E.B. Moore | I Hate Travel

I hate how traffic starts to crawl long before the airport exit. I hate the techno- knowledge needed to make a machine process my ticket before I stand in line to take off my shoes and belt. I hate being felt up while my pants sag. I hate that they confiscate my penknife, and throw away my toothpaste, the tube too big despite its flattened state.

I hate the clutch in my chest as I watch my laptop and wallet roll out of sight. Will I find them before someone mistakenly (or not so mistakenly) scoops them up? Will I even remember to retrieve them while I hold up my pants and hop foot to foot putting on shoes before the next person in line bumps me out of the way?

Yes, I’m the crotchety old bag in line in front of you; the one who juggles her laptop, belt, book, and the shoe she can’t manage to slip on (the other one untied and threatening to trip her) while she runs for the gate that’s closing at the far end of the concourse.

I prefer to travel in the calm of my loft. There, I can change time zones without jetlag, even change time periods, going back to the mid-1800s without worrying I might lose my breakfast in the lap of the man sitting next to me. You see, I’m doing a public service by not traveling on conventional airlines.

In my loft, I can write myself to anywhere. The favored place is back on my childhood farm. When I’m there I gather details: plows, harrows, pitchforks, methods of milking and gardening, shoeing a horse while the sun on the back of my neck runs sweat into my collar.

Often I take the details even farther back in time, to my grandfather’s childhood on a Pennsylvania farm, the setting for my novel STONES IN THE ROAD. There’s no need to limit the number of implements I carry (no size or weight restrictions in this kind of travel).

Of course, once I’m on location, it’s clear that longing for the days of old when life moved more slowly is a crock. Even though my ancestors had a wealth of cows and horses, orchards hung with apples, peaches, and pears, dinners full of laughter with helpful neighbors, their lives were not a low-tech piece of heaven.

For my grandfather (I call him Joshua in my book), at age eleven, life on the farm did have moments of joy. They centered mostly on his mother and sisters. But those times came mixed with fear that his father, Abraham, the respected Deacon of their Amish fold, would finally go beyond beating him. He might kill Joshua.

On a candlelit night, this fear came to a head during one of Abraham’s drunken and decidedly secret rages. He dragged Joshua from bed to the woodshed, but before he could beat him, the candle fell and ignited the building. Joshua barely escaped. Wearing only his tattered nightshirt, he ran barefoot into the woods.

Here his ten-year journey began with burns and starvation, making my current travel woes look like Easy Street.

During those ten years Joshua crossed the continent twice, the brutal world of the ‘English’ eating at the person he wanted to be, while at home on the farm his mother, Miriam, rejected his father's claim, “The boy most likely died of his burns.” Suspicion of Abraham’s part in their son's disappearance grew as Miriam worked to uncover details of Joshua’s last night at home. With each secret exposed, the fabric of their lives shredded further, until Joshua’s unexpected return. To his shame, he came back to the farm with another man’s blood on his hands. He planned to reclaim his innocent roots, but when he faced his father, the impulse toward violence returned.

I’ve been inclined to avoid violence myself, leaving the roads to those with more rage than sense, though it made me feel guilty. Lately, a kind person who read my first book, An UNSEEMLY WIFE, suggested I came to this travel aversion through no fault of my own, that it was probably handed down by my great-grandmother after her deadly trip west in a Conestoga wagon. So now, without guilt, I yield to dread and stay in my loft, tracking ancestral disasters from the comfort of my wingchair.

About E. B. Moore

E. B. Moore grew up in a Pennsylvania on a Noah’s ark farm, the red barn stabling animals two-by-two, along with a herd of Cheviot sheep.

Her first novel, AN UNSEEMLY WIFE, based on stories handed down by her Amish grandmother, follows the family as they attempt westward migration in a covered wagon, risking both body and soul as they struggle to survive close contact with the "English." Stones in the Road, her second novel, is based her grandfather’s early life. As a runaway at eleven, he is presumed dead by his secretly abusive father, but his mother fights what she’s told is God’s will and her growing suspicion of her husband’s hand in her son’s disappearance. This novel comes out 10/6/15.

E. B. received full fellowships to The Vermont Studio Center and Yaddo. She is the mother of three, the grandmother of five, and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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About STONES IN THE ROAD

A young Amish boy ventures from Pennsylvania to California in this richly imagined historical novel from the author of AN UNSEEMLY WIFE.

1867. Growing up among the Pennsylvania Amish, eleven-year-old Joshua knows that his father is a respected church deacon who has the ear of God. But he’s also seen his father’s weakness for drink, and borne the brunt of his violent rages. In the aftermath of a disastrous fire, Joshua fears his father’s reprimand enough to run away from home. Having never experienced the ways of the English, Joshua now embarks on a decade-long journey to California, where he’s heard it’s always summer.

His mother, Miriam, is forced to take on the unusual role of head of the family when her husband is unable to recover physically, emotionally, or spiritually from the fire. As mother and son each find themselves in uncharted territory, they must draw on strength and forgiveness from within. Urged by everyone to accept her son’s death, Miriam never gives up hope of seeing Joshua again. But even as her prayers are answered so many years later, Joshua’s reunion will require him to face his father once again…