The Tide Table

Sally Somerton
6 days ago
2 min read

For years, I believed my life should resemble a road.

A clear beginning.

Signposts.

Milestones.

A destination somewhere beyond the horizon.

Choose a path. Stay on it.

One foot after another, steady and certain.Keep going.

But lately, I have begun to wonder if my inner landscape is not a road at all.

Perhaps it is an archipelago.

A gathering of islands scattered across an internal sea, each with its own weather, its own season, its own call.

One island holds stories of mystery, mist and a hidden ledge.

Another island waits quietly in the distance, still wrapped in cloud, revealing only glimpses of itself between showers.

One is littered with notebooks, poems and half-finished lines.

Another is populated by women seeking their way through life, carrying questions and old wounds to the shore.

There is an island where I simply sit and listen.

There is another where I wander with the dogs.

There is one where I rest on the sofa, though still with laptop sitting under fingertips.

Many times I have sat at the little port nearby, asking the same question:

Which island should I choose?

As though choosing one meant abandoning the others.

As though every crossing must be made immediately.

As though the weather did not matter.

But those of us who live beside the ocean know better.

The sea and the weather have their own timetable.

Some days the crossing is possible.

Some days the harbour master shakes his head.

Too rough.

Too much wind.

Try again tomorrow.

Perhaps this is what I am learning, slowly, sometimes reluctantly:

That creativity also has tides.

Poetry arrives like waves on the shore.

Stories disappear beneath the surface.

Ideas drift in on the morning mist.

Books rest quietly at anchor.

There are days when the tide is high and every boat strains against its moorings, eager to leave harbour. Words come easily. Energy rises. Possibility expands.

And there are days when the water retreats far beyond the rocks, leaving seaweed, shells and silence behind.

Neither is failure.

Both belong to the same sea.

I am beginning to keep a different kind of tide table.

High tide: A poem. A chapter written. A page revised. A story stirring.

Low tide: Rest. Waiting. Listening.Trusting.

Perhaps our lives are less about choosing a single destination and more about learning the rhythms of our own waters.

Perhaps the question is not:

Where should I be?

But:

What tide am I living today?

And perhaps somewhere, beyond the harbour wall, all our islands remain exactly where they have always been, patient and waiting, until the weather changes and we are ready to sail once more.

Sally x

Sally Somerton - Island Writer

www.sallysomerton.com

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61586536944691