Tales from the Crypt

St. Leonard's Church is a beautiful old church in Hythe, Kent. We peeked inside and were exploring the grounds when we saw the sign:

We knew we were on the right path when we encountered some others:

The crypt is only open for viewing from the first of May to the end of September, and here we were on a lovely October day. Fortunately a group of volunteer anthropologists (St. Leonard's Osteological Research Group) were cleaning and categorizing the skulls. Many had studied together in the same Master's program at Bournemouth University, and though they now have regular jobs (some not in the forensic field), they volunteer for a week in April and another in October to catalogue the crypt.

The four arches display over 1,000 skulls.


The pile of bones contains the remains of about 4,000 people.

An anthropologist told us that these people were originally buried in the church's graveyard, but the land was full by the 13th century. With numerous corpses needing to be buried on consecrated land, bones were dug up and brought into the crypt, since it's religious property.

It was originally thought that the bones were from Danish pirates slain in battle, then from the casualties of the Battle of Hastings. Further inspection proved these theories wrong by showing an absence of wounds, more female than male bones, and children's skulls.

The bones are estimated to be from between the 12th to 15th centuries, but most likely the 13th century. Determining definite dates would be incredibly expensive, and can't be done by volunteers without financial backing.

For now, the research group is cleaning the skulls and using a distinct numbering system to create profiles - including the sex of the corpse, age of death, and any distinctive features that will reveal disease, injury, and possibly tell the cause of death.

Markings on the skull show previous attempts to determine the gender of the bones, which has been incorrect in many cases.


Many skulls have visible wounds or medical problems, like this one showing a tumor.


A bird built a nest in this skull once it was moved into the crypt.

A man took this skull in the 1960s. It's thought to have been a woman who was brutally murdered. He varnished it and displayed it in his home, saying he'd never return it - maybe he was afraid of the consequences, maybe he was just too proud of his "trophy."

His friends vowed to return it when he died, and now it's back on the shelf.

Check out more pictures from the crypt.

Longing for Home Again

Longing for home again, but home is a feeling I buried in you. - Greenwheel
I've never had a clear idea of what city I would leave Memphis for. I tried DC and lasted a year. I'd thought of New York, Boston, Chicago. Then I started traveling. I went to San Diego, LA, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Phoenix, Orlando, Islamorada. I explored cities where I never would have considered living - and I don't necessarily think that way about them now. But I have options. I go places, I see how I feel about them. And it's been a great experience. I can tell stories, but I can't really explain how much all of this travel has changed me. I tried, but I don't think that post clarified anything.

I'm scattered; I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm talking about travel while I'm trying to talk about home. But in a way… that's right. That's how it is for me now. Travel has taught me that "home" is not a physical dwelling. Out west, "home" was a hotel room found at the last minute every night. In Orlando, "home" belonged to my brother and sister-in-law. In the Keys, it was a condo rented for the week. It's just something you say, sometimes, when you're ready to leave the bar: "Let's go home."

I say that travel has taught me these things only because it's put me in situations I might not ever had experienced, otherwise. Driving by yourself in a rental car in Arizona, seeing for miles in the desert and realizing there is no one in your sight - that is being alone. The desert gave me so much time to think, to be totally into myself without having to ask for space or silence. It made me realize that I can be completely alone and be fine. It made me understand that missing people does not mean you need them with you at that moment - you still have them, regardless of where they are physically. It made me see that I can drive for hours a day, check into a hotel room by myself, and still feel "at home." To be just a little corny, perhaps it's safe to say I've learned that home is inside you.

At the same time... it's the opposite. I used to think I was lucky to be able to be alone and not feel lonely. I wasn't a social butterfly; I had friends, but I didn't have to go out with them every weekend. I wasn't sure how to give aspects of myself to someone and still remain myself, without feeling vulnerable in a relationship. It makes sense that travel has made me so social - I'm out there experiencing new places, and new people are a part of that. My shyness has completely left me, and I now have no problem starting conversations with strangers and opening up about myself, without worrying what someone will think and how it might affect a relationship. It's liberating. As a bonus, I now associate certain places with certain people, making a sort of "home" in each.

Spending my life working and saving money with no clear goals has led me to this point. I never pictured myself here, exploring life like this. It's unexpected and therefore exactly right.

