"And now, Li Li has her moment,"

the director looks at me confidently. I have been dreading this all day. I knew it was coming. There on a steel bridge over the smudgy Chicago River, the camera is about to roll. This film will be distributed internationally, I'm told. My Russian-spy kidnapper (actually his stunt double) has just been popped into the water by my rescuer's bullet, and I, in my blue, lace lingerie and heeled, black boots, am in a crumpled position on the grated, metal road, head cocked listening to the director's game plan.

on the set of March in the Windy City

Alright, I say behind my over-made-up eyes, "Li Li", it's show time. Think of your village back in Guang Dong, of the fantastical, horrifying life you have led in the Chinatown brothel and have just now been allowed to live for a bit longer. Think of the cold gun just recently dropped from beneath your chin. Think of your depressed husband back in the university apartment, writing his depressing dissertation on nuclear destruction. Think of last night's dishes waiting for you in the very small sink in that apartment kitchen. Think of how fake this anguished, mental breakdown is going to look when it gets broadcast worldwide. Action. "Aaaaahhhhh!" 

I love acting. It is a mesh of real story and your story. Of the moment you breathe the air after the slate is clicked and your unbreathing image in which you will replay at will on someone's television next year. Acting is a terror because I love truth and must find a way to it, even while I am wearing someone else's clothes, and hangups, and history. In 'real life' most people never begin to be real. There is too much at stake for them, and we are cowards. But in acting, we have cleared the social, hierarchical and emotional space of pretension, and are good to go... as far as we need to. I'd like to think this exercise will develop a physiological habit for truth in me.

Sometimes acting makes you stupid. Sometimes it makes you brave. But I've learned that you can't be brave unless you're willing to be stupid. At first you feel inauthentic because you've never gone there before. The pain, the conviction, the anger, the embarrassment all feel angular against your cultivated demeanors. And it's a long day before you find the place where you grow into their places. That's where the story is so essential. If you find one worth telling, you can throw yourself hard into all its human walls, and be all the characters in your own way. When the story is true, the acting is just about capacity to care, to believe, to be present no matter the cost. This takes a strong person, and a weak person. And someone who doesn't mind being lost for a while, in order to find the long way home.

But here's the kicker: we all have our "moment". We are all actors, making choices in our scenes at the most inopportune time. The Director will not wait.

The alarm goes off at 6 am, and you turn your head to the angry daylight. Camera is rolling. You dreaded this moment, and now it is upon you. Time to go to work, Li-Li. Look alive, girl.

Or the kids are fighting in the car after school, because of some basic aggravation taken too far, and you have been trying to ignore them but the antagonism has reached nerve-pinching volume. Suddenly it occurs to you that you are the mom -- your turn to be present, to bring justice, terror, or sage wisdom in a way that will replay in their heads for the rest of their lives. 

Or, it is 11:30pm and you are happily working on your blog, and your dear, sweet husband, who you have ignored all evening because you have been happily working on your blog has showered and is lying in bed watching TV in his new underwear. He has had a stressful week and will get up in the morning to face another long day of largely insoluble challenges. As you are still happily working on your blog, on the cusp of literary breakthrough, he stops by your desk on the way back from the bathroom and suggests quietly, "time for bed?" What are you going to do now, Li-Li? "Good night, dear" or "Good NIGHT, dear"?  

The moment will not come twice in exactly the same way. And you have been cast for this minute. You will bring to it only from what you have, so what have you got in your pocketses? What comes of the combination is a gift, possibly magic. Whatever it is, it will be your moment. Roll tape.