared and she's looking to me to protect her." It was this shift of like, "I am powerful." Even though I was scared too, I just felt like that it was one of those really profound moments of, "Wow, my mom is just a human, just a little body under the sky, scared on a trail."
Shelby Stanger:
In 2021, Jedidiah decided to pursue another wild idea, this time with his mother in the passenger seat, literally. The pair embarked on a cross country road trip where they examined their mother son dynamic, their religious and political differences and their lasting affection for each other despite some of their opposing views. When we come back, Jedidiah talks about the road trip, his endearing mom and his new book, Mother, Nature.
Jedidiah Jenkins is a bestselling author and adventurer. This year he's coming out with a new book called Mother, Nature. As many of us know, family dynamics can be messy and Jedidiah's family is no exception. His mom, Barbara leans conservative and Jedidiah is very liberal. Although they have different belief systems, the two share many of the same values including a love of travel. Both of Jedidiah's parents are adventurers.
Before Jedidiah was even born, his mom and dad walked across the country together. His dad, Peter, chronicled their journey in the bestselling adventure memoir, A Walk Across America. For years Jedidiah and his mom had been wanting to go on a trip, just the two of them. When their original plans fell through, they decided to retrace his parents' steps. The journey became the inspiration for Jedidiah's new book about preserving their loving relationship while also confronting and accepting their differences.
You just wrote a book about traveling with your mother. I just took a trip a couple of years ago to Hawaii with my mom inspired by a podcast guest who was like, "Listen, break it down into numbers. If the average age of your parent is 85, your mom is 75, you see them twice a year, you got 20 visits left. Do the math." And I was like, "Oh my gosh." And so we booked a trip to Hawaii and she drove me absolutely nuts and we also had the most fun.
And yeah, I'm a big fan of doing a trip with your mom, but it's not easy. And you decided to do this 5,000-mile journey with your mom and wrote a book about it called Mother, Nature: A 5,000-Mile Journey to Discover If a Mother and Son Can Survive Their Differences. Talk to me a little bit about how you got the wild idea to do this giant road trip with your mother, who you do have some differences with.
Jedidiah Jenkins:
Well, it's so funny when you write books and when you finish a great trip, it's like, "Obviously I'm going to write a book about this bike trip I went on. That's the point of the bike trip. And that's so easy." But then when you really want to become a memoirist and you want to become a nonfiction writer about your own life, you just have to start figuring out really, what do I want to write about?
And for me, the only way I can write 300 pages is if it's something that's bothering my soul. The thing that is in your thoughts and bothering you, I can write for days. Because I'm an external processor, so finding language helps me think. And so I realized with the political situation in the United States with the Trump administration, with climate change, with deconstructing my religious faith, with my mom doubling down on her faith and on her politics and how I saw so many of my friends who have conservative parents or have conservative friends, and how in a matter of years it went from, "We don't talk about politics at dinner" to "I will never speak to you again. You're a monster and you're evil."
This, now it's cliche, but this hyperpolarization of our country was very disconcerting. And multiple people in my life were like, "You and your mom are such an interesting case study." Because my mom and I agree on nothing except that we love each other. And I just need her in my life, even if I hate everything that she says. And-
Shelby Stanger:
But you agree on some other things like nature and the idea-
Jedidiah Jenkins:
Yes.
Shelby Stanger:
... for a road trip and like-
Jedidiah Jenkins:
No, of course. We agree on love and nature and discovery and seeing the best in people. I mean, listen, she's overflowing with redeeming qualities and wonder. She's so curious. She wants to talk to everybody. She wants to look in every antique store. She wants to taste every food. We're very similar travelers.
So my mom and I had always wanted to go on a cruise together because, this is disgusting, but I love cruises. Because it's like you're on a hotel that's moving. And she invited me early 2020. She was like, "Jed, I found a cruise. It leaves from Venice, Italy, and it goes to Israel." And I was like, "Wow, this sounds perfect. This sounds amazing. Yes." She goes, "There's one thing, don't be mad, but it's a Glenn Beck cruise." And I go, "What?" I don't know if you know who Glenn Beck is. His-
Shelby Stanger:
Yeah, the conservative political-
Jedidiah Jenkins:
Yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
... pundit guy.
Jedidiah Jenkins:
Yeah, it is like-
Shelby Stanger:
No.
