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I was born in the year my country ceased to exist and another country began to exist. My dad taught our dog to bark his last name in syllables, and so my country was learning to be called by a different name and live in a new way. I, on the other hand, was simply learning to live in the place where I was destined to be born.

Now I am thinking more and more about what my parents and teachers put into the definitions of me as "good" or "bad. How much "me" in a snowflake costume at a children's matinee in kindergarten, how much at an evening service in church with my grandmother, how much at a line in a brown dress with a white apron, how much at a seasonal potato harvest at the cottage, how much at a family celebration with chimes ringing, how much "me" in each step of the bright green stairwell of our five-story building?

More and more often now I ponder, what are the authors of my statements and the true agents of non-dimensionality? Thoughts are dependent on a system of linguistic, cultural and social rules. To feel is to manifest true experiences and unconsciously translate meanings. Signs, symbols, codes, aligned structures, patterns. Who is the author? A flickering portrait of accumulated memory and consciousness motives and reasons for doing things this way and not that way. Perhaps I am only part of a collective shaped by time, where it is no longer possible to define the boundaries of personal contribution and distinguish my own self.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)