These are some of my favorite quiet pictures. The top one is the Wisconsin River at sunset. The next is the path through the cemetery in town. The next is driving north from visiting my mom. The last is the walk out to the lighthouse in Port Washington. I took all the pictures but the last one; that was sent to me by a great friend to help me when I miss home.
If you haven't taken a walk through a cemetery lately, I would suggest that you do. There is something inspiring about it. I started taking such walks when I was a teenager. There was a very awesome cemetery at the end of our street. My sister and I would take our skates and cruise the hills through there while visiting some of our favorite stones and creating stories about their families and what life would have been like. If I was having some teen angst, I would walk there and just being in the silence of all of those memories...I would feel better and be able to go back home and be a normal child again.
I've taken my girls on walks through the cemetery and talked to them about this history of the stones. They take time to brush off the dirt from the stones and trace the letters and numbers. They "ooo and ahh" at etchings and sculptures. They smell the flowers (real and fake). When they get a little older we can start writing stories of the people we find there. This was one of my favorite projects. In school, we walked as a class to the local cemetery and found a stone that spoke to us. Our job was to research their time period and write a page out of their journal. I fell in love with the names and dates and the memories that were trapped in those stones. The lost stories, or at least the stories I may never get a chance to hear.
I may have to start doing that again. I had a tombstone notebook back then. I would write down the names and dates so that I would have the material for when I wanted to write. May need to do that with my Hazel. She's starting to write more and she might enjoy writing about someone else.
Where do you find your silence and solace? I think I may need to take jabberbox out for a walk before she drives me over the edge.
I am always fascinated by cemetaries. As a young girl and visiting my grandmother in England in the summers where she lived across the street from a 1000 year old Norman church I often wandered in the cemetary. Old sculpture and generations of families are so intriguing.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one. The one here in town has got a beautiful sitting area by the crypts. I sat down there once to write and filled about 8 pages. Not quite sure why I haven't been back to do it again.
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