I learnt the symbol PAX. In Christianity it comes from the Latin Pax vobiscum — “Peace be with you.” Only love exist in cemetery, full of it. Tombstones are raised for the sake of love, never for hate. At least that’s what it said.

The silence was real, as if the muteness of the dead pulled the whole sky into quietness with them.

My favourite tomb was chiseled as a draped cloth covering the coffin and with a soft pillow in front. So much care. It’s cold down there.

Some newer gravestones were just black slabs engraved with golden letters. Some of them were washed therefore with shine, like a big iphone displayed there.

Some of them were with modern design, minimalist, cubist, bauhaus, natrualist, you name it. There’re older ones from a hundred years ago with ornate sculptures, decorations, some delicate chains that you don’t see the patterns anymore, and Jesus in silver colour. They have been here for so long that the carved names and dates have grown moss, which is a kind of aesthetics. To moss, an engraved line is like any other cracks, with no meaning nor design. Sorrow and joy means nothing to the nature.

I remembered Elizabeth in them, who passed away this year, 99 years old. I said to her— of course the stone — good job, girl.

I saw one line engraved “Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans.” True.

Then I came to a section for the little bodies. Children’s talking in the neighbourhood then drifted over. The emotion I felt was hard to process. One of them from last century only lives for a few hours, yet he was remembered, dearest son and dearest brother. And I stopped at Rosa’s tomb, surrounding with various trinkets and gizmos — Jesus and Buddha, clogs and frogs, nijntjes and hondje. Everything’s little, but hard to bear. On Chrissy’s was a poem; my Dutch is not yet good enough, but it seemed to say: in storms and gales I think of you, so none of it can harm you. I heard a crack in my heart.

On many stones, there were painted pebbles left by children. I suppose they are offerings, tributes from visitors, small kindnesses from strangers for the grieving.

Birds beating their wings, children laughing, church bells ringing. Time to go home.

Stepping out the cemetery, I circled towards where some greenery left. Mallards glided in clusters along the river; two or three fell behind, but do they know what haste is or what delay is? Then wild geese flew overhead in formation. I looked back: through bare branches, the sky held a thousand shifting shades of pink and orange on top of its blue. In that moment, I understood beauty in its purest sense. A genuine praise for being alive just burst into its own ode.

The sunset reminded me it must be past four. I checked: 16:25. Then I remembered — at 16:35 I was meant to watch Left-Handed Girl. When I set out from home, I just wanted to clear my mind, hadn’t thought of the movie at all. But perhaps this is what it means for serendipity in its karma sense.

As to how the film was, send me DM :)

This morning I thought about the work I had to do but my body had zero motivation. In my journal I wrote: At times I sway between “just hold on a bit longer” and “let me be all over the place for now”, time passes. But time does not pass; she accumulates. Layer upon layer, every minute, every second that we lived still exists in every moment — otherwise “I” would not exist. And death, perhaps, is when this body of flesh and bones can no longer bear the weight of time, and so it stops.

Sending my hug and happy new year

Yen 2025.12.31

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(written in September, 2024)

2024.Sep