I usually collect the damage from dinner by dispersing myself through trivial thoughts. It lacks logic, I think about it and it doesn’t make sense, but I like to scrub while listening to classical music. In the background the aria Un bel dì vedremo, We will see a beautiful day, played by a superb Victoria de los Ángeles. Immersed in the spirit of the verbena fragrance and suffering of Cio Cio San, the melody brings me the memory of my loves. Sweet and soft, the song takes me to a warm moment, like rinsing water, in which my mother gently reprimands me in a low voice for cooking with too many pots. I soap a frying pan, losing myself in thoughts outlined between desire and truth. I place spoons in the dishwasher’s cutlery holder, chewing on that article that confirms that the brain, in the absence of food, goes into energy saving mode, just like a digital device. I even mentally visualize the Barcelona soprano with green gloves reclining over the sink, in a domestic scene full of authenticity. Not everyone has a cherry tree planted with her name in Japan in recognition of her masterful interpretations of Madame Butterfly.
Later I recover the conversation with Miguel Poiares Maduro about the lagosta açorda which he made me try in Cascais. Everything that the inertia of memory gathers goes through my head cleaning, enjoying the friendly heat of the soapy liquid while the softness of the voice in the background rocks my spirit with calm. It relaxes me to restore decorum to pots and utensils; exhume the lost grace of cups and bowls; gain ground against the coalition of stains and grease. Maybe the repetitive movement of the scouring pad on the dishes softens the rigidity and logic that kill creativity (and something else). Agatha Christie explained it when she said that the best crimes for her novels had come to her while washing dishes. The unmistakable timbre of Victoria de los Ángeles becomes a stimulus in the environment, returning to me ideas like that about sight, which she defends its hegemonic place in the hierarchy of the senses. She credits it to the vocal ornamentation known as coloratura. What a beautiful word to give color to the sound. The touch of betrayed innocence also has color, I tell myself, that of the sorrowful gaze under the dejected white makeup, with features highlighted in sombre regret of the young Butterfly. Maybe sufferings are the wrinkles of the soul, I reason.
How many episodes have not been conceived in the intimacy of the repetitive task, I suspect, in the repeated action that closes the door of that space forged with corners that is self-absorption.
Abandoned in my considerations, I unexpectedly receive a painful attack on the distal phalanx of the little finger. I feel the sharp, lightning-like sting of a gash penetrating the tissue beneath the skin. A treacherous ceramic knife, lurking among the foam, is the cause of that kind of bite that stings me heartbreakingly. I hold my wrist with my other hand, watching the blood slide down my wet palm and I understand that there is nothing more anchored to the present than pain. I want to escape from the moment, from the here and now, to escape from this unpleasant sensation that will become numb as a few minutes pass, which do not pass. When desire is ahead, there are no shadows to hide in. Once again, I’m late in anticipation. In that moment, immersed in the ravages of the injury, I speculate on the other pains, those caused by bad comments, by the blindfolds in the trial; for the scars caused by the devastating analyzes that elude us, no longer trying to understand, or even listen. I think about the traces left in the will by the sinkholes of harmful considerations, as well as the helplessness caused by bad manners, lack of concern, biases, pressures and even the pure evil that crosses our path in life, of the same way as in restaurants. Poor Cio Cio San, I tell myself, the incision on his wound doesn’t have time. Each representation discovers it in a loop that channels it towards eternity.
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