#Diary - Momento, a Memory I want to keep forever (Patreon)

In the movie "After Life," people are asked to choose only one memory to keep forever; but you only get that one. Everything else is lost. People choose their daughter's wedding, a birthday as a kid, a day at the park with the family. The kinds of things you treasure forever, that gave you a feeling you could exist in eternally. Today I experienced a contender.  It was just this small moment. 

I felt a pain on the side of my neck and asked Kru Nu to look at it, thinking maybe a bug bite or possibly Staph. He mercilessly squeezed and poked at it to determine if it hurt (it does), then decided it was a boil and took me by the shoulder off the side of the ring and led me inside his house to see his father. I love my trainer's father, a lot. When I first came to Petchrungruang he was strongly inviting. He is Stoic and calm, laughs almost to himself but sings aloud to everyone as he feeds his chickens in the morning. He's very Old School, but accepted me into the gym the very moment I showed my intentions. When we walked into the main room of Kru Nu's house, Bamrung (his father) was lying on this wooden bench that serves as the main furniture in that room. Kru Nu's mom was sitting there, half-smiling as she usually is, as Kru Nu pulled out a plastic chair for me to sit on and explained to his father what was needed. I sat dutifully and watched as Bamrung sat up, his wife scooted around behind him, and Kru Nu's naked shoulder and arm stuck out of the doorway from where he as fetching something from the family medicine drawer. 

Nat just turned 4 years old, he's Kru Nu's younger son. He was circling around on his yellow bike, making "broom broom" type sounds until his wheel hit the leg of my plastic stool and he stopped to look at me, realizing something serious was going on. Nat is at that age where everything is about him, all the time, so for him to be watchful for something else is almost a sign of its magic, just by itself. Kru Nu handed his father this tube of Hirudoid cream, which is used mainly to treat inflammation of the skin and keloid scars. Bamrung squeezed some onto his index finger and began chanting. I know this kind of chanting from my Sak Yant master, Arjan Pi. I bowed my head forward and Bamrung started swirling the cream onto the spot on my neck, chanting as he did so, then finishing by blowing on my neck while his index finger kind of spiraled down and out at the base of my neck. Nat seemed released from his spell at that moment and backed his bike up to cycle away. I waied to Bamrung and thanked him. He just smiled and raised his hand into the air the way he does all the time, somewhere between a Pope's wave and a "no problem." I love him.

There was no way to record this moment. There is very little in a way to even explain it. I've been at this gym for 4 years now and in many ways consider them my family. Not in a poetic way, but in a very real, very literal way. Even so, I'm constantly tangled in this complex web of being outside of things. To be taken into the house to see the highest rank in the family, it's like some Secret of NIMH scene, going to see Nicodemus or the Wise Owl. Except I have an existing relationship that's already beautiful, but this was beautiful on top of it. It felt like that moment healed something that was much deeper than the sore on my neck.