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Ephemera: notes on a BODY OF WORK
Jul. 20th, 2012 12:37 pmThe other day, I was telling a friend, who works in the medical profession, how I'm registered as an anatomical donor with UAB. Got me thinking about it again.
Full body gifts are an altruistic and pragmatic alternative to traditional funerals and burial, but I also just want to surprise some med student. "Hey, look at this tattooed old lady cadaver I got!"
http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2011/04/18/prsa0418.htm
Notes on a BODY OF WORK
Once upon a future time, my purpose will be to provide a means to an end, as a teaching medium to help in understanding the human body and for advancing scientific research. It will have naught to do with ME, just my physical remains. Use them as you require: it’s why I’m here.
But, now, still living, still thinking and feeling, I wonder (and am not yet past caring) what will my body tell you about me?
How old I lived to be and what caused me to die?
That I had poor eyesight and needed to wear glasses from an early age?
That I also had orthodontic work done on my still misaligned teeth?
That I was left handed?
Will my brain tell you that I had chronic depression and took antidepressants for it?
Can you tell I ate a mostly vegetarian diet, but still always had high cholesterol?
That I cycled through lots of weight changes?
Could you discern the sports injuries to my ankle or hip? Could you tell I'd been athletically untalented but physically active?
Would you see my funky feet and mangled toenails and suspect I had been a long distance runner?
Can you know I was sexually active (and, lol, hopefully recently)?
That I gave birth to one child? That I passed through menopause?
What would you think on observing my self chosen body modifications? The jewelry would have been removed, but the holes remain. Nothing unusual about women with ear piercings, but there are piercings through both nipples as well. And the ghost-faint burn scars on my hip and upper thigh from being branded.
Then, on the surface, there are all those many tattoos decorating my skin. These fading images contain hints of more of life's meaning; they tell my story beyond mere observable data and measurements.
For instance, although I think my body should somehow be able to disclose such an important physical attribute, but a tattoo says it, in the womb and all through life, I was a twin.
Another large piece reports that being a body donor was a deliberate important choice.
There are recurring motifs of things I found affinity for. Pretty things like feathers and flowers; darker macabre things like skulls, blood and blades.
Even if you can’t know I designed most of them, or that I was an artist, the tattoos speak of some creative spark.
Do the text tattoos suggest I was literate and bookish?
No details provided, but there are obvious symbols of my relationships with others, of love and sorrow.
Other images, I imagine, will just cause you to wonder “What”? Or “Why?”
Would the number of tattoos I have make you guess at or assume things…like my ability for endurance of pain?
Or a perverse propensity for the seeking of it?
Would this cause you to stereotype my social strata in life or judge my moral code?
What will, what could, my body reveal to you, not just about WHAT I am, but WHO I was? Will you talk to me, Will you ask me questions, will you want to find out before I have served all purposes?
Before I am only spirit & dust?
Full body gifts are an altruistic and pragmatic alternative to traditional funerals and burial, but I also just want to surprise some med student. "Hey, look at this tattooed old lady cadaver I got!"
http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2011/04/18/prsa0418.htm
Notes on a BODY OF WORK
Once upon a future time, my purpose will be to provide a means to an end, as a teaching medium to help in understanding the human body and for advancing scientific research. It will have naught to do with ME, just my physical remains. Use them as you require: it’s why I’m here.
But, now, still living, still thinking and feeling, I wonder (and am not yet past caring) what will my body tell you about me?
How old I lived to be and what caused me to die?
That I had poor eyesight and needed to wear glasses from an early age?
That I also had orthodontic work done on my still misaligned teeth?
That I was left handed?
Will my brain tell you that I had chronic depression and took antidepressants for it?
Can you tell I ate a mostly vegetarian diet, but still always had high cholesterol?
That I cycled through lots of weight changes?
Could you discern the sports injuries to my ankle or hip? Could you tell I'd been athletically untalented but physically active?
Would you see my funky feet and mangled toenails and suspect I had been a long distance runner?
Can you know I was sexually active (and, lol, hopefully recently)?
That I gave birth to one child? That I passed through menopause?
What would you think on observing my self chosen body modifications? The jewelry would have been removed, but the holes remain. Nothing unusual about women with ear piercings, but there are piercings through both nipples as well. And the ghost-faint burn scars on my hip and upper thigh from being branded.
Then, on the surface, there are all those many tattoos decorating my skin. These fading images contain hints of more of life's meaning; they tell my story beyond mere observable data and measurements.
For instance, although I think my body should somehow be able to disclose such an important physical attribute, but a tattoo says it, in the womb and all through life, I was a twin.
Another large piece reports that being a body donor was a deliberate important choice.
There are recurring motifs of things I found affinity for. Pretty things like feathers and flowers; darker macabre things like skulls, blood and blades.
Even if you can’t know I designed most of them, or that I was an artist, the tattoos speak of some creative spark.
Do the text tattoos suggest I was literate and bookish?
No details provided, but there are obvious symbols of my relationships with others, of love and sorrow.
Other images, I imagine, will just cause you to wonder “What”? Or “Why?”
Would the number of tattoos I have make you guess at or assume things…like my ability for endurance of pain?
Or a perverse propensity for the seeking of it?
Would this cause you to stereotype my social strata in life or judge my moral code?
What will, what could, my body reveal to you, not just about WHAT I am, but WHO I was? Will you talk to me, Will you ask me questions, will you want to find out before I have served all purposes?
Before I am only spirit & dust?
