El Proceso de Memoria

I went to my swimming class today.
Every thursday from eleven to twelve,
I swim back and forth

over and

over and


over and



over and







I start out by swimming eight front-stroke.
After that I usually do six breast-stroke.

And during the entire time,
I breathe in.
my head goes under.
I breathe out,
my head comes up.

And there is this constant rhythm of
in and out, up and down,
both in my self and my surroundings.
A constant cycle of
"how many laps do I have left?"
"am I at the half way point yet?"
"how many have I done?"
"I think I've got this rhythm and mindset figured out...."
"No, I don't."

and simultaneously
I sometimes think about people,
places and events from the past,
and I use it to push myself forward.

This is usually when I look under.

And then when I bring my head up, there is this sense of immediate existence,
a simpleness of purely being and moving through space.
A constant mix of memory and self-awareness.

In this normal rhythm of most strokes,
there is one that stands out to me:
the back-stroke.

I have been thinking about it a lot.
It is different than all of the others,
in that you are going backwards
in many different senses.

Your face is above the water,
you are completely drawn into the sky
as your entire body propels you forward through the water.

As you are going backwards the entire time, you are simultaneously moving forward.

This is the process of memory.

Every event we go through,
every face we see,
everything
that is stored in our memory is
as much a part of our past as it is our present,
one way or another.

They are behind us, but they drive us forward at the same time.

This constant cycle we go through in
interlacing and
collaging and
overlapping
our memories,

constantly moving forwards and backwards at the same time,
swimming in the present and looking into the sky of our minds
as we propel ourselves into the future.