The Cushioning of Remembering the Past

Are memories from another world?

Photo by Fredrik Öhlander on Unsplash

From the present, we contemplate our past
As if it had been a happy adventure
When at the time, perhaps it wasn't.
What explains this romanticism about memories of the past?

Does the maturation of that past improve it with age?
Does that past distill into more subtle elements?
Have the tears healed over time?
And the happy moments, well...were they always happy?

And yet the happiest moments
It's not when you're living them
But when their memories come to you
As if it were a dry wind
As if they gained in aromas,
As if it were something that hadn't happened to you
But you know you participated in it;
Nostalgic memories of something beautiful.

And the moments of unhappiness
What did you do with them?
Because the more time passes,
The more it seems like they should have served you
To execute a change of direction in your life
To learn lessons to apply in your life
And not just to lick your wounds and seek
A comfort that would be fleeting...

Even if it were beautiful or its opposite
Because happiness and unhappiness
Over time, they go to a midpoint
Where only the colors remain. 
Their music remains.
The nuances, the context, the outline;
That surrounded that experience.

Memories and the past truly cannot be grasped.
They are something so subjective, 
They are something that does not belong to the present.
It is as if they do not belong to our reality.
As if, because they are memories, where there is no time;
They were something eternal, timeless.

If anything, they lack historical consistency.
It's like the distillation of a dream.
It has become an emotion, and it no longer has any pain or joy.

It only seems to have been a force that shaped
the threads of our fabric,
The threads that change texture and color with each moment
As if it were a kaleidoscope.
And that is the fabric we are wearing right now
It is the fabric we have no choice but to wear
It is the garment we relate to.

Who are we at each moment?
Different versions of ourselves?
A bag of memories that generates emotions?
Who narrates and explains our life journey?

What or who weaves our chain of experiences together?
It seems to follow a path that leads to
But with time, you can look back
And consider all those experiences wrong,
Because they have taken you to a peak
From which you can only see a barren field.

The further you get from your birth,
The stranger, all the circumstances you've experienced seem.
It seems as if they weren't yours.
They seem to languish like a mirage in the desert.
That is, as you approach, you never find what you are looking for.
An Eden you hoped to reach.

Written: 08/08/2025
Photo tag: eternity

© Jesus Jordan Parra