Stalking Your Journey

During the difficult year of 2020, many people have been denied the ability to outwardly journey. This makes it a perfect time to reflect inwardly on what pilgrimage can be, if it doesn’t require outward physical movement. Both The Road (2006) by Cormac McCarthy and Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974) by Annie Dillard present thought-provoking depictions of pilgrimage, despite being very different books. The Road is post-apocalyptic fiction, while Pilgrim at Tinker Creek has yet to be adequately classified in any genre, but has been called a nature-writing, a memoir, and a book of theology. Both works show that pilgrimage is defined by choices, and by learning to truly see the path before, around, and behind you. An invaluable journey is one where every step is valued.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is a “meteorological journal of the mind” (p. 11), describing a year Dillard spent living next to Tinker Creek in a valley under the Blue Ridge Mountains. However, this work is much more than a mere nature-writing, and readers aren’t long fooled by the seemingly peaceful setting. Pilgrim opens with a vividly gruesome description that sets the stage for the rest of the narrative. She describes her tom cat leaping through the window, patterning her body with bloody pawprints in the early morning. An author might be forgiven for feeling the need to give her readers a jump-start, but Dillard never ceases startling them. She witnesses and expresses in detail every revolting aspect of nature she comes across. Her narrative often shows her to be nearly as horrified as her readers are, questioning constantly the sort of God who would make the world this way, while dwelling upon repulsive, grisly sights, whether parasites devouring hosts from the inside out or newborn mantises tearing apart their siblings.

If Dillard is determined not to ignore the horror of the world, then McCarthy is bent on creating a world consisting of nothing but horror. His two nameless main characters, father and son, spend the entire narrative walking down a desolate road, in a world that has come to its end with no explanation. McCarthy introduces many elements of cruelty and violence throughout his story, from bloodthirsty bandits to outright cannibalism. He retains a detached manner. The sole objective of the minimalistic plot is for the father to take his son to safety. After suffering through nearly three hundred pages of bleak hopelessness, readers are left with an open end, in which the father dies and the fate of the boy is left to the imagination.

The two novels are hardly comparable under most criteria, but they have in common the element of horror. Both works, infrequently hinting at fragments of hope or wavering optimism, leave readers to debate at the end whether their final view of the world should be optimistic or negative. Dillard’s is a more obvious study in contrasts, often noting the natural beauty and horror of the world side by side. She strives to show her readers a complete picture of the world, whereas McCarthy is less balanced and prefers to present his world as darkly as possible

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek frequently observes a sort of religious debate. Dillard asks herself, and her readers, what sort of creator would make a world containing such cruelty? Are we merely being toyed with by some higher power, like a child’s collection of insects within a mason jar?  She is unafraid to exhibit the beauty of life beside the horror of it. Her entire narrative is a work of balance between light and dark, beauty and horror, birth and death.

McCarthy’s fictional world seems to be utterly lacking in morality, except for that of the two main characters. The mother of the boy committed suicide alone after failing to persuade her husband to kill their son and himself. The man could not bring himself to kill their son; he struggles with this throughout McCarthy’s novel, debating at what point it is worse to keep living than to die. The man commits violence only out of need, and only ever in order to protect his son. He talks to God sometimes; but we are left wondering what sort of God would let cruelty escalate to this point.

Dillard devotes an entire chapter to “seeing.” She muses on people who were blind at birth, taking in the rush of color and form for the first time after their cataract surgeries. This was the most heartbreaking section of Dillard’s narrative. She writes about the newly sighted girl who chose to close her eyes and walk blind because she felt more at ease that way. Another little girl stood utterly speechless before a tree for the first time, and after identifying it by touch as a tree, called it “the tree with lights in it” (p. 28). Later in life, Dillard stumbled upon the tree with lights in it, outlined in fire, and was knocked breathless.

Here we can draw another parallel between the two stories. Dillard saw the tree of fire and McCarthy’s characters often refer to “carrying the fire.” This is a symbol that represents all the goodness left: the love between father and son, the persistence to stay alive, and whatever kindness and innocence remain in the boy. Both Dillard and McCarthy seem preoccupied with one form or another of seeing: the former wants us to see nature’s cruelty, and the latter wants us to see a glimmer of something in a world of nothing.

