I bounded up the back porch steps and swung open the kitchen door. I let the car keys slide all the way across the table as I fiddled with the rolls of paper, trying to see the art inside. When I held both ends of the paper, I found my charcoal rubbing abloom under the bright florescent lighting. Up until that point, I had no idea what the picture would look like – when I made it, it was so dark out I couldn’t see a foot in front of my face as my hand rapidly ran charcoal across paper. It had turned out perfectly. There were grand flower blossoms bordering a rectangular cement block that held the names of an elderly couple who were long deceased. What to do now? Surely my dad would want to see this. My mother, not so much. She’s already seriously weirded out by me.

“Hey, Pa, come here! Look what I made!” I yelled, excitedly holding up the grave-rubbing.

He stared at the paper, then back at me. “You’re more twisted than your sister, huh?” was his response.

I just replied, “I like it,” and rolled it back up.

Hi. My name’s Jade and I’m a graveyard addict. Okay, so maybe “addict” isn’t the most accurate way to describe my infatuation with graveyards, but other people seem to see it that way. I go to graveyards often in the middle of the night or the day, just to hang out and spend some time outside.

A lot of people find graveyards freaky. It’s reasonable to have these feelings, since they are a place of death and sadness, and there are many superstitions about the deceased. When I think about graveyards, I don’t think of superstitions or bad vibes. I like to imagine how life was for those buried there.

Though graveyards are places to bury the dead, in all honesty, their purpose is for the living. We put our loved ones in extravagant wooden boxes, with expensive outfits and ceremonies, and carve a big piece of rock with the person’s name so they are forever there.

The first time I visited a cemetery, I was with a friend and it was the middle of the night. We wanted to go somewhere and do something but couldn’t decide what. I’d been wanting to go to a graveyard for a while, not for a personal visit, but because of a desire to be amongst the dead. I was thankful that rather than saying I was weird, my friend admitted she had always wanted to do that too. We decided to go and take photos.

There’s something marvelous about graves in a big grassy field. There are so many features of graveyards that make every picture unique, and one is the variety of headstones. Some are simple rectangles, and others are adorned with carved flowers or even sculptures of angels. This feature, as well as how visibly pleasant the arrangements are, make me enjoy taking pictures there.

The second time I visited, not only did I take my camera, but also several large sheets of paper and charcoal. I wanted to try rubbing prints from the graves onto the paper. It was already dark, but I was determined. I went looking for graves with interesting designs, names, dates, and shapes. I finally found one. It was a double headstone for a couple buried together. There were vines around the names with little blossoms hanging as they would on a perfectly windless day. I made a rubbing of this, as well as a few others, and even mixed and matched border prints with letters from stones to create my name. I was thoroughly pleased with the rubbings, and they now adorn my bedroom.

Graveyards are like parks that hold the markers of people’s lives. You can touch their headstones, see their names, touch the ground they are under, and imagine what they might have lived through.

Don’t get me wrong, graveyards are designed as places for people to lay flowers and mourn and miss their loved ones, but there is so much more. They are the art of life.