ode to bones

 It's tempting to think of bones as rigid, white pillars that sit inactive inside of muscle and skin. They're the core of our form, building the framework of our physical makeup, but barely allowed to see sunlight, except for smiles. With shapes that are shared or vary from species to species, bones are the hard machinery required to synthesize and support the pulsating current of blood that animates our entire existence.  

 Bone is a dynamic tissue, never completely still or stagnant. Every day, little bits of calcium and phosphorus from our bones gets released into our blood and the resulting microscopic divots will then be fully refilled as long as all goes as planned. Bones display the power and danger of hardening. Ossification is the word that describes the process of calcifying the materials that reform the bone, that fills in those little divots. If this process happens anywhere else in the body, the organ or other tissues stiffen, then rendered useless, a nuisance, lethal even. 

Nothing hardens as gracefully as bone. Nothing else in the human body solidifies so intensely that it can be excavated multiple millennia ahead. Nearly everything else dissolves back into the Earth. Bones firmly testify to our existence long after our soft tissues are churned into dirt.

When bathed in water and boiled for hours, bones exude a broth unrivaled by little else. It's a concoction beyond compare, a cultural cornerstone on almost every continent. Craved in sickness and celebrated in health, poured into vessels to be sipped or slurped or scooped, broth from bones can shape shift into every type of comfort ever needed or known. Humanity hasn’t been without a global spectrum of glistening broths since before 20,000 B.C. All of humanity has had broth in common. Countless generations of humans have all shared, consumed, and been nourished by this sacred, alchemical combination that is bones, vegetables, aromatics, and water.

That’s a lot of fucking soup.

 When we talk about bones we can't go much deeper. To feel something to the bone is to know that every existing particle of our self is wholly dedicated to a thought, feeling, or instinct. Working to the bone implies utmost exhaustion. To cut something to the bone is to reduce it to naught more than the absolute minimum. When it comes down to it, bones can represent nothing even though they exist to keep everything in place. Even in our language they continue to show off their dynamic nature.

Hard, sturdy, strong as they are, bones need to be covered and cushioned, separated and surrounded by softer tissues. Despite their structural strength, bone grinding on bone elicits unavoidable aches, sharp pains, and will only continue to degenerate unless treated, hopefully sooner rather than later. If not, all motion becomes stifled and filled with painful awareness, perhaps never to be in a smooth rhythm again.

A wheelchair-bound man in a memory care unit I interned in once told me he’d give up a year of his life to be able to dance or just jump one more time.

Plenty gets in the way of appreciating our bones. How they’re covered, their size, their occasional fragility. But there’s no changing them, no avoiding them. We are bound to our bones from birth. And even if we go a lifetime without an ounce of gratitude, they’re in there, until eventually, no matter their carriers’ meals or morality, habits or status, they get scattered onto the Earth or folded into the dirt, an ossified memory of everything we were.

The fate we all share. Make no bones about it.