Líkið á mótorhjólinu
11:48 › 6. maí 2010
Áður en að hinn 22 ára gamli David Morales Colon frá Puerto Rico var skotinn til bana í San Juan sagði hann fjölskyldu sinni að ef hann myndi deyja fyrir aldur fram myndi hann ekki vilja fá hefðbundna útför.
David var gríðarlega mikill áhugamaður um mótorhjól og ákvað fjölskylda hans því, í samvinnu við útfararstofu í San Juan, að smyrja lík hans og koma því fyrir á mótorhjólinu hans.
Lík Morales hvílir því á mótorhjólinu í gallabuxum með derhúfu á höfði og sólgleraugu. „Hann elskaði mótorhjólið sitt og þegar hann var á því var hann laus við allar áhyggjur. Við vitum að hann verður hamingjusamur til eilífðarnóns,“ segir skyldmenni Morales.
Ritstjórn DV (ritstjorn@dv.is)
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Friday, March 12, 2010
a few months past...
I've been back in my island of Puerto Rico now since December and I still had problems in my mind concerning how I left Iceland for the second time. And all this while, when I am procrastinating looking for a shitty job here or there, while I am railing a the bureaucracy involved in not making even the minimum wage, I come and go from Iceland.
I still don't know why I went back after these some 4 years. Still I had to get it out of my system. I think it was a naive impulse to go ignoring how bad the economy has been for that colder version of my "here". I tried to dispense with the idealizations which were always many. Some true loves, some vested in places some in people. Yet little was left when I got there. I felt bereft yet I knew I had to listen to whatever this time and place had to say to me then. As it happens I saw new things met new people and rejoiced with the ones that were still there and able to keep me company.
When I had just arrived at the end of summer, I waled from the bus stop carrying everything I had. And as I stepped on each sidewalk cobblestone I was surprised by the fact that I didn't feel as moved by this experience. I moved through the place almost numb to it. Acknowledging that it had been important and now the task at hand was to honor it as such and build upon it something new. Those at least were my honest intentions.
As I said I arrived just when the short icelandic summer was waning but that didn't keep the people from basking in the sunlight available, walking with babies in strollers around the lake, buying icecream. My delight was to listen to icelandic everywhere and to speak the few words I knew when I ordered something and was understood. I had coffee by the lake with my friend Oliver. we commented on the summer glee and the aesthetics of Reykjavík parklife. He said he saw me as an observer. I think he was also saying this to himself. He's been living there for a few years now. Somehow he's managed to not get to involved with the icelandic culture as much. Be it amorous encounters , old pop songs or Reykjavík's famed nightlife. At first I thought this was maybe bad but I think I got to understand this distance. He had another reading of what the place meant to him and he sticks to it most of the time. He has become quite fluent with the language and has even written a thesis on second language acquisition. I on the other hand struggled with the language until the day I left. it had become cumbersome to try and learn when I felt most people I was around, didn't give a damn whether I did or not. I tried having people talk to me in icelandic yet they would eventually grow exasperated. I decided to just fall into the ranks of oh so many helvitis utlendingar
I went north (Myvatn) and worked there for a bit with my friend Ingimar. This was one of the best experiences I'll have and keep of Iceland. Work hard during the day and meet characters from all over the world that for some reason end up a stonethrow away from the arctic circle in the middle of the highlands.
Bathing almost every night in Grjótagjá's thermal waters until the beer was done. Then again tomorrow. There I met Sigurlaug and Oddur. That beautiful couple so kind to me. Working with Oddur was fun. WHen we were working 11 hours a day in the kitchen, at the cash register and waiting tables, we relied on each other's impersonations of David Bowie and talking goats to blow off some steam. Sigurlaug would always bring good pregnant cheer to us sporadically during the day. We made pizzas and they were pretty damn good let me tell you.
There I also met my friend with who I am writing this, Helgi Hrafn. I don't know why I am narrating this as if a 3rd person might read it but I'll fall in and out of grammatical persons when i feel like it. This is really an effort to you Helgi, and the other eyes that my stumble upon it, my impressions not only of my time in Iceland but also my life right now, here in Puerto Rico. With the hope of continuing a dialog we started on your island.
