As I drove home from church Saturday night with the triumphant strains of part III of the Messiah reverberating in my ears, I was talking myself out of acting on a sudden impulse to visit the cemetery where my grandmothers are buried:

It's bound to be locked up for the night ... and you're not appropriately dressed for breaking into a cemetery ... and even if you were, it's a fairly large cemetery, so finding section J in the dark on foot would be a problem ... besides, you've already called GrandDad to tell him you're on your way home; he's expecting you in the next 20 minutes ... I promise you can go next weekend -- during the day ... and don't forget that having a vague idea where the cemetery is is NOT the same as knowing how to actually GET there...

While having this internal monologue, I went ahead and acted on the a second, not-entirely-unrelated impulse to go home by back roads rather than the highways, so as to avoid the light pollution along the major commercial districts and instead venture between quiet, dark strawberry fields. This felt like a more meditative environment to finish soaking in the music.

This involved getting off the freeway two exits earlier than I normally do, onto a road that I have driven several times, but never from this particular angle.

At the bottom of the exit ramp, I found myself waiting for a green arrow light, with my headlights illuminating a concrete wall. Only the wall did not need my headlights to illuminate it, because there was a NEON SIGN affixed thereto.

Bearing, yes, the name of the cemetery.

So that was the unexpected compromise: I visited the wall of the cemetery on my way home. I will visit the interior of the cemetery a week later. Seems like an appropriate place to spend some time on Holy Saturday.