To Shake the Sleeping Self

by Jedidiah Jenkins

  “It is a plant that stings and cuts. It burns, it is very painful,” our woman explained. “It is a way for the people to repent of their sin. To feel the pain of sin.” As they walked by, I could see their backs were bright red and scratched. The plant looked like the stinging nettle that grows in North America that stings the legs with the slightest contact, like thousands of fire-ant bites.

  Weston couldn’t help himself. “Religion is so absurd. These people are cutting themselves for something imaginary, made up by Spain, their oppressors.”

  Along came a large group carrying a litter (one of those boxes that a king or queen or Oprah would sit on while people carried them on their shoulders), with a life-size Virgin Mary seated on it. The parade went on a full three hours, and by the time we made our way back to the apartment, our sunburns were setting in. But my mom had been affected more deeply.

  “This is so much more powerful than America. It shames us,” she said. “We are so complacent in our faith, in our abundance. These people have nothing and they show their commitment to the Lord like this. They take salvation seriously. We Americans are so comfortable, we think giving up chocolate for Lent is a sacrifice. These poor people are barefoot and bleeding and actually picking up their crosses for Jesus.”

  “Mom, you once told me you didn’t think Catholics are saved,” I said.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “Well, you must have misunderstood. God is mysterious. True, we Protestants don’t believe in a pope and we may disagree on Scripture here and there and have different styles of worship, but they are so committed to Christ and salvation, how could God not reward them? Who are we to decide? Besides, the Bible says ‘whosoever believes’ will be saved.”

  “Mom. You have told me that Scripture is not a buffet, I can’t pick and choose what is true.”

  “It isn’t!”

  “Well, wouldn’t that mean that some Christianity is right and some is wrong?”

  “Yes, but God judges the heart. And maybe Protestants get some things wrong, I’m sure we do, and Catholics get some things wrong, I know they do, but how can you look at the devotion we just saw and doubt their commitment to Christ?”

  “I’m just pointing out inconsistency, Momma.”

  “Don’t, it’s annoying,” she said with a grin.

  * * *

  —

  MY CONVERSATIONS WITH Weston had me looking at my mom differently. My childhood. My upbringing. Taking it all apart. Figuring out what was real and what was not.

  I remember lying in bed, maybe I was twelve years old, waiting for my mom to come sit beside me and say prayers over me, and hearing my sister scream at her from the kitchen, “I hate you! No wonder you can’t stay married! Everyone hates you!” and then the familiar slam of my sister’s door, and my mom coming in, her eyes red from tears she’d wiped away.

  “Okay, cutie. Ready for bed?” She shut off all but the night-light so I wouldn’t be able to see her face.

  “Dear Lord, watch over Jed as he dreams. Thank you for all our blessings, for our family, for this house and the beauty of each day.”

  I lay there, eyes open, watching her talk. Watching for a tear, maybe. Wondering if God could really hear her. Her eyes were perfectly, effortlessly closed.

  “Thank you for the hardships that make us strong, and make us rely on you, Lord. Amen. Sweet dreams, Jed. What do you want for breakfast tomorrow?”

  “French toast.”

  “Okay. You got it. Good night.”

  I remember we went to church every Sunday morning, every Sunday night, and every Wednesday night. I would moan and beg not to go. “Mom, it’s so boring. I hate it. You’re making me hate God!”

  “Well, as long as you live under my roof, you’re going to church. Train up a child in the way that he should go, and he will not depart from it. That’s what I’m doing.”

  I thought, Oh I’ll depart from it! Watch me! I resented church and I resented my mom for making me go. Years later she told me in passing, “I was a single mother of three kids, no money, no help, no time to myself. Church was the only safe place we could go where I knew you’d be looked after and taken care of. It was the only place I felt less alone in all of this.”

  As a kid, it never dawned on me that my mother was overwhelmed or frightened or worried about the job she was doing. It never occurred to me that she had complex motives.

