When I was a little girl, my brother Oswaldo studied medicine and one day he brought home a human skeleton which he named Julia.
Julia lived in what we called “the upstairs room”. Once in a while I took a peek with curiosity but cautiously; she scared me. I couldn’t imagine at, maybe five years old, that we were like that on the inside.
One day, the house dog discovered Julia and had a feast. That was the end of our friend, sad ending. RIP.
This sudden interest in the subject of bones is relevant because today, for crushing reasons, I discovered that the human body has two hundred and six bones. I knew of the existence of some, femur, humerus, tibia, radius, etc., but so many? In one foot alone there are twenty-six bones and in one hand twenty-seven happy little bones.
I use like ten percent of my bone system, but from time to time, I like to move the skeleton, especially when I listen to my favorite music, as, “There is no need to cry, because life is a carnival, and sorrows go away by dancing…” Or another one such as, “Hey, open your eyes, look to the sky, enjoy all the good things that life has…”
Pure tropical rhythm poetry.
But today, in addition to being quantitative, counting bones, I woke up like Julia after the dog devoured her: shredded.
I think the yoga class was a success. I will be back!
Namaste!
PS: To end with some humor, I remembered that joke about the man who goes to see the doctor and tells him, while pointing to the parts of his body.
– If I touch here, it hurts; if I touch here, it hurts; if I touch here, it hurts…
– What you have is a broken finger.
Leonor Henríquez (Caracas, Venezuela) Civil Engineer by training (UCAB 1985), writer and apprentice poet by vocation. From her time in engineering emerged her Office Stories (1997), another way of seeing the corporate world. Her latest publications include reflections on grief, Hopecrumbs (2020) (www.hopecrumbs.com) and “The Adventures of Chispita” (2021) (www.chispita.ca) an allegory of life inside Mom’s belly.
Today she shares her “impulsive meditations” from Calgary, Canada, where she lives.
leonorcanada@gmail.com