For as long as I can remember I have been continuously reminded how fortunate I am to have two older brothers. To protect me, to torture me, tease me and, as my mother always says, to enlighten me as to what boys are really like–so that when I got married I wouldn’t be surprised. We joke about it now, but back then I would refuse to accept it, my body tensing with frustration, and clenching my fists, vowing to repay them with my innate sisterly cunning. After being chased around the house by N and P threatening to wipe a booger on me, or screaming in agony after one of them walking casually by only to fart directly in front of my face, I would run to my mom proclaiming the indignity that I suffered at the hands of such idiots. She would laugh, shake her head, and say, “At least when you get married, you’ll know what to expect!” I couldn’t argue with this, because I knew that my Dad would do things to purposely annoy her, too. Man, I hated it when she was right. I needed another tactic.
Maybe she didn’t realize how closely I had listened, but I took what she said and turned it over and over in my mind. Some people, whether you like it or not, are just different from you. And instead of openly fighting and raging against it, it’s better to get used to it, study how it works, and then decide how to act. This was the kind of intelligence that my family most highly regarded; the ability to put yourself in someone’s shoes and discover what really makes them who they are, and plan a course of action. This could be used both to covertly strike back at someone bothering you or to become friends with someone that seemed out of reach. We use it to say to someone, “I know you. I know why you are the way you are,” either understandingly or menacingly. Because once you know why someone is the way they are, you know their weaknesses.
In those days I used this knowledge mostly in revenge. My brother’s biggest weakness was my parents’ over-protection over me, the youngest child and only girl. Nothing I could do myself would faze my siblings. N is six years older than me, so any plot I could hatch would be easily found out and overthrown. But my parents were my secret weapon. If N and P did something to upset me; be it the face-fart, booger-fling, wedgie, or, most often, not letting me help them build a fort; I would get a gleam in my eye and scream like a banshee. Wailing with crocodile tears running down my cheeks, I would run the distance from the backyard up around the house to the front door, all the while slapping myself, usually on the arm, and scratching it until it turned bright red, and told my mom, “They hit me!!” whimpering convincingly. They would inevitably be called into the house, stopped from finishing their project and lectured, all the while protesting they didn’t do anything. I would watch from the background, thinking to myself, “Now you’ll never finish it today. ” I knew it was the worst punishment they could receive. All the men in my family are slaves to their multiple projects. Their burning desire is to “Just get it done!” I admit it was a sinister thing for a little girl to do, watching them and thinking, “Ha. I know you. I know just where to strike.” It was petty but it got the job done.
As we three grew up and started getting along, we stopped torturing each other and instead used it once in awhile to irritate a rude classmate or neighbor. But I shied away from using it as a weapon and used it to fuel my curiosity about other people. I would pick someone that usually wouldn’t get along with me and try and figure out what made them tick, and then use it to make conversation with them. Usually they would be surprised and we’d form a bond. As a result I made an odd assortment of friends and acquaintances, from ‘preppy’ girls who liked to match all their clothing, to a boy who was failing the geometry class we took, who babbled about an imaginary battle between the Satan monkeys and the Jesus toasters. It was my secret weapon. “I know you, I know why you are the way you are.”
When I met a sweet man cleaning the floor at the house where I worked as a nanny, I put it into practice once more. I was amazed at how much power it had. It isn’t just a way to make your brothers or bullies at school suffer, not just a way to understand the strangeness that is a boy. It reached across cultures, across boundaries, across assumptions, to find out the very core of a person who was so different from me, and yet find small similarities. I’m sure that my parents didn’t expect me to use our tool this way, eventually falling in love with and marrying a Brazilian man, but everyone will agree that it made for a very interesting turn of events.
After the original upset that occurred, my family is settling around our new member, my husband. And just the other day, I saw P at work, applying the skill with precision. It was such a small thing, but so sweet to see. It touched my heart to see him reaching out to my husband. We were driving somewhere and sitting in his truck at a stoplight, in silence. After a few moments, he looked over and said, “So. How big are the dogs in Brazil? Are they smaller than ours?”
I smiled from the backseat as they slowly engaged in conversation. It started out awkwardly but soon became easy, like speaking with friends. Another connection made.
If we all tried to do it a little more, tried to understand the people around us, even the ones that are really, really different, maybe the world would be a better place. We could all recognize and celebrate our differences instead of insisting that they aren’t there. Once we open our eyes and take in our surroundings, we won’t blindly stumble from one situation to another. We’ll see the truth and know how to help each other, know how to act with each other, getting along with more and more people until there is more peace than war in the world.
Just try it.
