Cemeteries.
Ever since I was young I've been fascinated with them, as a young child growing up in the country I used to go to a small church with huge grounds. While all the other youngsters would play cricket afterwards or hover around the refreshment table I was always drawn to the headstones round the back, reading the names and the dates, remembering people who are no longer remembered
As a teenager in a small city when others were out partying or with friends, I used to visit this cute little cemetery in the middle of the city. It had a secret entrance that looked like a private footpath to a house but it wound its way around the house, between fences, round and around until it curved its way into an empty hillside, the old settlers graveyard. I used to go there on my lunch break or even for hours on end and lie down in the long unkept grass reading or writing and NEVER saw anyone else there ever. I always felt at home there, in an empty field with all the early settlers who all seemed forgotten, only a few graves still had headstones left and noone grieved for them, but I felt more accepted there than anywhere else. I always felt like I related to the people in the ground much better than the people on the streets. I know that sounds silly, but I spent a lot of time reading the settlers old handwritten diaries in the museum, would get on my pushbike and see where they lived, where they worked, where they married and finally where they were buried. I mourned for them, I cried that I missed out, that they are gone.
And still today, although I move between bigger cities I still find the most comfortable places are old graveyards. Not the recent ones but the old forgotten ones filled with the people that I've read and thought so much about that I feel I know, and I always get the feeling that they appretiate having a visitor, one person who hasn't forgetten them and places the occasional wildflower against their fading names.
That is certainly where I am the most comfortable and feel the most at home, sometimes I wish I could stay forever and I guess one day sooner or later I will be there to stay
Horatio