You're Never Home

I know you've been talking 'bout leaving,
You've lost all your feelings for this town.
- Dexter Freebish

The first few hours in Memphis are always amazing. I get to see my parents smile and tell them some of my favorite anecdotes from my latest trip. My dad cooks out my first night back because he knows I'd kill for his burgers. It's a big, joyous homecoming, and I can lean back and breathe deep and feel cared for.

Then the anxiety seeps in. When I came back from Florida, I started feeling panicked after just twelve hours. Considering my flight got in at 1a Friday morning and I slept until 9a, that is an alarmingly fast anxiety attack. I started getting in contact with my friends in nearby cities; I was planning a road trip by Saturday afternoon. I went for 4-5 mile walks each night, just to clear my head and forget where I was.

I have nothing against Memphis, really. Not more than anyone might feel for a city where they were born and raised. I've dreamed about leaving Memphis since I was in middle school and decided to hitchhike to NYC to be a Saturday Night Live writer. Plans kept falling through and I couldn't leave. The city has a hold on me. I think it always will.

It's my hometown, even if I don't want to live there again. When people talk about Memphis, my ears perk up and I listen in. I still feel a strange prick of pride before the dislike washes over me. It's a complicated relationship I will probably never be able to describe. I like having had roots somewhere. I like having a childhood house where my parents still live. I like being able to walk for an hour without paying attention to directions, because I know the streets and will find my way back with no problem.

I don't like that, while walking those streets, I tense up as a car passes because I have an irrational fear of being shot in a drive-by. I don't like that I know people who were attacked in a popular shopping center, on my college campus, on their own front porch. I know crime happens everywhere, that other cities have worse crime rates (at one point I heard Memphis was second only to Detroit, but my searches have shown me we're #13).

The crime is only part of the reason I never feel fully comfortable in Memphis. The other part is probably too personal to be understandable - it's just how I am, how I feel like I can't change as a person in a place where I've lived my entire life. The city is vast, it has different neighborhoods and unique attractions and diverse residents, but I feel like I'm trapped in a box when I'm here.

Going Back/Going Home

Every time I come back in this town I know,
I finally know the difference between
going back and going home.
- Butch Walker

I've been thinking a lot about the idea of "home" for the past six months. I've spoken with countless people on the matter: strangers I talk to in passing, friends I've made while traveling, people I've known for years. Everyone has a different opinion and a unique outlook, and I've become fascinated with asking probing questions as a way of figuring myself out. I decided it was finally time to gather my own thoughts on the matter - or at least attempt to. I have an inkling this will be an on-going process, since I've previously tried to address my feelings (during visits from grad school here and here).

I had already undergone a transformation when I moved from DC back to Memphis over a year ago. I felt more in touch with myself; I finally knew who I was and while I wasn't sure what I wanted out of life, I knew that I wouldn't stop until I figured it out. For someone who was content in a 9-5 cubicle world, this was a big change.

Then came the next big change. Losing that cube life I had grown to love.

I used to think I was the type of person who needed stability, who needed to come back to the same place every night. Owning a home was one of my life goals. It didn't take me long to decide to give up my lease and travel. It didn't freak me out as much as it might have the year before. In fact… it didn't freak me out at all. And I wasn't even freaked out that I wasn't freaked out. (Yes, that makes total sense.) The rug had been pulled out from underneath my feet, but instead of flailing and failing and falling, I found my balance in a way I never would have expected.

Before this year, I hadn't traveled much. My family would take summer vacations when I was a child: the mountains in North Carolina, the Grand Canyon, Florida beaches, and eventually college visits. I went on road trips to nearby cities almost every weekend when I was a freelance photographer. In college, I flew to visit a friend in Massachusetts. I flew home twice from grad school, took a few weekend trips to New York City, Boston, and Orlando. Basically, until this past July, I could count my round-trip flights on both hands. I could name every city and state I'd been to, and it wasn't an impressive list. Now, I can't count my flights from the past two months on both hands, and I have to really think about a memory before I can recall the city that was its setting.

I wasn't previously interested in travel. I had standard life goals of going abroad and visiting England and Germany, but intense travel like African safaris never appealed to me. Once I didn't have the responsibilities of an office job or a physical dwelling, I found the desire to experience everything. I'm researching countries I barely remember the names of from freshman geography class; I'm going to go there.