  * * *

  —

  QUITO HAD MY MOTHER spritely and full of the joy of discovery. She took photos of every stone and doorway. That night we had booked a fancy dinner at an Italian restaurant on one of the city’s picturesque squares. The restaurant, which famously served up an opera performance mid-meal, could’ve been a palace, with gold chandeliers, enormous paintings and tapestries adorning the walls, marble floor. Waiters in red tux jackets and black pants. The place was packed with older people, tourists, and families.

  We ordered two bottles of wine. Weston and I had put on our best clothes—denim shirts, buttoned up, and blue jeans. My mom wore new jewelry she’d bought from a street vendor. She put on nice lipstick and seemed to glow with self-awareness that she was in another country, with her family, eating an expensive meal. I could feel her taking in the scene to tell her friends back home.

  As we had wine and talked about the parade, Luke and Anna were canoodling and being cute. They were always like that—one of those married couples who actually like each other, and continue to. She would lean back and giggle at anything he said. He had his hand on her knee, a steady presence. My mom, historically, didn’t drink much. I actually had no memory of her drinking when I was a kid. When I had asked her why, in my early twenties, she said she didn’t like the taste. And that she didn’t like drunks, having seen enough of them growing up in the Ozarks. But as her children became adults, she began having wine with us on holidays, and margaritas on hot summer nights. I discovered that she was a lightweight. Sitting here dressed in her Sunday best at 8,000 feet elevation in Quito, Ecuador, she was loving her life. She was drinking her wine and laughing deeply.

  As she drank wine, she got gigglier. I made fun of all her rings and jewelry and the fact that soon she’d be weighed down, dragging her arms like a cartoon caveman. She flashed her many rings. “I look amazing!” she said. They were rings of different stones, mostly turquoise and tiger’s eye. I told her she was beginning to look like a woman from Sedona.

  Then the opera started. We were all a bit buzzed and therefore loud, encouraging, and jubilant, clapping and hooting. The song was by a man in a mask and a woman in a big poofy dress. They sang between the tables, and were playful with the guests. The man would sing at women eating and flip men’s ties and mess up kids’ hair. Each table thought it was hilarious and wonderful. And their voices were loud and excellent.

  My mom was turned around in her chair and clapping along and just a bit fluid from her wine. Her movements were softer and her smile wider. The man came over and knew she spoke English, just from looking at her.

  “Look at this goddess!”

  “Who, me!?” my mom said. She looked at us around the table and her eyes were so bright.

  “This is a woman. A beautiful woman,” he sang and came up behind her, rubbing her shoulders. She raised her shoulders in affirmation and closed her tipsy eyes and smiled ear to ear and cooed.

  “How can beauty like this be? How is your meal?”

  “Wooooonderful!” she exclaimed. He told Anna she looked like an angel and made fun of my brother’s shirt. Everyone was laughing, but I was looking at my mom. She was watching the opera singer, staring at him like a crushing teenager, hoping he’d come back.

  I saw her young and beautiful. It crossed my mind that she had maybe not been kissed in fifteen years. Or longer. Since my stepdad divorced her for the secretary. I didn’t know. She looke
d so beautiful. So regal in her womanliness, and yet childlike in her innocence. In that moment, I wanted her to fall in love again. I wanted her to feel as beautiful as she was.

  The opera singer sauntered to another table. I saw my mom turn back into herself, close her inner doors with a smile. She returned to her wine. And turned to me. “Ha! Wasn’t that cute! Oh, I just loved him.”

  “He liked you, Mom! He lit up,” I said.

  “Do you think?” she said. She looked over her shoulder at him, watched him move from table to table, lady to lady, and I hope she thought, “Yeah, but we had something special.”

