No Pictures, Just Words

Arlington National Cemetery

I couldn't bring myself to take pictures here because I struggled to see the "beauty" of the cemetery. If you have seen my pictures, especially the one's from last summer's New Orleans  trip, then you know I have an affinity for patterns.

At Arlington National Cemetery there are patterns built into the foundation of the place, buried deep in the ground and echoed along the surface. Tombstones are placed deliberately so that they do not overlap. The names on the headstones always remain visible regardless of which direction you look towards them from the road and pathways. These white headstones ripple like waves cresting over the hills so you feel lost at sea among the dead.

I couldn't glorify it or try to recapture its sacred sorrow in pictures like a place that needed to be checked off a tourist's list and take my designated smiling selfie. I couldn't find it in me to frame the sorrow-scape in photographs, but I do feel compelled to record the visit in words.