I’m far less spooked than I thought I might be, living down the street from a cemetery.
I’m not superstitious, per se, but I also not looking to walk through one after dark.
But if American cemeteries give me the willies for their emptiness, a quiet sterility and orderliness that seems to underline the complete lack of life, Cementarz Rakowicki is the polar opposite.
It is overflowing with life.
In the early morning, before the paver stones get too hot, spotted slugs make gravesite visits. lush and green and wild, with overgrown graves feeling like a reminder of the natural cycle of life, uncontainable, unavoidable, and nourishing if a little unkempt.
Towards the entrance is a massive flowering tree that becomes a buzzing tower of pollinators. It reminds of something I read somewhere about bees as a symbol of death in some cultures, but I understand it even less now. All I see is life and life making more life.
Outside the cemetery, old women set up on the sidewalk selling fresh flowers and candles. People come and go at all times of day. I’m reminded that burial plots are really spaces for the living – to gather with family, to connect with their history, to be in a community of others living with grief. The cemetery feels large, in the middle of a city where space for the living runs small – a block wide and two blocks deep. Inside, you’re surrounded by reminders that loss is unavoidable, and an opportunity for connection if we let nature run its course.