Friday, December 11, 2009

bones


Harry Raymond Eastlack, by 1973, had become as sedentary as a coral reef. Muscles and tendons had ossified into rigid bone, leaving him only the ability to move his lips. He died days before his 40th birthday, jaw fused to skull fused to spine to elbows to hips to knees.

“Harry's skeleton is like The Sphinx. It stands silently and elegantly and reveals its secrets if you ask the right questions.” Dr. Frederick Kaplan


With each private pop of a knuckle, a toe, a neck, an arm, the pelvis and breastbone, I cant help but wonder, as my own body deteriorates, step by step, what secrets and moral truths its skeleton will reveal for generations to come. I wonder what lives in me now, unknown, waiting to reveal itself, allowing me to look back on my youth with regret. Will my teeth grow out of control, ever larger, into a mouth of stalagtites to pierce my tongue & brain, engines of thought and wit? 7 cancers silent in wait, deathnodes increasing pressure on vital systems with life lessons to teach (shouldn't have hung around those kool smokers in 11th grade, you didn't stop eating fastfood in time, you had the wrong genetics, sorry.)

anyway, RISE ABOVE. That's the theme for 2010.