This morning, I noticed how, on a few different streets, there were stains and remnants of vomits going from the main road to the curb and gutter. Then I was reminded that it was a Sunday morning and, scenes resembling these, would be typical of a weekend morning, perhaps, when people would be more apt to partying all night, engaging in complete debauchery meriting a full self-cleaning stomach.
Riding along R. Papa, I noticed several men peeing against walls and bushes. There were several vehicles spewing out smoke from diesel engines. I saw the empty stares of children seemingly aimless in their gallivanting. There were people rushing elsewhere, security guards yawning away a hot morning and store vendors already bored attending to their merchandise.
All these reminded me of graffitis. In my mind, there are all sorts of colorful profanities imprinted, some kaleidoscopic, others more straightforward, but all graphic nonetheless.
The kaleidoscope that is the stomach. Imagine spewing out half of your insides, all that bile, the purging of what you thought you wanted, of that which you once owned and held on to, churning out elements that if pieced back together could be an oral narrative of where you have been and what you have eaten (or drank). It's cathartic, really.
It must be, I wondered. Bile and smoke. Graffiti and art. Absence and denial. Recognition and longing. Maps and love. All the Fuck You's, indeed, cannot be rubbed out.
On a related note, I re-read Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer over the weekend. It made me think how great stories are really just a great deliberation of sadness in many different forms, with many different faces.
I remember a passage in the book: With writing, we have second chances.
We would get it right this time. We could have decided to stay home and not drink. We could have sent our kids to Sunday school or we could have been sent by our parents. Maybe we could have gotten it right the first time and spent Saturday night with families and not pee on the streets. Maybe we would be happier on this hot morning.
Maybe we do not have to regret as much. Second chances.
And all the Fuck-You's in the world.
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