I usually hate those goofy interview questions. You know the ones… “if you were a tree, an animal, a piece of fruit…”
I am taking a literature class through UAF and the professor started the class out with “would your life be a box, bag, bundle, basket or bowl and what would it have in it?”
And then the first question was followed by a list of things that shape our lives. Favorite quote, picture, letter to anyone in our family, conversation with anyone about anything…
When I was 11 or 12 I lived in a logging camp on Afognak Island (near Kodiak) and I loved to go camping. Camping back then was never a simple or hi-tech affair. Gear usually consisted of an old wooden pack frame, canvas tarp, sleeping bag, fishing gear, rifle, cast iron fry pan and other sundry goods all tied, strapped and taped together on that frame.
In addition to whatever was already packed on we would generally add likely pieces of firewood, small poles that would make good tent frames and and whatever else looked like a necessity as we made our way to whatever spot was to be our short term adventure. Everything that was picked up was added to that bundle on my back.
That’s when the answer to the goofy question dawned on me. My life was a bundle. Not anything so neat or beautiful as a basket or bowl. Nothing so practical as a bag or a box. Just a bundle. And not one of those perfectly wrapped bundles with the perfect twine tied at perfect right angles either. I’m talking about that bundle that has stuff tied, taped, stuck, strapped and held on with baling wire. Kind of like that pack frame when I was a kid.
My life is a bundle because I pick up, add and generally cycle things through my life. What book changed my life? I can tell you the answer today but give me another day and another book and the bundle might change a little bit.
Don’t get me wrong. Family, faith, country, job…they stay strong and constant. Packed securely and permanently in the bundle. But so many other things that help to shape who I am and how I see the world may get added or subtracted from the bundle.
Who would I like to have a conversation with if I could talk to anyone, anyplace? I could pick a great thinker out of the past or replace that conversation with the guy behind me in line at the bank.
Life as a bundle is pretty good i think. Maybe not such a goofy question after all. Now that I have that question handled I wonder what kind of tree I would be…
