The Weight

Once a year in October, in the hills of Eastern Oklahoma, thousands of Catholics converge to walk 36 miles over two days.

This walk culminates in a grand entrace into the gates of Clear Creek Abbey, the last hill over gravel is exhausting to make, but it is taken in absolute silence by the weary pilgrims, but the call of the ringing church bells, and the bagpipes, feels something like the final moments of death before reaching heaven.

This year we had a five month old to carry, and expecting cold temperatures, as the previous year had yielded, I had mostly prepared sleep sacks, socks, and a coat for her.

But it was unseasonably hot. Plenty of children and babies are always in attendance, along with single men and women, and elderly grandparents taking the trek solo. It seemed easy enough to bring a baby, as others had done. So we set out with our tent, one measily baby sun hat, and a pack of beef jerkey, dried mangos, some water jugs, and tortillas.

Arriving to the clear fields popping with tents is exhilarating. Gangs of teenage boys roam around and even form singing bands of folk tunes. Young nuns in full habits are scattered throughout, and priests in swealtering cassocks hop off around the fringes to hear impromptu confessions.

Some feral children set a fire, and were reprimanded (there was a burn ban in effect). Big medical tents form along the front lines, and this year were especially needed, as multiple people passed out from heat exhaustion and dehydration.

36 miles in two days isn't so bad, it's the terrain that gets you. The steep hills, patches of direct sunlight along asphalt with sparse tree coverage, and worst of all, the mowed fields to rest in.

Out there, it isn't farm country. The foothills are most appropriate for goats, sometimes cattle. The ground is covered in hard stubble, the gnarls and weeds are unforgiving. There's thousands and thousands of people, and enough outhouses to go around, in theory. Enough, for you to wait in line for an entire break checkpoint, shifting back and forth on sore feet for a good twenty minutes.

Well, that's the idea right. To suffer. Among the throngs of eager young Catholic boys and girls, are children walking barefoot on the stubble and asphalt, some with bleeding feet. Now some may balk at the idea of allowing children to temporarily damage their feet, or to permit some ill prepared pilgrims to risk dehydration, but the risks are given up front. Palettes of water bottles are provided throughout, and medical attendants for feet woes and worse. But the decision to risk it, or to amplify the difficulty lies on the conscience of the participants.

My husband was thoroughly prepared, ready with multiple canteens, a backpack, and the perfect walking boots. He expected to push me up the hills and drag me through the shade dead zones. And inevitably, to deal with me when I hit my limit and began making scathing remarks about how bad of an idea this was.

We had a hard time the year before, or rather I did, being three months pregnant and more or less insane. But in retrospect, the romantic memory of the bonfire, music, the beautiful abbey tucked in the hills was irresistible. We wanted to go every year with our family, if we could make it.

There's something so primal about a march through the backwoods. The land is somewhat impoverished, and littered throughout are run down cabins and trailers reminiscent of something you might see in photographs of Appalachia. Some of the good folks native to the area sat outside smoking on rockers as we passed through. Some of them were friendly, some of them were not. A group of baptists met us on the way to tell us we were going to hell unless we gave up our idol worship.

“These are my people. My grandma grew up right around here,” I'd explain to my husband for a second time. “They used to eat squirrels…” “Yup that checks out,” he'd reply.

There are moments of pure joy while singing the Salve Regina with your chapter. With the light beautifully streaming in from the dancing trees. And moments of indignation when you finally reach a rest point, just to try to nurse your baby on a needled floor, with rare to come by tree coverage. The worst thing of it is, my daughter is nigh impossible to feed in a discreet manner, being the opposite of a cozy potato doll, and more the equivalent of a crazed baby chimp. And it was hot, and I worried about her growing overheated.

We found solutions as we went, and what always amazes me at such moments is the innate charity of other Catholics in challenging moments. When I am hot, spent, sore, and in pain, it takes my best effort not to grumble. But there are children prepared at these moments to go an extra mile out of kindness, or in my case, a newly wed couple of nineteen who helped carry my baby alongside me and set up my tent, when I dropped out the first day at mile twelve. And brought us water. And helped me arrange a chair in a thicket for shade and privacy.

Something like the inner strength of virtue that is brought by practice and a good upbringing. Something I aspire to imitate myself, at this late stage.

The two days of walking, with my baby in my wrap were easy, although we only completed 22 miles. My husband did the whole 36 as always. They were easy in that she watched the world wide eyed from her perch tied to my chest. They were easy in that my husband kept forcing me to drink water, they were easy in that I wasn't pregnant this time.

There's something so important about taking this big walk. I had just read the Road by Cormac McCarthy. Now we were undertaking this walk to pray together, to offer up some suffering for our intentions. And in the Road, the boy and the man walk in a wasteland, with no hope nearly at all, but with only a small urge not yet extinguished to attempt survival.

“There is no God. Your ancestors do not look down at you and watch,” is among the most bleak of the lines, or something like that.

And yet the man walks on with his son. His son is his only hope left to him. He represents the future. The future seems damned, but just the smallest bit of light enters the man's heart, a spark of hope for his son's continued existence.

And here we walked under a bright and cheery banner, singing songs, among our fellow travellers in this veil of tears. And hoped for some barbecue and a beer at the end.

It puts all your worries about the future of humanity into perspective. Here, I'd been worried about the future of my people, my child, my country. Even the whole world, in a sense. But even the Road ends with a positive hope, the hope of the boy's survival. And there we were, surrounded by thousands of our brothers, not of the water of the womb, but the Blood of Our Lord. No nuclear winter had come for us yet. And a little band of hillbilly baptists are hardly rogue gangs of cannibals.

The most pleasant thing about walking is how all these little thoughts pass through you and are swept out as you walk, your focus being wide and narrowing as walking gets harder.

Everyone said hello to my baby in passing, “she's such a good baby! What is her name?”

“Mary!”

“Beautiful!”

They crone.

(These are the moments I live for.)

As we neared the end of our pilgrimage, the baby was crying. My husband of course has no complaints, though shouldering his fair share of the weight of our stuff. And I carried the weight of her body.

With sweat pouring off of us, my body pulling on his arm, we switch the backpack and the baby. Now she is up in the air, squealing down at her father. And I am relieved of my front carrying weight, though picking up a new strain on my back.

As we pass through into a resting place of the grove, the peace and pride of making it so far together, with our new burdens, makes us smile at each other.

“Darling we are learning how to carry the weight,” I say.

The baby is laughing.