  We finished our meal and headed back to our Airbnb. Quito and Easter and purple hoods and Christ on a cross and my mom were on my mind. What was I supposed to do with all of that? The faith of these Catholics, stinging and whipping themselves. Weeping in the streets for their sins. The faith of my mother. Her sweet humanity. The contradictions. I was comforted by her celebration of the Catholic Easter parade. She had definitely told me before that Catholics weren’t saved. She had spoken about them as pagans in the abstract. But here, on the streets of Quito, she was shaken by their devotion. Exposure to them seemed to expand what she found acceptable. It reaffirmed my belief that exposure creates empathy. But it also shook me up. My mom’s brand of evangelicalism was what kept me celibate, what kept me from kissing boys, because Scripture said it wasn’t okay. Plain and simple. I can’t “interpret” my way out of that.

  I didn’t know what I was holding on to. I had wrapped my life in the fear of messing up. Of disappointing God, which really meant disappointing my mom and friends. I was finding that so much of my life had been about avoiding the feeling of being in trouble.

  * * *

  —

  MY FAMILY STAYED for ten days. We went to the coast for the weekend, where my mom had rented a beach house for a couple nights in Montañita, which looked like a Spring Break–style wild town. The drive was supposed to take eight hours from Quito, but took us fifteen. Google Maps wasn’t exactly accurate when it came to side roads in Ecuador. Roads it said were there, weren’t. Roads that weren’t on the map suddenly appeared. We ended up driving down a sandy creekbed in the pitch black, certain that we were going to run out of gas and die.

  Along the way, my mom’s unshakable optimism was the only thing that kept me from bursting into flames. She took photos of every goat and cow she saw. She took photos of kids in the street. I told her she shouldn’t. “How would you like it if foreigners drove around Nashville and took photos of your young kids without asking?” I asked her.

  She replied, “That’s ridiculous. But they’re just so beautiful.” She kept remarking about how happy everyone looked. How pleased in their poverty they must be, free from the clutter of materialism.

  “I bet these people would love to have more money,” I said. “They’d be materialistic like us if they could.”

  She did not agree. “No, I don’t think so. I think they know what life is really about down here. And even so, they’re lucky to be spared from all that.”

  We arrived at the beach house at 1 a.m., exhausted but thrilled to be alive. In the morning we went grocery shopping and Mom bought fresh fruit and was just thrilled by the exoticness of it all. “Have you ever seen anything like this!” she shouted, holding up a guanábana, a big melon-shaped green fruit covered in soft spines.

  The Wi-Fi at the beach house gave my mom the opportunity to get off a mass e-mail. She loved writing long updates to her girlfriends back in Nashville.

  I was cc’d to the e-mail, Mom making sure I saw her recap.

  Being in a “third world country” with breathtaking beauty of the Andes, jungles, and Pacific shoreline, it makes me ponder matters of the world when I see severe poverty in all directions. Nature’s beauty and poverty, they co-exist here.

  Ah—Americans. We are materially blessed beyond what we deserve and the USA remains the land of promise regardless of messy politics (on both sides) or overreaching governmental controls.

  Look at the typical rural or suburban home in Ecuador. Without infrastructure, a stable or growing economy, bank loans, higher education, or decent jobs, the people have little opportunity. Most homes take a lifetime to build because there is no money for materials. It’s one cinder block at a time. The sale of fruits, vegetables, fish, and jewelry seems to be the main source of income.

  Ecuadorians are physically beautiful, very short and highly creative people. Children play everywhere without fear of being attacked or stolen. They are gentle spirited and speak softly. Men take motor scooters and turn them into mini taxis to carry passengers on dirt and pot hole filled roads in small towns.

  Our beach house sits high on a hill, and it took the owners 20 years to build. It is very comfortable, spacious, can sleep 10 and is far, far above the living standard of most. Anna has been sunbathing in the front yard when not on the beach.

  Jed and Weston walk down the narrow road to the ocean to surf.

  A typical lazy meal in the beach house. We have cooked beans, rice, enjoyed fresh tomatoes, onions, avocados, eggs, potatoes, bananas, strawberries, Ecuadorian coffee, wine, and more—we are really experiencing what it means for food to go from the farm to the table!!

  A meal in town. We gave the waiter a generous tip and he couldn’t stop thanking us.

