Sunday, September 15, 2013

M'am. Please Climb Down from the Tomb

Lakeview Cemetery is one of my favorite places on earth as  it will  also be afterward ( but that is a whole other story).
 If you come to visit me I will take you there;  you will not have a choice.  I also spend endless hours standing alone  among 100 year old monuments and wondering who had stood there before me?
 What did  they feel?  What did they wear?
What did they leave behind... both tangibly and in the ether?

And  what do they think of me, circa 2013 prowling around cell phone camera in hand,  trying not to fall over the 19th century grave markers while looking up at the tops of the sculptures  framed against the sky?

I  am also  more than a  bit obsessed about the statuary, more pointedly, the models for the statuary.  All these are loved monuments  to loved ones, legacies and families...but what do we know about the stories and people behind the statues?
I've become quite attached to many of them and consider them my friends.
Friday afternoon was windy and cool, so it was a perfect day for a visit. Ended up in the section where this friend has been keeping  watching since the 1800's.

The light was interesting so I went to take a closer look  and noticed  something I had never seen before.
 The hand reminded me of a  living friends hand!
 A male friend.
oh!

Stay with me, because this is relevant. This is probably a lesser known but absolutely gorgeous John Singer Sargent painting that currently hangs at the Clark Institute.

and also in my dining room
There is some speculation that the woman in the picture is really a man, possibly even the artist himself.
Could be a million reasons for this..Sargent was notoriously private.

Ok..back to Lakeview, I started to move around the statue, looking more closely, and it just stared back at me, holding onto its story..but I think also wanting me to know it. I am sure of it. There was a docent with a tour nearby, and while I very much wanted to crawl up onto the base to really look at the face I envisioned being told
"M'am. please climb down from the tomb"

But not today..I am armed with my camera, my best climbing shoes, and a mission.
Stay tuned for what I discover.
Happy Sunday!






1 comment:

  1. Great essay! I want to know what you discover.

    ReplyDelete