Leaving Tigh Na Mara

That a project called "To Life"
is so much about endings,
is fitting. As we observed last week,
all parts of life are....parts of life.
Janie speaks of the thin membrane between this world and notthisworld. When any one of us is leaning on the membrane, and the waters may break, of course we are all more awake to the possibility that we all face. With or without a doula.
In an old old notebook, from 1992, almost a Chai ago, I find this. Tigh Na Mara is a spot on Vancouver Island, where at high tide the water laps right up to your cabin, and at low tide you can walk far far out on wet sand. I walked the tide in. 1,172 steps. One day I wrote the tide in, my feet continually getting wet as I stepped back and back towards shore. This is the actual moment by moment account, in my handwriting.
To be there while it happens. To plant my two feet feet on dry sand, and watch as thin watersheets envelope these two feet. To step back slowly and be enveloped again. 1,172 paces, from the ocean's edge at 2:00 to its 7:00 p.m. edge. Castles with moats, built over a day's hot sun time, decorated with clam shells and dry old crabs. Now the moat fills, and now the castle submerges. I step back, back, the water envelops me. I step back. Tracks of crabs, the holes where clams dug, small conical molluscs who have spent the day moving imperceptibly, covered maybe two inches in tiny pushes forward, now submerged. I looke around me, and notice I am now on a sand island, surrounded entirely by water, and I wade ankledeep to sand, and am again enveloped, and again move back. The water still moves in, filling the ebbs in each wave of dry sand. Sand dollars that poked curved segments out in the day, are now submerged. Looking out to where the water is now, it appears to have been always. It is sky blue, with small ripples. Tiny crabs croon through the shallow water, seaweed dry beomces submerged, looks more comfortable , waves green leaves in serene wave harmony. Ah! A white seagull flies over the water, as if it has always been there. The water moves in on me, surround me again on a sandy raised point, an ephemeral island. And now I am knee deep in warm water, water moving ever shoreward. The tide has come in.

Leaving Tigh Na Mara

We are leaving today.
Ripple waves sing to shore
and sing, and sing
up to right under our cabin.
The tide will creep out today
and we won't be here,
won't watch its slow retreat,
won't wade ankle deep cool
further, further,
won't stop at silent pools left
to watch the still shell animals who,
ir you slow yourself,
and truly watch,
are moving;
won't collect sand dollars
that feel just like sand in the hand,
but display fragile intricate flower design
on perfect circles.
Designer?
No designer?
Certainly design.
Shall I not marvel?
We are leaving Tigh Na Mara today,
and when we leave,
Tigh Na Mara will still be here.
When low tide comes
there will still be 1,172 of my paces
between the sea and the shore
although my bare feet
will not be there
to mark them,
or to dig delicious
into soft sponge sand.
The gulls will be here calling,
those tiny birds too,
with long straw beaks,
nature's perfect clam digger gadget.
The blue mountains,
blue on softer blue,
as they distance, silent,
will still be here,
though I'll be gone.