I love taking walks through cemeteries, crypts, and catacombs, a fact I include in my about page. The reasons for this are partially my interest in death culture and my fondness for nature, but there is something else which is articulated in Jenny Odell's book How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy: when I take these walks, I'm doing nothing.
The 'nothing' being done is not actually nothing, but a shifting of attention, a meditation. The winding paths between gravestones are labyrinthine, "designed for nothing other than contemplative walking ... enabling a sort of dense infolding of attention."1
Time appears to pause during these peaceful perambulations; "these places and moments are retreats ... they affect the way we see everyday life when we do come back to it."2
And when I do, I return deeply appreciating more, and feeling more real.