In a small monastery in Chiang Mai, Thailand.  I remember being 11 or 12, the age of most of the orange-clad boys I see around me, and visiting my grandmother-- memere.  She would always give me religious pamphlets to satiate my voracious reading appetite.  And on the rare and special occasion, she would produce a book.  I always hoped it would be something modern filled with junior high school crushes, but it was always the story of some tragically ill young girl or boy who should serve as a spiritual role model for me.  These books always made me feel so guilty for my attachments to this world.  Most things I could give up, but I could not reconcile how strongly I loved my parents, nor could I deal with a fatal disease like the Fatima girl whose only sin was refusing a grape from her concerned sister.  My grandmother so old and proof that one day we will die even though I was only 12 and quite pretty and healthy.  My throat would knot painfully when I thought of all these things, but I never brought it up with memere.  I only took the pillow she offered me so early at night and lie awake thinking how brave these young religious girls were, while I could only resort to praying for morning for my parents to come back.

A small temple in Chiang Mai brought all that back to me.  Surely some of the boys before me had similar thoughts lying in their cots at night.  Something so sad about life in a religious order.  But I was relieved to learn that most Thai men spend a few months as monks before going on to marry and lead regular materialistic lives ;)  So likely most of the boys I saw will go on to live as lay people.  Still, the sight of them all, closing up the temple for the day, brought tears to my eyes.  I wish I had shitloads of cash so I could fix the worn rugs and buy something other than cardtable chairs for the visitors.  Instead, I donated 50B to the repair fund.

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