This is how the tide rolls in: taking in the sound of the moon calling through every land wilderness and sky between it and you, you begin to go towards it, picking up the shell and rock as you travel, moving the weeds that try to sweep through and go, along with you, to hinder your path as you go, stumble, and walk, and fall over yourself as you walk and travel, and go. An unimaginable void fills the distance between you, but if you could move yourself closer it would be better. You have never wanted to be here anyways–it would be better to move, and while the chance is here, go, although you recognize the path from the night before maybe this time will be different as the speed is more or less rushed and the moon if you could see it, the face is covered more or less, a sign of humility or confidence. The rock you found and put in your hand has no sharp edges, and looks very different from yesterday’s rock, which you’ve forgotten what it looked like but you’re sure it was different. You know the feeling, like the road is about to end, but the end seems so far away and every step seems to take longer and longer, stretched thin against the shore and as far as you can reach, each try never getting you any closer than the last hopeful grasp.

This is how the tide rolls out: after the moon disappears over the horizon, you forget what it was that brought you here, and why you are standing in place with your pockets full of garbage. You leave in disgrace, throwing down the loose coins and bottle that you somehow ended up with, coming back a bit to pick a fight maybe, to pretend that you’d meant to stay, if only you could but work brings you elsewhere, any excuse you can think of to leave here the creatures that ended up in your company, and tell them not to follow you out. Who likes the stifling sameness anyways, when the world is full of places to go. Or is it better to drift alone in the darkness and feed off of deep pools and miraculous emptiness. No one on land could imagine the storms that you’ve seen, or be crushed by the endless expanse as you have. If you’ve dropped everything and left alone, why then do you still feel tainted? Perhaps the land has its own poison and pretends to soothe as it devours. It is lies and betrayal though it comforts and appears beautiful and charming. The place you go to may not feel like home, may not be beautiful, but it is honest, constant and all-encompassing.

—

He was someone who said “moved” rather than “walked” or “ran” through life. He said, Then I wouldn’t have found the shining penny on the ground if I had not moved through life, washed cleaner than the day it was pressed. And I said, Then how do you move yourself? Do you want anything? He said, I will go with the tide, wherever it may lead me. I know where the tide goes, I said. Where does it go. I said, It moves by the moon and it moves only where it has moved before. It moves and is moved, he said. And I would agree.

The gap between my house and the neighbour’s is filled with weeds of all shapes and colours. In the spring while the weather was cool I removed them and they grew back. In the summer, since the weather was hot, I couldn’t be bothered. The weeds grew. Their flowers bloomed yellow, purple and white. But they couldn’t be seen from the road, so I felt safe. To some people they might even be considered beautiful.

Having a vision of things, and wanting it so badly to become true, I could set forth on a journey to see only the things I want to see and shape, therefore, the world I live in, in that way. Or I could, with my bare hands, scrape and pry until I have fixed each rock at its exact place to order the lines that run through them until I am satisfied.
(To scrape with my own hands—what a thought.)

Can I, create the world in complete alignment?
And I imagined what it would look like: my hands, worn white, pushing the last tract of dirt into place. A shift in the sunlight, the glare moves sideways from my eyes, and I can see.

One building stood since the beginning when the road was first laid. Convenience store, insurance firm, coffee shop, consignment, bakery—was its last configuration (read left to right.) Several trees were felled before that, among them, the screaming of birds. A notice was up since last year. Avoiding the alleys and their ruin, which someone said was built in the gold rush. Its time has come! It will be felled in a year’s time. Men are smarter than birds and they know to abandon their home before it is felled. (Why is it being felled? None of your business!) The windows were empty long before the power shovel came. The first wall came down with a bang. Bang! Crash! Spectators across the street were unharmed in the process. I took a picture and another when the building disappeared. In the void, the land forgot what its purpose once was. Then accidentally rained the next day, pouring wet everywhere. The ground became mud and puddles for the first time in a century.

The building across the street was felled two years before, but I forgot what used to be there. Now it’s a grocery store with people stacked three-high above it. Soon, they say, the road will need to be widened. They’ll cut up the sidewalk for that. That’s why no one smiles any more.