You were "fresh off the boat" from your stay in Argentina. He heard I spoke spanish and asked "De dónde sos?"with his half icelandic half porteño accent. Between pizzas we talked about argentina, career plans, journalism and literature. I thought you were alright.
Nevertheless when I went back to reykjavík amidst my dantesque search for a job we kept on talking and meeting and smoking camels. we asked ourselves why we went out every weekend when what we really liked was to stay at home read a good book listen to a good record. I don't think we ever came to a conclusion.
it came to be that after I had left my dishwashing job in Santa María for a receptionist job at Reykjavík Backpacker, I shortly got fired from the latter after just a little over 2 months of work. Apparently "I wasn't the guy for job." I had to make a decision either keep looking for a job in Iceland, which was probably gonna be something depressing especially because almost no one was hiring foreigners and least of all people who couldn't really speak fluidly. all the classified said "Good Icelandic Knowledge". I mulled it over. I went to the docks even and considered using my last paycheck to get the mandatory sea safety course so I could maybe get a job at sea. I didn't want to have the same stress of seeing how i was going to make it to the end of the month. it had been like that since I left myvatn and got a place with Ingimar downtown. i wonder how lived on so little. my dad wired me some money which made me feel miserable. even my old comp lit professor thought I sounded like I needed some and did the same. I think my Ingimar really resented the fact that I was almost always broke. I bummed many cigarettes from him and said no to many invitations to go out for drinks. I always tried to make it up to him whenever I had money or scrounged some beers the guests at the hostel left unopened in their rooms. He advised me to get and overdraft permission on my debit card, which even though I was reluctant to do so I went to the bank. I remember that day I got up early to go to the bank, almost with a weight lifted from my back by the amazing power of debt. I was making plans of what I would do with the borrowed money. I would get a nice haircut and shave for a start. Buy plenty of groceries for everyone at the flat, including the newly acquired cat. I even thought maybe of buying myself a nice shirt or something like that. I didn't happen. I just felt worse. By then Ingimar's girlfriend was spending a lot of time at the flat, which was good because I saw Ingimar happy with her and vice versa. But I knew he wanted to be just with her. I knew a questing was coming around. He asked me about my plans. I hadn't been fired yet so I told him that as long as I had a job I would stay in iceland, maybe try to go back to school...He was wondering because despite the short time he and Sunna had been dating he felt really god about their relationship and was considering perhaps having her move in. I understood and I told him that with time I wouldn't mind finding another place. He said it was still in wraps and he would let me know.
I had a female friend I had met at the university. She was an exchange student still bewildered by Iceland and its many beauties. We were good to each other when we met up from time to time. I let her know I couldn't offer her more than that. She was ok with it. And I warned her of the ever fickle nature of my staying in Iceland. I know she was sad to see me go in such a hurry. So was I.
I was really looking forward to Christmas, you had invited me to spend it with your family and I was really moved by this invitation. I really wanted to be there for christmas.
they laid me off the 1st of December and in a week's time I decided to use what money I had left after paying that month's rent and asked my dad to lend some more for a ticket here. I had little less of a week after that to sort everything out, say my goodbyes and fly away.
You know how this went. I tried to make good use of the time I had. I spent it mostly with the old and new friends I knew I would miss and had by then become the new Iceland I was hoping for. And I had to leave again. I felt I was being vaulted out by things I couldn't see or call by a name. as if a body rejected me eventhough I felt as bonafide limb to it. Who knows...?
It was painful.
I tried putting myself aside for the rest of the trip back. It feels I have until now. I spent some time in New York. With two old friends. One of them decided to quit his job that week and close himself in with the duty free cigarettes I had given him in his loft in Brooklyn. he would listen to sonic youth, my bloody valentine and others for 14 days whenever he wasn't playing guitar, making overwhelming walls of sound he will never have anyone record. He recommended I read Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet. Which I am at the moment. He told me to trust art and that both he and I knew that a regular job or place in the market would be the death of me as it would be for him. His presence was real and his words were lucid. I felt compelled to listen. I didn't leave his apartment for the rest of that last day in NYC.
