Do you ever feel yourself slipping away? Just kind of rolling away from your true self, your own sense of self like the tide ebbing into the sea? It comes back again, always comes back. It's a cycle, you see. A cycle of comings and goings. A cycle of highs and lows; of ins and outs. Even though I feel somewhat on my way out right now, I know that I'll come back in to flood the banks once more to stir the pebbled beach, to massage and wear at every single grain, until each granule weathers to a smooth, crystalline bead and the shore awaits my coming. I will set upon it with grandeur and with grace, with presence and with ease. Eventually it will form to me and resist its shifting ways. The wind will no long control its to and fro, for that will be my kingdom. That will be my haven, beaten and caressed into peacefully concaved submission, clinging to my shape, moving at my will. Yes, sometimes I feel I am this tide, this ebb and flow of power and glory.

And yet, sometimes, I am the shore.