FULL-SPECTRUM COLOR

In this season as we encounter shorter days and longer shadows, as the sun dips lower on the horizon, as we celebrate Halloween, Dia de los Muertos, All Saints Day and All Souls Day, in this season of remembrance, we may find ourselves surrounded by ghosts. Not just the ghosts of our ancestors, but the ghosts of ourselves, our lived experiences, our communities, our country.

It was during the summer of 2003 when I found myself one evening in an upstairs bedroom of a home in Alameda, California, staring into my computer screen, searching my mind for an email address. I was in my late 20s at the time. And, were it not for the generosity of the couple whose home I was taking up space in, I probably would have been basically homeless.

I recently discovered that Rachel Carson began her life’s work as, not as a scientist, but as a writer and poet. And this made me love her even more. Like me, she had been so captivated by the sea and the bird songs and every magical object of nature in between that she couldn’t imagine putting words to what she bore witness to without using lush, vivid language, full of color.

Earlier this week on one of those sunny afternoons, I found myself craving a walk outdoors in this very cemetery as I tried to make sense of a world gone sideways. Amid the news of death and sickness all around me, the economic plunges, canceled meetings and events, schools closures, emptier-than-usual stores and cafes, and people keeping plenty of “social distance” from one another in an effort to stem the spread of COVID19, I took a silent walk among the dead.