Page 88 of The Storm

On the water.

Not every morning. But a few times a week without fail.

I don’t know how he knows when I’m headed out, but most days he does. If he doesn’t, I’ll find him.

It becomes a thing.

And with it, we start to settle into something.

“Okay,but this is the part where it gets interesting,” I say, leaning back against the counter while Nick moves around the kitchen with the kind of confidence that makes it clear he knows exactly what he’s doing. “Say you’re really good at throwing a baseball. You’ve been practicing since you were a kid. So, what’s the explanation for why you still have the ability even if you haven’t even picked up a baseball in years?”

“Muscle memory.” He looks up from the pan where he’s sautéing mushrooms.

“Muscle memory.” I nod. “Only it’s not actually your muscles remembering that stuff. It’s your brain. Specifically, this loop between your motor cortex and the basal ganglia. The motor cortex plans and executes actions, and the basal ganglia automates these actions by strengthening cortical connections and storing procedural habits. Your brain automates patterns, so you don’t have to think about them anymore. And that’s great, right? It’d take a lot of time if every movement required concentration every time. Now here’s the—” Nick holds out a spoon, looking at me. I lean forward and taste the mushroom, then give him a thumbs-up. “—the interesting part. It also means your body can do things before you consciously decide to do them. Like, there’s a delay between the action starting and you being aware that you chose to do it.”

He takes a cup of rice and adds it to the mushrooms and leeks. I push myself off the counter and lean closer.

“And the article mentions this study where they measured brain activity that predicts a movement before the person even says they’ve decided to do it. I’m talking seconds before. So according to neuroscientific research, we are mostly becoming aware of decisions our brains have already initiated. Brain activity can predict simple choices seconds before conscious awareness, which means your unconscious mind processes decisions faster, and your conscious thought is more like an observer or a type of final endorser, and not a real-time initiator.”

He looks up from his pan again, an amused expression on his face, but he’s not laughing at me. Instead, he motions for me to continue. With the rest of my family I sometimes get the feeling they’re just humoring me and not actually listening. Nicklistens.Really listens. I ramble, and he listens. Asks questions. Thinks about whatever I’m trying to tell him.

“That’s why it’s so difficult to change how you do something once it’s become automatic?” he asks. “Because your brain has already sent the command to do something a certain way, and then you have to override that command and make a conscious effort to change the program?”

“Exactly.”

“So what you’re saying is that I’m basically on autopilot.”

I pick up one of the asparagus stalks on the chopping board and bite into it, chewing thoughtfully. “I mean, we all are to a degree. It’s like… habits pretending to be choices. Two-thirds of your daily habits happen on autopilot. At least according to some estimates.”

He pops a mushroom into his mouth and chews thoughtfully. “Okay. What about a gut feeling, then? How does that fit into this? Because that’s also kind of an automatic reaction. Say I meet somebody and they give me a bad feeling. That’s not a conscious decision. But it’s not automatic either because I’ve never met that person before.”

“Still an automatic reaction, though, isn’t it? Your brain has stored some kind of information and past experience, and then something triggers the automatic reaction so you don’t have to think. Kind of like a survival mechanism.”

He tilts his head to the side and looks at me, a small smile on his face.

My face heats at the intense perusal.

“What?” I ask when he doesn’t say anything.

His eyes remain on me for another few seconds before he blinks and shakes his head. “Nothing.”

He holds the spoon out for me again, and I take another bite. I close my eyes and hum.

“That’s perfect,” I say.

He laughs. “You’re easy to please.” He looks at the pan thoughtfully. “It’s getting there.”

Later, we sit on the kitchen floor and eat. I tell him about the latest stories from work. At first, he smiles. Later, he laughs.

And when I look at him… I have this acute understanding that some things don’t feel like choices at all and instead things that were always supposed to happen.

There aremornings when the water is perfectly still, and there are evenings when it’s choppy enough that we have to really work together.

Either way, it’s easy out there.

That’s the problem, I think.

No one sees us out there. No one asks questions.