Pouring One Out For Mark Twain

Though I would love to leave this title without explanation, I will do my absolute best in attempting to explain how and why I ended up standing over Mark Twain’s grave, doing shots of a nutritional supplement.

Did you know that Mark Twain wasn’t even his given name? I feel like everybody knew but me. This feels very much like when I saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button as a child and was distraught that no one had told me how attractive Brad Pitt was. I had missed out on so many of his prime years.

But anyway, his name was Samuel Clemens; I almost prefer that to Mark Twain. It sounds very scholarly, like a philosophy professor, but a cool one, not the stuffy old one with a grey beard. God, I digress.

So before reaching stardom, Sammy fell madly in love with Elmira, New York native, Olivia Langdon. They later married and had several babies etc etc.

Though the family moved around the North East constantly, when Olivia died in 1904, and Sammy in 1910, they were both brought back to Elmira to be buried.

Skip forward a hundred years, and a nineteen year old Allison (that’s me) moved to Elmira in an attempt to find herself.

One thing that is very important to know about Elmira is that it is terribly boring. There’s a small private college, two high schools, a Wegmans, and Mark Twain’s grave. Though Wegmans is it’s number one money maker, Sammy’s grave is a very close second.

Yes, Elmira, New York is deemed a tourist destination purely because that is where the decaying body of a famous writer is buried. Seems a little twisted, but hey.

Elmira is not modest, but boasts very obviously that it holds exclusive ownership of Sammy’s bones. Every golf course, every corner store, every bakery is named after Mark Twain. I could not buy a pack of gum without also being encouraged to buy a copy of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, or a magnet of his head stone. I wish I was kidding.

As a person who enjoys writing, I was almost pleased to see the level of fame he had achieved in this small town. I mean it could definitely be worse; Elmira could be known as “The Town Where Kim Kardashian Sneezed” or some such nonsense. But it’s not, it’s all about celebrating the life and death of a creative, intelligent man, which is pretty cool. So for this reason, I’ll try not to be too hard on good old Elmira.

So back to nineteen year old Allison.

I lived in Elmira for three months without visiting his grave. I felt like I had heard so much about it, that to visit it would be giving in to Elmira’s somewhat twisted marketing scheme.

It became like a joke; my friends would ask me what I was doing that evening, and I would say, “Oh, just hanging out with Mark, the usual.”

I thought about him often; though I was never a huge fan, he became very important to me. As a writer and a citizen of Elmira, I felt like it meant something that I was finding myself in the town where he fell in love. As sappy as I am, I felt like it was meant to be. But still, I could not bring myself to visit his grave. No way would it live up to my expectations, it was just a headstone, just a patch of grass.

When my last night in Elmira came, I could not sleep. I couldn’t help but think that I had wasted my time there, that I was no closer to finding myself than I had been when I got there. I was angry and upset and completely lost.

I sat up and took to Google. I had, of course, just one name on my mind.

Mark Twain

After reading through a list of his greatest achievements and laundry list of awards, I came across an incredibly honest biography. In it, it explained that Sammy was extremely cynical, a pessimist, and had “a deep-down feeling that human existence is a cosmic joke perpetrated by a chuckling God”*

I had never felt more spiritually connected to someone in my entire life.

The biography went on to say, “Another cause of his angst, perhaps, was the unconscious anger at himself for not giving undivided attention to his deepest creative instincts”*

ANGST IS MY MIDDLE NAME. REPRESSED CREATIVITY?! ME AF!

What I had been struggling with for three months was my unending anger and fear that I had royally screwed up my life, wasted any and all potential that I might have had, and completely lost my mind. Samuel Clemens was my guy, and I had to see him, right then.

I grabbed my best friend, who had seen me struggle for the past three months, an Ensure (a nutritional supplement for people whose bodies need nutrients but who can’t stomach food), and sprinted out the door into the rain.

We ran to my car, which was parked down the block, and I realized with horror that I had grabbed my housemate’s shoes. They were at least 4 sizes too big, but as my feet flopped around, my pajama pants sopping wet with rain, and eyes determined on seeing Sammy’s final resting place, I never felt more alive.

I followed the many signs all proclaiming, “THIS WAY TO THE DEAD GUY!” and we made our way to Woodlawn Cemetery. We drove through the gate and into pitch blackness, and I was terrified.

I wish I could tell you that I triumphantly ran through the cemetery, but I was shaking, had to pee, and could not stop nervous-giggling. Every shadow made me jump, every headstone seemed to shiver.

Every few feet was a sign in the shape of an arrow, staked into the ground, saying, “Mark Twain this way”. I couldn’t help but feel extremely sad for the other thousand people buried there, without a sign and an arrow, without acknowledgement for their contributions to Elmira, and to the lives of the people they loved.

Within minutes, we reached the final sign. We held hands as we stepped into the grass and towards the statue and headstone, both with his given name.

I was finally there. Before me was the place that I had spent the last three months imagining. We were completely alone; just me, my best friend, and Mark Twain. It was so quiet there, so dark; we were far enough from the road that the noise from the cars couldn’t reach us. We sat down beside Samuel and Olivia Clemens, and cried.

The statue read, “Death is the starlit strip between the companionship of yesterday, and the reunion of tomorrow.”

I cracked open the Ensure, took a gulp, and passed it to my best friend who did the same. She then filled up the cap half full, and poured the smallest amount in front of Samuel Clemens’ grave. We each placed a hand on the headstone and gave a heartfelt thank you. He had been there for us during the hardest time in our lives, after all.

We sat there for a while in silence, looking at the stars, and feeling so grateful for each other, and for our shared experiences. When the birds started singing hours later, we got up and went home for the last time.

Who knew that a dead writer could have such a profound impact on the lives of two teenage girls, a hundred years later, in Elmira, New York.

 

 

*The Biography: https://www.biography.com/people/mark-twain-9512564