A Night’s Walk through a New Orleans Cemetery

It’s comfortable here, looking at stone faces, obscured by moonlight and long shadows. There are dead people inside the ovens, some with streets named after them and others who were entombed with the delusions they volunteered to die for.

A soundtrack plays along my steps between the shadows of Cypress trees. It’s so typical, so romantic, so me. “This Twilight Garden” by The Cure and I’m a kid again thinking to old fears and the mysteries.

It doesn’t smell of death here like it does at St. Louis Number 2 Cemetery. It smells of the crisp, green air of autumn in New Orleans. Herbaceous.

The moon hangs in half in the midnight blue sky, the color of the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing breathes here except me although I’m not alone. The river breeze reaches us here, whispers old voices, caresses my forehead with its cool brush.

I raise my camera.

Breathe it in.

Click.

Every invisible eye watches from the crypts. Did something crawl up my leg?

This woman once approached me at St. Louis Cemetery Number 2. Compulsion rose from her lungs as she reached a hand to her chest, “I have to tell you that there’s a spirit that always follows you. They won’t do harm but they are very curious about you.”

Life is wasted on the living.

Many choose to avoid this place, this cemetery because they only see death. There is so much life though and stories. There are funny things that happen here. Anne Rice is entombed just down the lane from her arch rival, Al Copeland. Twisted humor is a New Orleans tradition. But there is this sixteen year old girl. A poem she wrote is taped to the face of her tomb.

I get the best advice from elders. They says that our life is a fearful one, chasing green faces of dead men, dying again in one pocket and resurrecting from another.

They elders say

We should chase dreams.

Do wild things.

Get weird.

Take risks.

So here I am, at the cemetery at night in New Orleans alone, but not alone, tempting spirits and violence with a camera. The oaks aren’t old enough to be famous but the trunks are wide enough for secrets and shades to hide.

Why do they follow me?

What was in the picture I saw when I was nine years old.

Smoke?

Vapor?

I can’t get them out of my head.

Spectacular Gravetimes with Friends

Zombie and I met with our friend, Valeria at Carmel and Sons Botanica in Treme to begin our little photo adventure. Valeria just moved to New Orleans from Boston and we were excited to show her some of our favorite haunts such as Lake Lawn Metairie Cemetery and Sacred Grinds. We wandered between the crypts as the sun set, casting brilliant hues of orange and purple light behind dramatic clouds. It was a reminder of how much fun one could have here without spending money. 

Thanks so much to my pals who helped make an ordinary day into an extraordinary one. I needed it.

Email: info@carlosdetres.com