Golden Temple room.

Tonight was nice.

Kristin, who is back, and I decided to go to Grand Rapids and buy things from an Indian grocery store we'd Googled. We both have connections to the food now, given that I was just in India and she (to be brief) is engaged to a Pakistani.

After the soul-crushing (that's the second use of that term in two consecutive posts--coincidence?) and endless parade of expansive chain stores that is 28th Street, we turned onto Division, drove a mile or so, and ended up outside the address of a small and generally unremarkable little Indian market. Outside, a bored, preteenish brown boy and his younger brother were playing on a snow mound. "You can use that door," the boy kindly pointed out, gesturing at the discreet back door. As we walked inside, a turbaned and aproned man behind the counter looked at us skeptically before coming forward.

"You're from Punjab?" I asked.

He brightened immediately. "How did you know?"

"I just came back from six months in India. I was in Punjab for a short while. Amritsar--"

"Amritsar!" He looked overjoyed.

"I really liked the Golden Temple."

At this, he became very passionate. "The Golden Temple--" (pause), "--is the best place in all the world."

The next 10 or 15 minutes we were there were a little emotionally compacted, with strangely complex-feeling cultural truths and sentiments clawing at me. I feel like I've become trained in --1) the true chasm of cultural differences --2) the meaning of home --3) understanding what it means to be who I am where I am. In this little grocery, we silently shared our reflections of India, and his appreciation that I knew something of his home was apparent in his quick and persistent change of attitude. He put on Bollywood music. He showed us different products he was especially proud to carry. He asked questions. After we paid at the counter, he produced two apparently illegally burned soundtracks from behind the counter and placed them in our hands. "For free?" I asked. He nodded--"Some good, some not so good."

It was a tiny taste of India again, in the little shop. Touching interactions and hospitable behavior, the kind of communication that makes you want to seal it up immediately and walk out, for fear something (a realization you're being cheated, as happens on occasion) will break the unexpected intimacy of the moment.

I got home and placed my red dal and powdered coconut milk on the counter for tomorrow. In the living room with the tree, I started a Nick Hornby book about reading books I bought today (post-Hesse, light and funny is the prescription of the moment). I poured a glass of red wine that, well into 9PM and without dinner, rushed into my bloodstream quickly and gave me that feeling of vague and easygoing warmth. I put out 100 pages and felt good about it, and followed it with a bowl of French onion soup (made with vegetable broth, even).

Yes, it was enough for today.