Perhaps the largest common vein is that both works center on the theme of pilgrimage. Dillard’s pilgrimage is one of the mind; McCarthy’s, a physical journey. They’re both learning to see, and thereby to journey somewhere. Dillard says that once she knows about or sees something, she cannot forget it. McCarthy’s main characters spend the entire book struggling with choosing to let go of some things and hold onto others. The man leaves some things on the road behind them, but starts gathering things again at the end of the story, while the boy does vice-versa. This theme of gathering things is closely intertwined with seeing. We can’t choose what we need to hold onto if we can’t truly see how it has affected us.

Can you journey without awareness? Certainly we can, but how much more will you get out of your journey if you are aware- if you truly see? Anyone who opens their eyes to the world, who focuses on every minute step they take, is a true journeyer. McCarthy’s journey is not defined by the many miles his characters walked, although the distance is not inconsequential. Their journey is defined, rather, by their experiences. The man’s end goal is to bring his son to safety, yet we can tell that he spends every moment on the way to that goal loving and caring for the boy. “Hold him in your arms… kiss him quickly” (p. 114). Ultimately, the man succeeded in carrying the fire, and leaves it now for his son to carry. He saw at the end that he couldn’t hold his son dead in his arms, but had to let the boy live, for better or for worse.

Any opinion of The Road or Pilgrim is bound to be shaped by whether the reader has a glass-half-full or glass-half-empty philosophy. Some people seem to have a terrible difficulty seeing that they’re on the wrong road, while we, the outsiders, cry in frustration at our inability to persuade them. Others seem to see nothing but the road ahead of them, intent on conquering the miles. Still others only see the road behind them, mourning the wrong turn they took while doing nothing to fix it.

Dillard tells us to spend the afternoon, because “you can’t take it with you.” But we must learn to see the afternoon. Misperceptions lead to missteps. Take each step with more purpose, “stalk the gaps” before they vanish, and look around you.  Find stillness on our pilgrimage. Re-examine what we really need to hold onto and what parts of our lives we are better off letting go of. Yet, nothing should be thrown away without being treasured at least briefly.

My own journey is too often spent looking at the miles ahead of me. Does tomorrow really matter if I’m not seeing today? I’m inclined to say it doesn’t. Tomorrow will take me much further if I first slow down to see today’s journey. McCarthy says, “People were always getting ready for tomorrow. I didn’t believe in that. Tomorrow wasn’t getting ready for them. It didn’t even know they were coming” (p. 168). Tomorrow is unaware of us. We shouldn’t be in such a hurry to meet it.

The ultimate goal isn’t how quickly you reach tomorrow, how many steps you take, or how smooth and fast your road is. It can be a muddy one full of potholes and wide fissures, with flooded ditches and cast-aside roadblocks. Maybe your footprints have churned up the mud in wandering circles and back-tracks. Maybe the landscape is as bleary and dreary as McCarthy’s.

As long as there’s so much as a centimeter of metaphorical movement, it is a journey. Journeys are not defined by how far you’ve come. They’re defined by the things that make it difficult, the things that bring you screeching to a halt or lunging desperately forward. Pilgrimage is about being willing to grow, to make that desperate lunge. Pilgrimage is about learning to see the landscape blurring past you. It’s about seeing that the rushing water flooding the road was an obstacle, but it washed the mud off your shoes and when you came up on the other side, the road was dry. 

Pilgrimages are further defined by choices. When you’ve truly seen your journey, then how will you shape the remainder of it? What do you choose to hold onto? What do you choose to let go of? Will you willingly contrast beauty with horror, or will you turn a blind eye towards one or the other?

These questions can only be answered by the individual. As for myself, I think I could use a little more practice stalking gaps. They do seem to shift and vanish frequently. How many afternoons have I spent with the mindfulness that I can’t take them with me? I have so many more afternoons left in my life pilgrimage, and in my college journey that has started two years early.  I don’t want to waste a single one. Even when the light at the end of the tunnel is dim and distant, we can still make something of the journey towards it. We can still hold onto our morals and our hopes, and choose what parts of self to let go of -- fear, anger, hate. The choice is ours; the seeing is there for the taking.