Memorial Day
May. 26th, 2025 10:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatI finally had a decent night's rest - got a total of 9 hours, with not a lot of waking up between. Friday night, I'd gotten about 8, but with a lot of waking up during the night. Saturday - six and very disrupted sleep. I keep waking up in the middle of the night and struggling to get back to sleep. So, I've decided to change a few things. 1) I'm preparing for bed at 9 pm not not 9:30 or 10. Since I have to get up at 6 AM, I have to get to bed earlier, particularly since it takes me a while to fall asleep. (Sleep can't be forced or planned, it's something that you kind of surrender to?)
2) Exercise more during the day. 3)Don't eat sweets, and no caffeine, sugar, or chocolate after 2pm. It wires the body. 4) Lighter meals at night.
I may lose weight, since I can't eat large meals at the beginning of the day, or mid-day. Not necessarily a bad thing - losing weight would make the knees hurt less, after all.
The weekend has been a quiet one, in which I've done alarmingly little. I took out the trash. And the recycling. Straightened up the clutter a bit. And finished a watercolor. Also did a bit of reading, and way too much time surfing the internet and watching television as one often does. The internet is kind of addictive?
Memorial Day is a US holiday traditionally utilized for memorializing the dead, specifically those who died during our many and seemingly endless number of armed conflicts and wars. I think it was meant to remind us of the consequences of WAR and not to keep having them? If so, I'm not sure it succeeded.
Per Google AI:
"Memorial Day, a national holiday in the United States, honors those who have died while serving in the country's armed forces. Its origins lie in the years following the Civil War, when communities began decorating the graves of fallen soldiers. The holiday, initially known as "Decoration Day," was officially established as a national holiday in 1868. After World War I, the name was changed to Memorial Day, and it became a federal holiday in 1971."
When I was much younger and still residing in the suburbs of Kansas City, I'd visit my Grandmother in Liberty, Missouri - to decorate the graves.
We'd start at the old graveyards, dating back to the 1800s, and decorate the graves of those who had died prior to the 1970s, if not the 1920s. Then move on to the more established and far newer and bigger cemetery where my Grandfather and Great Aunts had been buried. Now, my grandmother's remains are located there. And my mother's cousin goes every year to lay the flowers on the graves. Granny would bring fresh cut roses to the graves, she had a rose garden that was well tended, and included many cross-breeds. Granny had a green thumb. She could raise any flower and bring any plant back to life. I'd bring her plants that I'd managed to kill - and she'd somehow resurrect them as if by magic. My mother, myself, my brother, and the rest of my immediate family isn't into visiting the graves of those we lost. Mainly because we don't feel them there.
That's not to say I don't visit graveyards, I do. I've walked around Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn more times than I can count, as well as others. Grave yards are actually quite peaceful, and some are lovely. Greenwood was based on the European Victorian Model of a "natural park" with graves. It's comforting but not for the reasons one might think. What's comforting about it - is I know those who were buried there are gone, their energy or souls long past, and while they've been remembered or memorialized on granite or stone, it's not the names in the stones that live on, no, those are eroded by weather and time. What lasts are the trees, the flowers, the plants, and the earth beneath them, constantly changing. A tree may die, but it's stump remains giving life to all the other living things. The one constant is change and the temporariness of things. I find that oddly comforting? To know everything and everyone is temporary, and falls away after time to another phase of existence. Graveyards aren't empty, they just aren't filled with death as we like to think. They are more lasting memorials to the life lived. It's why I prefer them to War Memorials...which are often concrete slabs against an uncompromising sky, pleading for forgiveness for deeds best not memorialized and certainly not forgotten.
On Memorial Day, my agency and country traditionally celebrates the armed forces, and those who died serving the country in its Wars and armed conflicts here and across the globe. And people may even celebrate with barbecues and fireworks in backyards and towns and cities. Playing patriotic music, or having concerts. My mother is going to one today - or was it last night, I can't remember. My father loved listening to the patriotic music during Memorial Day. God Bless America, Grand Old Flag, Stars and Stripes, National Anthem, This Land is Your Land ...
