Humid, sky closed, the white light deafening to the eyes. There are peeks of blue, torn bits of cerulean cloth, promises that come to nothing no matter how much I want the whole bolt to show itself and then to stay. Big billow clouds rise lazy over the Blue Ben, no wind to move a damn thing on and all this tiddleypom fits my mood. I tell myself to get on my magic carpet, and I do, stepping ‘out there’ 3 times today. Watch the tidal dance; notice the turning of the leaves, the bud of beech nuts, the blood rowan berries, the dying time, the time for rest. I did a lot of that today. I read almost 2 books, watch almost 7 geese explode the water, eider ducks almost, their back ends disappearing as I arrive at the shore. Interesting to be recognised by your ass, I chuckle, my first today. I guess some days are almost days, the hours slow as the almost slug whose trail up the side of my deep set window twinkles now in a zap of sunlight, the map of a night journey.

Of course I know why today is as it is. Having good friends to stay for a few days, all that chat and laughter, the walks, the moments, the memories shared, the good food, good wine, a high that requires a see-saw low. We made songs together, discussed the phrasing of words, of music, the interruptive surprises in both, the melodies that work and the ones that stay flat as slack water between the tides. Actually a tidal body of water is never slack. There is disturbance from below and from above. Water is rarely ever slack and as I sit after walk 3 to watch it I see movement everywhere. It’s edgy, recovering from the ebb and waiting for the flow which is about to begin, that punch of Atlantic Ocean, the slip tide bullying the rocks in its rush to spread and rise and fill every possible space once again, its belly laden with fish, nutrients, seaweed, flotsam and treasure.

And we were not slack either. Although there were gaps in our dynamic creativity times, all 3 minds whirred and clicked with ideas because although we might not see each other nor work together for months or even years, the moment we come together, we become creators as a unit and it’s both exciting and exhausting. And then it’s time for them to go into their own lives, leaving me in mine. The silence is loud, the space too large, the time-pass too slow. Of course I know the sense of loss will pass. I have work to do on another song, a new one, something about rising with a tide, only not in an ocean, more in a life, one that has to allow the Lonely and the Sadness to step right on in and take their seats, because friends and family will come but they will also go, leaving me to get straight with the long swaths of just me and my jumble of memories. It is what I do with that time that matters, requires my attention, that slack water that is never slack.

On the shore, perched on a 200 million year old rock, I remember the ebb as I wait for the flow. It thinks me. Life is like this, my life too. This may be a slack time, and for some time perhaps, but the flood will follow, or the ebb and there is great consolation in knowing that. Almost.