Jedidiah Jenkins:
... maximum conservative person.
Shelby Stanger:
A Glenn Beck cruise.
Jedidiah Jenkins:
Imagine who's on that boat. Okay?
Shelby Stanger:
Yeah.
Jedidiah Jenkins:
So and it goes to Israel where he's interviewed by Bill O'Reilly. I was like, "Oh." But so then the writer brain clicked on and I go, "This is the best story I'll ever write, me on this cruise." And by the way, you know that the staff and there's going to be people on that cruise stuck that are in my belief system that I'm going to make best friends with, and I'm going to go drink martinis and tackle and weep. But anyway, I was so excited.
Then the pandemic canceled the cruise. So anyway, that book will come someday, God willing. But I had this time blocked off on this trip with my mom in the fall of, I guess, we went in 2021, didn't we? So we decided, "I still want to go on a trip with you." So I started thinking, and I was like, "Mom, when was the last time you retraced the steps of your walk across America? I think it'd be so cool to see what you saw because you did that when you were 30 years old, which is when I did my trip. Take me back to that life-changing time."
And she was like, "Oh my God, I'd love that." And then she pulls out, which I didn't know existed, she had a journal that she wrote every single day for three years on that walk. And so anyway, this created this amazing road trip plan. And there are certain conversations that I've always feared having with her because I'm afraid of her answer, and I was like, "I'm going to force myself to ask her these questions on this road trip" because I'll never do it naturally.
I'm too chicken. And so I was like, "I'm going to go on this trip. I'm going to write a book about it, and I'm going to process my own grief that my mom and I have irreconcilable differences and that they may never be healed, and maybe that'll force me to fully accept that I am the master of my own ship." And also forever in love and indebted to this incredible woman.
Shelby Stanger:
Jedidiah and his mom decided to plan their entire 5,000-mile road trip around his parents' cross country trek in the 1970s. There were many places along their route that Barbara hadn't been back to in 40 years. Revisiting those places was one of the most interesting parts of Jedidiah and his mom's journey. Logistically, what did you guys do? How long did this take?
Jedidiah Jenkins:
This trip was two weeks. I mean, we left from Nashville. We drove to New Orleans, which is where she started her walk.
Shelby Stanger:
You guys stayed in hotels, you drove?
Jedidiah Jenkins:
Yeah, we stayed. I mean, listen, the world we live in, there are deals. And we would just because my mom and I don't care, we will sleep in an upside down motel. We just need a bed. My mom walked across America and slept in tents. She just gave up her motor home a couple of years ago because she was like, "I'm in my seventies, I deserve a bed." I'm like, "Mom, yes." So for her, a Holiday Inn Express is luxe.
She's amazed by free coffee. So we stayed in hotels and it was sort of like a treasure hunt because we're going through her journals, we're going through the maps that are in The Walk West, the book and recreating and seeing both the world in which she saw it, which is so interesting because so much of the world that she walked through looks exactly the same.
And then we would drive through a place like Salt Lake City, which has gone through this enormous growth and she doesn't recognize it. And sort of having a mission of finding these memories in these spots also diffused the mother son energy. Also traveling where my mom loves true-crime podcasts and cults and all the podcasts. So we would just learn or even where we were in Telluride. And then there's a sign on the thing that says, "This is the first bank Butch Cassidy ever robbed."
And I'm like, "Wow, Butch Cassidy." That's so famous to me, but I don't really know the story of Butch Cassidy. And she's like, "I bet you there's a podcast." And we find a five part Butch Cassidy podcast and listen to it across Colorado. So it was really fun to listen to podcasts and see her world. She's writing in her journal. My mom now is 76 and she's writing in her journal as a 30-year-old, "I feel so old. I'm covered in wrinkles. Am I still pretty?" And she's laughing like, "Oh my God." But the human experience is so silly, and that's why I also am such an advocate of journaling because you're going to be 76 one day and look back and be like, "Wow, how far I've come." 10 miles a day.
Shelby Stanger:
Only part of Jedidiah's assignment for this journey was traveling with his mother. The bigger and more emotional part of this project was confronting some of their serious political and religious differences. For many of us, hard conversations can be scary, but by bringing up these challenging topics, Jedidiah learned a lot about his mom and about himself. Your mom's a funny woman.
