Brain vs Body

The brain, that tired old thing, may forget poverty. 

Yes, the brain -- in its middle-age fog, full of passwords and calendar dates and the shoe sizes of children -- may forget the squeeze of too-tight shoes with sprung seams and worn-flat soles, or the tickling drip of water from a wet dishcloth draped across the back of a neck to feign coolness when air conditioning is too expensive.

The brain may forget poverty, but the body remembers.

Photo by meo/Pexels

 
The brain may sweep the day's headlines for signs of an end to the dysfunction in government that holds paychecks for ransom. The brain may even acknowledge a comfortable safety net of savings that can pay the bills, but the body remembers the long brittle wait in anticipation of relief. 

Then the body becomes a ball of knotted kite string perched on the back of a scratchy couch, the raised plaid yarns scoring a pattern of squares into knobby knees. The body recalls staring through a dusty window, harsh sunlight slapping cheeks, eyes watching for the purposeful stride of the mail carrier who will deliver a booklet of food stamps. The body remembers hope and longing thick in the chest, the thought of ground hamburger and canned stewed tomatoes bright on the tongue. The body calls up the sound of excitement growling in a small, far-away belly.

Fast as a stumble, the body hears the bark of a dog, not at the mailman but at two children playing on the soft carpet of living room floor. Startled to find itself, it seeks comfort in the overwhelm of a cushioned chair and a generous day in sunset. It reminds itself to breathe. 

Oh, the brain, that adamantly logical and analytical mess of neurons, can try to block it out with happiness or paper it over with time. But the body remembers how it feels to be poor.

Just like the body remembers the absence of subtle vibration when a car engine goes silent. The brain may register the automatic start/stop feature of a late-model vehicle sitting at a red light, but the body knows a sudden stillness that shouldn't be. 

Then the body is in a silent coast down a hill into the long stretch of river bottom, that flood plain between small towns where nothing thrives, in a station wagon that's tired of carrying on. The body remembers the side of the road, night the color of swamp water, quiet thick enough to drown in except for the rhythmic tick-tock of the emergency flashers marking time all-alone all-alone. The body remembers sitting in the car while Momma trekked up the hill and past the sketchy motel to the Circle K with pay phones out front. The body calls up that fear without reason or remorse and plants it to throb in that space between the heart and the stomach whimpering what if a stranger stops, what if a stranger never stops, what if another car plows into this one, what if Momma gets hit by a car on the dark highway and never comes back.

With a jump the late-model car coughs back to life, and the body is confused to be in a suburban intersection next to a casual dining restaurant on a warm, bright afternoon. The car behind toots a wake-up call, and the body keeps going. 

That disjointed, unsettled, never-forgetting body. It holds trauma deep inside fibrous strands of muscles, inside thread-thin nerves stretched to breaking. Memories so still they are almost, but not quite, gone.