Flashes of Panic

The clinic where I go for PT has the weirdest graffiti. Not that we have a lot around here; generally it’s along the lines of “War” or “Bush” scrawled under the imperative on “Stop” signs.

Out on the eastern edge of the Happy Valley, though, this place has “Forgive” in white paint by the front walk.

On one of the parking spots next to the building, it says, “All of this world is beautiful.” The message spills out of the spot and into the rest of the lot.

There’s another one on another parking spot, but it’s often covered by another car, and I haven’t read all of it yet. It doesn’t appear that anyone is making any effort to clean it away.

It reminded me of something I saw a few weeks ago, visiting home. I’d say I come from a “small town” in Maine, but it’s only so in population; it covers a great deal of ground and some significant chunk of tidal coastline. (More than the entire state of New Hampshire, we were proudly told in elementary school.) I was riding with my parents along a route often traveled by tourists en route to a state-park beach when we saw a few trucks parked beside the road. Two people were standing in the bed of one truck, doing something with a road sign.

The next sign down the road was obscured with some particularly ugly, racist graffiti. The people with the trucks were attempting to clean it off the signs, not waiting for the state to get around to it.

I can’t know where the sign-defacers came from, but given the prickly reputation of those of us native to that state, and my memory of some of those I attended school with, it’s not too hard to guess.

I’ve been thinking about that, lately.

Now playing: City from Gold Afternoon Fix by The Church