Because of my lack of experience, I started small with my travel plans. I wanted to do a west coast road trip, because I've never been and it seemed like an easy way to start. I was going alone until Kelly asked to come along, which I welcomed because Kelly and I always have a blast, and that just made everything safer - emotionally safer. (I have yet to feel threatened or insecure while traveling alone, knock on wood.) I explored Arizona alone, but when I went back to California and on to Seattle, I had friends there. I had a buffer, so I could be alone if I wanted, but also had the option of being around people I knew.

My previous vacations were always fairly short. Long weekends by myself, a week or two with family. Three weeks basically alone was a new concept, and so I spaced out each trip with two weeks back in Memphis. I thought I'd need to be settled for awhile, to be around family and get a grip on myself after an abundance of new experiences.

I was wrong.

No One Knows.

You go everywhere. Wake up in one city, drive through another, fall asleep in a third, fourth, fifth.

It changes you. The places you go, things you see, people you meet - they latch on to you for the ride, they come home with you.

Home. A word that means nothing anymore. If the people who were "home" had come to you, would you have come back?

You come back and you don't fit. The space is too small and you have new ridges now - those places and people and experiences that changed you didn't just fall away. They've stayed, and "home" can't accommodate you all.

You shed.

You regress.

You're who you were before, and all your experiences are kept hidden, like scars, except they're secrets - jewels no one else can appreciate. Who could know the value?

There are no words to make someone feel. It's all anecdotes - make them laugh, make them ask, leave them hanging. They don't know. They can't understand.

You write. You turn it into quote unquote fiction. You make it a story they will read and analyze and search for meaning within. They will ask what you meant when you said that, and did this actually happen, because didn't you go there and see that and mention this?

As fiction, they will devour your tales, your life, your meaning.

And they will still not understand.

It is yours.

The Quandary

When I began traveling, I had big dreams of all the stories that would be inspired by new places and new people. Instead, many of these experiences have been incredibly internal. I'm learning a lot about myself, my relationships, and my future, but I'm not able to share it like I had hoped. Fiction has not been written in months. Even my blog posts are picture-heavy with concise, impersonal captions.

I don't like that.

I've always been about telling stories, and I haven't done that since my piece Leaving the Canyon, which I still think wasn't up to par. I feel like even my pictures aren't telling stories as much as they could. I'm just showing you a scene, which means the comments are less personal.

This isn't all about comments, but one of my favorite things about having a blog is hearing from you. I want to share my stories to hear yours in return. I want to write something that makes you think and feel, instead of just showing you an image of something I saw.

I'm going to try and stop keeping all my stories inside. I'm going to try and present them here in a way that makes me proud. And I'm going to start by sharing some of my thoughts on travel changing the concept of "home" for me. It's going to be a long piece, broken into multiple posts, and will probably be something I revisit later. It seems like a good place to start in trying to get my thoughts straight, and hopefully will help my blog get back to being more personal instead of "Hey, look at this!"

Keys at Night

Even though our days in the Florida Keys weren't taxing by any stretch of the imagination, S and I established a routine to unwind at night. Said routine consisted of going to different local bars, listening to live music, and watching the sun set.








The flash overcompensated and washed out the background,
but just imagine the previous sunsets behind me. Don't hate.
We'd lie on the beach when we got "home" and stay for what felt like minutes, but was actually hours and hours and hours. I have never seen such a broad expanse of clear sky with so many stars sparkling above, not to mention the night I saw at least five shooting stars.

I've fallen in love with beaches since I began traveling, and can't imagine living somewhere that doesn't have some sort of beach nearby. I know I was on "vacation" with this trip, but I have never felt so relaxed, and never have my thoughts flowed so freely and made me really get in touch with myself and the world around me. More to come on that later...


In case you missed it, check out my whole batch of Florida Keys photos.

Keys Open Doors

I've wanted to go to the Florida Keys for a couple of years now, and figured already being in Orlando was half the battle. A lot of people, however, told me that it wouldn't be that fun alone. Enter new friend S and the most spontaneous trip of my life (so far...).


When I travel, I usually feel like I need to be busy almost every minute of the day - seeing the sights that are the main attractions, experiencing what the new place has to offer, and constantly being on the go. In the Keys, that was not the case. The whole week was a relaxing vacation.

The days were spent:

Relaxing on "our" beach


Building my very first sand castle (S helped)


Making crabby friends


Swinging in hammocks all afternoon


Watching this guy try to take my hammock


Photographing butterflies


Wondering how I can make this house mine

See many, many more Key West pictures at my Flickr.