Back in PR I stay with Iván & Francheska. My friend from way back who have always been there for me and offered me to stay with them for a while. They are really supportive and get on my case to look for a job. I still have so much in my mind I really can't be bothered. Plus I felt kind of traumatized after my last job. I just wanted all of this to sink in. it was warm here. cool in the nights. that's the tropical winter.
I didn't want to be a bother for long so I decided to go back to my dad's apartment which he barely uses. I sulked for about month and started writing poetry and miscellanea. met up with old friends. got drunk & high when I could. thought about joining the navy or something full of resignation.
I looked for some jobs but not wholeheartedly. A friend of the family is working for his wife's family supermarket chain. and he told me he could get me something bagging groceries at the cash register. I decided to give it a go.
i've been working there for a week. i need to shave everyday. have my blue shirt tucked into my black trousers. have a name tag with my name. in other words: hell.
I had to put something in my hair to make it go down because it was to long or puffy I don't know anymore. all of this coming from a manager with ridculous amounts of mismatched make up with straightened hair and with heels that make her look she's about to fall at any given moment. She dares comment on my beautiful hair. I will never understand the aesthetic here even though I grew up here. sometimes I feel there is such widespread bad taste but then it is a supermarket and I put people's food in bags and help them cart it to their respective cars hoping they'll give me at least a dollar in tip.
I like though that there is a fake mosaic of Julia de Burgos at the deli section with an excerpt of her most famous poem : Río Grande de Loíza. this is because this supermarket is in the township she was born in and they capitalize a lot on their famous children. Still I am glad there is a poet on the wall that sometimes looks over me. She was a beautiful woman. Once her niece recited to me when we met drink at a jazz joint her aunt's poem Canción Amarga. It made me cry uncontrollably. it was a mess. in front of everyone I was hit with all the weight of poetry and the pain of the world. though I felt like a poet for some reason. She knew this and I thank her. I think back on it and it makes me happy in a bittersweet way.
So today i got off early. I asked to. On my way back home I took of my shoes that were hurting me. I drove barefoot thinking which pedal felt better to the touch, the brake or the accelerator. I still haven't made up my mind. I am now trying to get back into school to do my masters in Comp Lit. also trying to get another job. I keep writing. And please forgive me for the errors in this text, I had to write it hastily. I still think it is a bird's-eye view of what has happened in the last months and I don't pretend that this is a definite reading of what happened. There are still many things I haven't gotten into but hopefully will soon.
Hope this finds you well. write soon.
I still don't know why I went back after these some 4 years. Still I had to get it out of my system. I think it was a naive impulse to go ignoring how bad the economy has been for that colder version of my "here". I tried to dispense with the idealizations which were always many. Some true loves, some vested in places some in people. Yet little was left when I got there. I felt bereft yet I knew I had to listen to whatever this time and place had to say to me then. As it happens I saw new things met new people and rejoiced with the ones that were still there and able to keep me company.
When I had just arrived at the end of summer, I waled from the bus stop carrying everything I had. And as I stepped on each sidewalk cobblestone I was surprised by the fact that I didn't feel as moved by this experience. I moved through the place almost numb to it. Acknowledging that it had been important and now the task at hand was to honor it as such and build upon it something new. Those at least were my honest intentions.
