This post should probably be about the adjectival form, aufwühlend, for that is what I aspire to with some of my writing: to conjure up a “stirring” read. Maybe I shouldn’t apply the word too soon; aufwühlend has more than a dab of “disturbing” to it, more Stephen King Misery than my latent novel.
The verb at the root, aufwühlen, means “to stir up,” “to rile/roil (as liquid),” “churn up” or “throw up (as dirt into the air).” Its root, in turn—wühlen—meant “to burrow (as an animal)” in the Middle Ages but was eventually brought to bear on human activities and forces of nature above ground. How great that the word, as in English, can be used in reference to either liquid or earth (or people’s emotions), that the emphasis here is on the action, not the medium. A verb that unites us all—even the air could be aufgewühlt, I would think.
Sometimes I think of my life as a series of currents and it my duty to keep my head above the surface. The metaphor carries with it my fear of drowning and, by extension, of failing in the things I do: parenting, partnering, working, housekeeping, maintaining sanity (!). We all have these currents that roil like a stirred ocean sometimes. To be ganz aufgewühlt by one of them means we do, in fact, have a soul—another medium, one whose form only comes into focus mit dem Aufwühlen.
