CEMETERIES
21
By Jen Hitchcock
When life becomes just a bit too much for me, I turn to the dead. I have always found great solstice walking around cemeteries. I grew up in New England, so there was no shortage of beautiful and yes, perhaps a little creepy, wonderful graveyards to meander around and explore. It was something I would do to escape the weight of my family and the pressures around growing up in general. To me, they are the ideal place to hide from the world. Graveyards are quiet, green, lush and tree-lined. Best of all, unlike public parks, even in the largest cities, you can often be completely alone in them. And an added bonus--the dead can’t throw Frisbees at the back of your head, set up bouncy houses or let their unfriendly dogs off leashes to poop everywhere you want to spread out a blanket. The folks that inhabit our burial grounds are the best people to share space with when you are feeling unsocial. Recently, my life has entered a time of transition, and everything is a bit painful and uncertain right now. Harkening back to my favorite way of finding some peace, I sought out an old haunting ground (admittedly very weak pun intended), The Hollywood Forever Cemetery. In twenty-seven years living in Los Angeles, I had only visited once or twice during the day, and didn’t spend much time wandering the grounds when I did. So this time, I took my time. It is a true Hollywood cemetery. I love how the monuments to the dead are extremely varied-- epic, breathtaking and often over the top. Mickey Rooney, short in stature but big in personality has a slab of stone to match. It is gigantic. Meanwhile, one of my favorite bombshells, Jayne Mansfield, has a very modest stone. When I found her, I sat beside her for some time and took in the gorgeous eternal view she now enjoyed (I hope). Some of the older stones are in the shadow of the Paramount lot, including a grave dated from the 1930’s of a man named… Harry Potter. At this time when I am unsettled and full of uncertainty, disquiet and questioning where the story of my life is going, walking around stones and imagining how all these lives were lived, all the stories and layers of living, makes what I am going through a bit less overwhelming. It was healing to walk across grass that was pillow soft, and stroll amongst gorgeous peacocks, while also dodging a metallic green June bug here and there. Weaving in-between monuments to the dead is oddly comforting. As is the reminder that there is only one certainty in life, that we all share the same grand finale. We don’t make it out alive. And perhaps because I am weird, this brings me to a place where I can begin to believe that a life well lived is one that embraces uncertainty, more than fears it. The twists and turns that life throws us are not something to dread, because this is what it is to be alive.
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