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.
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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.