A couple of days ago, I chose to ride to town by way of the river, where a cycling and pedestrian path runs a ribbon, downstream toward the sea.

Usually, when I am in the middle of some list of accomplishment – all too common lately – I take the shorter route, the backstreets past the park, bisecting the rail trail, within earshot of the Catholic school whose children are invariably running about and shouting at their play, through the sidewalk back alley and over to State Street. That day, the geese were louder than the grade-school kids, the sun was out and warming my heart if not my hands, and… you know, it is -downhill- to the river, and I roll there without even pressing on the pedals.

Along the river then, amazed at how many migratory birds here mid-January; but even more amazed at the water level. The river trying so hard to exit, and the ocean doing its best to enter, created an aquatic arm-wrestle, where everything rippled and massed to go this way, or that, arriving at a perfect stalemate.

I suppose there are times when the tidal bore lifts right out of the banks here, near the soccer field and the children’s park, but I have never been near to see it.

When the tide goes high, of course, it goes similarly low. Maré, in Portuguese, is the tide, and friends, this one is heading out, out, out. The bikes have now been boxed, the mail held, local bank accounts closed, and the shipment east is staged and waiting in our storage space. Tomorrow afternoon the truck arrives to whisk boxed Cata and boxed Me away – those bits and pieces able to move independently of our physical selves – and all that will remain is litter-picking on an empty shore.

And when the litter has been picked, some rest.

Whereupon the tide begins to rise again, but in a very different place.

“High Tide and Green Octopi” by Peter Rodulfo @ DeviantArt.com

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