One Year of Sunday Pastries With the Dead

A celebration and an announcement.

I woke up on Sunday, August 22, 2021 in a funk. I was smack in the middle of a four-week waiting period as my developmental editor evaluated the latest draft of my first novel, and my underlying anxiety and impatience had slowly simmered to a rolling boil. The weather greeted me in kind—cloudy, drizzling, unseasonably chilly. On days like this, I ask myself—as if I’m a small child—“What would make you feel a bit better right now, sweetheart?” That gloomy late August morning, the answer was: hot chocolate and a pastry.

A donut with brilliant pink icing and round rainbow sprinkles glowed like a beacon in the fully-stocked bakery case. I tucked it covetously in a bag beneath my arm, willing its radiance and whimsy to seep into my soul once ingested. The next question, of where to perch and savor my treat, was trickier. A spot by the river seemed too picturesque for my mood; a verdant garden too boisterous. Then I passed a cemetery and thought, “Perfect.”

I’ve always loved graveyards—their compelling combination of history, parklike atmosphere, architecture, and eeriness has called to me since I was a kid. Of course, so have dead people—it’s not exactly a stretch that I’d be naturally drawn to their burial grounds. What I didn’t realize that day was—in an attempt to neutralize my dismal disposition—I was beginning a beloved new ritual.

That visit inspired another a week later at a different local cemetery, which led to another, and then another, and before I knew it I was setting aside my Sundays expressly to explore a new nearby cemetery with a coffee and baked good in hand. As I’m wont to do, I turned it into a project—I named the series Sunday Pastries With the Dead, documented my outings on my Instagram stories, created a custom Google map to chart where I’d been and where I planned to go, and dove into research about the monuments and symbols I saw each week. 47 Sunday Pastries jaunts later, I’m blown away by the love so many have shown the series. What started as a simple attempt to shift my mood has turned into a practice that’s helped others transform their relationships with death. That outcome alone is feeling more and more like a calling.

Over the last year, I’ve explored graveyards throughout New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and while traveling in upstate New York and Washington, D.C. I generally keep my locations undisclosed, for privacy reasons, but I dive into the history of each plot—from the churches that sometimes stand adjacent to the engravings on enclosing stone walls to the death dates on the oldest headstones I can read. I’ve also become savvy to a few other cemetery idiosyncracies, such as the fact that…

So Many Cemeteries Aren’t Listed Online

It’s second nature for me now to open up Google Maps and type in “cemetery” wherever I am; if a resulting locale looks interesting, I make note of it for future outings. But most of the best (aka oldest) Sunday Pastries spots have been discovered by driving around on back roads. I tend to chase church steeples and crane my neck when I spot an old metal fence or stone wall around an open space. Paying attention is the very best search engine.

Every Marker Tells a Story

Beyond a name, birth and death date, and epitaph, that is. I’ve learned that obelisk monument shapes became popular during the early 1800s alongside the growing fascination with Egypt, lambs symbolize those who died young, how the death’s head engraving evolved over time, the difference between a draped and undraped urn, and what common symbols like a scroll, weeping willow, and hand with a finger pointing up mean. My two favorite resources are Stories in Stone and Understanding Cemetery Symbols; I plan to write a separate post about headstone symbols soon.

Each Graveyard is a Small Town

As a spiritual medium, scanning the energy of a space is a gut reaction—and that goes for cemeteries, too. I always start with a perimeter walk, say hello to the residents, and get a feel for what they’re like. Some are quite private; others are overly enthusiastic. Some don’t welcome outsiders; others are grateful for the company. Whatever the vibe, it tends to extend through the whole space with the sort of group think common in close-knit settlements. There are, of course, prevailing personalities—I’ve had some hilarious interactions with Victorian-era men who don’t understand why a woman is wearing pants, and playful children leading me in sing-alongs. I’ll write a post dedicated to my mediumship work in cemeteries at some point, as well.

To celebrate this one-year milestone, I’ve decided to take things one step further for the 2022-2023 Sunday Pastries With the Dead season. Along with chronicling my visits on my Instagram stories every Sunday, I’ll also create a corresponding post right here on Substack so each place is properly mused over and memorialized. That means I may circle back to some 2021-2022 season favorites, but the beauty of old graveyards is that there’s always something new to discover.

Is there anything you’d like me to keep in mind for year two of breakfasting with the dead? Have tips on NY/NJ/PA-area cemeteries to feature or must-try bakeries to check out? Drop ‘em in the comments!