Banana and soy sauce over white jasmine rice

[Currently sipping Jasmine Pu-Erh tuocha from Bird Pick Tea & Herb in El Monte, CA]

I’ve been thinking more deeply about my relationship to money in the past few months, and the tl;dr realization from these internal investigations is: it’s complicated. I suspect that’s the case for everyone, even if they aren’t aware of it. Those who are so flush with cash that they don’t know what they’d do without it have various issues (such as…not knowing what they’d actually do if they didn’t have money). Those who are destitute know that they need it for survival and may harbor resentment toward others who do have it or prevent them from getting any. The range of situations in between is fertile with intertwined, confused emotions and tightly held beliefs.

I struggle with straddling multiple mindsets but they have allowed me to progress at different stages of my life, for which I am grateful.

You see, when I was elementary-school young, one of my favorite dinners involved scooping a fluffy spoonful of white jasmine rice out of the rice cooker where it had been warming, peeling and slicing a banana with the spoon I’d soon use for eating, and drizzling soy sauce over the concoction in a bowl. It held contrasts that worked:

• warm fragrant rice vs. cold Maggi from the fridge

• sweet banana slices vs. salty soy sauce

• smooth-yet-sticky banana mush vs. distinct grains of rice

Banana and soy sauce over white jasmine rice was a joy.

Now that I’m older and remember how often I had this meal, the memory holds contrasts that don’t work:

• fondness for how simple things could bring me delight vs. sadness for being in a situation where my meals had to be that simple (i.e. cheap)

• pride in making my own dinners when young vs. disappointment in being in a situation where I needed to take care of myself when young

• appreciation for how sensible I was as a child vs. irritation that I wasn’t learning sensibility by other means

I was more than happy in those moments to choose food that I enjoyed AND not overburden my hard-working parents by asking them to make me something else. I felt like I was helping - saving them time, not money exactly.

These memories have been on my mind (along with many others) because I have been curious about how the concept of having money manifested as I grew up and which situations strongly shaped my opinions on wealth. Making these meals, I thought more about the effort I was saving my parents, not how much the ingredients in the house cost. There was a greater purpose. Wealth was in helping.

Now that I am knowledgeable of average sales prices, I know those dinners were only several cents’ worth of food. The naïveté in those times allowed for enjoyment; I didn’t stress over knowing what it meant to have just those things to eat. One lesson learned by recounting those times is that I can survive with “less” when I have a distinct intention, and the result won’t necessarily be a compromise to my happiness.

In these days right before I embark on a new journey that clearly will be, in regards to income, lesser than where we’ve been lately, I’m reminding myself that banana and soy sauce over white jasmine rice is a delicious treat and ultimately, temporary. There are greater objectives to reach, and at this point in my life, wealth is having control over how I spend my time. I hope to see y’all around here more often; I’ll be writing more.