As I said I arrived just when the short icelandic summer was waning but that didn't keep the people from basking in the sunlight available, walking with babies in strollers around the lake, buying icecream. My delight was to listen to icelandic everywhere and to speak the few words I knew when I ordered something and was understood. I had coffee by the lake with my friend Oliver. we commented on the summer glee and the aesthetics of Reykjavík parklife. He said he saw me as an observer. I think he was also saying this to himself. He's been living there for a few years now. Somehow he's managed to not get to involved with the icelandic culture as much. Be it amorous encounters , old pop songs or Reykjavík's famed nightlife. At first I thought this was maybe bad but I think I got to understand this distance. He had another reading of what the place meant to him and he sticks to it most of the time. He has become quite fluent with the language and has even written a thesis on second language acquisition. I on the other hand struggled with the language until the day I left. it had become cumbersome to try and learn when I felt most people I was around, didn't give a damn whether I did or not. I tried having people talk to me in icelandic yet they would eventually grow exasperated. I decided to just fall into the ranks of oh so many helvitis utlendingar
I went north (Myvatn) and worked there for a bit with my friend Ingimar. This was one of the best experiences I'll have and keep of Iceland. Work hard during the day and meet characters from all over the world that for some reason end up a stonethrow away from the arctic circle in the middle of the highlands.
Bathing almost every night in Grjótagjá's thermal waters until the beer was done. Then again tomorrow. There I met Sigurlaug and Oddur. That beautiful couple so kind to me. Working with Oddur was fun. WHen we were working 11 hours a day in the kitchen, at the cash register and waiting tables, we relied on each other's impersonations of David Bowie and talking goats to blow off some steam. Sigurlaug would always bring good pregnant cheer to us sporadically during the day. We made pizzas and they were pretty damn good let me tell you.
There I also met my friend with who I am writing this, Helgi Hrafn. I don't know why I am narrating this as if a 3rd person might read it but I'll fall in and out of grammatical persons when i feel like it. This is really an effort to you Helgi, and the other eyes that my stumble upon it, my impressions not only of my time in Iceland but also my life right now, here in Puerto Rico. With the hope of continuing a dialog we started on your island.
You were "fresh off the boat" from your stay in Argentina. He heard I spoke spanish and asked "De dónde sos?"with his half icelandic half porteño accent. Between pizzas we talked about argentina, career plans, journalism and literature. I thought you were alright.
Nevertheless when I went back to reykjavík amidst my dantesque search for a job we kept on talking and meeting and smoking camels. we asked ourselves why we went out every weekend when what we really liked was to stay at home read a good book listen to a good record. I don't think we ever came to a conclusion.
it came to be that after I had left my dishwashing job in Santa María for a receptionist job at Reykjavík Backpacker, I shortly got fired from the latter after just a little over 2 months of work. Apparently "I wasn't the guy for job." I had to make a decision either keep looking for a job in Iceland, which was probably gonna be something depressing especially because almost no one was hiring foreigners and least of all people who couldn't really speak fluidly. all the classified said "Good Icelandic Knowledge". I mulled it over. I went to the docks even and considered using my last paycheck to get the mandatory sea safety course so I could maybe get a job at sea. I didn't want to have the same stress of seeing how i was going to make it to the end of the month. it had been like that since I left myvatn and got a place with Ingimar downtown. i wonder how lived on so little. my dad wired me some money which made me feel miserable. even my old comp lit professor thought I sounded like I needed some and did the same. I think my Ingimar really resented the fact that I was almost always broke. I bummed many cigarettes from him and said no to many invitations to go out for drinks. I always tried to make it up to him whenever I had money or scrounged some beers the guests at the hostel left unopened in their rooms. He advised me to get and overdraft permission on my debit card, which even though I was reluctant to do so I went to the bank. I remember that day I got up early to go to the bank, almost with a weight lifted from my back by the amazing power of debt. I was making plans of what I would do with the borrowed money. I would get a nice haircut and shave for a start. Buy plenty of groceries for everyone at the flat, including the newly acquired cat. I even thought maybe of buying myself a nice shirt or something like that. I didn't happen. I just felt worse. By then Ingimar's girlfriend was spending a lot of time at the flat, which was good because I saw Ingimar happy with her and vice versa. But I knew he wanted to be just with her. I knew a questing was coming around. He asked me about my plans. I hadn't been fired yet so I told him that as long as I had a job I would stay in iceland, maybe try to go back to school...He was wondering because despite the short time he and Sunna had been dating he felt really god about their relationship and was considering perhaps having her move in. I understood and I told him that with time I wouldn't mind finding another place. He said it was still in wraps and he would let me know.
