![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Communing with the dead
Jun. 19th, 2005 06:48 pmSo yesterday was a gorgeous day—as was today. Sky so blue you could ride it all the way to Heaven if you had the right kind of boat. I went for a late lunch-early dinner at my favorite cafe, then decided to go for a drive. I wound up driving by Woodlawn Cemetery up on 14th and Pico in Santa Monica.
I hadn't been there in years, but I used to like to walk through the place when I was a tweenie and early teen. Not a huge cemetery, surrounded by urban blight on three of its four sides and a junior college on the fourth. But it's a beautiful place, lots of old and gnarled and interesting trees, and since it was established in 1847 it has a wide range of dates for the headstones. I wasn't a morbid kid, but the place always made me feel peaceful. So I pulled over and decided to do a walk through.
Those of you who read my novel, Shivery Bones, may remember the scene in the cemetery. It was called Woodhaven in the book, on 13th and Pico. It wasn't Woodlawn, exactly, but I'd have to say it was inspired by Woodlawn. Part of my reason for deciding to go there yesterday was to see how my memories stacked up; how the place I created in my book fit the place that is. It didn't exactly, but I think someone could see the inspiration there.
I also wanted to take pictures, but I felt kind of funny about it. Once I was in the place, though, a cop car sped through from one end to the other, a kid did wheelies on his bike along one of the avenues and around the graves, and—because this is L.A.—they were filming a fricking movie there. It looked like an indy or a student film. I think the latter since I saw them arrive in a van and set up. No fricking great trailers choking the road; no Kraft Services.
So I took pictures. Because the sun was so bright, the sky so blue, and the trees so plentiful, I got lots of very evocative shadow and light shots. Lots of poignant stories there in the headstones, too. Mysteries that are nearly a century old. I doubt anyone knows the story behind them anymore, probably not even the folks that keep the cemetery records. But I wandered around and wondered and let my imagination roam.
And when I left I felt just as peaceful as I did in the old days.
When I told my mother about it this afternoon, she told me that my surrogate grandmother was buried there. I had no idea. They didn't let me go to the funeral when I was a kid because they figured I'd be too upset, so I never knew where she was. Maybe I'll go back and take her some flowers.
And last night when I was processing the pictures (I don't recommend processing 95 in one evening), I discovered another little mystery. I like to view all the pictures in super blow up, quadrant by quadrant. Partly that's because sometimes a piece of a photo will be much more interesting than the entire shot; partly because I like to look for anomalies. My favorite shot was a shadow and light shot of a child's grave. And that was the beginning of the mystery:
Donald Laverty
In super enlargement, I noticed there was a marble beside this grave, just the other side of the slice of diagonal shadow in the upper right of the picture. Here's the close up (and if anyone can tell me why Graphic Converter has started to digitalize every picture I process with it, I'd be happy to hear it):
This marble appealed to my romantic soul and I thought, "I wonder if some little kid or somebody left a marble for the little boy to play with." Then I moved on. And I came to this odd mystery—two tiny graves over by the fence:
No dates, no other graves nearby, just these two little headstones. My imagination roamed a lot over that one.
I also did a close up of each headstone:
When I was doing the super enlargement of the Brother headstone, I found another marble. This one wasn't as easy to spot because it was pushed down into the mud:
So I wondered if someone was going through the cemetery and leaving marbles for all the little kids. I didn't see one near the Baby headstone, but it was much more covered in leaves so it could have been hidden. I didn't move any leaves and stuff when I took pictures because I wanted them to be as I found them. But I still wonder about those marbles, who might be leaving them.
I don't know if anyone's leaving them, of course. Could be coincidence and just my imagination roaming again, but I could certainly understand the impetus to do a little ritual like that. These little graves are sad. They never had a chance to play. Someone with a romantic soul may have wanted to give them something to play with.
I hadn't been there in years, but I used to like to walk through the place when I was a tweenie and early teen. Not a huge cemetery, surrounded by urban blight on three of its four sides and a junior college on the fourth. But it's a beautiful place, lots of old and gnarled and interesting trees, and since it was established in 1847 it has a wide range of dates for the headstones. I wasn't a morbid kid, but the place always made me feel peaceful. So I pulled over and decided to do a walk through.
Those of you who read my novel, Shivery Bones, may remember the scene in the cemetery. It was called Woodhaven in the book, on 13th and Pico. It wasn't Woodlawn, exactly, but I'd have to say it was inspired by Woodlawn. Part of my reason for deciding to go there yesterday was to see how my memories stacked up; how the place I created in my book fit the place that is. It didn't exactly, but I think someone could see the inspiration there.
I also wanted to take pictures, but I felt kind of funny about it. Once I was in the place, though, a cop car sped through from one end to the other, a kid did wheelies on his bike along one of the avenues and around the graves, and—because this is L.A.—they were filming a fricking movie there. It looked like an indy or a student film. I think the latter since I saw them arrive in a van and set up. No fricking great trailers choking the road; no Kraft Services.
So I took pictures. Because the sun was so bright, the sky so blue, and the trees so plentiful, I got lots of very evocative shadow and light shots. Lots of poignant stories there in the headstones, too. Mysteries that are nearly a century old. I doubt anyone knows the story behind them anymore, probably not even the folks that keep the cemetery records. But I wandered around and wondered and let my imagination roam.
And when I left I felt just as peaceful as I did in the old days.
When I told my mother about it this afternoon, she told me that my surrogate grandmother was buried there. I had no idea. They didn't let me go to the funeral when I was a kid because they figured I'd be too upset, so I never knew where she was. Maybe I'll go back and take her some flowers.
And last night when I was processing the pictures (I don't recommend processing 95 in one evening), I discovered another little mystery. I like to view all the pictures in super blow up, quadrant by quadrant. Partly that's because sometimes a piece of a photo will be much more interesting than the entire shot; partly because I like to look for anomalies. My favorite shot was a shadow and light shot of a child's grave. And that was the beginning of the mystery:
Donald Laverty
In super enlargement, I noticed there was a marble beside this grave, just the other side of the slice of diagonal shadow in the upper right of the picture. Here's the close up (and if anyone can tell me why Graphic Converter has started to digitalize every picture I process with it, I'd be happy to hear it):
This marble appealed to my romantic soul and I thought, "I wonder if some little kid or somebody left a marble for the little boy to play with." Then I moved on. And I came to this odd mystery—two tiny graves over by the fence:
No dates, no other graves nearby, just these two little headstones. My imagination roamed a lot over that one.
I also did a close up of each headstone:
When I was doing the super enlargement of the Brother headstone, I found another marble. This one wasn't as easy to spot because it was pushed down into the mud:
So I wondered if someone was going through the cemetery and leaving marbles for all the little kids. I didn't see one near the Baby headstone, but it was much more covered in leaves so it could have been hidden. I didn't move any leaves and stuff when I took pictures because I wanted them to be as I found them. But I still wonder about those marbles, who might be leaving them.
I don't know if anyone's leaving them, of course. Could be coincidence and just my imagination roaming again, but I could certainly understand the impetus to do a little ritual like that. These little graves are sad. They never had a chance to play. Someone with a romantic soul may have wanted to give them something to play with.
