811: The One Place I Can’t Go
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From W.B. E.C. Chicago, it's This American Life, I'm Bemari Wunmi, in For Ira Glass. My younger cousin Camille is not really a dog person, but there is one dog she adored. Her name was Foxy, because she looked exactly like a fox, except she was black. She was the neighbour's dog, but she and Camille seemed to have a real kinship, maybe because they both weren't very far from the ground. Camille was around four or five years old back then, she had a little lisp, so Foxy came out as Foshee. I thought it was one of the cutest things I'd ever heard. The way Camille remembers Foxy, it's almost like a movie. Her memories feel like endless summer, hazy and perfect, like a scene shot on crackly film. I just remembered the feeling of being excited to go and see Foxy. I have an image in my head of like coming to the house and I could see Foxy was like outside, but I can see Foxy through the door that leads to the garden. There's a story about Camille and Foxy that I think about fairly often. I've talked about it with my sister for years, but never with Camille. And it's this, once when they were playing Foxy nipped at Camille, nothing serious, just an excited kid playing with an excited dog, one minute they were playing half under the coffee table in the middle of the room, and the next they weren't. There was no need to go to the hospital or anything, but it was enough to startle Camille and to make her cry. But it's what happened after that I think about the most. The day after Foxy nipped her, Camille went right back to playing with the dog, but she would not go back to the place where the nip happened. If her feet unthinkingly moved her towards the coffee table, she'd redirect. She'd swerve her little body around it. Instead of avoiding the dog, she steered clear of the place. When I brought this up to Camille, she had no memory of doing it. Did anybody try? Did they like test me? Yes. And they like put a treat in that area and I just would not go there. I mean, you're talking like you're the dog. Yeah, I guess. Did anyone like sit me down to talk about like, "Oh, Camille, why don't you go to that corner?" I don't know. That suggests that we were mature enough to try and help you solve the problem. I think we just found it funny that you avoided the area. I think we were all kind of like, "Watch this, watch this." And then we'd try and like get you to come around and then we'd laugh when you wouldn't, which is very cruel in hindsight. I'm so sorry. And even more curious, Camille still seems to have a hard time fathoming this. That foxy, her beloved friend, could even unwittingly hurt her. Twenty years years later, she still won't let herself go there. A lot of views, like, you know, African parents, they like to over exaggerate. She probably just licked me. She didn't lick you. She didn't lick you. She definitely nipped you. But I love how, you're doing it again. You're recasting the past. You're like, no, did she? She did. Because it's weird. It's weird that I don't remember it. It'll be different if I'm like, I don't remember. Avoidances are surprisingly common reaction to information that might knock us off kilter, shying away from the things we cannot wrap our minds around. It's self-preservation. The world is so full of dangerous things, things that might hurt us if we look too closely at them. So we avoid. We circumvent. We choose not to go there. That's our show today, in three acts. People finding there's one place in their lives they simply can't access. For reasons that sometimes even they don't fully understand. It's just a mental, 'keep out' sign on the door. Do not look. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Stay with us. Act one. I could have grown big in Japan. Atzko Okatsuka is a comedian, and she's incredibly close with her grandma, Ying Shi.
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