Stone angels

It’s becoming something of a tradition that J and I take a walk at Mount Auburn Cemetery on Christmas Day. Last year, we saw a very tame wild turkey hunkered on a decorated grave, and this year, in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook school shootings, I couldn’t help but notice the sad stones marking the graves of lost children.

Many of the stones at Mount Auburn Cemetery are old; consecrated in 1831, the cemetery is America’s first garden cemetery, with its graves situated in a lushly landscaped park-like setting. But among the old stones are newer ones that loved ones faithfully adorn with flowers, wreaths, candles, and other decorations to brighten an otherwise lonely resting spot.

Perhaps because of memorials like these, I don’t find cemeteries to be depressing, just bittersweet: a reminder of mortality that makes me more (not less) grateful to be alive. The one thing we all share, after all, is mortality, and taking a quiet walk on an otherwise festive day is a great way to keep things in perspective.

Some folks are lucky to reach an advanced age before they die, and others exit this world far too soon. Is the richness of your life measured by length or by depth, by the number of your days or by the way you spend those days?

Click here for more pictures from this year’s Christmas Day walk at Mount Auburn Cemetery.

 

Deep calls to deep

Late last December, in the quiet lull between Christmas and New Year’s, J and I made a pilgrimage to New York City, where we disembarked at Penn Station, walked to Ground Zero, and visited the 9/11 Memorial before having lunch, walking back to our train, and returning to Boston. It was a quintessential day trip: a journey there and back lasting little more than twelve hours.

Like any pilgrimage, it was a trip we’d planned months beforehand, as soon as we heard the 9/11 Memorial would be open to visitors on a reservation-only basis. The site was still an active construction zone, with workers raising nearby Freedom Tower; even with guest passes, we had to wend our way through a labyrinthine security line where no one complained about walking through metal detectors or passing their bags through X-ray machines.

On a pilgrimage, you expect your travel to involve more than a bit of travail; on a pilgrimage, you’re willing to cultivate the virtues of patience and long-suffering, recognizing that life is a journey with many unforeseen twists and turns.

Before we visited the 9/11 Memorial last December, J and I had seen a series of TV documentaries aired in honor of last September’s ten-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks. We’d seen interviews with construction workers building Freedom Tower, we’d learned about the design of the memorial itself with its sunken waterfalls marking the footprints of the Twin Towers, and we’d learned the logic behind the arrangement of names on the metal panels rimming those fountains.

J and I arrived with a scrap of paper upon which I’d written the locations of two names we wanted to find during our visit: Patrick J. Quigley IV, who is buried in a cemetery not far from our house, and Welles Remy Crowther, a Boston College graduate who died after saving a dozen people from the South Tower. J and I never met either man, but their stories helped us put a face on the tragedy, and it felt appropriate to seek out their names in order to pay our respects.

As J and I walked around both waterfalls and considered the long, low wall of names surrounding them, I kept thinking of a line from the Psalms, “Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me” (Psalm 42:7, NIV). The Psalms contain prayers of praise and thanksgiving, but they also contain poems of anguish and despair.

The sunken waterfalls of the Memorial evoke the heavy-heartedness most of us associate with 9/11, with falling water that is eerily reminiscent of both falling buildings and falling bodies. But falling water cannot be wounded: in the form of vapor, falling water rises again. The day J and I visited the Memorial was brisk and breezy, and one of the waterfalls was veiled with mist and a flirtation of rainbows that hinted toward the irrepressible nature of both spirit and beauty.

A waterfall is the opposite of a looming tower: instead of rising up, these waters fall down. The sunken nature of the 9/11 Memorial waterfalls reminded me of a sipapu, the hole inside a Pueblo Indian dwelling that represents the opening through which ancient ancestors arrived in this world.

When so many spirits left their bodies on September 11, 2001, where did they go? Did they fall down, like water; did they rise up, like clouds; or did they remain in our midst, like mist? What exactly are the waves and breakers the poet mentions in Psalm 42? Are they the waves of loss, the breakers of despair, or the sea of loved ones who will never be forgotten, even under the shadow of a veil of tears?

Click here for more photos of the 9/11 Memorial in New York City, taken in December, 2011.

 

All is calm

If you’re a wild turkey looking for a quiet place to lie low for the holidays, you could do far worse than choosing to nestle beside a grave in Mount Auburn Cemetery, far from hungry hunters or cooks with roasting pans. Cemeteries provide a tranquil respite from even the most hectic holiday hubbub, and Mount Auburn has a long history of harboring creatures who simply want to lie in a safe spot.

