Swimming

I must have been five years old, perhaps less. It is my first memory of a sleepless night. Sleepless with anticipation. I remember dreaming of concrete cisterns overflowing with clear, brownish water, stained orange and ochre. I think I dreamed of brown waters from another memory of bathing in a brown river—but I do not know if the brown river came before that day of swimming. I remember the anticipation I more clearly than the day itself. All that night I longed for the wetness of it, the happiness it undoubtedly would hold. When we got back I could still feel myself moving in the water as my muscles relived the memory of a day which I cannot now remember.