recently i started writing the story of my childhood, giving it the tentative title 'the tumblings of a bundle'. i describe myself as coming to this world senseless and dumb, bundled up, and moved from place to place, from country to country. when i began to write about my life when i had already turned three, i asked a narrator's question of whether it was time to give up calling myself a bundle any more, since i could already walk and talk and think and be sad and happy. but i could not make myself banish the word from my lines. it kept coming back. i had identified with it. and i decided to keep it throughout the book, which i plan to end with my pre-teen days.
there was one more thing that made me keep addressing myself as a bundle in this text, though. i was thinking about my current position in life. i am 45, quite happy with the way i live my life inwardly, but most of the time very powerless to make an impact on how i live it on the outside - where i live, with whom i live, what i do, what my obligations are, how my plans are going to play out. even this summer of 2016 feels like being taken to some foreign cities by an external power, without my say in it. i am aware that it is absolutely vital for me to be here and sort some existential problems out, and i have to admit that i have been enjoying the long stay in the wonderful cities of london, washington dc, and pittsburgh pa. still, a feeling remains that i have been tossed here, like a bundle, all tied up and left to survive, and potentially thrive, and finally find its own way back home.
there was one more thing that made me keep addressing myself as a bundle in this text, though. i was thinking about my current position in life. i am 45, quite happy with the way i live my life inwardly, but most of the time very powerless to make an impact on how i live it on the outside - where i live, with whom i live, what i do, what my obligations are, how my plans are going to play out. even this summer of 2016 feels like being taken to some foreign cities by an external power, without my say in it. i am aware that it is absolutely vital for me to be here and sort some existential problems out, and i have to admit that i have been enjoying the long stay in the wonderful cities of london, washington dc, and pittsburgh pa. still, a feeling remains that i have been tossed here, like a bundle, all tied up and left to survive, and potentially thrive, and finally find its own way back home.
