The hippocampus

Today, in a moment of Proustian illumination, I remembered. While having vegetable soup at a “comida corrida” place next to the Torre II de Humanidades -where I’m supposed to be working-, I noticed a minute detail that took me to the forgotten depths of my early childhood: the bowl from which I was eating my soup was printed with a floral pattern that looked just like that of the plates my maternal grandparents had when I was a child. My mother’s mother, who died when I was four or five, used to serve the food in plates just like this one. Just like this one except for one small difference: the color. Even though they were white as well, the pattern was printed in blue, and not red like the one today. I hadn’t thought about those early years with my grandparents at all lately. Funny how such a mundane object brought back such a significant (and significantly overlooked) part of my life. Funny, too, how the catalyst of such memories was only an approximation of the thing I remembered, and not an exact reproduction. I guess that could mean (if it means at all) that today’s days are but a version of yesterday’s -just like them, except not quite. With this in mind, sometimes I picture life as a sort of spiraling journey in which, once you return to a certain quadrant, things show themselves as slightly different, yet (and perhaps because of that) entirely other. Again, if this means anything at all, it must be a confirmation of a strong suspicion I have: what we live is but an abstract mosaic colored by moments long forgotten or not yet lived. Today feels different by mere virtue of remembering; the ghostly presence of the past changes the palpable face of the present. And in a way today, made up of so many yesterdays, redraws them and colors them with its own sights and sounds and smells.

nothing ever changes everything always does

ever changes everything always does nothing

changes everything always does nothing ever

everything always does nothing ever changes

always does

.blb