Shrouded Cemetery

Roadside Cemetery in Dane County

Roadside Cemetery © 2008

Cemeteries hold a certain fascination for me. On my travels around the state of Wisconsin and in other parts of the country, too, I often see small cemeteries on private lands. Simple family cemeteries filled with crumbling spires and solid squatty granite blocks. Some are decorated with plastic flowers in every hue and variety, some with teddy bears and pin-wheels, some plain – but not forgotten, I hope.

My favorite grave markers are the ones that incorporate a bench. Not that I will have a bench near my eventual resting place, but I do like the idea of having a place for others to rest a bit, think quiet thoughts, re-consider and make new plans, go on with living. While still taking out a few moments of life to remember and honor.

I’m the cemetery visitor in my immediate family. I think, though, that I am the last in a long line of grave site caretakers. My great-grandmother and both grandmothers with whom I grew up  – they were all Sunday-morning-after-church-services visitors to the cemetery. I often accompanied them as I was the one with the young knees and strong arms. I could run along the gravel paths without fear of turning an ankle or falling. We often brought live plants that required digging holes, setting in, mounding, and watering. In Autumn, we brought rakes so that I could rake leaves off the long line of family plots. Even little clippers to trim the summer’s blades of grass that sprang up in the improper of places.

I still take my mother to the cemetery when I visit my hometown. We now decorate with artificial flowers that can be re-used every year.  And we decorate seasonally – Christmas poinsettias, then red and white carnations for Valentine’s Day, followed in quick procession by spring flowers, Memorial Day in red, white and blue, summer flowers, Fourth of July, and finally fall flowers. In early December we start with Christmas again. And the seasons recycle, each set of flowers returns to the cemetery at just the right time.

I’d rather just wander around, look around, examine. But the flower tradition has been in place for a hundred years in my maternal family. I don’t live near the family site. Hundreds of miles away, actually. So I wonder what will happen when I no longer have living relatives to visit in my hometown.

Red Barn

Barn in Sauk County, Wisconsin

Barn in Sauk County, Wisconsin ©2008 Bo Mackison

I love red barns. I especially love the rusty red roof on this barely red barn, and the red vines creeping around the window frame.

De-clutter? Not Even the Question!

Not for Sale

Someone Else’s Junk ©2008 Bo Mackison

Why do we save the things we save?

When I moved to Chicago 33 years ago to attend school, I arrived with a suitcase of clothes and an army  trunk full of bedding, towels, and everything else I owned. I bought a hot plate and rented a tiny refrigerator. After I got settled and met a few people, I somehow managed to collect other peoples’ cast-offs – and was mighty happy to get them. A folding bed, unfolded, doubled as a couch by day and a bed at night. I found a perfectly acceptable chair on the curbside waiting for the garbage pickup. Some hot water and soap revealed a wood chair made out of oak that gave me the option of offering a guest a seat on a chair or on the floor. Their choice.

Eventually I graduated, married, and started working…and accumulating. Accumulating stuff. Important stuff. Good stuff. But after 32 years of marriage and three kids, I have way too much stuff. Not all of it mine, mind you, but all of it is, well, stuffed into my house.

I recently read about a person who had survived both a flood that destroyed one home and a catastrophic fire that destroyed a second. She bemoaned the loss of work in her studio and her writing samples, her photographs and personal letters, but never once did I read any mention of any stuff. Makes me think I could do more de-cluttering than I already have.

A move into smaller quarters is on the horizon, though a rather far horizon – considering how not-so-quickly I accomplish huge projects. But now that our family of five has dwindled to two, we do not need to inhabit a 9 room house. The two of us have been examining architecture and dwelling spaces, and we are thinking it would be interesting and challenging to try to create a home that is truly designed for the way we live. Smallish, but full of interesting details and open spaces, both inside and out. I’ve been looking at a lot of Frank Lloyd Wright designs and adaptations, and I’m beginning to amass a notebook full of scrawls and sketches and resources and photographs.

But first – I have to get rid of some of this stuff. Think my kids want any of their stuff I’m storing? I’m sure Good Will will be happy to accept some of the extra, too. Maybe I should just pretend I’m moving cross-country and go on a stuff-reduction diet. Gulp!

Red Spires in Utah

Red Rock Spires

Red Rock Spires ©2008 Bo Mackison

Driving from central Colorado to Arches National Park near Moab, Utah, we detoured off the Interstate. Went through a great ghost town – photos of that later – and then followed the Colorado River into the National Park.

When driving through the Rockies, an amazing transformation happens. Cross the Continental Divide heading west, and soon the pine/aspen forested mountains change into pinon/juniper ranges. Sage brush starts crowding the sides of the road, and suddenly red rock formations loom out of the distance.

Sure isn’t Wisconsin, Dorothy!

Stormy Weather Doesn’t Dim Beauty

Yellow Aspen in the Rockies

Yellow Aspen in the Rockies ©2008 Bo Mackison

All day the clouds hung heavy over the Rockies. We hit rain driving through the passes, but we could see snow accumulating on the higher peaks above 9000 feet.

Our campsite straddled the Colorado River and the train tracks hugged the canyon walls across the river. Between the rushing waters (why does the sound of running water cause that biological trigger?) and the howling, screech-braking trains passing through a half dozen times, sleep was frequently interrupted. Amazingly enough, it was never hard to fall back aleep – over and over and over.