Two years ago I set out to travel the world and write a book about my ancestor, James Duval Phelan. The book was meant to capture how travel, that vague term, shaped my life and the lives of my forefathers. James Duval’s own 1921 journey across the globe was to be the foundation of work. That summer, I began a year-long odyssey in the footsteps of J.D., only to have the trip quickly upended by the venom of October 7th. In Israel, I lost momentum and the moral clarity with which I’d set out. Then, that autumn, living with family in the U.S., I lost a slight more. Two vertebral discs in my thoracic spine leaked from their marshmallow shells and touched my spinal cord. That touch, nothing more than a dainty kiss, damaged my neuromuscular integrity and pushed me off a mental cliff. For many months, I wasted away, my travels botched.
At least that’s the story I tell myself. Upon closer inspection, my telling of events skirts the objective reality of my lived experience. The haughty narrative of war and pain omits the rituals of normal human existence I have practiced: rent, taxes, yoga, dates, family, basketball viewership, morning cereal, lawn care. Between the bits of high drama, daily life carried on. In this period of infirmity, I also developed several new, if not equally mundane rituals characterized by incessant stretching, pill-taking, hand-massaging, and (what can only be described as) floor-laying. In truth, the “story” of these past two years is of a thirty-year-old man lying on the floor and eating an unfathomable number of PB&Js while contemplating how to couch his experience as a stepping stone within a greater narrative of adventure. But that story just doesn’t sell copies.
Now, looking back at my original plan, I will officially proclaim it dead. My book about James Duval Phelan’s globe-trotting Grand Tour is not in the works. I am not following in his footsteps, nor do I see his life as a source of literary inspiration. The trips I originally planned in his wake, to Japan and Ireland, are squashed roadkill under the tread of reality, and frankly, I’m okay with that. After years sitting with James Duval and his legacy, I am exhausted of him. I’m finished with his icy stare and diplomatic prose. He bores me with his aggrieved worldview and gross wealth. His trip, I should note, also made no sense thematically or logistically. It was the work of a novice traveler, if ever I read one. No, I’m done with James Duval, eager for something new, eager to put this chapter behind me. I’m getting back on the horse. Or, at the very least, up off the floor.
At the end of the summer I’ll move to Moscow, Idaho to start an MFA in creative nonfiction writing. Idaho sounds like a funny choice for me, I’ll admit. Moscow is a small, inaccessible city with fewer than 30,000 inhabitants tucked at the end of the Palouse, a region known for its rolling hills of dryland wheat. It’s rural Christian country, light-years away from the hum of cosmopolitan Copenhagen, and a far cry from the foreign wonder of Nepal or South Korea. Idaho is recognizable in its American-ness yet impenetrable (to me) as a distinct sub-place, familiar yet unplaceable. Close but oh so far away.
So why Idaho? Because it’s different, I suppose. As always, I hanker for the unexpected. I hunger for a lifestyle cadence previously unconsidered: Slow, rural, reflective; American but not any American way-of-being I’ve lived so far. That’s what I’m after, and Moscow fits the bill. Plus, the town is gorgeous, with an affordable cost of living and access to many of the remarkable natural landscapes of the Americas. The Palouse, for one, but also the Great Plains, the Pacific Northwest, the Rocky Mountains, and British Columbia’s wilderness. And in all those pockets of nature, unique peoples live connected to the land and one another. Out in the boonies of the Northwest, I want to explore these unfamiliar pockets of community as I re-learn to read, write, and think. There’s the gist, short and sweet. My Grand Plan 2.0.
Moving out West feels right, but as always, transition comes with a cost. I’ll say goodbye to my sister and brother-in-law, as well as their network of family and friends here in D.C. (and Herschel, my boy!). These people have seen me through the lows of Grand Plan 1.0. Then there’s our neighborhood and the many connections I’ve made through my work as a gardener. I’ll remember the Crestwood gardeners fondly: Murray the old-hand Vietnam journalist, Dorothy the radical octogenarian, Charles the retired economist and aspiring novelist. Their gardens, too, ravaged by Virginia Creeper and English Ivy, leave their grime. And down in Mount Pleasant, in my sister’s culinary bookstore (plug for Bold Fork Books), or across the street at Suns Cinema with its art-house flicks and mismatched chairs, or up the slick, azure steps of Past Tense’s yoga studio — these places and people I take with me.
If you happen to be in any of these places while I’m in town, give me a shout.
June 5th - 20th: Roadtrip through New York, Quebec, and Vermont
June 22nd - July 9th: Copenhagen
July 10th - 19th: Hamburg/Northern Germany
July 20th - 30th: Liguria, Italy
August 2nd - 6th: Route 90/94 West between Washington D.C. to Moscow, Idaho
My summer plan is eerily similar to the one I described in this post two years ago. Again, I will wind my way through Europe then rush off to start a new project in a remarkable landscape.
Things have changed, but also, they haven’t changed a lick. I’m still the same, a Texan dilettante lacking the slightest hint of meaning as he lurches onto the next phase. I’ve forgotten what I learned before, and am learning what I forgot last time; I’ll try on some new hats and slump into old ones, grow in surprising directions and shrink into latent fears. This life feels like a washing machine to me; round and round we go, maybe on a different setting or temperature, waiting until our time to visit the big dryer in the sky. Idaho is the next revolution. Maybe the next couple. Is there any inherent meaning to the cycle? I doubt it, but we give ourselves over to the machine anyway.
ALOT news: I will again be moving ALOT (A Log of Things) in the near future. I’ve grown weary of Substack and its ecosystem (more on that later), so the site will be moved to Ghost, a nonprofit newsletter platform. For you, the reader, this won’t change a thing, but I’ll be sure to notify everyone when I make the jump. Tak!
We will miss you so much. But you are a part of the family, and that won’t change. Here’s wishing you the most wonderful adventures!
Loved this so much!! Congrats on your new position—I have to say younger me is kind of jealous 😅 Safe travels—we send our love ❤️