Watching House of Cards tonight (S1:E3) as Claire Underwood is spooked while running through a cemetery. An older woman believes it disrespectful to use the sacred place as a point of recreation. Claire leaves, disturbed. She returns the following Sunday but turns around at the cemetery gates, obviously still startled by the encounter. As the episode closes, Claire is taking a stroll, once again in the cemetery. She spots a couple flirting and enjoying themselves amongst the gravestones.
Are cemeteries a place of solemn reverence or a moment where we can reflect and go on embracing the lives we have?
I often take a moment to reflect as I come upon a cemetery on my runs. And sometimes that means running through the roads that travel around the grave sites.
Having just come upon another anniversary of my mother’s death, I find cemeteries a moment of solitude and remembrance; whether or not I have family members buried there. It’s not a place for celebration, or a place to avoid for that matter, but rather a place not to forget those who have gone on before us.
What would be my reaction to the older lady asking if I had no respect for running through the graveyard?
Running and the mind
Running is a time of solitude and reflection. It’s a moment when I can zone out and decompress from the day’s workload. If that happens to take place alongside a grave site where my thoughts go back to love ones lost, then so be it. I don’t consider it disrespect and I’m certainly not stepping on coffins as I run through the yard.
Surely I’m not the only one looking at it that way? Or maybe I just completely missed what the writers were doing in those scenes? (Claire’s character is certainly a complicated woman)
Do your runs take you along or through cemeteries? What goes through your mind as you encounter the grave sites? Is it disrespectful, in your opinion, to run through?
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