But for me, I always found the day to be a sad one. Perhaps this is my grandmother's influence? We spent it not preparing for a barbecue or going to a concert, but wandering around graveyards, laying down roses and peonies, which were my favorites. I tend to prefer the non-traditional flowers. She'd cut them the day before, and keep them overnight in her refrigerator, ready to go. After our wanderings, we'd stop in at Tippins and have lunch, along with a French Silk Chocolate Cream pie (it's basically a rich chocolate mousse in a pie shell with whipped cream). Then watch a movie and chat about those who'd died, remembering them as best we could.
When Memorial Day comes around the calendar, it's usually my grandmother that I remember and I mourn. For she is the one most present in my memories of that day. My father, I mourn on his birthday or when he died. But I don't associate the day with him, even though he served in the military to acquire his education. Most of his brothers did - for much the same reasons. One of his brothers served in 'Nam (Vietnam War - which we, here, in the US, often refer to as 'Nam). The Wars? I find my mind and heart flinching away from. I had a great uncle who served in World War II, he not only served, he was in some of the most horrible battles. One year, I was discussing a trip I'd taken to Wales, and he told me about his time over there during the WAR, just before they sailed across the Channel to France, and then in a halting jagged whisper, he told me about that. About being covered by corpses, scared and shivering with cold, and the gun fire over head. According to my Great Aunt, he'd never spoken of it before. And when he told me that story, it was as if we were alone in the room, all the other conversation faded away and finally stopped. And indeed it had, but neither of us recognized it until long after he had stopped talking and I looked up to see my family and his staring at us.
I've been in the bunkers on the coast of Bretagne, France. They are tiny. Ugly things. And long overgrown. They may be gone now, since I saw them in the early 80s. But I doubt it.
And I've seen the War Memorials. And looked at the names. More than I can possibly count or list here. I've also seen the graves of those who died during the Civil War in Greenwood Cemetery, along with the Memorial to their deaths...and all these feel rather cold to me? And the dead...too numerous to name or count. It's overwhelming. Flowers grow on the hill in Greenwood where they are buried. But only concrete surrounds the slabs in Battery Park and the black wall of the Vietnam War Memorial in DC. And I wonder...if perhaps we'd stop going to WAR or seeing it as even a solution to any conflict - if we stopped memorializing it and celebrating its seemingly hollow victories? The neatly tended rows of graves at Arlington Cemetery are too numerous already.
2) Exercise more during the day. 3)Don't eat sweets, and no caffeine, sugar, or chocolate after 2pm. It wires the body. 4) Lighter meals at night.
I may lose weight, since I can't eat large meals at the beginning of the day, or mid-day. Not necessarily a bad thing - losing weight would make the knees hurt less, after all.
The weekend has been a quiet one, in which I've done alarmingly little. I took out the trash. And the recycling. Straightened up the clutter a bit. And finished a watercolor. Also did a bit of reading, and way too much time surfing the internet and watching television as one often does. The internet is kind of addictive?
Memorial Day is a US holiday traditionally utilized for memorializing the dead, specifically those who died during our many and seemingly endless number of armed conflicts and wars. I think it was meant to remind us of the consequences of WAR and not to keep having them? If so, I'm not sure it succeeded.
Per Google AI:
"Memorial Day, a national holiday in the United States, honors those who have died while serving in the country's armed forces. Its origins lie in the years following the Civil War, when communities began decorating the graves of fallen soldiers. The holiday, initially known as "Decoration Day," was officially established as a national holiday in 1868. After World War I, the name was changed to Memorial Day, and it became a federal holiday in 1971."
When I was much younger and still residing in the suburbs of Kansas City, I'd visit my Grandmother in Liberty, Missouri - to decorate the graves.
We'd start at the old graveyards, dating back to the 1800s, and decorate the graves of those who had died prior to the 1970s, if not the 1920s. Then move on to the more established and far newer and bigger cemetery where my Grandfather and Great Aunts had been buried. Now, my grandmother's remains are located there. And my mother's cousin goes every year to lay the flowers on the graves. Granny would bring fresh cut roses to the graves, she had a rose garden that was well tended, and included many cross-breeds. Granny had a green thumb. She could raise any flower and bring any plant back to life. I'd bring her plants that I'd managed to kill - and she'd somehow resurrect them as if by magic. My mother, myself, my brother, and the rest of my immediate family isn't into visiting the graves of those we lost. Mainly because we don't feel them there.
