The first cut
God, this is tough...is my scalpel meant to d-r-a-g so...? Shit!! Too deeeep. That’s the skin, superficial facia, deep fascia and beginning of muscle all in one. In a loooonng incision all the way up the anterior thigh. Oooops!! So much for “layer by layer”. Unwrapping the present. F****.
We enter the lab, the formalin a strong olfactory memory. A strange smell; kind of like plastic. White full body shower caps cover the forms. On metal trolleys distributed around the room. Lights above each one; a bunch of flowers. You can feel them. Most of us have stopped breathing along with these gifts. You can feel it. Shock. Disbelief. Stark. Reverence. Awe. Apprehension. Terror. Excitement. Tredidation. Profound appreciation. Real.
We form a circle, say who we are. Why we are here. And later, when we include the gifts, the Teachers, in the circle, there is the sacred. The holy. The Gratitude. One of the 4 seems to call to me, still covered, and I know it is this One I will work on. I guess it to be male. Incorrectly as it will later turn out as the forms are revealed, one by one. We uncover, we observe. We notice. The line of an open heart surgery with long leg incisions for the grafts, other scars, haematomas, markings. What do we see? What don’t we notice? We touch, these feet that once walked the earth, my first contact, flesh of the leg....one by one they are revealed.
Then we choose and go to the One who will be our Teacher. I gravitate to the first call; a female, with much superficial fascia. I want to touch, to caress, to Know this fleece of adipose tissue. We have to own why we have chosen this form. And I do. I want to explore this round womanly grandmother; this Female. To learn about this much maligned tissue which surrounds my own form, which nurtures and nourishes me. And which I am afraid of and resist in my own body: Fat.
We Name the forms; a new Creation in our hands. I christen our Teacher Bella. She is beautiful.
Next comes something shocking. I don’t believe we are going to do this. We stand the forms up. Each group, handles the body to upright, so we can properly meet. Who greets me? This beautiful yoda-wise-woman stands before me and I can feel the echoes of love and humour, humanity. I weep. And love her. This woman whose gift of form I will cut, to learn more of what it is to be human.
What do I see? What do I feel? By the end of the day her form is exposed as yellow fleece covering; rich. Exquisite tendons in hands of parchment thin skin. I cannot believe their pearlescent nacreous luminosity; a treasure revealed. I hold her hand in mine, and wonder, who else held this hand? What did she touch, caress?
I work on the front thigh, the belly, the waiste. Creating separation between skin and underlying superficial fascia, where once there was one world. It is time consuming, and at times tedious. My gloves grease up. My scalpel dulls; change. I cut and strip too deep, I cut holes. My glasses fog up, my nose drips in my mask; I sweat rivers down my back in the cool lab. I walk around, view the marvellous worlds of difference in the emerging other forms. I return to the wrist and back-hand. And later, I embark on the vast plain of her back, different in skin texture and different below the skin to the front. I feel her spine, hard and bony, yet to be excavated and reached.
At the end of the day I am full. My own body tired, I return to my room and roll on the floor. Have a hot shower. Eat, Skype. Go to bed........
