How do you know what isn't there, what you've never experienced? It would be like trying to understand a third dimension when you're living in a two-dimensional world. That's why I wasn't aware of the absence of insects around me until I experienced their abundance in Africa. I also didn't know what was amiss during my childhood in Israel, Germany, and various parts of the US, but I felt something wasn't right in my family and knew I had to get away. Determined to experience life fully, I hitchhiked through a dozen sub-Saharan African countries and lived in other parts of the world. It was only decades later, after I uncovered the hidden history of my family and put the pieces together, that I realized how historical traumas had warped my parents' realities. At last I understood the burden that my brother and I had inherited. Now my struggles to free myself and choose a healthier existence finally made sense. I started out writing a collection of glimpses, then saw the patterns running throughout and realized that the whole story had to be told. The result is this sometimes tragic, sometimes hilarious book.
About the Author: In 1991, having finished my thesis for an MA in cell and molecular biology, I decided to try another kind of writing, and took a memoir class. I discovered a world of treasures within me, long-buried but ready to spring to the surface. I loved the class, but eventually put the writing aside for the demands of my scientific career. When my job ended in 2008, I looked again at what I had written years earlier, and seeing underlying patterns running through my life, realized these had started long before I was born. Now that I had the time, I wanted to tell the whole story, and the result is this book. The book starts with my childhood in Israel, Germany, and various parts of the US, and continues with my experiences living and traveling in different parts of the world, including hitchhiking through a dozen sub-Saharan African countries. It also shows how world events pushed my father to seek refuge in a life ruled by rigid values, and how my mother narrowly escaped Nazi Germany. Past traumas profoundly marked my parents, and this in turn influenced the lives of my brother and me. My book is the story of the struggles and adventures I undertook to free myself from this unhappy past to create a meaningful life rich in experience. It is written as a series of sharply focused glimpses, sometimes tragic, sometimes hilarious, always entertaining.