  Path to the beach. Usually obstructed by a donkey or horse. Or trash.

  Although the most strenuous thing we do is walk to the beach, the days are passing quickly and soon, we will part ways. Jed and Weston will head into Peru while we return to Nashville.

  Tuesday, we begin the long drive back to Quito. We pray for paved roads and to make it in 8–10 hours. Not the 15 hours it took us to get here through rutted roads and jungles in the middle of the night.

  Today, we plan to visit a small cathedral on a bluff overlooking the ocean. It’s not far from here. I’ll say a prayer of thanks to the Lord, from whom all blessings flow.

  Jed and Luke wait for big waves,

  His blessings on you,

  Barb

  I enjoyed making memories with my family, cooking meals and lying in hammocks and going for walks on the beach. It was a dirty beach, but mostly empty and beautiful in its humility. We played gin rummy and watched Pixar movies and laughed as my mom tried to pronounce words in Spanish. One thing stood out: after scraping our pennies together and living cheaply for thousands of miles, Weston and I enjoyed my mom paying for everything. All the meals. The places we stayed. The rental car. We slid right back into the joy of adolescent, worry-free existence.

  On Tuesday we found the proper roads and made it back to Quito in eight hours flat. Since the family was flying back to Nashville the next day, we stayed at a hotel near the airport. My mom felt empowered by her successful visit, and promised to join me in Patagonia at the end of my trip. “Now that I’m so accustomed to travel in South America, it’ll be easy. And by December, I’ll be in need of new photos to brag to my Bible study ladies about. These Ecuador photos will last me about six months.”

  At the airport the next day, my mom slipped me a hundred-dollar bill. “Buy a bottle of wine and a get a good shower when you need it.” I knew a hundred dollars was a lot to her. That’s how much she would give us for Christmas. I was sad to see her go. Through the cunning work of avoidance and humor, we’d had almost no hard conversations. My mom did say “your future wife” a few times to me while talking about the future. That was always a dig. But we had successfully avoided a blowup about Christianity or sexuality or politics.

  * * *

  —

  WESTON AND I went back to our hostel and began planning our next steps. Our journey into Peru. It was almost May. We had nearly two thousand kilometers to go to Lima. Then another thousand to get up to Cusco, to see Machu Picchu. It felt daunting. And according to the map, once we left Ecuador, coastal
Peru would become a sandy nightmare of endless desert. Oh no, another desert. Fuck the desert. I was trying to figure out where we would bike, where we would hitchhike, how far we could go, if there were stretches with no towns, and how much food to pack onto our bikes.

  We sat drinking cheap beers at a table in the lobby of our hostel. I was looking at the map on my phone. Weston was journaling. He said almost in passing, “I’ll need to camp more. I don’t have money for hostels.”

  “Oh, okay,” I said. “But our routine is camp and then hostel, camp and hostel, or host home, so we can shower sometimes. Where will we shower?”

  “We’ll need to find more hosts. I just can’t spend money anymore.”

  “Like, you’re out?”

  “Yeah. I have like ten bucks.”

  “Right now?”

  “Yeah. I’m supposed to get another fifty put in my account, but it’s taking forever.”

  “Okay, wow,” I said, bewildered. Why hadn’t he told me before? I never really knew how much money he ever had. But wow. “Well, I can pay for you sometimes, for a hostel or whatever, so we can shower. We both need to shower.”

  “Okay,” he said, not looking at me, drawing something in his journal. “That’s up to you. I’m happy to stay on my own if you want to pay and I’ll find a camping spot and we can meet up.”

  “Weston, you’re not camping alone. We’ll find cheap places or make it work,” I said. I was annoyed. Sure, I wanted to be rugged and camp. But this deep into the trip, the novelty of “roughing it” had worn off. I had fallen in love with hot showers and actual beds like never before. I always thought I didn’t need comfort, but the trip had taught me that that’s something comfortable people say. I had enough money for ten-dollar hostels most of every week. But for two people, for nine months? No.