Bag o'Bones: An evening ramble

On my way home from work one evening a thought popped into my head: "I have a great fascination with anatomy." Well, this wasn't exactly news to me. I guess it was more like "Hey, I want to talk about my fascination with anatomy with someone. Right now!" Now, a lot of my day to day life consists of a decently long commute to and from work. During that time I often ponder the random, and have internal conversations about a variety of things. But, on this particular drive I felt compelled to literally voice my thoughts. I used a hands free recording app on my phone and started rambling...

"I love anatomy! Whether it is the anatomy of an animal structure, people, the brain. I guess really the basis of the way i learn and my mind in general is very anatomically based. You know, I want to break things down to their simplest form to figure out the who and the why of a situation. Like taking back the flesh, taking back the muscle and the tendons you know to the base of a skeleton; to ''the things'' most basic form. I think that's the way I really think about a lot of things, and the way that I rationalize internally. 
With my depression and anxiety, it can be really hard to focus and rationalize. The simplest things can become unimaginably overwhelming. I am constantly trying to make my way through my neuroses and take a step back. I just need to take a step back and, well skeletonize what's going. I guess that sounds kind of morbid, but to me it isn't at all. Really though, is a skeleton that dark? What is it that makes bones and skulls morbid?
Maybe I think like this because of my fascination with taxidermy. I'm a huge animal lover and i think it surprises people when I say I have a great interest in taxidermy. I would love to be a taxidermist, maybe not as my profession but as a hobby. I love to see it in real life, google images of it, and I have a few pieces around my home. I can totally appreciate if people aren't into that. Frankly, I'm sure it scares the shit out of some people. But, I find it kind of awe-inspiring. 
I watched a fascinating docu-reality-type show on Netflix that focused on a company called "Skulls Unlimited International" (Now this is a place I would love to work/check out!) The particular show I watched showed the crew skeletonizing an intact male lion. It was beautiful. In a very simplified summary they carefully removed the lions' pelt (to be used by a taxidermist I believe), striped back as much flesh as possible, gutted it, then boiled, chemically dipped, and had dermestid beetles eat away any left over flesh on each individual bone. One gentleman skillfully handled the skull, enucleating it and carefully paring down all the flesh and putting it through the above mentioned process. It was brilliant! Just when I thought things were awesome enough, another group of team members perfectly re-articulated every single individual bone of that lion, back into a perfectly formed structure. A pile of bones showed all the grace, majesty, strength and beauty of a lion in its most simple form. I was stunned to say the least. 

The top right is the lion. Not the greatest pic, but it was the only one of the lion I could find http://www.museumofosteology.org

It was then placed in the Museum of Osteology (another place I would die to see), located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma along side a myriad of other beautiful skeletal displays.
Wow! I was completely in awe of this entire process, as I already was of the process of taxidermy.
I feel like the process of skeletonizing something is very refreshing. It is simplifying, and simple to view in a way. Yet, it still captures all of  the passion, action and emotion that's going on. Hopefully as I continue to work through things, I can become more efficient at simplifying the way I handle the emotions and actions of myself and others. Hey as long as I don't have to have a personal meeting with dermestid beetles! Just kidding, they're pretty cool. "