During my freshman year at St. John\u2019s College, our biology class went to a medical school to examine dissected cadavers after the medical students were done with them. This was a unique privilege, as our professor knew someone and got us special access to these bodies, putting the school\u2019s famous hands-on approach to learning into action. Later in the semester, we also dissected cats and frogs and fertilized chicken eggs in different stages of development. We were looking for clues to life, death, and the processes in between.<\/p>\n
As I poked around in the body of an old woman and then an old man lying on the cold laboratory tables, lifting kneecaps to reveal metal and plastic parts, hip joints similarly unwrapped to expose replaced segments, these bodies seemed a lifetime away from me. Totally foreign at first\u2014not just because they were dead\u2014but old. Opening the woman\u2019s abdomen, I saw her worn-out uterus, missing ovaries\u2014on the man, a similar fate had befallen his gonads. We lifted the skull and saw the aneurysm in her brain; opening his chest, we saw the heart attack that felled him. Looking under the hood as it were, upon these vehicles which had served to transport them through this life, I thought to myself: this is not a contest to see who can arrive on the gurney with the best-preserved body.<\/p>\n
You might not know it from our culture of constant aesthetic improvement, but I\u2019m here to tell you: \u201cDrive it like it\u2019s a rental, baby!\u201d to quote my ex-husband. He encouraged me to step on the gas when I often too timidly attempted to merge onto a busy highway or entered an intersection. I remember him also saying with his dry and subtle humor if a drop of food landed on a shirt or some other common experience of accidental sullying: \u201cThat\u2019s why we can\u2019t have nice things.\u201d An eyebrow raised; the left corner of his mouth pulled upwards.<\/p>\n
I often have carried many things with me around the globe on my travels, \u201cJust in case.\u201d Wipes, pills, tampons, baggies of snacks, cough drops, and books. The books remain unread or are superseded by new finds along the path; the food and pills expire; the wipes dry up or burst and ruin everything. I\u2019ve also stored and hoarded my favorite clothes, wearing instead the ones destined for the donation bin. I\u2019ve used my favorite spice or lotion only sparingly; gingerly doling out small portions, I stingily keep the best for last, for later\u2014for some unknown special occasion\u2014a future feast, a better time. There is a word for this phenomenon of not wanting to wear out your favorites; in the shopaholic community this is known as \u201csaving for the good.\u201d Like the elderly relative who keeps the good china safe in a S<\/em>chrank<\/em> only to be brought out for the holidays, or the sofa covered in plastic. God forbid there\u2019s a mark of human existence ever having been here. Oily fingermarks\u2014human touch itself the enemy.<\/p>\n One summer in my youth, I volunteered in Italy on an organic housing project during the summer vacation. One night in the dark, I fell through a broken pallet on the construction site, badly scraping my leg. Afterward, as I continued with my backpacking adventures, the pain in my knee increased until I was limping. I had a first aid kit with me but had been sparingly using one Band-Aid for days and had not applied any of the antibiotic cream I was saving for an emergency\u2014failing to recognize the real emergency unfolding with each pained step. By the time I got back to the US, I had the beginning of blood poisoning and rushed to urgent care for antibiotics. I will never forget the thin, red line snaking its way up my leg from my knee towards my groin.<\/p>\n In retrospect, I am proud when I think of what I went through that summer. I was pretty badass, and my knees are still scarred from the adventure. We are here to receive marks upon us\u2014to gather evidence of our encounters with the world. After all, none of us is going to get out alive, so how shall we live? Fearfully? Cautiously?<\/p>\n I can say that now. But I didn\u2019t use to see my body this way. For many years I hid my scars under clothing, covered my flaws with makeup, and I still \u2018put on\u2019 my face for special occasions. I spent hundreds at dermatologists getting moles removed and blemishes lasered off. If I had more money, I would have gone even further, but thankfully my resources are limited. The moles sometimes grow back or sprout anew from a spot near the original excision. In some cases, the laser left a scar worse than the offending inconsistency. Hairs gray and appear in areas where they didn\u2019t used to be, recede from others. This experience of aging is as old as the moon itself, but now we have an arsenal of tools to fight the process.<\/p>\n I heard that my ex-father-in-law had passed away suddenly last year. I went looking through my old photos to find ones of him and was surprised by the images of my own face. That mole I was so eager to be rid of, now a reminder of a different era. I wasn\u2019t happy with myself back then. I thought that changing my body, changing my circumstances, and leaving my marriage would bring me that elusive happiness. I could only focus on this other, hypothetical green grass of a better life. The denial of the moment can be both fear of and desire for the future. This mindset besets me and many people I know. Not allowing ourselves to live in the now, we fear an unknown future, a future of scarcity or abundance. But we can\u2019t know or control the future any more than when the wrinkles arrive and where. At most, we can manage the appearances just a tiny bit. Desperately amassing material goods or taking drastic measures to preserve our bodies, trying to improve them for some time that will be better, brighter, and even glossier than the present, is toxic to the principle of evolution and human becoming. This imperfect life is happening now, in the bodies we have. Denying ourselves the joy of this moment comes from fear and a lack of faith in the future. Ultimately, the gurney awaits us\u2014or the urn for our ashes.<\/p>\n I must still remind myself of this revelation. It creeps up on me when I find myself staring at my own image during yet another Zoom call, wondering, \u201cWho is that?\u201d Or when I mindlessly click through social media, about to purchase something that is guaranteed to fix some defect and fulfill all my needs for love and happiness\u2014before I blink and return to the present reality. This pandemic has brought me occasions when I can be aware only of the present, for example, meeting a friend for a walk around my favorite lake. I forget about the past and future and see only the trees, the water, and my human companion.<\/p>\n To show bravery, feel happiness, and engage with the world at all, I need this perfectly imperfect body. I need it as-is, with its wrinkles, blemishes, and defects. What better way to say yes to life and the process of being human than to take charge of and own my body, embracing the marks I have as evidence not of a crime but as party favors from the great festival of human life on earth. I am trying and gradually succeeding at seeing the party of the now for what it is. It will, at the least, provide the medical students with something to examine, learn from, and even wonder at someday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" During my freshman year at St. John\u2019s College, our biology class went to a medical school to examine dissected cadavers after the medical students were done with them. This was a unique privilege, as our professor knew someone and got us special access to these bodies, putting the school\u2019s famous hands-on approach to learning into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":17062,"template":"","categories":[46,12],"class_list":["post-16868","stsp_text","type-stsp_text","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-issue-19","category-non-fiction"],"yoast_head":"\n