Golden Buddhas

The kitchen light is broken and requires tightening each day which I can only reach with a chair or step stool, so it’s Ben’s job now, and he’s in the dark, just waking. For the time being, we use a floor lamp which gives off a warm tone, the cord passing from the doorway to plug into the living room wall. Each morning, the kitchen is my first site of simplicity. I’m crying this morning as I fill a mason jar with hot water because I’m so grateful to the monks walking across the country. The monks are my brothers—that’s what goes through my mind as though the words are showing up on a big movie screen and it feels very good to think that. Their intention, so palpable and true. I want mine to be that clean, that straight arrow true. I’ve just cleaned the toilet and wiped down the sink. The monks are walking from Pittsboro, NC, towards Apex, NC, along the US-64 Highway this morning. I look out at the empty small side street out my kitchen window.

I’m unloading the dishwasher to “Redención” by Orlando “Caichíto” López. Just now I’m realizing the song title means “redemption” or “liberation.” As I listen, I’m turning on the oatmeal and cutting two bananas, eyeballing raisins coming out of the package into the bubbling pot. I’ve just woken from a dream of taking a left hand turn to pick up a gift package at the post office. I turn just after a bright blue truck goes by. Then the dream shifts, and it’s my hand picking two cards out of a deck, each with an identical golden Buddha on it.

Now, while packing my son’s lunch, I think about golden Buddhas. I think of the story of golden Buddhas in Thailand, solid gold statues that were hidden during war, accidentally found beneath layers of clay. That is of course, a hopeful metaphor and image of possibility for these endlessly heartbreaking times. A metaphor too, moment by moment, for my own essence, buried amidst cycling loops of discursive thought. But honestly the clay doesn’t interest me. It’s the golden Buddhas of my dream I return to—unburdened, unobscured, fat, and smiling. So regal and still, first finger touching thumb. I let my mind travel back to the left hand turn, to the bright blue truck, the golden Buddha then back to the decisive left hand turn to pick up an unknown gift. The unknown is a vibration? I remember writing in my journal earlier in the week. I wipe down the stainless steel sink. My son and I say our ritual goodbye before school. I say, “Be kind to yourself and others.” He says, “Be kind to yourself and mothers.” The house is empty. My mind is with monks standing for the deepest human love, blue trucks and golden Buddhas as I climb the stairs and turn on a hot shower.