Shakespeare's Grave

This post is extremely personal, in that it's not trying to modify itself to suit a diverse audience. It's my feelings that came from today's experience at the Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon where I saw Shakespeare's grave.

It was indescribable, but here's my best go:

We pulled up in front of the Holy Trinity Church and there walked up through the short graveyard to the entrance. Moss-covered tombstones toothed their way through the grass. A feeling of transcendence began to float over me.

Normally, when I enter a European church, I'm overwhelmed by the architecture and the piety that's plastered over the walls. That's how I felt in Saint Giles' Church at Cripplegate.

Not so here.

It's sacrilegious to say that I was almost irritated by having the Bible being read aloud by a little woman off on one side, but I think it was because it was background noise; the words of Holy Writ weren't penetrating my disbelieving fog: I was in the chapel of Shakespeare's resting place.

Paying the four pounds admission wasn't even a thought--though Gayle kept trying to tease me about not being able to afford it--and then we were there. I listened with half an ear to the tour guide, Allen, explaining interesting things about the chapel and its most famous occupant, but I really only had eyes for the grave.

Leaning against the thigh-high railing, I looked at the tomb, outlined with blue rope, a gleaming placard at the foot of it. Above the space, printed in the original spelling, was the epitaph--the last thing likely penned by the Bard--which encouraged none to disturb his 'dust'--his quintessence.

Even thinking back on that moment fills me with an ineffable surge of proximity. I did feel a little light headed, and, when I thought of how close I was to whatever is left of him, I am not ashamed to admit I nearly wept.

I don't know why it mattered so much, but it did. It wasn't a grieving sort of feeling--I'm totally over the fact that he and Milton are dead. It was almost...gratitude.

I've been thinking about this a lot, lately, as to why I find belief in God so necessary. It's because I feel like having someone to feel grateful toward helps fulfill the experiences of my life. I really like saying thank you. So when it comes to Shakespeare--a man who has for seven years now definitively shaped my life, while also doing so less overtly for all of it--I feel a deep and certain gratitude for what he wrought. He has, more than any other writer, inspired my deepest thoughts and my greatest ambitions. He has fueled my imagination, sparked my vocabulary, and transported me to new levels of artistic craft. When I think of who I'd most like to write like, it's Shakespeare. I cut my poetic teeth on the juicy meats of Shakespearean sonnets; I have a job because of Shakespeare.

Being so close to his quintessential dust was an opportunity to experience gratitude. I didn't mouth the words--in fact, I didn't process the experience until now, as I'm writing--but that's the emotion that I felt. And, in much the same way I feel an unexpressed gratitude to Peter's surgeons for saving his life--and in a lesser way to how I feel toward God for having saved (and given us) Peter's life--I expressed that by being there.

Five thousand miles were not too many to traverse for this experience.

In terms of gratitude, I will be forever grateful for what I felt and saw here today. It is sweet and nigh-on spiritual. I recognize that not everyone can understand or appreciate what happened. But that's what transcendence is: Beyond the pale of what we can literalize and conceptualize via language. And that is exactly what I feel toward Shakespeare now--it isn't a worshipful, deific kind of appreciation. I don't see Shakespeare in that way. I see him as a man who has helped me to understand the world and myself better.

I see nothing wrong with being grateful for that.