The Devil of Exhaustion
Last October when my cousin Molly and I were well into our pilgrimage on the Way of St James in England, somewhere around the halfway point after with a run of cloudy, cold, rainy days beginning to cause us to flag a little, we sat down and ate lunch outside a Norman church, St Mary the Virgin, in drizzle and wind. We’d walked in nearly constant rain since our start that morning. Climbing into wet clothes and damp shoes after a lovely night in a warm and cozy night in a B&B had been my first disappointment. Trudging through flooded fields and muddy paths added to the glum mood I was in. We stopped at the church to explore inside. It was the first time we’d been out of the rain all day. Returning to the cold, we sat on a wet bench to share a left-over stale scone she’d been saving. “I’m really cold,” she said.
I was too, but I didn’t want to say it out loud to just confirm my gloomy mood. I dug around in my scant food bag and found a bruised apple to divide. Oh, and a half a candy bar! A group of ladies we’d met earlier on a day trip from home were flitting about the old Roman ruins, happy as clams, lending us what cheer they could with waves and laughter. We crunched our stale scone and apple and waved back to counter our chills and shivering.
This was one of those moments of exhaustion that can happen during any long walk and the best way to beat this pesky little devil is to get up and walk on. With the chance to walk the perimeter of the Silchester Roman ruins, we found good reason to get on with our hike since we both love archeology, ancient history, and geology. It was a marvelous two-mile walk around the old walls and it added a much needed boost to our flagging energy with new perspectives to our experience.
The devil of exhaustion is a common pest on long hikes. It can pop into your head like an afterthought and ruin a perfectly good day. It can wear on you like a bad-fitting shoe that causes you to limp along. If you sit long enough, it can settle into your mind like a great disappointment and make you want to quit.
One way to swat this devil is to feed it, even if all you have is a bruised apple and a stale scone. After a snack and a refreshing drink, get up and carry on. The real trick is to shift perspective because this is mostly a head game anyway. Roman ruins! Amphitheater! Look at all this flint! Wave to the ladies! Warm beds at the end of the day!
The hardest part about exhaustion is that you need to address the physicality of being tired, wet, hungry, and cold and still want to move ahead. That’s the crux. The physical part is relatively easy, however, barring any serious injury or environmental situation. The battle to keep going is the hardest part. It’s a lot like having faith.
Maintaining faith is hard when everything in your head tells you otherwise. “What’s the point of all this?” “Nothing will change.” “Give in now and save yourself more suffering.”
Put faith in the path, faith in the experience. I put my faith in the spirits of the places we walked. The path around the Roman ruins of Silchester led us through thousands of years of people on the land from discovering the site of an Iron Age settlement to finding a point of inspiration for Celtic peoples (which is why the Romans claimed this valley). As we rounded the last turn in the great wall and finished at the church we’d earlier explored, I felt the early Christian influences of Celtic relationship to the landscape meld with a benevolent God. Everything had spirit. Everything was alive.
I keep the devil of exhaustion, as best I can, out of my head. Address the physical. Overcome the mental. Endurance is part of the process of improving your perspective on pilgrimage.
In an interview with a pilgrim who was walking a thousand mile journey to honor the history of American Civil Rights through the Deep South, I asked about overcoming exhaustion, especially in the heat of the day and walking in places that felt less safe than others. “I sing out loud,” he replied. “I sing and sing and sing until the darkness leaves my mind. Then the landscape becomes light and welcoming even though I didn’t do a thing to change course.”
Looking back at St Mary the Virgin as we continued on the pilgrimage path, I gave a little wave to the bench where we collapsed in the cold and wet and had our meager lunch. The church seemed to give off its own warmth in return. The ancient Yew that towered green and great over the bench seemed to describe perfectly the Christian belief that the tree symbolized the Resurrection and all who rested beneath its’ boughs were offered new energy for the journey ahead.