Doing things that scare me

Last weekend, I did my first lecture live over Zoom. I’ve been to a huge number of lectures, slide shows, and classes online, but every time I’ve done a presentation of my own at an online conference, it was either a live conversation without slides or else I recorded my speech in advance.

I could’ve done that again this time. It would’ve been fine to record my talk and then taken questions live afterward. Instead, I wanted the challenge of doing everything live, just so I could have the experience of troubleshooting things on the fly. I felt like my local HWA chapter was a safe audience. They would be supportive if I screwed everything up somehow: dropped my notes, lost the Zoom, the cat screamed from the next room….

And for all my jitters beforehand, it went fine. I would’ve liked to do the lecture without reading it, but I’ve never been able to get off book before and that felt like too much to ask of myself this time. Maybe next time?

As it was, my tongue did get tangled up at one point and I had to stop to take a sip of tea, but I’m human, so I cut myself some slack and moved on. It was a lesson that I value in retrospect.

This weekend, I’ve set myself another challenge. The historic Union Cemetery in Redwood City, California has invited me down to assist in a cemetery tour this Saturday. For all the cemetery tours I’ve taken over the years, I’ve never had the nerve to lead one myself.

I’m going to be joining Kathleen Klebe, who is the president of the Historic Union Cemetery Association. She’ll be talking about the local history recorded in the cemetery, while I explain the iconography and symbolism on the gravestones. I am really excited to have the opportunity to help out on this tour!

Also, I’ll have a handful of copies of 222 Cemeteries to See Before You Die for sale.

If you’re local and would like to join us, here’s their announcement:

You won’t want to miss the Sept. 14th tour of Union Cemetery in Redwood City. In addition to a Union Cemetery Board member talking about the local history, we will have a special guest joining as well. Loren Rhoads will be adding her expertise to our tour, talking about the meanings and symbolism of our headstone images. Loren is the author of 222 Cemeteries to See Before You Die & Wish You Were Here: Adventures in Cemetery Travel. She blogs about cemeteries as travel destinations at CemeteryTravel.com.The tour starts at 10am, is an easy walk and FREE. We hope you can join us for this interesting tour.Union Cemetery, 316 Woodside Road, Redwood City, California, United StatesHere’s their website: https://historicunioncemetery.org/

One of the stones I’m excited about is this one, with Death counting the curls on the virgin’s head.