It’s Halloween 2019 as I write this. Pumpkins, corn stalks, skeletons, and cemetery displays are decorating the neighborhoods. I like cemeteries. Cemeteries can simultaneously comfort and creep out, be private and public, and be empty and full. They tend to be peaceful, and as a cousin of mine pointed out, the residents aren’t judging.
I don’t necessarily seek out cemeteries when traveling, but when I come across them, I tend to visit. On an early evening stroll in Ireland and a sunrise hike in the Cotswold’s, I passed by churchyards, and I wandered in. In these places, there’s something about the sun being in transition that creates an otherworldly atmosphere among the headstones.
During trips to Virginia and Tennessee, I was filling time when I came across Richmond’s Hollywood Cemetery and Memphis’s Elmwood Cemetery. I strolled the extensive grounds contemplating the lives I gleaned from the chiseled granite and concrete. The dignified and isolating black decorative metal fencing of the Pioneer Cemetery in Itasca State Park in Park Rapids, Minnesota was the setting inspiration I used in one of my historical novels.
A town that extols its cemeteries is New Orleans. They allow residents and visitors to wander and explore its many crypts, mausoleums, and graves. The visitor’s bureau has a website that lists the various graveyards. (https://www.neworleans.com/things-to-do/attractions/cemeteries/)
In your town or traveling, consider a reflective walk amid all those lives.