The Zen of the Snow-Covered Cemetery

The snowstorm began on Sunday, January 25, and got more intense as the day progressed. By noon, it was relentless. The Philadelphia area expected about six inches of snow, but it soon turned to sleet and became untenable. If you were driving in a cemetery – like me – you were hard-pressed to stay on the recently plowed roads. I found myself driving on the lawn in the blinding snow at one point. Kind of reminded me of the time near Snowmass, Colorado, when my friend Mike was driving us through a snowstorm in his Subaru. The car was creeping slowly forward, but we could see nothing through the windshield. I rolled down the passenger window to get a less foggy view, and right next to us were tall hedges! “Um, Mike? I think we’re in someone’s yard….”

Gates open, roads plowed ...

So why would I be driving around a cemetery in a snowstorm? The question is, why would you NOT be driving around a cemetery in a snowstorm? Unique experience! With the snow-covered monuments and statues, it is like immersing yourself in a dynamic art installation! The zen of a snow-covered cemetery is difficult to put into words. There is a state of attentiveness that happens clearly in such an environment in such a situation. As Brad Warner says in his book, Hardcore Zen, its not enlightenment, and "yet there is something, and even though this experience doesn't change anything at all, it changes everything." 

I was there at 9:30 a.m., when the cemetery opened. This was hours before the radio started pleading with people to stay off the roads unless it’s an emergency. I knew it was going to snow the night before, so I planned on hitting Holy Cross Cemetery in Yeadon, PA (which borders Philadelphia where I live, on the west side). It is one of my go-to cemeteries because it has lots of low statues that get covered with snow. It is also relatively convenient for me to get there and I know that unlike Woodlands Cemetery in West Philly, Holy Cross plows its roads.

The snow was soft as it fell, and I made a few quick statue photographs but JESUS CHRIST was it cold (see above)! And windy! With chemical hand warmers in my gloves, hood up over my head, I kept the SUV running with the heater on full blast as I jumped out every few minutes to photograph something. To drive through a snow-covered cemetery is one of the reasons God gave us SUVs. God, however, cannot prevent you from locking yourself out of it in a snowstorm like I experienced about fifteen years ago. Always never do that.

I was careful not to slip in the snow (which was getting deeper) as I walked amidst the gravestones. The whiteout made it easier to spot the ceramic memorial photographs on the stones. I don’t think I’d ever seen this one before, even though I’d been in Holy Cross countless times. Might be a postmortem photo, not sure. Snow and bitter cold changes your perspective, as well as your tolerance for pain.

Postmortem image?

The trucks were re-plowing the roadways during the 90 minutes or so that I was there. Saw a small herd of deer running away from the plow truck at one point. The workers must have thought I was nuts. Or maybe they thought I was true to my art. Naw, they probably just thought I was nuts. When the snow started to fall more and more heavily, it was with less and less alacrity that I would stop and jump out to make a photograph. I only strung lights on a couple statues as it was just too cold to work the fine wires and switches on the battery packs. But like Christmas, its not over, ‘til its over, and you throw away the tree (from the Louden Wainwright song, Suddenly its Christmas). I finally resorted to just shooting out the window with a zoom lens.

Driving became virtually impossible. Defrosted snow turned to ice on my wiper blades, requiring a stop every few minutes with attempts to pull enough ice off the wipers so I could sort of see through the windshield. Then came the sleet. This storm, and driving a vehicle in it, just became a discordant experience. When I finally left the cemetery and got to the main roads, vehicles were stuck everywhere, on small inclines, at intersections. Again, it reminded me of Colorado. Once I was invited by a group of British friends to ski the Arapaho Basin with them. The mountain was higher and more remote than I was used to. It began to snow heavily as we began to descend from the top. My goggles fogged up and they left me for dead. Ah, good times.

So why would I put myself through this? If I lived in Colorado, this sort of storm would be a more quotidian event. However, Philadelphia rarely sees this heavy a snowfall. So, when such a gift is bestowed upon us, I view it as an impact opportunity not to be squandered. That said, getting stuck in a snowbank on the highway is not my jam. I did have to back down an on-ramp to Interstate 95 near the airport because a small clot of cars was blocking my progress. Seems the highway maintenance vehicles plowed the snow against the on and off ramps, blocking them. As Foghorn Leghorn says, “Some people ain’t got the sense God gave a bowling ball.” 

By the next morning, the nine inches of snow was anointed with a layer of ice that only a flamethrower could penetrate. Temperatures had dropped to about eighteen degrees after the sleet storm Sunday afternoon. They dropped into the single digits over the next few days. I didn’t go back to Holy Cross Cemetery during the week because with the snow sleeted over, this concretion became nine inches of ice. My friend Linda, in my neighboring state of Delaware, calls this “snowcrete.” You take your life in your hands trying to climb through/over a crosswalk. It is relatively easy to do a James Brown split on the ice if you aren’t careful. Owwww! (screamed in a high-pitched James Brown-type vocal).

I did spend a few hours after work during the week driving through various cemeteries in the area, shooting bleached snowscapes and every once in a while, getting out of my vehicle to shoot something up close. The close shots were rare, because even though roads were plowed in some Philadelphia and south Jersey cemeteries, you could not actually walk on the ice fields. Too treacherous. Too real. Didn't want to get stuck in the snow like this hearse at Laurel Hill Cemetery!

Hearse in the snow, Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia

So back to zen, and the truth found in the frozen reality of a snow-filled cemetery. There is that, but I’m also a treasure hunter, I guess, looking for that once-in-a-lifetime photograph in a snow-covered graveyard - these sophisticated built environments we make to avoid the truth. Or at least tuck it away down a side street. Attempting to make an amazing photograph is not a hobby, or a job for me – its more like an addiction, as one of the characters said in reference to wildcat oil drilling in the television series Landman. While I wish I was good enough to capture a Red-Tailed hawk plucking one of the just-released doves out of mid-air at a funeral, I must be content with shooting gravestones in the snow. I rather like this one below, which I made in Fernwood Cemetery, in Lansdowne, PA.  Kind of looks like and old Victorian lithograph, doesn't it?

While it is tempting to stay indoors where my furnace works, there is hot water to shower, and the ice box is filled with frozen burritos, I have been venturing out daily to photograph the ice in my local cemeteries. I plan to continue doing so until the city decides to remove the frozen snow, the weather gets warmer, and the rock salt barges are freed from the ice on the Delaware River (now that’s ironic).