New Year’s Tides

First came the epic Christmas storms, then days of calm, and now here’s a new round of rainy, breezy weather to kick off a string of very high morning tides and very low evening tides. I’ve been waiting; the dates and times have been written in my calendar for months.

So what has the king tide cast up this New Year’s morning? I’m wandering the beach with just my little Sony, a 24-70 zoom, and a 90mm tilt-shift macro, plus a sandy tripod, to see what I see. Along the tideline, the now-departed surge has left its artworks behind. Kelp, surfgrass, shells, stones, driftwood, a dried urchin. All expressed as piles of seawrack (I love that word); or as dancing sculptures; or as lone lost souls. Curated atop a background of swirling, ephemeral sand patterns.

And what will tonight’s minus tide show? The flip side of this morning’s energy: An ocean at rest, regrouping. An hour or two of the secret world of tidepools. Hidden treasure.

And then what will the returning waves bring us all year long? “Good tidings?”

We’ve all been through storms that are now behind us, with surely more to come. Flotsam and jetsam ride in and out with the surge. But this New Year’s sky, this ebb tide, these sand patterns, and my tripod-moored camera mark a still point on the beach and on the calendar from where hope might rise anew. Visible resolutions. Places to go and seasons to see. And something else? I’m reading seawrack like tea leaves.

Craft is an abalone’s shell to carry on one’s back—with a craggy and weathered exterior, but a shimmery smoothness inside. Whatever the tides bring me, and whatever my own eyes and thoughts can make of that, I’ll hope to then cast it all back to the waves myself. To wash up yet again as some new kelp sculpture—part me, but something more, too. It’s like Loren Eiseley’s story, but am I the thrower or the starfish? Why not both?

OK, it’s foggy, rainy, breezy, sandy, and cold. I’m heading home for a warm New Year’s mug of matcha. But I’ll be back out here tomorrow…and the next day. Walking, watching, waiting.

Maybe, as James Taylor sang: “It’s enough to be on your way.”

By Scott Atkinson

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