Graveyards, Life Lessons and Inspiration.
I have always been fascinated with death.
Okay, maybe that sentence deserves a little more explanation.
When I say I'm fascinated with death, I mean that I tend to wonder, as I'm sure most of us do, about what happens to people after they die. And that subsequently leads me to questions like, what were they like alive?
What were their lives like?
What were their families like?
Did they live life to the fullest?
Did they have regrets?
This is also why my fascination with death extends to my fascination with cemeteries.
San Miniato al Monte is a church in Florence equally rich in history and legend as its more famous counterparts like the Duomo, Santa Maria Novella and Santa Croce. Perched atop the highest point in Florence - even higher than Piazzale Michelangelo - on Monte alle Croci, this church went from being a chapel, to a fortress, to a monastery. It now holds a famous cemetery, that upon entrance, feels like stepping into another world outside of our own.
Quite literally. The defense walls that were built when it was a fortress make it hard to see or hear anything outside of the cemetery.
During my time in Florence, I went to this cemetery to find solace and inspiration.
Morbid as all this might sound, there's just something surreal about stepping into a graveyard and experiencing countless notions of love and grief; the way the dead are honored and remembered; the way pictures and engravings on gravestones and statues built with the finest, most intricate detail can reveal so much about the dead and their mourners.
I've been to a number of funerals in my life.
I'm only 22.
I wasn't immediate family but I felt empathy that was bone-deep.
Walking through the cemetery at San Miniato, the same questions and feelings would come flooding back. Fighting its way through my thoughts and subsequently becoming words on paper, I felt soul-crushing empathy.
And it was those words on paper that became my inspiration.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying go hang out with the dead if you have writer's block. But rather, go hang out at a place that opens up your soul to the thoughts your mind is craving to convey.
If that is a cemetery, by all means, hang out at one.
Every single tombstone, every single crypt was beautiful beyond description. Pictures of little children, or people laughing, decorated the tombstones. Angels, were perched on almost every one of them, playing an instrument or smiling down serenely. From crypts inspired by ancient Greece to ones inspired by the Renaissance and Christianity, these homages to the dead held history and solemnity that could only be associated with the divine.
But with the appreciation for such beauty came the overwhelming sadness of the souls that inhabited these works of art.
The souls that were taken away from their loved ones too soon; the souls that were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time; the souls that had so much more left to give.
The souls whom life had cheated.
The souls whom life had failed.
Okay, maybe that sentence deserves a little more explanation.
When I say I'm fascinated with death, I mean that I tend to wonder, as I'm sure most of us do, about what happens to people after they die. And that subsequently leads me to questions like, what were they like alive?
What were their lives like?
What were their families like?
Did they live life to the fullest?
Did they have regrets?
This is also why my fascination with death extends to my fascination with cemeteries.
San Miniato al Monte is a church in Florence equally rich in history and legend as its more famous counterparts like the Duomo, Santa Maria Novella and Santa Croce. Perched atop the highest point in Florence - even higher than Piazzale Michelangelo - on Monte alle Croci, this church went from being a chapel, to a fortress, to a monastery. It now holds a famous cemetery, that upon entrance, feels like stepping into another world outside of our own.Quite literally. The defense walls that were built when it was a fortress make it hard to see or hear anything outside of the cemetery.
During my time in Florence, I went to this cemetery to find solace and inspiration. Morbid as all this might sound, there's just something surreal about stepping into a graveyard and experiencing countless notions of love and grief; the way the dead are honored and remembered; the way pictures and engravings on gravestones and statues built with the finest, most intricate detail can reveal so much about the dead and their mourners.
I've been to a number of funerals in my life.
I'm only 22.
I wasn't immediate family but I felt empathy that was bone-deep.
Walking through the cemetery at San Miniato, the same questions and feelings would come flooding back. Fighting its way through my thoughts and subsequently becoming words on paper, I felt soul-crushing empathy.
And it was those words on paper that became my inspiration.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying go hang out with the dead if you have writer's block. But rather, go hang out at a place that opens up your soul to the thoughts your mind is craving to convey.
If that is a cemetery, by all means, hang out at one.
Every single tombstone, every single crypt was beautiful beyond description. Pictures of little children, or people laughing, decorated the tombstones. Angels, were perched on almost every one of them, playing an instrument or smiling down serenely. From crypts inspired by ancient Greece to ones inspired by the Renaissance and Christianity, these homages to the dead held history and solemnity that could only be associated with the divine.
But with the appreciation for such beauty came the overwhelming sadness of the souls that inhabited these works of art.
The souls that were taken away from their loved ones too soon; the souls that were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time; the souls that had so much more left to give.
The souls whom life had cheated.
The souls whom life had failed.
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