Bodies

I don't know if anybody has had the chance to see this exhibit.

I haven't seen this one in particular, but I saw a horse and some babies and young children that were prepared like this but I can't remember where, when or exactly what. It's almost like a combination of a museum experience I had as a kid and memories from shows on the Discovery and Travel channels blurred together.

What I do remember was being totally awed. One part of me wishes bodies ran clean and neat like the highways, cities, destinations and pit stops in Osmosis Jones and a competing part is obsessed with the fetal pig and heart dissections we had to do in high school and freshman bio.

I think this exhibit came back to me this week because I've recently spent an extraordinary amount of time in the hospital. And the whole time, I was fascinated. The way sound is one of the last senses you retain, how your body reacts to being pinched and prodded, the way your shoulders shrug when you scratch someone's head, the way you keep breathing when all other brain function is gone...it's all morbid to some but very, very fascinating to me. I'm not a "your body is a temple" kind of person, but I think that bodies are simple and powerful tools to create wonder and be full of wonder themselves.