Lee Hom's " Forever 1st Day " Album Diary

00/12/23~00/12/29 @ Part 29

Dear Friends,

The new year, century, millenium, or whatever you want to call it is upon us. To me, it is a time to step ten steps back from the usual perspective I may have on my life and take a good look.

Like a painter having perhaps just completed one more corner of his vast canvas, the section we call 2000 is now put in context with the past. Hopefully, you all will look onto your canvases and, like me, be able to smile...whether the year was hard or easy, I am stronger for it, and what I accomplished this year...is beautiful when I stand back and take a look.

Now as I walk around this painting, I notice how much of the canvas is still blank. If I really wanted to, I could easily change this piece into a modernist, or impressionist, or even a boring still life...

But the funny thing is, it seems to be taking a shape of its own, ever so naturally. Yes, the brush is in my hand and whatever I paint is of my own free-will, but there is a common theme that has already arisen, something unavoidably individual, and as basic as one's penmanship.

I write differently than anyone else in the world writes or has ever written. Even in all of my inconsistencies, there is some constant which is slowly becoming clearer. Maybe I dot my "i"'s funny, or maybe six times out of ten, I'll write my "A"'s capital...maybe it's becoming clearer to me how I want to live my life and what I am going to paint in the remaining blank parts my canvas.

Scientists say that time travel is possible. I know it is, and I do it in my mind frequently. I'm actually 80 years old sitting on my rocking chair in my house in the mountains and I just made a wish. "I want to go back to the day 12/30/2000 when I was 24. I want to see the faces again of those people who touched my life, see them the way I remember them, young and beautiful". I lean back in my chair and close my eyes, then "poof", here I am. I walk over to the window and the first thing I notice is how easy it is to get up out of this chair. There is no more pain in my lower back or right knee. I look out the window and laugh. This is Hong Kong, exactly the way it was that day before New Year's Eve. Next, I walk to the mirror in the my hotel and am shocked. Who is this stranger? Look at all my hair! Look, there are no wrinkles on my face! I lean in close and smile, "I'M BACK!" and it feels great to be living it all over again.

I really do do this quite often. My 80 year old self keeps my head filled with good advice. When I'm nervous for a performance, he time travels back and screams, "Gimme the microphone!" or he'll come to me and say, "Don't be such a fool! She's a nice girl, beautiful and smart. And there you are, too preoccupied with you job to do anything about it! Call her back!"

I hope to live my life like it's the second time around. I hope to appreciate the time that I have while I'm still here. I intend to keep creating and working hard to fill this canvas, which is my life, with as much beauty as I can. These are my new year's resolutions for 2001.

Happy New Year to all of you,
with much love, Leehom