Oh my god those skeletons are sweet.

I think one aspect of this that isn’t touched on enough is the presence of death – not the spectre of death, but the actual logistics. How many people do I know who have dressed a dead body? Held a wake?

I think that attitudes about death are probably a lot different when you don’t have professionals whisking corpses out of sight for refrigeration and chemical preservation. That can be true and be reflected in writing and art at the same time as life is judged precious and loss is grieved.

There’s probably more to connect here with the cultural deemphasis of palliative care and how we’ve lost our ability to reckon with the grey areas between the shocking and the inevitable… but you should just go read the original piece. She’s really fantastic.