“Imperfection charms me, familiar things move me...a celebration of what we have, instead of what we long for.”
ISABELLA ROSSELLINI
Every weekday afternoon, our school bus would pull out the U-shaped drive and skirt left around the corner with the plain box house on an unkempt lot. I can only figure that I’ve always found amazement in mundanity, because as unprofound as ever, the plain box house – on its unkempt lot – has never left my mind.
But the plain box house is for another time. Today I'm thinking about cemeteries, which are profound, because they represent death and life and whatever might lay beyond it; or maybe just what lays beneath it. And so after passing the plain box house, we'd take our next left at the Mandeville Cemetery, which sat a block north of my elementary school.
I doubt that the other kids liked the cemetery, but I was glued to the dang thing. Do grown-ups ever tell you what cemeteries are? Or do you just kind of always know?
I'm reminded of the words of Ram Dass: “We're all just walking each other home...”. That's nice — we must be headed to the graveyards. Our mansions in the sky: really just caskets in the ground.
People probably think I'm being dark when I talk like this, but I don't feel that way. Truth be told, the thought of resting in the earth after all my days have passed is weirdly comforting to me. Have you ever been barefoot in the grass? Do you know the coolness of digging in the dirt, the way it decompresses you? Do you ever close your eyes and remember what it's like to listen?
I don't ride by that cemetery in a yellow bus anymore; I drive to it in my black Honda. Then I walk along the crooked and misshapen aisles and I mistake unmarked graves for patches of grass (I tiptoe around when I'm unsure). I wonder about the flags and the flowers, and I wonder how far the bayou comes up when it rains.
Back in elementary school, we had a playground that edged the backside of the swamp. The ground dipped sharply in the direction of the cypress forest that separated our play area from the wild just beyond it. I think often about our closeness to the swamp there, and I'm reminded of the small fence that pretended we were safe.
Of course it's our inclination to divide ourselves from what we believe threatens us, to protect ourselves and our egos. We put fences around our cemeteries. But the truth is, that swamp had no regard for that small fence, and death has no regard for me. A boundary without bond is no boundary at all. We will know the coolness of digging in the dirt and the way it decompresses us, and we will have no choice but to close our eyes and to listen.
If you liked today’s issue, it would mean a lot to me if you shared it with a friend. Thanks for being here.
True miscellanea!
Nostalgia nugget: How the once popular fast-food sunroom became obsolete 🌞
A poem that made me tear up: Good Bones by Maggie Smith 😌
“You open your algorithmic feed and see rows and rows of neatly planted corn, and nothing else.” — Rewilding Your Attention 👁️
More fast-food nostalgia fun: mcbroken 🍦
And because I haven’t shared it in a while, my Best of 2021 playlist (Apple Music/Spotify) 🎧