Siddhartha Greets Me with His Unchanging Poise

by Hannah Park

I.

The thick Korean air subsides as we descend down to the subway station. People sink into their seats and phone screens. I can’t remember the last time we visited my grandma. I must have been ten.

I remember visiting her temple when I was little. The smell of incense was overwhelming, and the golden Buddha – even more. We used to swim in her blood red colored buckets, my brother and I – filling it with water – snacking on boiled quail eggs. During the day Siddhartha looked like he was at peace – happy even. During the night, he transformed into an overhearing presence – his eyes on me as I tiptoed to the bathroom. The room next door shelved Zolaman comic books – what a strange juxtaposition between sacredness and vanity.

We meet her at a jang-uh restaurant that serves health eels. She wears a neatly tucked grey robe, with a texture similar to wheat cereal, the ends gently tucked into her sides; a matte gray hat sits pleasantly on her glistening bald head, and the brown beads circle around her wrists like a promise.

Mom, how have you been? Is the beginning question that ignite the thirty-two other questions that my grandma had locked away for many years – questions buried under several years of broken phone calls, walled by the distance of living two continents away.

Let’s order more eel! It’s good for you! I can tell my mom missed her. I can tell they missed each other. What a strange moment of seeing myself through the eyes of my mother’s mother.

We walk back to her temple. It’s the same as I remembered it to be: Siddhartha greets me with his unchanging poise. He has a feast before him– half-peeled apples, dried dates, stacks of rice-cakes, and Korean pears, all reflecting a an act of worship, an act of reverence.  The blood-red buckets are still tucked away from when I was little. She has new plants, a few grown go-chu bushes. I’m not sure if the room next door is still filled with comic books. I take a deep breath and allow the scent of incenses to fill my lungs.

We accept a photo album she prepared for us of her temple and monk ordination: photos that capture with a little light, the depth of her belief, and the shallowness of her unforgiving bitterness. As we leave, I see my mom whispering a word of prayer.

Grandmother and mother

Gold and silver

Hair and volume

Grey and bald

Heaven and hell

Walking and worshipping

Two different roads

And as I leave I “turn out the world with a waterfall” and think,

May I love you more,

To overcome the incenses,

So that one day

We’d walk together

On the same road