The Swimmers

by Julie Otsuka

“Up there,” she says, “I’m just another little old lady. But down here, at the pool, I’m myself.”

And with each memory shed you will feel lighter and lighter. Soon you will be totally empty, a void, and, for the first time in your life, you will be free. You will have attained that state of being aspired to by mindful meditators across the planet—you will be existing utterly and completely “in the now.”