I had been turning over in my mind for some time now the idea of staying with the monks at Mommy and Uncle's temple. For days after work I kept driving by the tender place of my old employment and wondered when I'd have the gull to go in and say hello. Tonight, I finally did.
Stepping near the door, Uncle spotted me from the patio and waved me down, thinking I was just walking by. I assured him he was the reason I came, and, the laughing buddha that he was, he told me to go on in, paying no mind to the customers still left outside. I was touched.
I made my way through the dining room, said hello to old kitchen colleagues, and came to the back with Mommy cooking and her sister, as always, cutting vegetables.
As I watched Mommy fry copious amounts of fish I said my venerable hellos and was, as usual, offered all the food in her world. And, as usual, I appreciatively declined, only to have been offered a drink of lemon grace tea by Uncle moments later. I had missed this place, and though I see it in passing almost every day when making my way to my own family's restaurant (in attempts to touch the roots of my own heritage’s food), it was the people in that space at that specific time that made it the place it was and that I had missed. Closing time. After hours. Cooking for each other, cooking as a family, eating together. The time, as far as I've always been concerned, that everyone lived for.
Mommy had explained that she had been preparing food for the monks at temple and that Uncle was going to take it to them; and serendipitously, just like that, I was given the opportunity to ask if Mommy thought that the monks would let me stay with them at temple for a couple days. Mommy said of course, and Uncle, always willing to help, said that there was a night festival soon and that that would be the perfect opportunity because that's when everyone goes. And if that didn't work I could always go another time. Mommy made the decision for me to go with Uncle right then and there to visit the monks late that night just shy of 10 pm as they packed their errand of pad thai, curry and mango salad. Mommy said I could stay, eat with them, and just be. That some nights, when she's too tired, when we're all too tired of the world, we can all just go to temple late at night, meditate and fall asleep, wake up the next day, and leave.
Filling the last bit of basket Uncle held the basket of packed food up to mommy's head, and then her sister's, the two taking turns bowing and saying Buddhist prayers so the alms would happily make their way. Uncle and I then loaded up the car and left.
I'd always daydream about making food delivery trips with Uncle when I worked at the restaurant, and for a brief moment I felt a pang of irony and sadness that the moment had come when I wasn't part of the crew (though today I'm sure they’d still consider me one of their own). With the sounds of Laotian love ballads undulating from uncle's car stereo and oozing in both of our ears like liquid sugar I did my best to catch up with Uncle, telling him that I had been working at my family's restaurant these past couple of months and assuring him that I remembered his teachings on how to descale a fish (a story I'm sure I'll tell you, dear readers, someday), and that yes, I still knew how to cook Thai, though I haven't cooked it much because cooking it for only myself seemed like such a sad thing.
Arriving at temple, Uncle's friend, having been staying with the monks for some time now, greeted us and led us to the kitchen, where I saw a small table full of what looked like fresh noodles. I had recalled the bakers, and thought maybe the monks made their own food. Then, remembering the gold, yellow, pink and white braids on my wrist assumed that what I was coming to was a plethora of Buddhist prayer bracelets, something the monks made for the masses. Uncle enlightened me: the long, thin gold strands were actually candles. Candles for the ceremony coming up that he told me about barely an hour ago. Each long, white string had been dipped in a long dish filled with melted bees wax and hung over the oven fan, the drippings hilling into small dunes below, gathered in a disposable oven tray. When dry, and looking like fresh noodles, they were placed on the small table next to the oven. I listened to the soft clicks of Lao that passed between all the men in the kitchen; I peered in the fridge, looked on the shelves, and noted that the monks never had to cook for themselves because the community did it for them. The bowls alone were enough to supply a small country.
While I lost myself in the curious prayer wheel tatooed on one of the monk's arms, another monk hobbled into the kitchen while pinning his robe over his shoulder. He had just woken up and covered himself in time. Uncle told me that if I wanted to I could speak to him because he could understand some English. I told Uncle I'd wait for the head of whom we quietly passed in the hall for fear of disturbing his meditation in the shadows, lit only by the little light that bounced off the three golden Buddhas which sat ascetically on the hearth, there to not only guide devotees in meditation, but to give them some reflexive perspective.
