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This is the second edition of my new creative writing feature for paid subscribers, who are also able to comment on this post (and all posts). It has quite a few pictures, which means that some email clients won’t handle it properly, so some of you may need to visit the Substack website.
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Context and Links
Barre, Vermont, is a blue-collar, working-class “city” (population under 10,000) known for the granite industry. Approximately one-third of all gravestones in the United States originate from Barre.
Hope Cemetery is a famous tourist destination in Barre. Artists from all over the world, particularly Italy, moved there to showcase their skills. Consequently, Hope Cemetery is full of gorgeous gravestones.
My friend Josh is Joshua Slocum, host of the Disaffected Podcast (also available on all podcast platforms) and author of a related Substack. He is gay and I am straight; this piece refers to a friend date, not a romantic date.
John Irving is a novelist whose books are often set, in whole or in part, in Vermont. One of his best, A Prayer for Owen Meany, has the son of a granite quarrier, who works with granite himself, as a primary character. It has perhaps the best one-sentence cover blurb in the history of novels: Owen Meany, the only son of a New Hampshire granite quarrier, believes he is God’s instrument; he is.
Almost-Rain, in the Graveyard
I almost texted Josh before I left to pick him up for our date. I worried he would be embarrassed if I wore my hoodie identifying me as “The Math Elf.”
He’s the type to have strong opinions about things, and wearing Christmas garb a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving struck me as the kind of thing he might find very annoying.
But Josh and I have an enormous amount in common, including dark and difficult backgrounds we are working to fully overcome. While we are mutually considerate, thoughtful and respectful of each other’s feelings, and mindful of the many landmines buried within ourselves and the other, we are also both working on anti-fragility.
I skipped it because if this question came my way, I’d reply, “You wear what you want; my annoyance or lack thereof is my problem,” and I knew he would feel the same.
Graveyards I Have Known
In my late teens, I experimented with alcohol for awhile. I liked it way too much and took it to extremes quite quickly, so the experiment was short-lived. The path to becoming more like my father was glaring and obvious.
Still, there was a brief period when I needed a safe place to pass out.
I settled, during this self-destructive time of my life, on my favorite cemetery.
Why?
Being molested, sexually or otherwise, would require the presence of someone else wandering around a graveyard in the dead of night. Such places rarely contain live victims, so I anticipated that any humans who saw me would be unlikely to be predators, and with luck, would mind their own business.
And once I woke up? The odds of a being who gets up from in front of a grave and walks away being left alone seemed…in my favor.
It was my way of keeping myself as safe as my monumentally stupid behavior would permit.
Before I moved to New England, I stopped and took a picture of the grave where I preferred to go on these nights, wanting to believe somehow that she watched over me.
Nothing bad ever happened to me there. Maybe she did.