CAKE | 10 — The stories we tell

So here we are. Another year has almost passed and it leaves more questions than answers. Looking at the list of books I have read this year I can't help but wonder: what's my story? All these books have nothing in common – except me, of course. They take place in South Korea, Bosnia and in the Yorkshire moors, on an island off Florida, in South Africa and Forus, a small town in Norway. They involve a killer, a firewoman, a foreign security advisor and a rape, science, a violent storm and earthquakes, a death and dad. And yet their stories are like mine. Like yours. Like literature our lives consist of characters continuously reconstructing themselves via narration. We, too, reconstitute our narrative identity as we go; it is always present and never final. There is always another story to tell.

Like the one when I got lost for a moment and left him. I thought it was the right thing to do. Our life has become too complicated. Demanding from me qualities I didn't think I possessed. Grace for instance. Forgiveness, too. And the ability to remain content for once. The whole thing was messier than I thought was necessary. Until finally I'd found myself in a small apartment in a new part of town, sitting in between boxes, exhaling and pondering how I got there. Reassuring myself that this was just a small detour. While not even having decided on a destination. Where was it I wanted to go? And who said that I did?

Like fictional characters, we each inhabit multiple identities. We reevaluate our experiences by narrating them; we restructure and revise, again and again. Our life is a palimpsest of stories we tell ourselves about our selves. Our selves are constantly reinvented – whether we are aware of it or not. We become who we are through everything we experience. And through everything we remember or think we remember. I am not sure some of my memories have even happened. I have recounted them so many times, some simply sound made up. 

Maybe I should have dared to go even further. If I would have put an ocean between us maybe I would not have gone back. But I didn't. And so one day I got up and started walking. Seemingly without purpose at first. I walked for hours. I walked past a man weeping and mourning his wife, past a five year old girl in a red dress twirling to country music, past a homeless man who reminded me of Alain Delon. I walked past a dog wagging his tail expectedly. I watched a white haired woman wave at me from a balcony as I crossed a street and a man with a hood over his head whom I will later fall in love with and marry push his bike past me. I walked past an author toasting me with a glass of whiskey, I passed a corn field, a hot spring in snow and a golden deer staring at me. I walked for days, past a marina, a ranch, a giant fjord and Bryant Park. I saw a whale breach and watched a cat die in my arms. I walked all the way to our old apartment where he still lived and I rang the bell. When he opened the door and saw me standing there, all he said was «I thought you were someone else.» And I was.

Consciously and subconsciously on the way to here I have adapted someone's way of laughing, someone's way of saying good bye and holding a spoon, I have taken over someone's love for Nina Simone, someone else's predilection for egg-in-a-hole toast and an aversion to socks and somehow someone incited in me a weakness for military attire. I have become emotionally reserved but cry at the most ridiculous occasions. I am sincerely and irreverently curious about everything and have a critical opinion of most things. I struggle with the need for validation and with Japanese kanji. I have been uprooted once and to this day feel the effects. I have got hurt and am gentle with other people's pain. I have travelled to many different places and came back with a love for sherry liver, warm sake, hiking boots and humility. I have found that breathing helps immensely even if it doesn't change a thing. Somewhere in between I have learned three languages and each one of them is nothing without the others. I can’t say that I can see clearly now. And to quote Aleksandar Hemon: «I'd also like to add that I am nothing if not an entanglement of unanswerable questions, a cluster of others. I'd like to say it might be too early to tell.» After all this is a love story. And as real as I say.

Here's hoping next year's stories will be as incredible.