 

Memorial

Earlier this month, on a rainy walk through Boston’s Public Garden, J and I took a moment to visit the Garden of Remembrance, a memorial to the Massachusetts citizens who died in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. It was the weekend after Osama bin Laden had been killed, so the memorial was decorated with 206 white roses that had been placed on the monument the day after bin Laden’s death: 206 roses for 206 victims, a visual symbol that the people of Massachusetts will always remember those who died.

Visiting a rainy memorial strewn with wilted flowers felt entirely appropriate. The Public Garden was largely deserted, so J and I had time to ponder the monument and read the chiseled names without the distraction of passing tourists. Almost immediately, I searched for the name of Patrick J. Quigley, IV, whose grave J and I first encountered on a walk through Newton Cemetery several years ago. J and I never met Patrick Quigley, but somehow he’s become the face of 9/11 for me: one name whose death personalizes the passing of all the other names. And sure enough, as soon as I saw Quigley’s name, I felt my eyes misting with something other than raindrops. Just like that, the memories of that terrible day came back, and with them a flood of sympathy for the families of the victims. This memorial is a visible symbol that we won’t forget the ones who were lost: how can we forget, when the families of the victims live on, their lives forever punctuated?

In her book Assassination Vacation, Sarah Vowell describes the first time she visited the World War II memorial in Washington, DC, which I visited in 2005. Initially, Vowell finds the monument cumbersome with its ring of pillars for the 50 states…but upon seeing the “Oklahoma” pillar, she breaks into tears thinking about an uncle’s story about spending a month in wet socks fighting the Japanese for control of a hill.

Suddenly and forever the World War II memorial stopped being clunky architecture and turned into the sound of my uncle’s voice telling me that story. Now I don’t care what it looks like. They could have carved it out of chewed bubble gum and I would think of it fondly.

This, I think, is the power of memorials, both the stone monuments we erect for the dead and this holiday, Memorial Day: a day set aside for remembrance. It’s easy to forget our uncle’s stories, or the stories of other folks’ uncles. Stone memorials are designed to remind us of some stone-cold truths: people die, and our memories are simultaneously tenuous and as strong as death. It’s easy to forget the touch of a now-gone hand, but easy to remember a story that touched us. All we need to resurrect the past is a reminder–a marker, a monument, a memorial. The simple sight of a name carved on stone is enough to bring us to tears, raindrops erasing the fragile line between then and now.

Click here for more photos from the Garden of Remembrance in Boston’s Public Garden, and happy Memorial Day.

 

Memento mori

J was the one to spot “my” grave during our stroll through Newton Cemetery this afternoon. As much as I enjoy exploring cemeteries, today was the first time I’ve ever encountered a tombstone with my name on it. As far as I know, I don’t have any relatives living (or once living) in Newton, Massachusetts, so I’ll assume “DiSabato” is more common a name than I knew. Still, it’s a bit creepy to turn around and see a carved-in-stone reminder of your own mortality. There eventually go I, and you, and all of us.

I don’t normally find cemeteries to be creepy places…and yet, I occasionally see memorials that stop me cold, offering as they do a tangible reminder of the mortality we all share. Tombstones marking the graves of children always give me pause, and today, J and I saw several graves that were adorned with Valentine’s Day hearts and flowers, a sign that the Dearly Departed really are dear. After seeing the usual His and Hers grave markers with the name of a still-living widow or widower next to the birth and death dates of a deceased spouse, J talked of visiting his grandfather’s grave with his grandmother, her name chiseled alongside her husband’s. I suppose there’s a certain amount of comfort in knowing where and with whom your ultimate resting place will be,visits to your own (eventual) grave being one way of getting to know your (eventual) neighborhood.

Both J and I grew quiet when we approached a field of war dead, that portion of any cemetery always seeming too large. But the memorial that stunned us both into silence was this one, the death date (September 11, 2001) explaining why this particular loss happened far too prematurely:

After we got home, J went online find the face and story behind the stone. Some souls continue to be mourned even by those of us who never knew them in the flesh.

 

The sphinx’s riddle

Riddle me this: why is there a sphinx in the middle of Mount Auburn Cemetery?

