60 Million Years to Make a Fist
After spending a week or two watching a decaying human body, it’s weird to investigate the life of your own hands. Death is the norm, and so you take for granted the miraculous and automatic coordination it takes to make a fist. A death is not just the end of a 78 year life, but a 60 million year chain of evolution. To go back into the ground is to return not to the origin, not to the womb, but to a place your genes have never been, the place where another 10 million year cycle begins. I get the reason for pine caskets.