Review: "The Highway and Me and My Earl Grey Tea" by Emily Smucker

The Highway and Me and My Earl Grey Tea by Emily Smucker
Published 2020 via Muddy Creek Press
★★★

A few years ago, Smucker set off on an adventure: in an effort to figure out if where she was raised was where she wanted to stay, she took to the road, planning to spend a month at a time in different Mennonite communities.

It's an experience that I suspect a lot of people would benefit from—trying out different places without pressure to stay, seeing what works and what doesn't. Smucker used the time to work on building a freelance writing career, so she wasn't tied to anywhere in particular; she picked her locations partly based on places she was curious about and partly based on where she could find contacts who had a room to rent out. It was also a year to think (for various reasons) about grief and how to process it, and about what it means for bad things to happen (or, for people to do bad things) within a religious community, and about what being a Mennonite meant to her:

But the truth is, most of my Memmonite experience came from one specific church, with one specific group of people who respected me and valued my ideas. I didn't actually have a wide understanding of the Mennonite world as a whole. At least, not as it stands today. And part of the reason I wanted to take this trip was to explore what a modern "Mennonite" identity really entails. (24)

It makes for a fairly quiet book, but a layered one. Smucker is also one of few writers I've read who are not Amish but have a comfortable 'in' to that culture, as her mother was raised Amish and of course there are more general connections too. Smucker spent the year in areas with strong Mennonite connections, not in Amish communities, but she visited with some Amish folks and talks a bit about the differences and what surprised her, and I get the impression that the Amish folks she talked to connected with her far more readily than they might have a total outsider because, well, she wasn't a total outsider. As someone who is perpetually curious about cultures that seem so far from my own, I found it to be an interesting perspective. I'll note that Smucker's religion is a big part of her identity, but there's absolutely no preachiness about it—just part and parcel of the experience.