On Monday my friend A (not her real initial) and I met in Cambridge, Massachusetts for a cemetery stroll before heading to nearby Watertown for the best pancakes in town. I’d never been to the Deluxe Town Diner; A had been to Mount Auburn Cemetery only once before, and then only briefly. It seemed a fair trade for me to show A around my favorite garden cemetery (and the nation’s first) before she initiated me into the culinary wonders of sour cream and buttermilk flapjacks and New York style potato pancakes. After all, we’ve made something of a tradition walking off potato pancakes, so it seemed only fair to broaden our horizons by finding another establishment that serves up the tasty goods.

But back to my initial question. In Greek mythology, the sphinx asked passersby a riddle, and those who could not answer were subsequently strangled. So, why is there a sphinx in the middle of Mount Auburn Cemetery?

Mount Auburn’s sphinx sits directly facing Bigelow Chapel: apparently, this is a Christian creature, not any sort of Greco-Egyptian pagan. And instead of commemorating anything remotely Greek or Egyptian, Mount Auburn’s sphinx is actually a Civil War memorial commemorating the Union dead. If you’re still missing the connection between sphinxes, the Civil War, and Cambridge, Massachusetts, you’re not alone: I wanted to show A this particular memorial precisely because it makes no sense. And where else in Massachusetts would you be able to ask your own questions of a sphinx before heading out for potato pancakes?

Truth be told, the reason there is a sphinx at Mount Auburn Cemetery has more to do with 19th century style than it does with the Civil War itself. Mount Auburn Cemetery was founded in 1831, and by the time its entry gate was rebuilt in 1843, Egyptian Revival was all the rage. When sculptor Martin Milmore was commissioned in 1871 to construct a memorial to the Union’s Civil War dead, he followed the prevailing style of the day and produced an impressive (but today, woefully anachronistic) monument. Whether or not there is any connections between sphinxes and the American Civil War, 19th century Victorians would have been impressed with a memorial that was both epic and monumental. It matters only to purists, I suspect, that Ms. Sphinx looks particularly Anglo, like any conventional 19th century American beauty.

Like any sculpture park, Mount Auburn Cemetery says a great deal about contemporary taste, the trend toward garden cemeteries marking a move from the bleaker spiritual vision of earlier cemeteries. Garden cemeteries such as Mount Auburn were designed to sooth the souls of mourners through park-like landscaping and beautifully sculpted memorials. Many of Mount Auburn’s more impressive monuments reflect a Neoclassical style that evokes a mood of tranquil serenity. Mary Baker Eddy’s memorial, for example, looks calmly reassuring whether contemplated across Halcyon Lake or viewed from below.

That being said, though, part of the fun of strolling a garden cemetery lies in the element of scavenger hunt: who can find the most ostentatious, unusual, or exotic memorial, and what things can you find during this visit that you haven’t noticed in the past? On Monday, both A and I simultaneously remarked about a stone I don’t recall noticing before: the weighty marker for Manton Eastburn, the 19th century bishop of Massachusetts whose grave marker struck both A and me as looking exactly like a butter dish.

Once you’ve moved from Civil War sphinxes to ecclesiastical butter dishes, you’ve moved from the ridiculous to the even more ridiculous. By the time A and I made it to the ground-hugging gravestones on the grassy knoll overlooking Willow Pond on a (successful) search for the grave of B.F. Skinner, it was only natural we’d almost literally stumble upon the world’s most bloggable tombstone:

Bloggable grave markers notwithstanding, on Monday I spotted the creepiest cemetery stone ever: an anonymous Memento Mori which asks the sphinx-like riddle, “Who’s next to die?”

 

As good as old

Remember the old stone bridge that was damaged in last year’s flood and subsequently covered with a protective tarp? Well, Old Stone’s in the process of receiving a face-lift, and here’s how she looks these days: almost as good as old.

In August, crews erected a wood scaffold under the crumbling portion of the double-arch stone bridge off Route 9 near the Antrim border in Stoddard, New Hampshire. With the help of this scaffold and piles of reinforcing gravel, workers have successfully re-pieced the largest of the tumbled stones, re-assembling a centuries-old structure whose only modern use is as a backdrop for scenic pictures.

It’s nice to think that some of our tax dollars here in tax-free New Hampshire are lending a hand to a fallen friend. With Old Stone standing securely again, the only thing keeping this scene from its pre-flood glory are the piles of gravel re-routing the Contoocook River around the damage. I’d like to think that by the time our fall foliage reaches its peak brilliance around mid-October, Old Stone and the river that runs through her will be in picture-perfect shape for the annual invasion of Leaf Peepers.

