Mausoleum

Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.
--Kurt Vonnegut, in Cat’s Cradle.

Today was a sonata in C major. No meetings, no promises to keep, no hurrying, just the sweetness of Sue’s company as we let the day unfold spontaneously.

We needed to pick up some flyers for the public meditation coming on Sunday, and the person who made them for us lives in a neighborhood not far from the elementary school where Sue taught third-graders for 30 years. We walked along streets she knew well, by cafes she visited with colleagues, like walking through memories of another life. We rescued a swallowtail butterfly that was trapped in a bus shelter, frantically beating its wings against the glass. Freed, it soared up into the trees. Neither of us had ever been to the massive 8-story mausoleum that towers over the wetlands there, so we decided to have a look. We were astonished by the wealth arrayed in that vast monument to death. Marble, stained glass, fresh flowers, statuary, fountains, and floor after floor, room after room of dead people, some entombed right there, and some cremated, stored in urns. 

The extras are a portrait of Sue and a shot that reminds us of Arachne.