When he came to and I watched his silhouette approach the kitchen, me peering in and out the door, I readied myself in my chair. He stood at the doorway seemingly awkward, but I realized I had been projecting my own character on to him. He was quiet and his presence was, in all actuality, commanding. I had greeted the monks before, having had no trouble bowing to them, but this time something stopped me.
A beat.
Uncle told me to remove my hat. Embarrassed, I did, and, like a kid, followed the monk into the great hall after Uncle told him I had something to ask and that I should go talk with him in private. I had naively assumed Uncle would do all the talking for me, but the monk was articulate enough to hold conversation, and this I knew, having met and spoken with him years before.
Having sat down before him at the hearth, I pleaded my case and to some confusion had seemed as if I was looking for some spiritual guidance. I had assured the head that although I appreciated the sentiment, I had nothing so serious in mind. I did not want to necessarily become a monk, nor wish to spiritually find myself or reach some deeper understanding of the Buddhist faith, I merely wanted to come and be. I merely wanted to stay there, cook, clean, meander aimlessly, have pretend conversations with the Buddha, and really nothing else. Just spend time with the monks, as boring as that may seem. He told me that that was perfectly fine, but that I should also have some kind of structure and discipline during my stay for the sake of leaving with something. I humbly agreed. From there, the head got to know me better, asked who I was, where I came from. He and I had both been students at the same university at the same time last year and were, in fact, graduating on the same time, just in different departments. I told him about my adventures with food, about having come to temple with Mommy and Uncle and how having seen how food happened there made me think that temple seemed like a good place to be. He understood. And we talked a little longer- about food in Asian faiths, how the Buddhist is always obliged to cook for another, and the Monastic should never cook for himself unless absolutely necessary, but that a dependence on the lay cooker teaches moral obligation and creates a strong bond between monk and community. I remembered the fridge. We spoke more about religion, about his academic work and how the academy can certainly be lonely. We spoke about discourse, the multicultural, my lack of direction, accept when it came to food, and practitioner scholars, something I had heard of, but never really given much attention to.
It had been almost an hour before Uncle came out of the kitchen and politely broke up our conversation, telling us that, unfortunately, we had to leave because mommy was all alone at the restaurant and needed help closing because it was nearing midnight. I thanked the head for his time and consideration, gave a half-assed bow (which I planned to improve), put my shoes on and said goodnight, awaiting his reply for my retreat.
Uncle and I headed home.
Mommy was waiting for us by the front door, unlocking it with one hand, and passing the phone off to Uncle with the other- their grandchild was on the phone and couldn't get to sleep. Cajoling them with the help of his wife, Uncle was talked through the conversation by Mommy, who carolled her usual ois and tall mmMMmm when playing back and forth in witty conversation. They were sounds I dearly missed, especially during the cold winters I recalled them happening in.
I said one last goodbye watching Uncle make his way to the fridge with tubs of cleaned lettuce, and Mommy as always offered me first a drink (yet again) and then some of the food they intended to eat that very night. A humble plate of six quail eggs, greens and rice. I graciously accepted, and Mommy, as democratic as always, gave me two and a mound of rice, cheerily peeping to herself that we all got two eggs each. The act only solidified the already good reputation of Mommy in my own mind; that she could have so little but still share it equally with someone else. And yes, I know she could get food elsewhere, but that wasn't the point; the point was, or at least how I saw it, was that the energy that went into cooking would be reason enough to not want to give so much food away, because it was late and to cook more would take even more spirit. Maybe I can't articulate this thought as well as I can understand it in my mind, but lack of food never stops Mommy or Uncle from always offering me things and telling me to not be shy, to, like the lay or monastic, feel a moral obligation to cook for others before themselves. This makes owning a restaurant, or being a cook, in my heart, a very worthwhile and legitimate thing. I would never have been otherwise able to justify the act in my own life until my conversation with the monk tonight. I always saw cooking as kind of shallow, glamorous, and kind of unimportant air, and though it may all be relative to perceive it the way it is and from the context of Mommy's, Uncle's and the monks' lives, it certainly has made all the difference.
I left thinking more about it. Having finally realized the most sincere and best way to cook in life and how I could cook and be satisfied with myself without feeling utterly hopeless and without meaning.
There may not be any glowing figures, and like Mommy once said, when it comes to faith, she believes it, but doesn't believe it; still, there are certainly things there that make life a lot more liveable. I thought even more about it, at ease with myself for the first time in a while. I thought even more about it. About Mommy, monks, apples and raccoons.
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