Serendipitous words....

I stubbed my toe last night on a piece of marble I use to keep the couch from shifting when I drop my fat ass onto it. After the blinding flash of pain subsided, it occurred to me the rock might make for an interesting blog subject.

As you may suspect from the pictures; yes it is indeed a piece from a headstone. No, I didn't break the headstone, but I did find it, alone, near a cemetery I was visiting years ago. (If it's a sin to take a broken headstone from near a cemetery I'm not really worried; I'm going to Hell for some better reasons than that.)

Part of the reason I felt compelled to take it (besides the obvious: it's a fucking headstone!) was that the only letters visible spelt 'ONE'.

'ONE'. For some reason that really struck me, that word, on a headstone. As in, we are all one & the same, we all are alive & will one day die; we are all one in this mortality. 'ONE' day, you too buddy....

It's like reading through some history book and coming across somebody from the 1800's with the same name as you. Kinda takes you out of yourself for a moment.

And I'm reminded of that first impression whenever I look at this hunk of marble. It's sort of a philosophical touchstone, if you will.

But the capper, what gives the thing it's real, zen-like sublimity is this; years later I found a website listing Washington State cemeteries and their occupants. Checking through the names listed for the one where I found this I realized there's only one it could have come from: 'STONE'.