Anonymous Nepali

One Tihar, when I was around 13, I decided I wanted to help my mom make sel roti. I still do not know why. Maybe I was feeling grown-up that day, or maybe I just wanted to feel involved in the kitchen chaos.

The unfiltered, full-bodied, holy chaos of it. I miss how it filled me with something that wasn’t just oxygen, but place.

I missed the life in the worship. Because at home, temples weren’t just sacred. They were social. Messy. Human.

I didn’t know I missed home until I smelled Timur in a foreign grocery store.