mortality, and summer (this is not an end but a beginning)

[helenic]

At the start of this summer I resolved to spend as little time in the house as possible, and between work and weekends away I've pretty much achieved it. When I am here, in the evenings, I usually recluse myself in my room, reading and writing and having long phone conversations with Iain. So it happened that today was the first Saturday I've stayed at home since my birthday, and I realised how much I'd missed this, the simplicity of a lie-in and pottering around the house, how beautiful this place can be with the sunlight streaming through the windows and birdsong outside.

I walked through the village to the postbox, via the graveyard, and found I felt surprisingly at home. In the five years or so we've lived here I've largely spent my time trying to avoid it, but I seem to have accumulated affection for the place without realising it, a fondness for the colourful gardens and ivy-covered, redbrick walls. I haven't attended the church for years (my father is an excellent priest, but he's also my father). The graveyard is lovely though - I took some photos of it a year or so ago. I've always loved graveyards. I suppose it comes with being a vicar's daughter; I've grown up with them, having to go to church an hour early on a Sunday morning while my dad was setting up and stay half an hour afterwards. My brother and I used to amuse ourselves climbing the yew trees and playing among the headstones. We'd scare each other silly finding cracks in the full-length tombs and pretending we could see bones inside. These days, I simply think they're invariably pretty, peaceful places, quintessentially English. I like the unevenness of the ground, the way the grass dips and rolls over ancient, unmarked graves like a bedspread.

That said, I've never wanted to be buried. The idea of returning to the earth is appealing in a way but it's not for me; I hate the idea of a coffin and I certainly don't want anything so permanent as a headstone. Whatever happens to us after we die I'm sure it has nothing to do with the body, and storing it and marking it seems somehow beside the point. I'd like to be cremated but not in the modern way - the indoor incinerator appalls me. Whoever outlives me, whether it's my husband or daughter or grandchildren, should do it in the old way, burn me on an open-air pyre, say prayers, dance, have a celebration. The symbolism of a burnt-offering is something I just find wonderful; the smoke rising visibly to heaven; the wind tousling the flames.

There are yellow roses growing at the front of our house and I wanted to pick one for Iain, but it would not survive the post and they had opened too wide to be properly pressed, their petals splayed and stamen quivering in the air. At this time of year even the flowers are in heat.

I've spent the afternoon illegally photocopying texts for next year, (Virgil's Eclogues and part of the Georgics; selections from Horace's Odes, Satires and Epistles) and skimming the pages as I go along I've begun to get genuinely excited about the course next year. Last night I had my first going-back-to-Downing dream of the summer - slightly surreal and disturbing (I got there to find that rather than sharing a set, I was actually sharing a room, and it was only about twelve feet square), but it made me ache for it nonetheless.

Comments

[modestic.livejournal.com]

When I die, I'd like to die in the forest or somewhere, and my body just lay there and be torn apart as badgers and foxes pick my corpse to pieces.

[verte.livejournal.com]

I agree. Being cremated seems more cathartic for other people, too.

Do you want your ashes scattered anywhere particular? x

[libellum.livejournal.com]

it depends how I die, really. I have a vague idea - I'm not sure where it comes from - that at the end of my life, after everyone I love has died, I'll end up on a scottish island, and I'll walk by the sea and write, and die alone. It doesn't even feel depressing to me, just peaceful and sort of right. I imagine, in this version of my death, my grandchild or such will discover me and scatter the ashes there, by that last house.

In other words I have no idea, and it doesn't really matter, yet. how about you?

[libellum.livejournal.com]

the natural order of things, huh? I can see your point. I don't know though, I think it's fitting for the passing of humans to be given some sort of ritual by other humans, however simple or crude that might be. I'd like someone to notice my death and set things right, even if it's just thinking certain things. I pretty much prefer any ancient death rite to any of our modern ones.

[modestic.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I mean possibly have a few loved ones - assuming there are such peeps when I die - say a few words as they raise their glasses of JD as they commiserate/celebrate my passing, but just dump my body in the woods.

None of that coffin/burial/cremation nonsense. Let the animals have something different in their diet for a change.

I wonder if I was dumped in the Australian outback if wombats would nibble at my corpse. I think I'd like that.

[verte.livejournal.com]

You possibly told me that once before, but I didn't remember.

Of course it doesn't matter yet. I was just interested.

I know how little you want to go to Italy on Tuesday and feel really odd about it. Perhaps I should talk to you about it, but I'm stubborn. x

[libellum.livejournal.com]

what? I'm going to ring you.

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

I always fancied being burnt on a pyre as well. (Um, when I'm dead, that is.) Though I must admit that it's partly to do with an irrational fear that perhaps my consciousness will remain trapped in my body after I die, and so burning my body in open air will release it in a relatively pleasant manner.

I am odd.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

that had occurred to me, but really it doesn't bear thinking about. The thing I fear most about death is endless, conscious oblivion - as described in The Vampire Lestat, if you ever read trash like that - but neither is part of what I believe about life after death. The thing that makes sense to me, given what I think about the soul and the divine, is either reunion with the universal consciousness (you know, the old candles-to-a-greater-flame metaphor) or annihilation. But perhaps that's wishful thinking...

Actually the thing that bothers me most about death is I can't imagine it ever being a good thing - even eternal sublime bliss is a somewhat sinister prospect, because as far as I'm concerned all the things that make life worthwhile are essentially human. I know it's just that we can't comprehend anything beyond our own experience, but it's odd not being able to even imagine.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

typo. have just realised the irony; perhaps "the things that make existence worthwhile" might have been better...?!