Tag: essay (page 1 of 2)

“Grave 8-A”

I park the van at the top of Section C, and my daughter and I get out into the rain. The spongy ground slopes away from us to the road below, speckled with headstones that are, in turn, speckled with lichen. Already my daughter bends over one, wipes the drizzling rain off its surface, and reads a name aloud.

About this cemetery hangs a pleasant sense of disorder. Stones shaped like benches, pillars, or pensive children kneel in the grass, half-sunken where the ground beneath them has settled; moss laps at their edges. Certain monuments here are notorious, like the massive stone angel who has, with her attendant urban legends, nearly eclipsed the family she was meant to memorialize. Broken stones lean in pieces against cottonwood trees whose burly roots slowly shoulder the soil away.

Unlike another local cemetery, which styles itself as a “memorial park” and offers natural burial as well as farewell tributes, death is still a presence here, not an unpleasant thought to be sponged away with rebranding. I feel comfortable saying “tombstone” here, or “grave.” As in, “Look at this grave!”—which I call to my daughter when I find one carved to resemble a scroll draped over a log and slicked with real moisture, real moss. She is at my side in a moment and together we puzzle out the inscription.

It is beautiful, but it is not his.

Grave 8-a

Since I was a kid, our local cemetery has been one of my favorite places—eerie and beautiful, sodden with history and urban legends. I used to walk through it on my way to college; the girls and I go often to explore; I gravitate toward the cemetery when I want to be alone. It was the first place we met my mom for a walk during quarantine, and it was there, one snowy evening twenty years ago, that Mitch and I confessed that we had, you know, feelings for each other.

Yet one of my most bewitching trips came about a few years ago, when my eldest daughter and I went the cemetery on a quest for knowledge. I wrote an essay about that trip, and The Rabbit Room (hooray!) kindly published that essay today.

“Josie Contemplates the Urban-Legend Angel,” or “2020 in a Nutshell”

This essay took over two years (off and on) to write, partly because it took me about that long to figure out what I was trying to say, and partly because I just had so much fun researching it. I learned about churchyard lichens, and about a spree of vandalism in our cemetery years ago. I spooked myself—pretty thoroughly and deliciously—researching the origins of those urban legends I grew up hearing. I know now about “grave wax” (don’t google it!) and about how long it takes a human body to decompose—in short, I learned far more about death and our cemetery than I actually needed to put into the essay, and yet I think every bit of that knowledge (except maybe the bit about grave wax) helped the story get where it was going.

And where it was going is here. (Thank you for reading!)

Note: The cemetery featured in the photo at the top of this post is actually not our local cemetery, but my other favorite cemetery: Sleepy Hollow in Concord, Massachusetts. I would have shown you our beloved local haunt (pun intended!) but . . . I ran into issues with the photo quality. I hope you’ll forgive the substitution.

“Whatever is Pure and Lovely”

So. I spent a year writing two different articles—two very different articles. I spent a year tinkering with one of them, altering this sentence and then that one, cutting passages and pasting them elsewhere or—in a burst of spontaneity—deleting them altogether.

The other arrived half-complete: in a single morning, I wrote a promising opening, but no ending. Nothing for months, no matter how many times I opened my draft, stared at the blinking cursor and thought my thoughts.

And then I grew a baby, which meant I spent a lot of time sleeping. I had the baby, which meant I spent a lot of time not sleeping but not writing either.

But a few months ago, I opened the one article, dusted it off, cut or rearranged a few more lines.

I opened the other and, in a sudden gust, wrote the missing last half. In a single morning, they were both done. I sent them off, washing my hands of them in two clicks of the Send button, and did not see them again until this week, when they appeared on separate sites within days of each other.

Of course that makes me happy. It always does, when the words I shuffle around each morning go off into the world to connect with readers. But this piece, the second article, is especially dear to me. It’s a quirky one, a story that seemed just right. I don’t entirely understand it myself and there’s something about that that seems fitting. I hope you enjoy it too:

At 9:30, my daughter comes downstairs—she can’t sleep. She’ll be seven next month and the world is expanding around her, I can see it. She’s more aware of other people now, more aware of adult conversation, more aware, in this instance, of volcanoes.

“Volcanoes?” I repeat, settling down next to her on the couch. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “I’m just worried about them. I read about them in class today and I . . .” . I know that she sees it clearly, whatever she read that day, as real to her as I am. A definite fear shapes the set of her mouth and she gives into it for a moment before drawing away and finishing lamely, ‘I’m just worried about them.”

I want to offer her comfort—immediate, tangible comfort—in the shape of a promise. They’re far away. We don’t have to worry about that here. Things like that don’t happen anymore. Or the great silence-killing assurance, “It’s okay.”

But I can’t say any of that.

You can read the rest of the article here.

Deeply Rooted, Issue 7: Legacy

Long before we had children, I stayed up late, dragged my husband and guitar into seedy downtown venues, and serenaded strangers over their pints of beer. The story of what music meant to me then, as a mildly professional musician, and what it means to me now, as a mother and a Christian, is one of my favorite ones to tell, and I had the privilege of telling it in the newest issue of Deeply Rooted magazine.

Thea Rosenburg | Little Book, Big Story
Gabriel Boone Photography (2007)

Writing that article inspired me to organize and upload what recordings I have and make them available for free download through Bandcamp. Consider it a multi-media experience: you can read the article in Deeply Rooted, listen to my studio EP from 2007, and listen to the live recording of a show played in 2013. It is a pleasure to share both the songs and the story behind them with you.

But, of course, that’s not all you’ll find in the new issue of Deeply Rooted. You’ll also find an article by William Farley, author of Gospel-Powered Parenting (we had the good fortune to hear him speak recently and it was richly rewarding), as well as “Trusting God With Your Child’s Education,” by Lindsay Cournia, and a beautiful essay on David’s legacy through Psalm 51 by Yasmin Sarai Robinson. Also, some recipes worth making now.

Like its predecessors, this issue is filled with the sort of riches you can spend all at once (that is, read piecemeal while waiting to pick up kids and so on) or savor and draw on slowly (i.e. read on a sunny porch while the kids sleep). You can order a copy here.

Deeply Rooted Magazine, Issue 7: Legacy | Little Book, Big Story

(But wait—this isn’t a children’s book! Why am I writing about Deeply Rooted?)


Deeply Rooted Magazine
Issue 7: Legacy (Fall 2015)

“How I Learned to Love Love Stories”

It used to be that mysteries and love stories were my two least favorite forms of fiction. But Flavia de Luce and Sherlock Holmes won me over to mysteries, just as—well. If you’d like to read about the authors and characters that won me over to love stories, you can read my new piece, “How I Learned to Love Love Stories,” on the Deeply Rooted blog.

"How I Learned to Love Love Stories," on the Deeply Rooted blog | Little Book, Big Story

And while I’m sending you off to other sites, have you listened to Sarah McKenzie’s podcast, Read Aloud Revival? If you connect with anything on my blog at all, you’ll love it!