Dear Ashley...

Dear Ashley,

I've been thinking about something for several months now, and decided I wanted to share it with you, for a variety of reasons. First, of course, is that it is a response to an event where Steve and I were enjoying your family's generous hospitality, and I need to let you know, along with anybody you want to share this with, how much we value those occasions. Dinners around your family's table are lively ones, as well as loving ones, and those are good things.

We bring home with us the stories and laughter of those memories, and one night in particular is engraved in our memories. No, it's not the result of Steve throwing out the punch line of his story just as Ryan had taken a big swallow of his drink, with results one should expect. Rather, it is about a question you asked and what led from that. As I recall, the family had one shower out of service, awaiting some plumbing, leaving one for the entire family. You were trying to plan your activities so the timing of your shower would be optimal for you. One of the considerations concerned odors. Your question was an inquiry as to who would stink the worst, your dad or your uncle.

The best part of what followed, for the two of us, is remembering how red your dad's head got, all the way to the crown, visible through his short hair. Yes, we still remind each other. And laugh.

Of course, your parent's immediate response was reacting to their embarrassment by scolding you. Parents do that. I have another niece, when younger than you, who asked an embarrassing question in the presence of company. Her parents reacted the same way. A simple sentence would have answered her question, but she got scolded instead. That still bothers me, and the opportunity has long passed to revisit the incident. But your question was similar in its way, and when you got scolded, I felt the need to help you feel less embarrassed by answering with some actual information to help you understand the topic. I perhaps got a bit too didactic, but I hope you understand how the concept of "nose-blindness" works to answer that question for you.

So my next reason for this is to hope you don't let anybody discourage you from asking questions. It's how we learn, how we explore our world, how we gain tools to function and navigate through our lives. You might chose differently about when and to whom you ask your questions, but never stop asking.

My third reason goes back to my being didactic. I find myself wanting to answer your question more completely than two minutes at the dinner table would allow. So, with your permission, here is the bigger answer.

Brains adapt. They have / develop selective attention. What is important gets noticed. What's familiar and safe doesn't. It's part of our evolution. It's what keeps us alive, individually and as a species.

If you haven't yet, you soon will encounter the concept of the food chain. It's pictured as a vertical ranking, where the bottom species are the ones who get eaten, and the top ones do the eating. Usually the person telling you about the food chain will also tell you that human beings are at the top of it. We can kill and eat anything.

That appears to make sense, without much examination. It makes just as much sense as believing the sun revolves around this planet. It's what we see, lacking more information. But both are incomplete. Yes, we are in the food chain. We're just not only doing the eating. From the time we first evolved, there were a whole lot of other critters vying to eat us.

There were really really large hungry cats. The sabertooths may be gone now, but their smaller cousins would still find us a tasty meal, and even house cats will use their former owners as a source of food if they are trapped with the body as their only sustenance.  (Yuck, right?) Wolves, the same way, on down through their domesticated cousins when the situation requires it. It's not just the big toothy things that want to eat us. Think, say, rats. Or insects. Bacteria and viruses. Point is, we smugly superior humans are smack dab in the middle of the food chain. And apparently yummy.

That's why we need brains that notice what's different. It might be that motion in the grass telling us something dangerous is trying to sneak up on us. It could be the whine of a mosquito, the grunt, howl or bark of an approaching predator. Perhaps the war cry of the neighboring tribe or the vibration of the herd of horses they are riding in on. In more modern society, it's that car suddenly entering the corner of our visual field, the smell of gas, the beep from our cell phone, the squeal of brakes. Something is different and that's when our brains pay attention.

For the same reasons, the familiar gets labeled as safe and gets ignored. We literally stop seeing the dirt in the house, at least until it's time we're told to clean or we want to impress visitors. Driving, we see the signs for where we need to turn and not those for all the other intersections we pass. When I first drove, I couldn't hold a conversation or even listen to the radio at the same time because everything was new. Now much of it gets done on automatic pilot, barring those changes which signal something needing my attention. Like, all those other idiots out there, or the local attack deer out to kill your car.

There was a perfume I absolutely adored from my first whiff. I wore it every day. Now my nose refuses to acknowledge it at all, a really big disappointment to me. Take your favorite foods, and notice how, with repeated bites, the flavor lessens until you find yourself eating it just because you know it's something you love rather than being able to taste that it is. That first lick off the ice cream cone is always sweeter than the last.

The way our brains work keep us safe, mostly. But there's more to the world. Let's just use that awareness and take a minute occasionally, pause, look around, and appreciate the beauty, the love, all the wonderful things our brains think we don't need to notice any more.

And keep asking questions!

Love,
Aunt Heather