This Exeter Life: Eternal Quiet

I love cemeteries. In particular the Exeter Cemetery on Linden Road. You know the one – across from the old high school.

I’ll admit that on the surface this is a tad strange – this draw I have to cemeteries – particularly because I can’t actually imagine being buried in one. From a very young age, I made it clear to my family that when the time came for such things, I was to be cremated and tossed in Long Island Sound.

Growing up in Wilton, Connecticut, my best friend’s mother would take us on picnics in the town’s old cemeteries. We’d sit munching among the colonial headstones that bore the names of the streets we lived on – Olmstead, Grumman, Belden – and the schools we attended.  

When we’d question whether what we were doing was ok, whether it was somehow a violation of the solemnity of the place, she encouraged us to focus on the history that surrounded us and the serenity of the park-like atmosphere. As an adult, I think of her every time I stroll through a cemetery looking at the names and the dates on the headstones, trying to reconstruct some part of the stories that lie within.

In Victorian days, cemeteries were destinations for group outings. In Concord, the large cemetery north of the city was the terminus of streetcar line. As development blossomed in and around the Capitol, residents took refuge in the large expanses of quiet open space that cemeteries afforded them. The Exeter Cemetery would have provided a similar respite from the hustle and bustle of downtown then, just as it does today.

We are fortunate in Exeter to have the town forests and other undeveloped land to stroll through. Yet for those of us who prefer open space, the options are remarkably few. And so it never fails to amaze me as I walk through the cemetery how few people I see taking advantage of what can only be considered one of the most serene and beautiful places in town.

Some of my most memorable moments have been in the early morning as the mist lingers among the gravestones, the large stately trees towering like protectors over the souls below. It is a sight that rivals any other in town.

Increasingly I’m finding, as perhaps you are too, that I have less and less time for reflection in my life. The world just seems noisier than they used to. Or perhaps, it is the noise in my own head that has increased. Whichever it is, it only takes a few minutes in the quiet stillness of the cemetery to calm my nerves and to put in perspective my place in the great continuum of time and humanity.

It's reassuring to know that as the volume of our lives continues to increase that there will always be places in this world that will remain eternally quiet.