Ravena Leilani
Writer
WHAT IS YOUR CALLING CARD?
Yellow. Humidity. Very long voice notes. Making dinner plans in winter for the spring.
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?
I’m a person who is ready to believe. Skepticism didn’t come naturally to me. I grew up as a Seventh-day Adventist. You keep the sabbath, you eat a specific diet, you spend a lot of time in communion with God. When I became an atheist, I retained that desire for belief and ritual. I still go earnestly into most things. It can be vulnerable, embarrassing, and incline you toward people and experiences that are essentially surrogate cults, but every now and then you find a true, god-like thing.
““I grew up as a Seventh-day Adventist. When I became an atheist, I retained that desire for belief and ritual. I still go earnestly into most things.””
DESCRIBE A RECENT CROSSROADS AT WHICH YOU FOUND YOURSELF.
Recognizing when I’ve outgrown an artistic routine. For me, there is comfort in the rhythms that develop around a project, but I’ve found those rhythms to be specific to the subject. Now, I let the subject dictate the process, and stuckness feels less like a crisis and more like meaningful discomfort with how the work has changed.
WHAT’S ONE BOOK, WORK OF ART, ALBUM, OR FILM THAT GOT YOU THROUGH AN IMPORTANT MOMENT IN YOUR LIFE?
Kool & the Gang’s “Summer Madness” has gotten me through many moments. Everything I’ve ever written has been written to it. I play it every time I fly, every time I am behind the wheel of a U-Haul, when I am in deep winter and very depressed. For years, I have been collecting covers and songs that have sampled it. It embodies the season so utterly, and it’s what I reach for when I need warmth.
in your life?
