With eyes wide open, you never know what you might see...

"Now each visitor shall confess the sad valley's restlessness." After tagging along on Lydia's photography practice the other day, I now have a better understanding of Poe's words in The Valley of Unrest. Let me start from the beginning...

I went with Lydia the other day to take some pictures with her new camera. We went to the Riverwalk first and then decided to drive downtown to see if we could find some old buildings that she wanted to photograph. We did not find any buildings that inspired her, but happened upon something so much better! We came across Greenwood Cemetery, the oldest still used cemetery in Tuscaloosa. It was absolutely amazing. I was completely awe-struck. The graves were marked back as far as 1821. The cemetery also housed several unknown Confederate soldiers' graves. The cemetery sent me in a whirlwind of emotions. Sadness, of course, but also anger because the cemetery was not well taken care of. The grass was up to our knees in some places and weeds completely covered many of the headstones. Also, there was garbage sporadically on the ground throughout the area including on the some of the graves. Another almost bittersweet sadness was that many of the headstones were broken and falling apart. I say bittersweet, because to me, it made the cemetery even that much more special and unique, because without knowing anything about it, one could walk through Greenwood and know that they were walking through a part of history. The broken pieces gave Greenwood so much character and the years and time were literally right there in front of my eyes, laying on the ground. However, walking through all the broken pieces and unkept landscaping made me sad because I felt as if these people and this amazing place had somehow been forgotten along the way. Greenwood is filled with so much iron work and stone work that can only be described as art. The details on some of he statues and headstones are absolutely incomparable. I must say that walking through Greenwood that day made all of that pesky history stuff that we all had to learn very real to me. I was reading actual names and date of births and date of deaths of people who fought in the Civil War, names of wives and children who lived in those times. The headstones were so old that many of them were no longer legible, but they were all so beautiful. Some of the graves were even completely surrounded by stone walls. The Greenwood Cemetery was one of the most amazing places that I have ever just happened upon.

Thanks to Lydia's amazing photography, I am able to include some pictures of our discovery!! Hope you enjoy, and if you ever get the chance, go by and see Greenwood for yourself, it really is breathtaking!!!