There must be something spooky about tending your husband's grave and seeing the spot left blank for you. There are several gravestones here too that have the names but only the birthdate. Presumably waiting for the final day to come. Reminds me of when I was still pregnant with Hugh and he was late, so people would ring up and try to hide their disappointment when they got the pregnant me and not the new mum me. Hurry up already! How we do like to draw a line under experiences, although I'd never thought it applied to life before.
But I like the gravestones with pictures on - not photographs which I always find too spooky to look at, but etchings like this. It seems to me they show a love for the countryside and their farming roots - although I'm wondering about the story behind how these people (above) ended up here. Mind you, I don't blame them for loving it. I like Iowa a lot and I've only been visiting a short time. It seems to me that not only is it beautiful (and not flat) but it's full of good people. Hardworking and painstaking and looking out for others. Funny too. I will become an Iowa bore next time people try to have an easy laugh about it.
I've left the circus now, and am in Minneapolis, of which more later. I haven't written much about the circus in particular because it's all on the Tiny Circus blog. It's a great project - I can't wait to see the finished films.
Before I left I made shepherds pie in a saucepan. And here's my stupid mistake - I was surprised to see Heinz tomato ketchup on sale. It's been so much part of my eating life that I automatically assumed it was a British thing. Duh.
And I said goodbye to the squirrel babies - they were already climbing out of their nest before I left, although their eyes hadn't opened. It'll be good to think of them running around in the Ferguson garden soon. I wonder if their mother will find them?
*Just in case anyone is really worried, I used to walk through the graveyard to get to this particular bench every morning to write.
How beautiful is this spot? And perfectly quiet too. It was only spoilt once when a woman with a HUGE dog started throwing sticks into the lake right next to me. She was shouting 'Go on fat boy, go get it.' Time after time after time. I guess that bench was her spot too so we were having a weird bench face-off, but I sat still until fat boy got bored of stick chasing and I got the tranquility back. Hah, that'll show them. Writers 1, Fat boy 0.
2 comments:
Yeah, that woman was there every time I ran also. She would yell at Fat Boy at a number of different lake spots!
You too, Greta! The funny thing was that Fat Boy looked very happy, and definitely not fat.
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