There’s something very odd about the fact that in every major Western city, the prettiest place, with the most biodiversity, is where it houses its dead.
Now these pictures are not my best effort at capturing it. If I wanted to capture it I would show you the graveyard ona cloudy November, just before dusk.
I would probably have a different view of the world if the playground of my elementary school looked this pretty.
My only real memories of kindergarten are crying when my parents left me there, peeing my pants and arguing to a girl I had not peed my pants, pretending I didn’t know how to do 2nd grade puzzles when my mom tried to prove to the teacher I was ready for them, and finally, digging in the sandbox with a Surinamese boy and finding cat poop and woodlice. But I don’t remember anything this pretty.
It’s not my fault the graveyard is the prettiest thing this city can give birth to. But it does make me optimistic about the future.
Much more authentic looking than the Keukenhof gardens.
I remember as a kid being part of a small volunteer detail that cleaned up and tried to restore a small cemetery hidden off in the jungle woods of Alabama.
There were about 10 headstones and you wouldn’t even know they were there unless you knew, it was so far off the beaten path. Mostly 19th century lives that were documented.
Now most people are being cremated since a traditional burial has become so expensive. You can purchase urns for the ashes made of metal, marble, or cheap plastic.
Respect for the dead seems to be the only thing all cultures have in common. You won’t see mexicans or blacks littering a graveyard, the way they do their own neighborhood. Or even spending time there. It’s probably not respect. It’s probably fear of zombies and ghosts.
In all fairness, it starts to smell terrible if you happen to walk there during a heavy downpour. Triggers a kind of animalistic “I need to get out of here” feeling.
I don’t remember my first day of kindergarten. But I remember the second. I went on the first day willingly, since I didn’t know what it would be like. The second day I refused to go, and held onto the post of the stop sign on the corner to try to keep from being sent, but naturally that didn’t work and I was pried off of it and made to attend. I remember that stop sign well, but I have no memory of what made me plead to not have to go back.
“The second day I refused to go, and held onto the post of the stop sign on the corner to try to keep from being sent, but naturally that didn’t work and I was pried off of it and made to attend“
I have a similar memory too of kids including myself being pried off the railings outside kindergarten and then dragged inside.
> My only real memories of kindergarten are crying when my parents left me there, peeing my pants and arguing to a girl I had not peed my pants
I don’t know about kindergarten, but I have a cringe memory of when I was 4th grade, I believe it was. By this time I had been getting random erections infrequently. This was before puberty so I had no conscious knowledge of the purpose of my erections or that erections can happen randomly in prepubescent boys, but I recall surmising that it meant I was supposed to pee because “my wiener was full.” (I was too young to know what a bladder was). Anyway, by this time I had learned conscious control of my PC muscles in order to make my erection bounce up and down.
One day in class I was sitting next to a girl and while the teacher was preoccupied elsewhere, I asked her “Do you want to see a magic trick?” She said sure, and I directed her attention to my crotch. Though I was wearing thick jeans, the pulsing bulge was apparent. I had thought this would be “cute” in a “funny haha” way, but after seeing the look on her face, I immediately had one of those sinking feelings in my stomach, like, “uh oh you fucked up bad”. My terror was only intensified when she turned away to look for the teacher whom she was now trying to get the attention of, “Mrs. Williams!!” (luckily for me the teacher was engrossed with some other students’ activities).
For a brief moment my panic intensified until what I can only assume is a feature of my native intelligence came to the rescue. I said, “no, no, look it’s just a trick with my legs” and somehow spontaneously came up with some barely-plausible reason for the seeming “sexual assault”. I think I raised one leg slightly and rubbed it against the jeans of the other leg to approximate the original motion. It was hardly the same, but to my eternal gratitude, she seemed to buy that explanation and settled down. That was a close one.
(True story)
> Though I was wearing thick jeans, the pulsing bulge was apparent.
Your story reminded me of this singing audition gone hilariously wrong:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5Fsw6QraTDk&pp=ygUYWCBmYWN0b3Igc3RldmUgdGhlIGJvbmVy
Thanks, but do you still believe 6 million Jews were gassed to death in WW2 Germany?
>6 million Jews were gassed to death in WW2 Germany
I don’t believe that.
Nobody does actually.
In the Soviet Union many Jews were just shot.
They switched to the concentration camps because of the psychological toll it had on the soldiers.
>the virgin “i didn’t pee my pants” vs the chad “want to see a magic trick”
This reminds me of my walks around Berlin during my multiple business trips there. One day rambling I came up the most beautiful park. Upon entering I quickly realized it was a cemetery, and even more beautiful than I first suspected. I walked around the cemetery for an hour and had difficulty leaving because I didn’t want to leave that vision behind me.
Berlin is iconic with so many memorable sights, but that cemetery was number 1. I wish I’d taken note of where it was. Looking at Google Maps now, it might have been Dreifaltigkeitsfriedhof I, but I’m really not sure. It was within walking distance of Mitte, somewhat to the south but not in the center.