Dear Brain, I Give You the Finger, Part 2

(Don't confuse this post with this one.)
[Oh, and watch for the endnotes.]

by Phyllis

When I went to the mission office in downtown São Paulo, Brazil that Monday to find out who my new companion would be, I was anxious. I was hoping he would be an American. During the last seven months I had been with an American for only two weeks(1). Obviously, I had more in common with Americans, and most importantly, an American was more likely to want to go somewhere and play basketball or some other sport on our preparation day(2). My experience told me Brazilians liked to sleep, spend all of preparation day writing letters, and they didn’t usually want to play any sports unless it was soccer. And they didn’t like the way Americans played soccer. They felt Americans were too physical and rough; we had no finesse. But all the new missionaries were Brazilians, so those of us who had met at the office to find out the assignments could now only hope our companion would be cool.
I was assigned Alves(3).
Even when I was twenty years old, I was over six feet tall and weighed over two hundred pounds(4). If I was a big person by American standards, I was a giant in Brazil. Alves was physically my polar opposite. He was, perhaps, five-foot-four and couldn’t have weighed a hundred pounds(5). I shook his hand and we walked to the bus station to travel back to our apartment. I couldn’t help but notice as we walked and talked that he had a delicate step and a childlike, soft voice with very a pronounced, soft ‘s’ in his words. Something told me he would not be up for a game of basketball next Monday with the other Americans I worked with.
Alves was, I learned over the next few weeks, a pleasant person to have around. He enjoyed cooking, and when we weren’t fortunate enough to score a meal from a family we were visiting, we would come back to our apartment and he would make pancakes. They were delicious, as he would frequently mix in chocolate chips, berries, or bananas. He was also very neat, and kept his few things organized and in his own part of the room(6). We didn’t get in to arguments very often, as I had done with previous companions. He asked lots of questions, was eager to learn, and followed my instructions.
I also appreciated his musical ability. I had sung in choirs throughout high school, and could read music and sing different parts. Alves could sing as well, but his voice was pretty high, so he sang the melody. We sang a few times together at church, and at Christmas we sang a number of carols for a family we were visiting. They were impressed and asked us how much we had rehearsed. We hadn’t.
With all of Alves’ good qualities, he had some that caused me some stress. I wrote in my journal that he sat too close to me all the time, and that he was too touchy-feely(7). I dealt with these issues as best I could. But I also had to deal with comments from everybody else, too—-from my fellow missionaries most of all.
“Dude, what is the deal with your companion?”
“What are you talking about?” I would ask, like I didn’t know what they meant.
“He’s…he’s…very effeminate.” This was the most careful way it was ever put to me.
“So what?”
My buddies weren’t the only people making comments. One time I was visiting a family with another missionary; Alves had gone with someone else for the day. The family burst out in laughter when I came into the house. When I asked what was so funny, they told me about the time they had witnessed Alves and me walking along the street. As we approached a rain puddle, I had taken a long stride over it, while Alves had pranced up to it and delicately skipped over it. They even imitated what it looked like when he did it. Another time, a Brazilian in my zone, Lima, came to me to report what a family he was teaching had said to him. They had told him they were surprised to find out that the church allowed homosexuals to serve as missionaries. He had informed them that it didn’t. The family refused to believe him, saying “What are you talking about? Alves is gay!” We assured them it was not the case. But this is what it was like living with Alves(8).

