Mark Schimmoeller
Schimmoeller in his garden.
As a teenager, Mark Schimmoeller received two gifts from his parents that changed his life. The first was a unicycle. The second was a copy of Wendell Berry’s The Unsettling of America. The book provided Schimmoeller with an environmental lens through which the world came into focus, and nudged him toward becoming a writer.
After graduating from Transylvania University, Schimmoeller moved to New York City for an internship with The Nation magazine. The city’s frenetic pace was a shock, and he soon returned to Kentucky, feeling defeated. Our national obsession with speed and efficiency, he thought, was related to our destruction of the land.
While helping his parents build a cabin in the woods of Franklin County, Schimmoeller hatched a plan to travel across the country on his unicycle. The idea persisted, and eventually, he embarked on his journey. “When I’m on the unicycle, I feel open to the world… you feel your body’s play with the ground all the time, and so little things sway you.” After returning to Kentucky, he says, “I wanted to live a life in which I was easily swayed by little things.”
Twenty years after completing his journey, Schimmoeller’s book Slowspoke: A Unicyclist’s Guide to America was published. He wanted Slowspoke to echo the grounded rhythm of a unicycle ride. “I wanted to make a connection between living simply and slowly off the grid in the woods, and the surveyors’ ribbons and tractor trailers rushing past me while I was traveling on my unicycle.”
Listen to Mark Schimmoeller talk about riding his unicycle and being swayed by little things.
Schimmoeller and his wife, Jennifer Lindberg, reach their arms around an ancient tree in the woods near their home.