That's not to say I don't visit graveyards, I do. I've walked around Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn more times than I can count, as well as others. Grave yards are actually quite peaceful, and some are lovely. Greenwood was based on the European Victorian Model of a "natural park" with graves. It's comforting but not for the reasons one might think. What's comforting about it - is I know those who were buried there are gone, their energy or souls long past, and while they've been remembered or memorialized on granite or stone, it's not the names in the stones that live on, no, those are eroded by weather and time. What lasts are the trees, the flowers, the plants, and the earth beneath them, constantly changing. A tree may die, but it's stump remains giving life to all the other living things. The one constant is change and the temporariness of things. I find that oddly comforting? To know everything and everyone is temporary, and falls away after time to another phase of existence. Graveyards aren't empty, they just aren't filled with death as we like to think. They are more lasting memorials to the life lived. It's why I prefer them to War Memorials...which are often concrete slabs against an uncompromising sky, pleading for forgiveness for deeds best not memorialized and certainly not forgotten.
On Memorial Day, my agency and country traditionally celebrates the armed forces, and those who died serving the country in its Wars and armed conflicts here and across the globe. And people may even celebrate with barbecues and fireworks in backyards and towns and cities. Playing patriotic music, or having concerts. My mother is going to one today - or was it last night, I can't remember. My father loved listening to the patriotic music during Memorial Day. God Bless America, Grand Old Flag, Stars and Stripes, National Anthem, This Land is Your Land ...
But for me, I always found the day to be a sad one. Perhaps this is my grandmother's influence? We spent it not preparing for a barbecue or going to a concert, but wandering around graveyards, laying down roses and peonies, which were my favorites. I tend to prefer the non-traditional flowers. She'd cut them the day before, and keep them overnight in her refrigerator, ready to go. After our wanderings, we'd stop in at Tippins and have lunch, along with a French Silk Chocolate Cream pie (it's basically a rich chocolate mousse in a pie shell with whipped cream). Then watch a movie and chat about those who'd died, remembering them as best we could.
When Memorial Day comes around the calendar, it's usually my grandmother that I remember and I mourn. For she is the one most present in my memories of that day. My father, I mourn on his birthday or when he died. But I don't associate the day with him, even though he served in the military to acquire his education. Most of his brothers did - for much the same reasons. One of his brothers served in 'Nam (Vietnam War - which we, here, in the US, often refer to as 'Nam). The Wars? I find my mind and heart flinching away from. I had a great uncle who served in World War II, he not only served, he was in some of the most horrible battles. One year, I was discussing a trip I'd taken to Wales, and he told me about his time over there during the WAR, just before they sailed across the Channel to France, and then in a halting jagged whisper, he told me about that. About being covered by corpses, scared and shivering with cold, and the gun fire over head. According to my Great Aunt, he'd never spoken of it before. And when he told me that story, it was as if we were alone in the room, all the other conversation faded away and finally stopped. And indeed it had, but neither of us recognized it until long after he had stopped talking and I looked up to see my family and his staring at us.
I've been in the bunkers on the coast of Bretagne, France. They are tiny. Ugly things. And long overgrown. They may be gone now, since I saw them in the early 80s. But I doubt it.
And I've seen the War Memorials. And looked at the names. More than I can possibly count or list here. I've also seen the graves of those who died during the Civil War in Greenwood Cemetery, along with the Memorial to their deaths...and all these feel rather cold to me? And the dead...too numerous to name or count. It's overwhelming. Flowers grow on the hill in Greenwood where they are buried. But only concrete surrounds the slabs in Battery Park and the black wall of the Vietnam War Memorial in DC. And I wonder...if perhaps we'd stop going to WAR or seeing it as even a solution to any conflict - if we stopped memorializing it and celebrating its seemingly hollow victories? The neatly tended rows of graves at Arlington Cemetery are too numerous already.