Bodies The Exhibition has come to Seattle, and I was able to sneak away for a couple of hours yesterday to go experience it myself.

It was fascinating and disgusting and creepy and incredible. Instead of using models created to show what the human body would look like, the museum is filled with actual human specimens that were preserved using a process called polymer preservation. Most of the bones, nerves, and individual organs were displayed in glass cases, but the intact human specimens were displayed only on low pedestals. If it were allowed, I could have touched them.

I was struck by how incredibly divine the human body is. To be able to see how the hundreds of thousands of veins and muscles and bones intertwine to create the structure of our body and protect our vital organs made it clear to me that something so complex and amazing could never have been created without the help of a higher power. At the same time, however, I realized how ultimately animal we are. Looking at real human muscle, at the way it attaches to bone and tendon just like any other creature, kept reminding me in a very sick way of beef jerky. Each display brought a new wave of nausea coupled with intense fascination. I saw healthy organs posed next to lungs shriveled from emphysema, brains flooded by strokes, and cancer growing everywhere. They also left strange points of reference on each body, so you knew what you were looking at. Skulls and facial muscles were exposed, on top of which sat lips and eyebrows. The center of each torso held the cut out circle of a belly button. In the middle of the massive muscles of the gluteous maximus was a hairy little butt crack. Testicles swung freely on each male specimen. It was these small pieces of skin that made the individuals in the exhibit seem truly human.

The most difficult room to view was the one displaying fetuses that had died in utero from unknown causes or birth defects. I was shocked at how big a nine week old fetus actually is. At nine weeks, you’re barely pregnant. So many pregnancies are lost in that first trimester. So many pregnancies are forcibly ended. But that baby had fingers and toes and every major organ in perfect miniature. I cried as I walked along the case highlighting fetal development, ending at someone’s beautiful baby girl, soft downy hair already covering her head, who had died at 24 weeks. At that moment I wanted nothing more than to hold my children, my amazing and healthy and happy daughters, and tell them how very much they are loved.

Leaving the exhibit, my body hummed with a strange new awareness. I felt the muscles move in my shoulders as I pressed the button for the elevator. I was conscious of my heart relentlessly pumping blood to every inch of me. The people who passed me were transparent- I could envision their joints and organs and muscles all working together to move them from one place to another. It was truly an amazing experience, worth the $25 to get in.

But I don’t think I want to go back any time soon.