In a very strange Parisian suburb, you find streets of spired houses with neat doors, high set windows, arched porches, and dead residents.
I can’t pin down exactly what it is I love about cemeteries. It certainly doesn’t bother me that I don’t believe in the sprits of the dead, either hanging around in their little houses or watching from above. As far as I believe in the soul, dead is dead. But the living in this place are amazing and wonderful, the devotion of architecture, construction, maintenance, time and money, and to what end?
A dead end? A place to leave behind your mourning, or to build someone’s legacy? I don’t know, I’m incredibly fortunate enough never to have buried anyone, if I was given the task of building the world from scratch, it would never occur to me to put cemeteries in it. And every time I find one I re-find the distant mystery of the whole phenomenon. This is my fortunate privilege I know, and I’d hate to be insensitive, but that is the way my life has lead me.
So what then, to make of these tombs? Their gross extravagance, the hot heavy atmosphere of camp Parisian gothic style in late spring, the sheer amount of dead people, the still families of mourners and clucking families of tourists.
Really, if I knew what I felt about a place like this, there would be no point going there and taking pictures, I hope I never know.
I really love this. When I go in graveyards though, I like thinking that something of the spirit of a person still lingers... not to say that anyone is trapped here, just that the graveyard becomes a rich collection of stories and feelings. And all of this is reflected in the unique and captivating structures of gravestones and statues that are marked by time with oxidized, crumbling surfaces and plant life... I'm so glad you are sharing this one in Paris. : )
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