Why I Collect Bones Research Paper

Where I grew up people collect Mercedes, Nike, Apple, and Ralph Lauren. I like some of those things too… but what I collect are bones. I love my femurs and my vertebrae, the way the cat’s lambdoidal ridge protrudes and meets with the sagittal crest, and the delicate folds in the nasal turbinates of the raccoon. I love nearly everything about my bones, even the ones that are broken provide me with an opportunity to see the insides of them and better understand how they worked. I think that the skeletal remains of an animal are quite possibly the coolest thing you can find outside. Not only do they create structure and dictate the shape of the animal, but they can tell a story about the animal’s diet, lifespan and habits. The position …show more content…
I think the answer may come from a human vertebra I purchased a few years ago… (please, don’t be scared, I’m not Hannibal Lecter, more like Dorothy Annie Elizabeth Garrod, a famous paleontologist). After all, this bone, this fragment of a human memory was once a living being. A woman who was alive circa 1900. That’s all I know about her. I often imagine about the life she might have led. Was she a wife? Did she have children? Was she part of the Suffragette movement? (I hope so.) Anyway, she’s an enigma. She can’t be defined. And, I think in so many ways, these bones are very much a mirror of who I am…or, at least, how I like to be perceived. Enigmatic. Hard to define. …show more content…
I will, like the bones in my very own body, change with time. I want to remain open to that change. I am a lover of genetics and Da Vinci, a girl with a drawer full of make-up and shelves of bones. When I was a kid I’d collect owl pellets in my backyard and steal my mom’s tweezers to pick them apart, filling zip-lock baggies with fragments of tiny creatures. Most of my collection originated in the woods behind my house, but over the years I have purchased a few items. But there is one incredibly unique member of my collection despite the fact that it is a not a member of any skeleton, but of the nervous system. I found this item in a store in Soho last October. I entered with the intention of purchasing a bone, but left with a brain. What fascinates me about it is that it is not simply a piece of what is left behind by a deceased animal, but in a sense, the animal itself and yet ultimately unknowable. An incomplete puzzle. Like me. But, yet something waiting to be discovered. Understood and cherished for their one-of-a-kindness in nature. Each piece of my collection has a story behind it—whether it be told in words, or in scratches and cracks and missing pieces. Sure, my fascination with bones is a bit strange. But, to me, they’re beautiful and they’re complicated. They are narratives with many layers, each with a purpose and each with its own beautiful, yet mysterious story waiting to be