There's Something About a Cemetery
A couple weeks ago, I did something I haven't done for years - take a walk through a graveyard. For about a year as a child, I lived on a street with a cemetery at the end. It was my favorite place to go for a walk. I think I liked the quiet. That, and the sense of history. I would read the names and the dates as I walked up and down the rows like gathering pieces of a puzzle. Some cemeteries in New England go back almost 400 years, and they're comparatively scattered, disorganized, not in neat and tidy little rows. Older gravestones also seem more individualized than those of today. These stones were truly meant to leave a mark of those who had passed. Family relations, profession. A bit of personality. The storyteller in me always tries to create a sense of who these people were from what they left behind - what information about themselves they (or their family) wanted carved into stone.
I won't have a gravestone when I die. My wife and I wish to be cremated rather than buried and interred. But part of me would like a headstone somewhere, with my name and dates. And something else about me, too, but I don't know what yet. Husband, father. Actor, writer. Or maybe a fun quote like, "It can only get better" or "You think you've got it bad, look at me!". Maybe I'll write something yet, some turn of phrase that, that I'll want immortalized on my stone. Hopefully, I have plenty of time to figure it out.
The State of the Art
Missed my writing deadline for the 10-minute play competition I had my eye on, but I did get a complete first draft finished so that's progress. Little Bear continues to progress to a regular sleep pattern, so I have high hopes for getting back to a writing regimen soon.
By next month, I plan on having some news about my Beyond Midnight collection, so stay tuned!
Until then, I remain...
Darkly Yours
