“But slowly, through the work of showing up for myself, in the smallest of ways, the pink membranes of my heart were starting to understand that I could fail without being a failure. That was it. When you accept that you’re a real life human—a squishy, mortal, and malleable being of sorts—you begin to accept your mistakes. You accept that your life cannot ever be fixed, not like a fast-tongued solvable riddle. Instead, you must become intrigued by the messiness, the nuances and the in-between bits of yourself and your life, to survive. You have to accept change. At one point, you have to surrender.”
Trigger Warning (TW): self harm, rape/SA, death, suicide, and misogyny
When you find a book that unexpectedly heals you, that becomes a confidant in the tumultuousness that is your life and the world around you, hold onto it with all of your strength. In this context, the book in question is Like A Bird by writer, editor, and multidisciplinary artist Fariha Róisín. This book was released a year ago through Unnamed Press (indie presses stand up!) and it centers Taylia Chatterjee as she deals with loss, familial turmoil, and a big shift in her life that leads her to a journey filled with realizations, growth, and a fostering of a community she calls her own. I found out about this book after following Róisín and her work for a while and being a subscriber to her newsletter How to Cure A Ghost, which has been such a joy to read. Getting a glimpse into her process, how she sees the world and takes it in, and bits of what went into writing this novel added a layer of intimacy to the act of reading it that I don’t think I’ve had prior, at least in a long while.
reading Like A Bird at the Philadelphia Internaitonal Airport.
I could tell that so much love, so much of the author went into writing this novel. It’s mentioned in this profile for the New York Times that it took 18 years for her to write Like A Bird and that there were a bunch of changes made to the original draft as time passed. It’s such a significant amount of time and so much can change within it that I can imagine that Róisín realized so much in that time from when she started writing the book at 12 years old that it seems like she wanted to make sure that it grew and evolved in alignment with her and her healing journey after experiencing sexual violence. There’s so much warmth interwoven, along with honest internal dialogue that gave such intimate insight into the events Taylia was going through and how they affected her. It displayed the significance of community, of found family, of self-love and discovering one’s self, especially after trauma. The act of surviving trauma like sexual assault and continuing on with life afterward is talked about in the novel and it created a figurative space for me to reflect on the task of existing as a woman of color in a society that has and continues to be violent towards us, that doesn’t take into account that we have to constantly fear for our own well-being—preventing us from doing even a simple task like walking outside—because of the forces that want to tear us to pieces. Fear envelopes us but doesn’t have to conquer us, and I'm reminded of this through Róisín’s words and the emotional growth throughout.
In a video on Unnamed Press’ Youtube Channel, Róisín gives an introduction to her novel and mentions that she hopes her novel can be a toolkit:
“It's, I think, a story that will really, hopefully, help people to heal because I do believe that it’s a toolkit, and I feel that the best kind of writing is a toolkit.”
holding Like A Bird moments after I finished reading it at close to 3am.
I’ve been reflecting on different strenuous events and traumas I’ve experienced both years ago and within the last year and a half and with that comes *self-reflection* and *introspection*, two lovely practices that I credit for the person I’ve become (so far). Taylia’s story, its ebbs, flows, and all the aspects in between, became a source of healing for me in the midst of this through moments where I had to put the book down and lay on the floor because I felt so seen that the heaviness of said seen-ness had me on the floor. I was also lovingly dragged in many instances, so there was definitely (petty) diving timing in reading this book at the time I did. Reading this gift of a novel felt like having a deep and really open conversation with a close friend over early afternoon coffee about shame, growth, human existence, and loss.
This is a powerful, emotional, and necessary novel. For those that are looking for something that acts as a mirror, a place of solace, I implore you to consider Like A Bird as this.
