Walking Diaries #6 with Rebekah Warren

The Trail of Tears, Great Smoky Mountains, and Legacy

Welcome to the Walking Diaries where each month a friend of mine will share a story/reflection/poem/photo essay from a walk they took. With each diary shared, I hope you’ll be encouraged to lace up your shoes and put one foot in front of the other. New to the series? Start here for the introduction or this first walk from a friend living in Turkey.

Today’s walking diary is from

Rebekah Warren

who I first met online through Exhale Creativity. We had the pleasure of spending a day together in KC writing and sharing at a creative retreat where I was taken by her presence and attention to the natural world. Her story, the story of the Cherokee people, is one we can all learn from. I hope her words inspire you as much as they did me.

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Deep greens and tangled browns surround me. I breathe in the scent of earthy moss and take another step upward.

We are climbing our way up a trail in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. The June heat has sent the rhododendrons into overdrive: magenta and violet splashes meet me at every turn. This is my first visit to this part of the country – to my part of the country.

I was born and raised in northeastern Oklahoma and have spent my entire life within the Cherokee Nation Reservation boundaries. At home, we have our own rivers and creeks, our own hills with winding paths through tall oaks and vines crawling over forested floors. Here, though, the town of Cherokee, North Carolina, the Qualla Boundary, sits snugly at the base of the Smokies. The mountains cradle the town and surrounding lands, holding them gently in stone palms.

After the 1836 Treaty of New Echota between the Cherokee Nation and the United States, my people were given an ultimatum. They had the choice to move West, of their own accord, to Indian Territory. The alternative was, simply, to move West, under the pressure of military force. For nearly 16,000 Cherokee, staying put was never an option. They walked 800 miles with little more than the clothes on their backs, along the so-called Trail of Tears.

I have always known these facts in my bones. I’ve traced my ancestry back to the trail, back to North Carolina. I know what brought my family to Oklahoma, a land that I truly love and call home. But here, with burning muscles and a chest full of wonder, little aches pepper me all the way up and back down the mountain. Each step reminds me of what we lost.

Have you seen those mountains? Most of the photos show layers of trees disappearing into a foggy mist. It’s a haunting sight. Some afternoons, though, the sunlight bursts through the mist and sends its rays through the leaves, dappling on creeping moss, solid stone, stubborn flowers that reach up and turn their delicate faces toward the warmth. They strive for sunshine, and despite only receiving it for a short while each day, they are still here.

My husband waits patiently at every bend in the path. Even if I were typically a fast mover, which I very decidedly am not, I would still take my time here. I want to take in the trees, the shrubs, the roots that crisscross the path, showing me the depth of the trees’ claim on this place.

I find myself absurdly grateful that the government made the decision to make this place a national park, so that it would be protected and so that it would not belong to any one person. Traditionally, Cherokee people shared the land where they lived, to farm and hunt, taking what they needed and nothing more.

I think of this sense of community as I slowly gain elevation, wondering if anyone in my family ever climbed the same path. Rationally, I know it’s unlikely, but there is something meaningful about being in the area where I know generations of women before me raised their children, and their children. I’ll never know the exact lessons they taught those children, but some are inherent: resilience, hopefulness, the desire to leave behind a legacy against all odds. It is what they’ve given me.

We reach the top of our trail. We are not summiting the mountain today, but we’ve arrived at a place where there’s a cave formation carved out among the rock behind us, with a view of the mountain range in front of us. I find a place to sit, resting my tired limbs. I lean back, putting my weight on my arms, and tilt my face upward toward the sun.

I am still here.

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Rebekah Warren

is a writing instructor at Rogers State University. She is her truest self when writing and strives to help her students reach that state. When she is not writing or teaching, she is chauffeuring her two daughters to their activities, hiking with her husband, or coaxing the whole family to join her hammock reading sessions.