Day Off

I had the day off today. Everyone at Glimmerglass did. I may have the day off on Tuesday also if things go well in rehearsals tomorrow. I relish in time to myself.

I took a long bike ride today on my roommate's bicycle. I rode all through Richfield Springs, past numerous churches and people out for Sunday strolls, then cut out of the village on Lake Street and rode up the hill until I found a beautiful cemetary. Graveyards fascinate me in their history, their statuary and their quiet (or disquiet as the case may be). Old cemetaries are especially interesting. You can tell a lot about a town by the graves that nestle into its outskirts.

The ones that particularly catch at me are children's headstones. Cemetaries in Ireland are full of children's graves and there's a cemetary in Charleston, Illinois, where a woman lost six babies, all under the age of 5. What incredible heartbreak that must have been. I think the death of a child, however tragic, was more commonplace in the century before...lack of modern medicine, more home births, etc..

So that put me into a calm as I donned the bicycle once again and turned back towards home. The rest of the day was laundry, work (neverending) on my score, cleaning the kitchen...more perfunctory chores, and yet I still was constantly thinking of coming upon this cemetary out of the blue.

Funny how sometimes the most spontaneous, beautiful, raw moments in life can still lead us back to thoughts of death.