COTD1

On May 11th, i went to the two church's/graveyards that are in my neighborhood. The first picture is at Trinity Church, and the second is at St. Luke's which is the oldest continuously open public building in New York City. Both of these churches are within 100 yards of ground zero and both survived. I had never been to a cemetery before these and it was an unusual experience to say the least. Walking in to both of the cemeteries i felt this calm come over me, it was a peaceful place where although there were other people there, if i were blindfolded i would not have noticed.

The first church i went to was St. Paul's. This was the older of the two churches and closer to Ground Zero. The first thing that i noticed was that most of the grave stones were in surprisingly good shape. More then that, they were all really nice too, they have pictures of angles on them and detailed carvings, they were stones that a lot of time was put in to. But upon closer inspection, i began to notice that a lot of these beautiful headstones were for children. They were in the same size, but the dates on them showed that the children weren't usually older then 12. That kind of caught me off guard because i expected noblemen or important people, which there were in the cemetery, but the children's graves were the ones that surprised me. I guess it is because aside from never having been to a graveyard, it hit home for me that you don't always die when you are old and grey, children die too.

The second church i went to was Trinity Church, the biggest difference between the two was that Trinity Church was so much bigger, and right in the middle was a big obelisk looking structure. I wasn't sure what it was, but it was right in the middle. The headstones in this one, much like the last graveyard, were very old, but very ornate, they looked like someone had put a lot of work in to them, they were all faded to a certain degree and none had any polish left on it. The only headstone that did was a marker for a time capsule that is to be dug up in 100 years. As an overall note, i observed that both graveyards seemed very inviting. As if they were saying, "we are nice and relaxing, please come in." They were graveyards is what made me cautious, we aren't supposed to enjoy being in one of these, much less to come in just to relax. Which made me think, maybe i have the wrong approach to these places, they aren't creepy places where dead people are below me, they are fields of reflection and "zen" if you will. I can't say i wouldn't ever do this again, but i am happy that i did because it did open my eyes to new things.