Thanksgiving 2007

I like to walk in graveyards. It's one of the few public utilities dedicated to aesthetics, at least by comparison to the sewer system or the power lines.

I like to walk in graveyards in a variety of situations. Alone, with friends, drunk, sober, running from what I think are police. Night, day. Rain, cold, warm, snow. It is safe to say I've been in my favorite cemetery under a large variety of contexts.

On Thanksgiving though, it was special. Always the monk, I forsook the warm beds and turkey-swollen stomachs that are the due of the less-morbid. It was cold. The grass froze on the surface and crunched under foot. I walked like a faithful son to his father's grave on Memorial Day. Of course my father is still alive and most likely asleep at this unholy hour. Maybe this was practice. The gate was open, it always is. Grounds keeping here must be a task out of Greek Mythology.


Not that it matters with someone as easily amused as myself. I wasn't mystified, but I played along. Social conditioning is a fun thing to indulge once in a while. Feigning reverence because that's what a good, Catholic boy is supposed to do.

All these graves, statues, reaching for the sky, that's what we've always wanted. This is as close as we'll get I'm sure. For once the cold doesn't bother me. For once I'm more interested in the real world than my own perception of it,