"the faster I walk, the smaller I am" reflections
lately I developed a bit of an inclination towards realistic fiction. the last several years have mostly seen me reading fantasy, but after receiving some ebooks from someone else's to-read pile I got curious.
first, around June, I was reading The Tombs of Atuan, the second book in the initial Earthsea trilogy. after having read the first entry almost a decade ago. I was surprised how many details I'd retained of that, and even more came back to me as I read. that book struck me at my core and connected something for me--that my journey in reading fantasy by women authors was just as much about reading fantasy I would connect more readily with as wanting to connect more with women's experiences themselves. this is something Tombs was so forward about, and the chord it struck in me left me a mess for several days (in that kind of good, needed way.)
for a long time, I didn't think I could connect with women's experiences. that is to say, cis womens experiences, which I as a transgender woman have lived much of my life feeling exclusion from, implicitly or explicitly. if not that, a sense of unworthiness or imposter syndrome would do the rest of the work.
even though I've been out for 13 years, I've felt assured even calling myself a woman for less than half of that. and it wasn't until I read Tombs that it became gravely clear to me how much the experiences of my life are womens experiences. that the roles, expectations and selfhood I live under overlap strongly with things commonly experienced by other women, both cis and trans. I realized there's something I need in hearing stories of all kinds by other women, to touch experiences that I've not had a voice for and to understand myself better in the tapestry of human experience. it's not just something I need, but something I deserve and have a right to, just like every other woman, and every person's need to both be seen and to see themselves within others.
so, those books that fell on my lap started looking quite good. I knew they were by women authors, and I assumed they were realistic fiction. both turned out to be stories about recovery from abuse, which was prescient for me. first was The Cut Line by Carolina Pilhelgas, then Discipline by Larissa Pham. the first felt like a quiet, somber existential reflection. the second almost had the quality of a parable, about male chauvinism and hard truths of moving on. they both struck me just as deeply as Tombs.
each book was like a small rebirth, or maybe a molting. something in the tune of my existence felt different, simpler, more in focus. it was heavy, painful and difficult reading stories of abuse, of seeing myself so clearly in them through one facet or another. but it gave me peace, strength and resolve. I think now more than ever, the importance and power of storytelling is so clear to me. it's more clear to me now what my needs and priorities are, and the standards I ought to hold for what I give my time. (Elric of Melnibone was another reminder of that in a sort of inverse way to all of this.)
there was something I felt in The Cut Line that I didn't get from Discipline, in that there was a worldview it represented I quite strongly connected with, that spoke to something in me nearly as much as connecting to womens experienced did. the former was by an Estonian author, and an Asian-American the latter. it wasn't until recently that I began to give more credit to how un-Americanized my family really was, despite the hundred things it explains about who I am and the relationship I have to the US and its culture. so, I decided I might try out a few more novels by Nordic women authors and see what I find.
The Faster I Walk, the Smaller I Am is a 2008 novel by Kjersti Skomsvold that meditates on death, our relationship to it, the things we miss out on in life, and the things we think we're missing out on. it has a quality I adore that one often finds in literary fiction, where it's easy to feel you're reading about nothing, but as it sits with you and the meanings and connections sink in it becomes richer and richer.
the protagonist is Mathea, a woman in her nineties in small town Norway. she's preoccupied with death and life un-fully lived, and spends her days ruminating and otherwise trying impulsive schemes that all leave her feeling worse than before. it's a dry, ironic novel that doesn't filter or soften much. and yet, there is a quality it has in not being judgemental or moralizing in the slightest despite the protagonist's obvious futility, or the strangeness and flawedness of all of the other characters in the book. Mathea herself is quite a scrutinous character, but one sees quickly how it's a tool to justify her own self-isolation as she spins her wheels into her final days. there's a matter-of-factness to it all that spoke to me, a gaze that is so plain and unwavering that it pierces you.
around the time I reached age 26 or so I began again to fear death. some call it a quarter-life crisis. I had this sense of, "I can see my youth slipping through my fingers, and what have I done to create a life I can be proud of?" I'd done a lot of spinning my wheels. I'd done a lot of running up hills and falling on my face. a lot of chasing my whims and immediate needs and momentary impulses. a lot of getting lost in my own imagination. around that time I started to realize I was stuck, and I wanted to live before it was too late--much like Mathea.
that desperation, in significant part, was exactly what led to me throwing 5 years of my life away in an abusive relationship. the more I tried to capture what I thought my life needed to be, and the more I failed, the more I was ready to accept someone else promising to give my life the meaning I'd failed to. it led to the kind of self-doubt that had me (again) believing the most use my life could be was as a facilitator of somebody else's.
in that way too has my life been (what is so commonly) a woman's experience. I needed to know that in a way I didn't. if I did, maybe I could have made better choices for myself, been there for myself in a way I otherwise couldn't. our hands may build our lives, but our minds and hearts tell our hands what's worth building.
right now my life is at a delicate pivot. I don't think this has solved my fears, but it's given me a little more strength to confront them. I find myself finding more comfort sometimes in dour, somber stories than overtly optimistic ones (though there's a time and place for both.) "bitter medicine" can be potent should we have the stomach to take it. it can be easily confused with something like cynicism, and perhaps there's a fine line between those things. but for me, the beauty of it lies in finding myself less alone in struggle and failure. sometimes life feels like endless flailing and misfortune and helplessness, and that's something I need reflected for myself too just as much as a "you can do it!"
The Faster I Walk, the Smaller I Am has been another prescient reminder to keep a strong grasp on what's important to me. it's reminded me how small my world and my problems are. it's reminded me not to make myself any smaller than I already am. and it's reminded me that as scary as the world feels, it's often just as much in my head. for how little I'm in control of, by accepting that I can better see just what things I do have a say in. at first I wasn't sure if this book would speak to me, but I'm glad I stuck with it, as it proved to be more than I ever thought I was looking for.