I lay down one night to sleep, drained by another day walking around under the sun. I plopped myself onto the top bunk and started to relax. At some point after the light was turned off, I rolled over on to my stomach, and let my left arm hang over the side of the bed. I don’t remember how much time passed, but enough had passed that I might have certainly have fallen asleep—-I never really had trouble falling asleep in Brazil. Then something hit my hand. I could not tell what it was, but I knew it had been Alves, so I was not alarmed. It was quite possible he had rolled over, sat up, or done any number of things to explain why he bumped my hand. Soon, however, he hit it again. By this time, if I even was partially asleep before, I was now wide awake. What was going on down there? He started tapping and hitting my hand playfully, and now I was concerned. And I didn’t quite know what to do. I convinced myself the best thing to do would be to continue to act like I was asleep; surely he would notice I was not noticing and would quit what he was doing. He did not. After a few minutes in which he continued his sporadic gentle amusement with my hand, it stopped. I felt like I had successfully waited out this strange game, and could now go to sleep. Only a couple of things remained: I had to wait a sufficient amount of time before I sleepily rolled over and brought my arm with me to the top bunk. And I would have to act like I didn’t know he had done it tomorrow. I wanted to forget it, and I certainly did not want to talk about it.
That is when everything went wrong. After a pause of a couple minutes, he resumed his game with renewed courage. I felt something wet on my finger. I was completely frozen with fear at this point. There it was again. And I had gone too far down the road of faking asleep to acknowledge that I was awake now. To acknowledge to him that I knew he was doing this would be to sanction it. It never occurred to me that a natural reaction if I had really been asleep would be that such a thing might wake me up. And definitely, down deep in there, boiling up from within was the sum of all those judgments I had made, the comments I heard from others, the teasing I received. If I was going to let this happen to me, I was not going to leave any doubt. There could be no room for claims that I had misunderstood or “misfelt.” So I let him go.
The next thing I knew he was sucking my middle finger on my left hand. I was still terrified. To think about how scared I was is funny now, but I was close to crying then. Why me? What is this happening for? Why did he have to confirm every rumor against him? Why couldn’t he just be a small, effeminate boy who was good at cooking, ironing, and being polite? In any case, the second he stopped for a minute, I jumped down from my bed, and went immediately outside to wash my hands. I have never washed them as diligently as I did then; I was a doctor preparing for surgery. I scrubbed and scraped and lathered and rinsed, and did it all again. Perhaps if I repeated it enough times I could clean the past few minutes from my memory.
When I returned from washing my hands, Alves was also up out of bed, with the light on, sitting slumped forward in his chair, obviously upset. I did not speak to nor look at him. I sat at my desk, organizing papers and books, and looking for a cassette tape. He began:
“I have tried so long to overcome this. I can’t.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know what I am talking about!”
I did, but I wanted to hear him say it. I wanted him to admit it to me. After a few seconds of sobbing and sniffing, he did. “I’m gay, Elder.”
“Okay. Well, that’s all you need to tell me. I don’t need to hear any more. We will go tomorrow and talk to the president about it. He will figure out what should be done.”
“I know.”
Alves went home the next day.

This is what I wrote in my journal on January 14, 1992: “Last Monday when I went to bed I let my hand hang down off the side of the bed and he started playing with it. To make a long story short he started nibbling on it, licked it and sucked my finger. I left my hand hanging there as if I was asleep to see what the heck he was doing. He already went home now. Everyone is asking me what happened…” And that’s the only written record besides what you read above. The rest is in my head, “etched sharply, with unbearable exactitude.”



(1)Yes, I am going to use footnotes—well, actually, these are endnotes. Why do this? There are many reasons. I’ve never used them in a document before, and this is kind of neat. Also, I’ve read a few papers and documents that used them, and they work fine for me. After all, what form of in-text citation is the best? They all distract you from what you were doing in the first place: reading the main text of the paper. That is unless, of course, you just skip right over it and read right through. You may be only reading this now as you have completed the the rest of the post. Maybe you loathe endnotes and you won’t even read this. All of that is fine, because in any case, using them has served me a purpose in what I am writing about. For example, what was I writing about when I placed the reference to the end note? Can’t remember? Is it coming back now? Like I said, memory is a sketchy thing; sometimes we need something to jog it. Seven months straight with Brazilians, remember? Yes. Well, of the many things I write about in this story, this comes close to being a verifiable fact. I kept a written journal of my doings in Brazil and referred to it before I wrote that sentence to make sure I had the “facts” straight.
(2)We worked seven days a week. On preparation day—Mondays—we took the morning and early afternoon to do our laundry, buy groceries, write letters, etc. We even had a few hours to get some exercise. We got together with other missionaries so we could play basketball, volleyball, and soccer. But we always had to stay with our companion, so if he didn’t want to go (and wouldn’t cave to pressure) I couldn’t go, either. We did all these things on preparation day so we could spend the rest of the week working all day.
(3)Pronounced ‘ow´-veez’ in case you care.
(4)Now, that is a fact. I stepped on a scale in Brazil once after not having weighed myself in months. I was alarmed when the scale measured over ninety kilograms. Some quick math confirmed my suspicion—I was a growing boy.
(5)I know he was much smaller than me, but I never wrote in my diary what his height or weight was. I know it is possible I have constructed a memory of him as a puny person to reinforce to myself that he was my opposite in all ways. At this point, who knows?
(6)I know I liked his cooking—or at least I remember that I do. Was he really neat and clean? I think so. Most of my Brazilian companions were. But is this one of those things that I have unwittingly (or even purposely) associated with Brazilians in my brain? I cannot deny it is possible.
(7)I suppose I have taken a little liberty here, for this is what I wrote in my journal: “…Alves [i]s femmy. He’s sort of a nerd and reminds me too much of Rebouças [another missionary I had worked with]. He walks and sits too close to me.” I never wrote that my other companions sat too close to me, or invaded my personal space, but I am sure they all did at some point.
(8)I have no written record of any of these memories, but I tell myself they are vivid and that I can recall them well. How many of them are manufactured, are activated by my brain network (possible erroneously) when I recall Alves. What have I associated in my brain with him and the way he acted—and what he did to me later?