 

We meet again

Apparently you can’t teach an old photo-blogger new tricks, or maybe my taste in imagery hasn’t changed at all over the past two years. How else would you explain why yesterday I snapped a nearly identical photo of the same pile of rocks I’d blogged the last time I was in Bar Harbor two years ago?

 

Silver

By way of follow-up to Wednesday’s post on Inishmore’s Black Fort (D�n D�chathair), here’s a shot–taken to give a sense of scale–of two tourists resting within its wall. Since these adventuresome tourists have varying shades of silver hair, this is my submission for today’s Photo Friday theme. Come to think of it, D�n D�chathair’s gray stones, when viewed at close range, look more silver than they do black…

 

Walking on the moon

Approaching the craggy Black Fort (Dún Dúchatair) on Inishmore, one of the Aran Islands off the coast of Galway, feels a bit like walking on the moon, the landscape underfoot being almost entirely stone.

The first time I visited Ireland, I was surprised by two seemingly contradictory things. First, the Irish countryside was just as green as photo postcards suggested, something I always thought was a tourist-luring exaggeration: the landscape equivalent of the mouth-watering photos you see on packages of instant foods that inevitably disappoint. The Irish countryside, though, was just as green as I’d seen it, which was greener than I thought possible, never having seen the likes of Vermont in spring.

The second thing that surprised me on that first trip to Ireland seemed to contradict the first: for all her verdure, Ireland was much rockier than I’d imagined. Looking at photos, I’d imagined that Ireland was an island of earth sprinkled with stone. What I learned as an undergraduate careening across the countryside in a minivan, though, was that Ireland (at least on her craggy western coast) is predominantly stone with only a thin layer of velvet green to cover her. The Emerald Isle is emerald not merely in color but also in consistency: a landscape chiseled from stone.

Inishmore, the largest of the three Aran Islands in Galway Bay off Ireland’s west coast, is liberally studded with stone. Like their counterparts here in New Hampshire, Irish farmers de-stone their fields by piling the rock walls that crisscross every conceivable inch of acreage…except Inishmore rocks are as angular as New Hampshire stones are round.

The road to the Black Fort is too narrow and bumpy to allow busses, so few tourists brave it on bicycles. When you get tired of rattling your brains on a increasingly rocky road…

…you abandon your bicycle and set off on foot on a stone-strewn route where crowds of bus-tourists fear to tread.

After crossing a veritable field of stone, you come to the cliff where crashing waves remind you that only water can wear away rock.

Along Inishmore’s outermost edge, irregular stone walls look natural, mirroring as they do the contours of earth and sky.

Like water, time too can wear away stone, for only the hand of history can rupture a wall made of rock.

At first sight, Inishmore’s edge seems too stony for souls: how could any living creature abide a landscape that looks as barren as the moon? And yet, within her rocky crevices, even Inishmore harbors fecundity.

The unnamed ancients who built Dún Dúchatair were fortifying themselves against invaders, of which Ireland has had many. In A Book of Migrations, Rebecca Solnit suggests that tourists are the latest invaders upon Irish soil, Ireland being a place both frequently attacked and often visited. On the outermost edge of Inishmore, Ireland seems both impenetrable and entirely inhospitable: a hard-scrabble, inscrutable place. And yet even here, vegetative invaders find creases and crevices into which to settle their invasive root-hold.

Life on the rocks is a shallow, tenuous thing, the ephemeral existence of plants and insects merely scratching the eternal surface of stone.

Plants can’t grow on the moon, for you can’t set down roots in a world without gravity. On Inishmore, Iron Age warriors left their mark not by setting down agricultural roots but by piling up edifices of stone.

Instead of carving their place in history, the builders of Dún Dúchatair piled up time, heaving muscle against stone to create a sinuous black curve hugging a sheer rock cliff. (Click on the image below for a panoramic view.)

With no warriors left to defend her, the Black Fort is now easy to breach: having made the walk from your abandoned bike, you surmount her side then descend a regular stair of meticulously positioned stones.

What awaits you at the end of this rock-strewn way is the Emerald Isle herself: a spot of God’s green earth hidden on the edge of an almost lunar landscape. (Click on the image below for a panoramic view.)

Click here to see Gary’s version of our trek to Dún Dúchatair.