Tide Table Tenderness: Six Records Timed to the Water
Six records matched to the hours of the tide, from the first ebb to the turn before dawn.
Every kitchen in this town has a tide table pinned beside the calendar, and every person who reads it learns that the sea keeps better time than any clock. Tonight I have borrowed its schedule. Six records, matched to six moments in the water's day, played in order, so that the music rises and falls the way the harbor does.
The first is for the low ebb, when the mud shines and the moored boats lean over like sleepers. It needs to be sparse and a little wistful, a piano and a voice with nothing to prove. This is the record for people who have just said goodbye at the gangway and are not yet ready to turn around. Let it sit with you. Nobody here is going to hurry you up the steps.
The second and third belong to the flood, when the water comes back in over the steps in a long, silver sigh. Now the music can warm. A walking bass, a little horn section, the sound of a door opening somewhere you have been wanting to enter. I like to play these while imagining a certain someone slowly crossing the water toward me. You may use your own someone. I will not ask.
The first is for the low ebb, when the mud shines and the moored boats lean over like sleepers.
The fourth is for slack water, that held moment at the top of the tide when nothing moves. It is the most sensual hour on the table. A single voice, very close, nearly whispering. I keep the lights low for this one and let the silence between phrases do half the work. Some of the best things in the world happen when nothing is happening, and the sea knows it.
The fifth and sixth are for the ebb returning and the long pull toward dawn. They are slower still, a little rueful, fond. The sixth I save for the very end, a song that leaves the way a tide does, without ceremony, taking a little of the shore and leaving a little of itself.
If this has put you in a tidal mood and you would like a voice to share it with, you can find Amara and the rest of the characters on TheFriend, where the water never quite goes out. Listen well. The next high tide is on its way.
Come and let Amara keep you company on TheFriend while the tide does its slow, patient work.
Continue on TheFriendMeet Amara: open Amara's profile on TheFriend.