PAST FOOD

XINDIAN DISTRICT, TAIPEI
OCT. 2016
 

In my mountian home, a vegan restaurant that opens early (preparing stuffed sticky rice ball with peanuts and tofu, for folks and students bound for the city) is actually run by a former monk. I found this out by braving that question this morning. I had eaten here since I arrived from New York over a week now, everyday religiously. I had observed the quality of his work with food; there was a discipline of serenity to its manner. The restaurant isn't really open at 630am, yet I'm always inside as Mars, the owner, stands against a prep table at the halfway open door, stuffing and rolling the rice, and customers come for take out. He would play jazz music to start our day. I, quiet and writing, and him, patient and humble as a tree, his hands blooming food. When I approached him with "the" question (as translated on my iPhone), wiggling the device to enlarge the screen (I had actually meant it as a joke; again, I come here enough that he and I had already established a rapport; in fact he had taken me to the night market already the other day, with another friend I met at the palace museum; that's how close we are and easygoing with each other), but seeing his reaction after reading the question, my heart trembled a bit. He gave me a look as if there was still a faint light in his eyes he's still searching - it was a split second window to his soul - and half-smiling and sincere he looked at me and said: Yes. A bowing yes. Nothing wrong with that, brother, I exclaimed! You're not angry, are you? Back to the Mars I knew, he answered, No!, like an orchestra conductor. Although he can't speak effective English, he can listen and understand the language and more so I think because he had already connected with me, the rhythm and nuance of my speech, and the way in which I talk he seemed to get it as clear as day. I told him, in English, that there was a dimension of spirit that informed his work with food (I had done temple stays around Asia many times before so I can tell) how and when food was prepared as an extension of prayer. He simply bowed his head again. Returning to my table and him returning to his task, I couldn't help but write another note to him in gratitude for answering my question like a sport. I wrote: They say that the best training the spirit could ever attain for its own sake is the practice of living an ordinary life with people, where you learn just as much as meditating as by communing with them. Mars knows I'm a poet. And I think this special morning taught as both, though privately, that we knew exactly how it felt to "collapse" the sun of the universe and suspend it in the darkness of our mind's "search" for the light, though we may never find it. I asked Mars if he could teach me how to make the fan tuan, the rice ball, and he said come over. So I stood at the prep table and executed. Piece of sushi! A customer was approaching and the fan tuan in my hand was still warm. I handed it to her, in exchange for 55 TD (Taiwan Dollars), and Mars said, my student made that, patting my shoulder. Ni Hao. And I said: thanks to my teacher. And I bowed.