I had a female friend I had met at the university. She was an exchange student still bewildered by Iceland and its many beauties. We were good to each other when we met up from time to time. I let her know I couldn't offer her more than that. She was ok with it. And I warned her of the ever fickle nature of my staying in Iceland. I know she was sad to see me go in such a hurry. So was I.
I was really looking forward to Christmas, you had invited me to spend it with your family and I was really moved by this invitation. I really wanted to be there for christmas.
they laid me off the 1st of December and in a week's time I decided to use what money I had left after paying that month's rent and asked my dad to lend some more for a ticket here. I had little less of a week after that to sort everything out, say my goodbyes and fly away.
You know how this went. I tried to make good use of the time I had. I spent it mostly with the old and new friends I knew I would miss and had by then become the new Iceland I was hoping for. And I had to leave again. I felt I was being vaulted out by things I couldn't see or call by a name. as if a body rejected me eventhough I felt as bonafide limb to it. Who knows...?
It was painful.
I tried putting myself aside for the rest of the trip back. It feels I have until now. I spent some time in New York. With two old friends. One of them decided to quit his job that week and close himself in with the duty free cigarettes I had given him in his loft in Brooklyn. he would listen to sonic youth, my bloody valentine and others for 14 days whenever he wasn't playing guitar, making overwhelming walls of sound he will never have anyone record. He recommended I read Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet. Which I am at the moment. He told me to trust art and that both he and I knew that a regular job or place in the market would be the death of me as it would be for him. His presence was real and his words were lucid. I felt compelled to listen. I didn't leave his apartment for the rest of that last day in NYC.
Back in PR I stay with Iván & Francheska. My friend from way back who have always been there for me and offered me to stay with them for a while. They are really supportive and get on my case to look for a job. I still have so much in my mind I really can't be bothered. Plus I felt kind of traumatized after my last job. I just wanted all of this to sink in. it was warm here. cool in the nights. that's the tropical winter.
I didn't want to be a bother for long so I decided to go back to my dad's apartment which he barely uses. I sulked for about month and started writing poetry and miscellanea. met up with old friends. got drunk & high when I could. thought about joining the navy or something full of resignation.
I looked for some jobs but not wholeheartedly. A friend of the family is working for his wife's family supermarket chain. and he told me he could get me something bagging groceries at the cash register. I decided to give it a go.
i've been working there for a week. i need to shave everyday. have my blue shirt tucked into my black trousers. have a name tag with my name. in other words: hell.
I had to put something in my hair to make it go down because it was to long or puffy I don't know anymore. all of this coming from a manager with ridculous amounts of mismatched make up with straightened hair and with heels that make her look she's about to fall at any given moment. She dares comment on my beautiful hair. I will never understand the aesthetic here even though I grew up here. sometimes I feel there is such widespread bad taste but then it is a supermarket and I put people's food in bags and help them cart it to their respective cars hoping they'll give me at least a dollar in tip.
I like though that there is a fake mosaic of Julia de Burgos at the deli section with an excerpt of her most famous poem : Río Grande de Loíza. this is because this supermarket is in the township she was born in and they capitalize a lot on their famous children. Still I am glad there is a poet on the wall that sometimes looks over me. She was a beautiful woman. Once her niece recited to me when we met drink at a jazz joint her aunt's poem Canción Amarga. It made me cry uncontrollably. it was a mess. in front of everyone I was hit with all the weight of poetry and the pain of the world. though I felt like a poet for some reason. She knew this and I thank her. I think back on it and it makes me happy in a bittersweet way.
So today i got off early. I asked to. On my way back home I took of my shoes that were hurting me. I drove barefoot thinking which pedal felt better to the touch, the brake or the accelerator. I still haven't made up my mind. I am now trying to get back into school to do my masters in Comp Lit. also trying to get another job. I keep writing. And please forgive me for the errors in this text, I had to write it hastily. I still think it is a bird's-eye view of what has happened in the last months and I don't pretend that this is a definite reading of what happened. There are still many things I haven't gotten into but hopefully will soon.
Hope this finds you well. write soon.
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