Women of a Certain Art: Leslie Li

My friend, Leslie Li.

We met in the 1990's, probably because we both attended Hedgebrook (a women writers' colony) and as the literature curator at The Kitchen I wanted to do an evening of Hedgebrook writers.  She had published her novel, Bittersweet which she read from that night.

Years later Leslie left NYC.  For Vermont.  During those years came Enter the Dragon, 3 adaptations for children of Chinese folk tales.

Leslie returned to NYC, her center of gravity, and published a memoir, Daughter of Heaven:  A Memoir with Earthly Recipes.

And now she is a film-maker.  Chronicling the life and career of her mother and her mother's sisters, Kim Loo Sisters:  Portrait in Four-Part Harmony, which is Leslie's meditation on the nature of America, identity, race and gender.  Her project's website:  http://kimloosisters.com/

Leslie's latest interview, with Jolin Yang, http://www.jolinyang.com/

The Kim Loo Sisters:

A Letter to My Reader (Whom I Assume is Reduced to n = 1 Because I Never Write, I Never Call ...)

Dear Reader,

Yes, it has been a long time.  I would not blame you if you thought me dead.  But, I am not.  Just dormant.  Waiting for winter to be done, the snow to stop falling, the yard to look more like something that resembles an emerald rug than the pelt of a mange-ridden piebald cat.  This is the rarest of rare days -- the middle of a 3 day weekend where I do not have to do anything for anyone else, go anywhere, or be on time for anything.  I am making the most of it -- taking my internal temperature, discerning what I need in order to get done all the things I must, and 1/3 of the things I'd like to.

I understand David Letterman has retired.  I also understand he was a fixture of the pop culture firmament for 33 years.  In that time I've maybe paid attention to him for 60 seconds.  And it simply hasn't mattered:  not for him, not to me.  Three decades is a long time to be blissfully ignorant of anything, but I am realizing every day that it is probably the rule, not the exception.

I have rounded the bend of functional youthfullness to early old age.  There are days when everything but my eyelashes hurt.  I panic as I make conversation with someone I'm certain I've met but can't remember their name or the circumstance of our meeting.  Everything that I embark on I do with hopeful optimism that I'll be around long enough to see it reach maturity or bear fruit.  I am the tired swimmer trying to make it to a far shore.

In the meantime, between the duties and obligations, between the crises and the accidents, there are the interludes of joy, frissons of creation, and weekends like this when time conspires with me in the delusion that I still have enough of it to do whatever I want.

And what I've wanted is to clean my office and my house, a cleansing ritual as I begin the last stage of dis-assembling my friend Fred Ho's life.  Last week I (and others) packed, sorted, and inherited many of his possessions, those things which embodied him.  We'll return in June to finish, as much as one can finish packing up a life, in order for the new owner of the apartment to move in.   Hundreds of decisions -- what's kept and where and for how long? what's sold?  given away? destroyed?   Only after those questions are answered will the work resume of building an organization that will carry on his professional legacy.  This is nothing I ever imagined doing I've told others -- not for him, not for any organization, not even for myself.  I've made this process a priority through the end of 2016.  Were I 40 perhaps I'd stay longer but the time I've got remaining is shrinking; and my ability to fulfill my own ambitions in this last quadrant of my life has shrunk, too.

This quadrant is one where you are acutely situated between the poles of life (grandchildren?) and death (of parents, friends, siblings) and either pole will exert its necessary and strong pull when they emerge.  And that's not even factoring in the show-stopping nature of debilitating illness.  It is hard to imagine, much less admit to oneself that the degree may not be completed, the Times may not be read, and the surplus weight which makes all physical life harder is weight that I own forever.  But, that may be what happens.  In fact, it's more likely than ever before that that is what will happen.

Which is why these indulgent weekends mean so much to me.  I am playing (slowly) my record collection.  I started with Frederick Delius, and am now listening to Taj Mahal.  Maybe I'll find Hindemith and Average White Band today.  All part of a conversation with my past.  Adieu.