Dear Brain, I Give You the Finger, Part 1

by Phyllis

“As a recorder, the brain does a notoriously wretched job. Tragedies and humiliations seem to be etched most sharply, often with most unbearable exactitude, while those memories we think we really need—the name of the acquaintance, the time of the appointment, the location of the car keys—have a habit of evaporating.” I recently read that in a National Geographic article about memory, and I think I agree—-with most of it, anyway. It jives with other things I have studied, read about, and experienced. Even the part I may not totally agree with--the tragedies and humiliation part--can be interpreted to reflect how I have come to understand memory, because it says that certain important events seem to be more clear and definite, not that they in fact are more clearly remembered.
That is what I think.
What I learned about comprehension and memory in some linguistics courses I took in college seems to back this up. I don’t know how hard it will be to distill this idea in a few short sentences, but I will try: one theory about how the brain works is that comprehension—short-term memory, working memory, whatever you want to call it—relies on a huge network of interconnected “groups” of information in the brain. The groups are different for everyone, but when we hear or read words or concepts, those concepts, and all the things we associate with them, are “activated.” They are ready, primed.
For example, I say “cat.” Upon hearing or reading the word, you have activated concepts in your brain network that you associate with cats. You start to think about whatever you associate with cats: you have one and it is very important to you. You are thinking about him now, and you picture him; he nuzzles against you and purrs quietly. Or you hate cats, and all the negative associations you have with cats are brought to your mind. They scratch, they smell, they’re lazy. You can’t even claim that you have no associations with the “concept,” because everyone who hears someone pronounce the word “cat,” at the very least activates the groups in their brain that include information like: small, furry animal, drinks milk, meows. It is involuntary—you can’t help it. And all because I said “cat.” Does this make any sense?
And what about vivid memories I have? What I read in National Geographic would tell me they are because the event I remember was significant—yes, even a tragedy or humiliation. But things I have studied tell me they may be mostly constructed. Yes, we remember events, but our brain has done its best to store away this memory like it stores everything else: in this interconnected maze of related concepts, these “groups.” Perhaps the brain misfiles things sometimes. I remember, for example, losing a tooth as a child while listening to sports on the radio. With the money I got from the tooth fairy, I bought myself a present on my birthday (in March). Later in life, I tell my family the story. I say I lost my tooth listening to a Seattle Mariner baseball game on the radio (I do remember listening to a lot of games on the radio, and I can’t imagine what other sporting event it could be.) My son points out to me there are no baseball games being played in March, and I am at a loss. What part have I remembered incorrectly? How much of my memory was manufactured? Have I connected more than two memories into one? What was a “vivid” memory for me is now a hazy mess. But that’s what happens when we recall past events sometimes. We swear we remember something clear as day. And, again, we can’t help it. It’s automatic. It’s the way the brain works. But it means that memory may not be entirely accurate.
That sucks.
Because I write to remember. I want to get down on paper what is in my brain so I can remember it. I have taken great comfort in the idea; I think to myself, Self, you will read this later and be glad. Your writing will serve you when you can’t remember the details of your life, when you are grasping for a piece of your past feelings, thoughts, emotions, and desires. I am not so sure now. What will I really have? Annie Dillard writes: “After you’ve written, you can no longer remember anything but the writing. […] After I’ve written about any experience, my memories—those elusive, fragmentary patches of color and feeling—are gone; they’ve been replaced by the work.” Great. So I used to have memories; they were hazy and unclear and I struggled to sort them in my brain, but once I wrote about them, they ceased to be memories anymore.
What remains is constructed, fabricated, solid, definable…there.
I wonder then, as I think about the time I spent in Brazil, and the many experiences, emotions, trials, and adventures I had, what really happened. What do I remember and what have I manufactured? Perhaps there is no way to know. It happened nearly twenty years ago, and I was twenty years old. Keep that in mind when you read my next post.