Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn A Healing and Meditative Landscape | Page 18

Seeking Treasures,
Finding Solace
By Kristin Macomber
“Around us there breathes a solemn calm.”
I’m a frequent Mount Auburn visitor. If a week
goes by and I haven’t wandered into the Dell in search
of Great Horned Owls, or if I haven’t hiked up to view
the shimmery State House dome from atop Washington
Tower, something in my bones starts to feel off-kilter. It’s
a place I’m drawn to, never knowing what will catch my
eye, always knowing I’ll encounter something lovely and
unexpected. Blue skies or gray, winter or summer, Joseph
Story’s “solemn calm” visits upon me every time, and
renews a sense of peacefulness in my soul.
It took me a long time to appreciate the motherlode of
wonders I’d been missing, the history written on stone and
revealed in the remnants of glaciers ages past. How was I
not already a frequent visitor to Mount Auburn’s gorgeous
sprawling beech trees, its seasonal and transitional bounty?
How had I not already become a beneficiary of magical
encounters with its coyotes and hummingbirds?
The truth is, I’d spent years running from bridge to
bridge along the Charles, listening to my own footsteps
or the noise in my headphones, not properly noticing the
world around me. Thank goodness I was reminded that this
historic cemetery within an arboretum was patiently wait-
ing for me to come calling. The fact that Mount Auburn
would insist that I peruse its wonders at a walking pace, just
when my knees and hips were making the same persistent
request, was a lucky added bonus.
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It took a friend who had been a Mount Auburn denizen
back in our college days to point me in the right direction.
My visiting guide had been wise in her student days, aban-
doning the libraries and lecture halls to conduct her own
field studies within the the Cemetery’s hallowed realm.
Upon her first return to the area in many years, we found
our way to the grand Egyptian entry I’d come achingly close
to—just across the street from my sons’ pediatrician’s office!
As we wandered in, her memories came back thick and
fast. We happened upon spots where she’d seen life birds,
where she’d met kindred naturalists who became her
mentors, where she had tarried, under obliging shade trees
and in the crooks of a particularly inviting Sphinx’s front
paws, to stop and take notes. Chagrined as I was that I’d
been missing out for so long, I was grateful to be making
my renewed Mount Auburn acquaintance by way of my
friend’s youthful remembrances. It was a stellar gift, and a
classic case of better late than never.
16 | Sweet Auburn
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From that day on, my objective was to seek out Mount
Auburn’s abundant wonders. Step One: treasure hunt, as
often as possible, by wandering off the beaten paths to
see what I might find. Step Two: the aha moment! Take a
photo of whatever new gem had been happened upon, be
it animal, vegetable, or mineral. Step Three: on a follow-up
visit, navigate my way back to treasures I’d most recently
discovered—a task far more easily attempted than com-
pleted. How is it that I can stumble upon a lightning-split
tree or an oriole nest or a bit of sculptural whimsy, and
not find my way back on my very next visit? My rule of
thumb is that it takes at least three successful re-encounters
to confidently ink an “X marks the spot” into my mental
Mount Auburn map. That said, I’ve lost track of how many
searches it took for me to rediscover the musical Zildjian
family’s grave—a modern gothic stone which, delightfully,
has one of their cymbals incorporated into its granite face.