Jedidiah Jenkins:
She's the best.
Shelby Stanger:
She seems very Christian.
Jedidiah Jenkins:
Yes, she loves the Lord.
Shelby Stanger:
And you're gay. How did you guys handle that conversation? Because that one sounds like the hardest one.
Jedidiah Jenkins:
I mean, listen, there's millions of gay Christians who love the Lord, but I think that the nature of the way that she was taught Christianity, and then her subsequent understanding of it as she reads it, it's just so deeply ingrained in who she is. When her marriage fell apart and she had three kids to raise by herself, all she could lean on was Jesus and the church and that church saved her.
And there's this little profound moment that I had where my friends have kids now, and when those kids go to bed, the red wine is out. We are having fun. We are playing games. We're hanging out on the couch. And so I remember I was like, "Mom, when we would go to bed, what would you do? Did you have friends over?" And she was like, "Oh, no. When I was so tired when you kids went to bed, I would just draw a bath and I would read the Bible in the tub."
And I'm like, "Oh God, what a bummer." But her whole life was God keeping her alive through the chaos of the eighties. And then while that's happening, and she's building her entire support system and structure on the church and God, the AIDS crisis in America is killing millions of gays. And from the pulpit, she's hearing that that is God's judgment on sin. And at the same time, she's noticing that her little boy is a little swishy and likes to play with My Little Pony dolls sometimes.
And so the confluence of factors made her so scared for my safety. And then she's hearing from her leaders that this "Lifestyle" quote unquote leads to death. And if I start to dismantle and unpack her faith that has saved her life, I think that's got to be the scariest thing in the world. And I don't even know that I would want to do that for her.
So we've just really come to these impasses and the book is really me pushing and challenging, and what are we going to finally be okay with and what are we never going to be okay with? And I think whether you're gay or straight, everybody's got family members or close friends or even spouses where there are fundamental disagreements. And so how do we find relationship and beauty if you may never win the argument?
Shelby Stanger:
I think the really interesting thing about this is, I mean, I've even had therapists say this, if you're going to have a hard conversation with someone, do it while walking on the beach. Go on an adventure. Why is it that adventure opens us up in such a way that we, if I had my mom come over to my house and ask her these questions, it'd just be awful.
Jedidiah Jenkins:
I mean, I've heard that there is, I don't know, anthropological social science around the difference between shoulder-to-shoulder communication and face-to-face communication. And I've heard it gendered where it's like women are more comfortable face-to-face, especially talking to each other because women are more emotionally, especially between each other, they're more emotionally in conversation. Whereas men traditionally face-to-face is conflict.
When they're in a common mission like hunting, they would be shoulder-to-shoulder. And so you can talk about things when you're not looking at people's eyes, but they're right next to you. And so for example, on a road trip, I got to watch the road I'm driving so I can say the hardest thing I've ever said because I'm not going to look at her. And the books like, I guess one of its climaxes is the hardest conversation I've ever had with her.
And it's funny because I immediately recorded the conversation down after it happened, and I remember noticing while I was talking, I kept pointing out the storm in the distance, "Oh, look at that tree." I needed to defuse the tension by just pointing something out that I was seeing. And it's funny, I'm realizing live as I'm talking to you, that I was subconsciously trying to remind her and me that we're moving in the same direction.
Shelby Stanger:
If you need time to think or are looking for a way to have a tough conversation with someone, try taking a walk or a drive together. Adventure has a way of helping us discover deep truths about others, about our relationships, and about ourselves. Jedidiah, I had such a blast talking with you. Thank you for coming on the show and congrats on your new book, Mother, Nature, which comes out on November 7th.
You can pre-order it now. There are links in Jedidiah's Instagram profile at Jedidiah Jenkins. That's J-E-D-I-D-I-A-H J-E-N-K-I-N-S. After November 7th you can find Mother, Nature wherever books are sold. Jedidiah's mother also recently released her own memoir titled So Long as It's Wild, which you might as well pick up at the same time. Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI podcast Network.
It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, produced by Annie Fassler, Sylvia Thomas, and Sam Peers Nitzberg of Puddle Creative. And our senior producer is Jenny Barber. Our executive producers are Paolo Mottola and Joe Crosby. As always, we love it when you follow the show, take time to rate it and write a review wherever you listen. And remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.