Fiction for Now

I’ve been wrapping myself up in fictions lately, in other people’s ability to wonder. Ruth Ozeki’s tales A Tale for the Time Being and The Book of Form and Emptiness surprise me with their bold pronouncements, grounded descriptions, well-woven characters and imaginative cohesion. Lauren Groff’s Matrix addresses themes of power, vision and passion within a cloistered abbey in the 12th century, employing an unforgettable cast of women. Then there’s Richard Power’s Bewilderment (a shorter fiction than his epic The Overstory), which challenges me to be with a father and his young son in a situation that overlays loss and science and how the modern, self-destructing world can challenge and alter a young mind.

These fictions, all still living in my head, remind me of the power of wonder. Memoir has its limits. How much more freeing to rocket into another place and time and explore the relationships that tether us to our realities by creating whole new ones. The ability to transfer lived truth to a new stage, a fresh timeline, a hybrid of voices can unleash the deep wisdom born of art.

Imagined answers to Who am I? and Who are we? allow for bigger, bolder improvisation that invites me to pit the possible against the impossible, the probable against the improbable, to see what shows up when the web of being opens across space and time, better defining my place in the world. Lately, Groff, Ozeki and Powers have done that for me with beauty and grace.