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Following the death of his mother, Lula Pace Fortune Ripley, Pace Roscoe Ripley, who was at that time living in New Orleans, was seized by a desire to turn his life in a new direction. Pace was fifty-eight years old and he had been engaged in the rebuilding of his home place of N.O. after the devastating damage done to that city due to the flood caused by the failure of the levees occasioned by Hurricane Katrina. Now that both his parents had passed, and with no really significant sentimental attachment to keep him there, Pace resolved to find a solution more personal and closer to his heart. He completed the renovation projects already underway, then dissolved his small construction company, said goodbye to those who had worked with and for him, and, without fanfare, left town.

During the several weeks it took him to complete his affairs in N.O., Pace spent a considerable amount of time deliberating about which direction to go. Years before, he had read that in ancient times various societies, including the Irish, Chinese and Indo-European cultures, believed there were five directions: North, South, East, West and the Up-Down, which represented the navel or center. He had remembered this ever since he’d learned of it, and liked the idea of a fifth, mysterious direction. The center of things is where Pace decided to go. Having lived for periods in places as diverse as New York City and Kathmandu, Nepal, he knew that geography had nothing to do with it, that the signs of the Up-Down pointed inward, that it was time for him to figure out exactly what that meant, and that to get there he had to travel alone.