Back in 2008, while on a trip to Italy with the Italian side of my family, my aunt Tina, named for Bautistina Mutsichelli, dragged us to every cemetery from Genoa to Venice. What was at first an annoying detour has become a lifelong joy.
Venice’s cemetery is on the island of San Michele between Venice proper and the Island of Murano, where all the Venetian glass is made. In the midst of boisterous international travel, I can still recall that afternoon as one of the most peaceful of my life.
Cemeteries encompass us in a pocket of peace. The din of cars and the chatter of idle talk fall away. Cemeteries are quiet—not just in their lack of noise, but in their creation of an environment that shields us from the assaults of the world. The stability of the trees and the stillness of the tombs slow things down—we can feel our heart rate drop.
Since that trip, I’ve taken to running battlefields like Gettysburg and Shiloh. I sneak away every trip to NYC to meander through Green Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, the most biodiverse place in the city, and Frederick Law Olmsted’s inspiration for Central Park. And during our first year in San Marcos, I pushed my kids in a running stroller through the San Marcos City Cemetery every Wednesday morning. I love cemeteries, and I have a particular fondness for the San Marcos City Cemetery. If you get a chance, I recommend the following stroll.
Park on Perkins Street and walk through the pedestrian gate. It’s open 24/7, and it provides an appropriate threshold signaling to our minds and bodies that we are entering a place set apart. A place designed for walking since Freedman Peter Roberts first buried African Americans on this site in 1868, and since it became an official cemetery in 1876. The San Marcos City Cemetery is designed to be traveled afoot at the pace of a saunter (from the French “à la sainte terre” meaning “to the Holy Land”).
Make your way up Chapel Way to the Carpenter Gothic Chapel, built in 1890 and on the register of National Historical Places. After you sit a spell, peek around the back to a more recent grave dedicated to Pete the Peacock, the beloved mascot and avian caretaker of the cemetery who passed away last year.
I’m fond of a clockwise turn, so I leave the chapel and stroll down Evening Star Lane to Primrose Way. An abundance of deer and other wildlife populate this flat sylvan expanse, and it’s a unique joy to see the new life of fawns bed down next to memorials of long-dead loved ones.
At the intersection of Primrose and Morning Star, I take a right and head east into the rising sun. My favorite time of the day to walk is at sunrise, where I can watch the progression of light start at the treetops and work its way down from the towering columns of 19th-century obelisks, to the distinctive whitewash tombstones of veterans, to all the little flowers, flags, and ephemera left by families on the ground by their deceased.
If you’re looking for a workout, take the Chapel Way lower loop toward Old Ranch Road 12 and the vehicle entrance, where you can work your quads on the steep climb back up Memorial Drive. The stretch of Memorial Drive between Morning Star and Evening Star feels a little like New Orleans. Ancient Live Oaks garbed in the haunting raiment of Spanish Moss tower over illegibly old gravestones. The largest Red Oaks I’ve seen in Texas reside here, and if not for the gnarly old Ash Junipers, I’d think I was in St Louis Cemetery of the Garden District.
Evening Star will take you back to the Chapel, where you can retrace your footsteps to the pedestrian gate. This short perimeter stroll spans over a mile and encompasses two centuries. I’ve done as many as three miles meandering my way between the graves, so there is no lack of steps in a visit. Yet for as much as I appreciate the stimulation of my muscles, it’s the calming of my nerves that is the real gift of this place.
So as Halloween, All Saints Day, All Souls Day, and Día de Los Muertos come to the fore in our collective imaginaries, give your nervous system a little staycation and go for a stroll in the San Marcos City Cemetery.
