In Praise of Cemeteries
© Michael J. Crosbie
When you live in a small New England town, a cemetery is never far away. If I take an hour’s walk through local streets, I will easily pass by or through two or three. They’ve long been places of solace, peace, tranquility—even ironic hubris.
Lately, I’ve noticed that the cemeteries I visit are more populated with the still-upright. A couple of weeks ago, as the pandemic kicked into high gear, a friend posted on Instagram a photo from her wanderings in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery, hashtag #socialdistancing #cemeteries. My friend later told me that it was nearly impossible to keep 6 feet away from fellow strollers in the borough’s Prospect Park, so she and her partner escaped to Green-Wood as a refuge of landscape, sculpture, and architecture. As we strive to devise and practice a coronavirus etiquette of distance without rudeness, a newfound love of cemeteries as places of rest and reflection is bound to blossom.
