Dear July, 

I've taken a while to write back to you. Please forgive me for being so late. It is Chuseok today where you are. In Singapore, it is Mid-Autumn Festival. I had a cheaply made yam-and-preservatives-filled mooncake to celebrate the occasion. I would much rather eat dumplings, though I will have to wait for the Dragon Boat Festival in June for that.

I laughed while I read your letter. When I read your recounting of Lee Seul-Ah’s essay about contemplating her mother's sexual life, I couldn't help but picture this uncomfortable exercise in establishing female solidarity. I think it is a wonderful exercise and that you are right, we should all do that! Perhaps I should ask my mother to discuss it with me? Oh god, I pictured it. We would stare at each other in horror. Please send me an English translation of Lee Seul-Ah's essay—if such a translation exists—so I can gain courage from it.

Now, let me return your story from your library of mothers with one from my own.

About a week ago, I got to preview a film made by Myanmar filmmaker Lamin Oo called Three Strangers. Right now as I am writing to you, the film has not yet premiered but I was fortunate to get a sneak peek. The film is a documentary about three strangers who live in a remote village in Rakhine State, Western Myanmar. There is Gwa To who was born a woman but lives as a man, Ma Soe who was born a woman and decided to accept Gwa To as her husband, and Phoe Htoo who was born a boy to a mother could not take care of him. These three strangers live together as a family. As you can probably guess, this film is a beautiful portrait of 'normal' family life in the most 'abnormal' way, or perhaps of abnormal family life in the most normal way. I wish I could tell you about all the scenes I love in this film but I should wait till you get to see it. There are many scenes that linger in my mind, like that one when Phoe Htoo, who is already quite tall at 10 years old, crawls into Ma Soe's lap as though he were still a baby. Or when Gwa To and Ma Soe peel prawns while cooking and bickering about which of them had sacrificed more in raising their son. Among all of these, there is one I can’t forget. Gwa To was telling the story of adopting Phoe Htoo from his birth mother's house in another village far away and, when he recalled the look on the woman’s face, Gwa To broke down. It was as though the memory of that woman's pain had somehow also become Gwa To's. Do you think the body can remember something that is not its own?

When you look at your mother, do you feel that you know the pain she feels? I do, sometimes. Yet I know that I do not know. All I can do is search and grasp and crawl in this library of mothers I have built. 

With love,

Phoebe

Dumpling ghost

P.S. How unexpected and how wonderful that the clothes your mother had passed down to you have turned your closet into a little library that you share with her.