Churchyard Tango

photo by Heidi Utz

Jacksonville, Oregon
2008

Photo of the Day

"Refinery Angel"
Ft. Bragg, CA

A most refined burial, I must say. This is one of my favorite shots of all time. When you're standing in this cemetery, this Pied Piper-like angel really does appear to be walking out of the redwood. I hope poor Gino Cristani isn't too sad that these days his final resting place is a bit...crude.
Ft. Bragg is surprisingly photogenic. Its funky, gritty old streets house a million potential images, in lively contrast to the dramatic, sublime views from neighboring Mendocino, 10 minutes down the road. It's easy to fall in love with this area. I hope to return there this summer with a lot of film (and the discipline not to find a nice little rental...).

Graver Matters

I never thought I’d be walking around an old cemetery listening to Bonnie Raitt do a sound check, but if there’s anything this year has taught me, it’s that life brings lots of things you’d never expect, suspect, or even inspect. This odd concurrence took place today in Jacksonville, OR, a historic district not far from my new home, which had once gained fame as a gold-mining town, the first Chinatown in OR, and now as an outdoor stage for the ubiquitous Britt Festival, which brings in all kinds of national artists. Like Bonnie Raitt. Now, I’ve seen Bonnie before, eons ago in Albuquerque, and have not been terribly impressed. However, I have to say that she provided a very interesting soundtrack to my cemetery stroll. “Let’s give ‘em something to talk about,” she bellowed. Where I was, no one was particularly chatty. Except for a very annoying woman walking her yellow lab, who insisted on calling, “Here, Skippy!” at the top of her lungs, such to wake the dead. Good thing these guys were sleeping but tight…they’d been under since the mid-19th, some of them.

This landmark graveyard is divided into sections, including those for Jews, Catholics, Freemasons, Improved Orders of Red Men (a fraternal organization with rituals modeled after Native Americans’—of course, the white men “improved” on them), Odd Fellows (odder than white guys parading around as Indians?), and City “fathers” (somehow their moms gained admission, too). I spent a lot of time hanging out in the Jewish section placing pebbles on headstones, as is Jewish tradition to signify that the grave has been visited. Some had so many, some just a few…I wanted to cheer up the ones that hadn’t seen much action.

Today I also confirmed a longstanding theory I’ve had: Jew, Christian, odd fellow, or Suzy homemaker--people generally die close to their birthdays. In this cemetery, the vast majority sought greener pastures within 3 months of their DOBs, most waiting to blow out the candles on the cake first. It was uncanny. So, I guess I should eschew hazardous objects and skydiving trips during late January.

Some of these marble and granite headstones were so artful, it was like visiting a lovely sculpture garden. With lots of wormy corpuses under the art. I was so preoccupied with shooting photos and thinking about their aesthetic that that fact didn’t dawn on me until I got home: Oh, yeah, I was walking around on people’s heads… A unique facet of Oregon cemeteries is that the markers portray lots of images of the natural world, often including mountains, deer, elk, or even turkeys. One looked ever-so-much like a Thanksgiving mural. It was like “Home on the Range” set to marble.

Buddhists are often encouraged to meditate in the charnel grounds, as it is in such places that we most directly experience the mortality of our bodies, the realization that just like the residents here, we will one day cease to exist in our present form, and that love and all earthly relationships are ultimately tied to the whims of time. The crossing of the hour hand from one number to the next or the tearing off of a calendar page, and life can be radically altered or completely cease—in its current form. And thus, we appreciate the time, people, and relationships we do have as they are unfolding before our eyes.