I've got quite an obsession for food left on the street.
And I never really spent time to think about how this random hobby came about. I'm not one to simply do things for no reason, so I decided to sit-down today and try to figure this out.
You can call it the art of noticing, or arbitrarily forcing significance onto the mundane. The reason why I capture these trivial rotten everyday forgotten trash is uncomplicated: they amuse me. I smirk and peak into a story every time I come across food left on the street. I see people, their reactions, their conversations, their taste, their ambitions... I transcend into someone else's life for a brief moment.
- Thursday morning, Boston College, a boy knocks over his plate of tater tots and pancakes as he rushes to class, "oh fuck!". (Did he get a snack after his first class? How come he didn't get any ketchup for the fries? )
- Three espresso cups by the Seine River, right next to a bookstand that sells used books and magnets and locks, a street artist playing the piano on the bridge a few meters away. (Hmmm was it for three people or one person? Would they scoff at pumpkin cream oat milk cold brew? What's on that tinfoil-covered plate? And naturally because it is Paris, are they in love?)
- Popcorn spilt over the steps in Disneyland, "noooooooo", the four-year-old's first time holding her own bucket of popcorn! (Why does no one sell caramel popcorn anywhere!)
I feel so human, and glad to be human, when I come across these endearing remnants of life.
Summer of 2004:
I was four years old but enrolled in the first grade somehow. I got my hands on these spherical containers covered in wax. I loved how they are twist open/close, and I wanted to put my trinkets in these plastic containers. On my way to school, I peeled off the wax, and threw the soft black balls from the containers to the ground. By the end of the day, there were about twenty plastic golfball looking containers in my backpack. As I started gathering nicknacks to put in the plastic balls, my grandma started looking for her medicine. Her medicine that comes in wax covered balls... After some yelling and possible spanking, I was pushed out of the house to find the pills I threw away. I suppose maybe it was then when I first started paying attention to food left on the street? I scoured the route to school and picked up a few of the pills. I left a lot on the ground because I couldn't distinguish whether they were medicine or pebbles produced by goats... There's a lot of guilt ignited within me when grandma got sicker a few years later, for I imagined the pills I threw away were miracle pills that could've saved her life, but that's another story. Although my mischief warranted a serious scolding, I think about the plastic containers and pills on the street with nothing but tenderness. I left those childish years the same person; I adore containers and packaging; I pay attention to food on the street; I'm mesmerized by brief human moments that grow into a fondness for life.