There's something so special about the food you grew up eating.
It's something we take for granted in its simplicity and frequency; another thing we
rush past only to stop and think about it years down the road when our souls yearn for it out
of the blue on a sunny Thursday afternoon. A lot of people call it Soul Food. I call it Onigiri.
I think all of us have a food that so deeply touches the inner parts of her soul and nourishes
not just our bodies, but everything else too. It replenishes us with exactly what we were missing
and pushes some sort of reset button back to our centered state. Granted, our center and reset mode
are always changing because we as humans are riding the constant flow of change.
A lot of us move through this either by evolving, making ourselves into shinier newer
versions of ourselves, or by reflecting -- peeling the layers back and finding out who we really are
at our core. And in the midst of all this, life is always throwing new things our way to deal with.
Maybe it's a rejection from a school, a job, or a crush. Or it's a new opportunity
in a new city, at a new job, with a new friend. Sometimes life throws unimaginably difficult
challenges, and other times it throws us exactly what we didn't know we needed.
But i think there's something about soul food that brings us right back to where we feel like we're
supposed to be. I feel like that with Onigiri. Like when Chihiro eats that Onigiri that Haku
gives her and bawls her eyes out, I feel that in my soul. Maybe it just brings me back to the
Onigiri that my mom made with her warm, soft hands for us whenever we needed a snack. Or the gigantic
single Onigiri that my dad would make for us to bring to lunch, that often lacked a filling,
but never lacked in care and love. It was one of the few things i felt okay bringing
to school for lunch in a sea of Lunchables, my one symbol and reminder that would help keep me
in touch with myself throughout my younger years. Onigiri still plays a significant role in my life
and has meant different things to me at different times. Sometimes it's the exact on-the-go snack
I need for a busy day, and other days it's the only thing I want after coming back from a trip.
It's amazing that something so simple and humble can have such significance, if we give it.
Onigiri is a really simple dish: rice, salt, a filling or furikake,
and usually a nori to wrap it all up. There's really only one way that people make it, but for
whatever reason every single Onigiri is different, depending on who's making it. Realistically,
it's probably the combination of the shape and warmth of their hands that mold it together,
the amount of salt they use, and of course their filling choice and the way that it's filled,
but i think it's because each Onigiri includes the love, care, and life of who's making it,
there's a piece of their soul in there. And no two Onigiri are the same, because
no two people are the same. Eating it feels like it taps me into the deepest parts of my soul.
Granted, it doesn't always give me answers, but it completely centers me and gives me mental clarity.
And I think that's what's so grounding about Onigiri for me.
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