Sweet and Sour

I know what I’m having for lunch today. We’re gonna go to the little Chinese place that’s by the bowling alley—not the new one down the hill we just found that has fantastic authentic food where the menu is in Chinese and they only give you chopsticks and I’m the only white person in the place. Nope, we're headed to the little hole in the wall that doesn’t even have chopsticks if you want them, and the tables are really just to sit at while you wait for your to-go order.

Because I want crappy sweet and sour “mock” chicken. I don’t want authentic. I want sweet and I want sour and I want it with high fructose corn syrup and breading and food coloring. And soy sauce that’s made in Kansas.

This morning I was in the car with my middle son. As we sat at a red light waiting he looked over at me, squinting, brows pulled tight and said “how you do?” He’s psychic, or so super sensitive and perceptive and intuitive that if he lived in a calmer society, he’d be the shaman. I looked at him. I don’t want to lie to my kids. They know when something’s up. They get it; this one especially. Telling less than the truth breaks the trust between us. So I told him.

“It’s like life just can’t be straight forward. It’s full and empty, up and down, the good with the bad. Can’t we just have the sweet or the sour? Why do they have to be all mixed together?”

This was the moment the 13-year-old came back to the surface and the shaman faded and he looked at me like I was nuts.

“I just got an email from someone I’m so deeply happy to hear from, but it’s fall-out from the guy from high school who just died.”

“Mmm” he said, and looked out the window—earbuds stuffed in his ears and the ipod so loud I can hear the “Chemical Romance” song right through his ears.

I guess I need to remember that sweet and sour go so well together. It’s the perfect thing. Yes, this man died. It is deeply sad. It’s loss. Life always swings to death, it’s what makes room for the rest of life to move on, it’s sacred and good and part of life. If none of us ever died no one would be able to take a breath here on the planet. Even the sad is good. And hearing from this lost now found person is all good—like divine sweetness. Like pineapple. It sounds like this is happening across the country from this one man’s death—old friends finding each other after years and years and years. Sweet.

I think I’ll bring my sweet and sour “chicken” home and dump super spicy thai sauce over the whole thing. Like life. Sweet; sour; and if we’re lucky— wicked spicy.