Slack Water

Early morning whispered possibilities, turnings, changes in a gentle voice. The sun up but hidden, offered light only from a palette of grays. Fog filled the air, muting the bright summer colors, damping and dampening everything. As I watched hummingbirds dart in and out of the bee balm, I had a sense of being underwater.

Verbs generally associated with beings of sky and earth were replaced in this misty time by words of the water. Birds don't seem to fly, soar, and flit so much as swim, float, and paddle. What fills my lungs is so moist it seems like my body is able to take oxygen directly from the water. Schools of starlings dip and whirl in eddies of their own making.

The buddleia spikes, fuschia aglow in the fog, become anemone arms pulled by the tide toward unseen sustenance.

In this ocean world I ponder the tides. There is neither the sense of ebb nor flood, push nor pull. I am in slack water, that time of no tidal current, just before it turns. The time of breathing that is not exhale and not inhale. Pure stillness.

And in that stillness I hear the song of a season ripe for change. Summer no longer explosive and lush, beginning to lose its uninhibited glory; fall waiting patiently for her turn in the coolness of the mists. Change is promised and inevitable. But in this singular moment there is nothing but knowing. I wonder how many of these magical pauses I've missed over the years. I offer a prayer of gratitude that I'm not missing this one.

After a year of ebb tide in which hidden treasures and bodies alike were exposed by retreating waves, I sit in the slack. Vulnerable. Exposed. Hopeful. Ready for the richness of renewal that will be delivered by new waters flooding their way home. The tide is ready to turn, urgency building even in this still space. Ready.