I broke my first bone when I was 33 years old.
I don’t know if that means I’m strong or I’m a coward.
It probably means I’m not a risk-taker.
On this particular day, a child (who will remain nameless) left a pair of shoes on the stairs going out to our garage. Carrying my newborn daughter, I tripped over the shoes, saving the baby in my arms, and sacrificing my third metatarsal in the process.
I still say I have good bones. After all, I did manage to hang on to the baby.
At my age now, the conversation has turned from boners to bones. The Big O stands for… Osteoporosis. Good bones need Calcium and Vitamin D. And plenty of it. Good bones need regular, weight-bearing exercise. Thirty minutes per day or more is ideal. Good bones require maintaining a healthy weight. BMI needs to be under 25. Sparkling water? No thanks. Carbonation is bad for your bones. (My son just told me that last one is a myth.)
Anyway, there’s a famous poem by Maggie Smith called “Good Bones.” A bit disturbing, but worth the read. Poetry is nothing if it doesn’t make us think more deeply about the world in which we live.
GOOD Bones by Maggie Smith
Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
n a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.
You could make this place beautiful.
Reading this poem today made me think not about the way we describe our homes, but ourselves. We are the ones who have good bones. In fact, the human body is made up of 206 bones (a fourth of which are found in the hands and feet alone) The largest bone is the femur of the upper leg, which explains why I love squats and lunges so much, and the tiniest bone is the stirrup of the inner ear, which assists in conducting sound waves. Bones are highly specialized connective tissue with a built-in ability to remodel based on the demands placed on them.
That means we humans are highly adaptable.
And adaptability is a prized soft-skill useful both at work and at home.
Adaptability
As women, we’ve been told we need to take care of our bones. But it’s more than that. Women in military service are seven times more likely than men to suffer from musculoskeletal injuries and ten times more likely than men to suffer from hip and pelvic stress fractures. If a woman carries more than 25% of her body weight, she is five times as likely to sustain an injury than a man of the same aerobic fitness and strength. (source)
These statistics are frightening, but are we really the weaker sex?
Let’s not go crazy.
Luckily, our skin provides more than just a house for all our bones. I don’t want to get into a whole thing here, but research shows that women have greater physical endurance than men, a higher pain tolerance and stronger immune systems, and even heal faster than men.
None of this would be possible without the supporting infrastructure of our strong bones.
It’s that Adaptability thing again. When it comes to bones, we can thank German anatomist and surgeon Julius Wolff for his contribution to Orthopaedics. His “use-it-or-lose-it” theory of bone regeneration is famous. All this means is that bones subjected to heavy loads will reconstruct themselves to carry that load. Likewise, bones that don’t get used will weaken, just like muscles.
Rib bones show an unusual capacity to regrow and repair themselves even when a large portion is damaged. Metaphorically, I find this fascinating especially in the context of this passage from the Book of Genesis:
So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
Together, with our good bones, we make this place beautiful.
Our first-ever human-to-human connection was fused through the sharing of bone. If you believe the story outlined in Genesis, a bone from Adam’s rib launched the human race. That means we were born with good bones. (Remember—God himself said, “It was good.”) We have bones that were literally made for holding one another up. You might even say we have a moral obligation to do so. As bones support and shape your body, so a life well-lived supports society and shapes culture.
This place could be beautiful. You could make this place beautiful.
Are you???
