Letters from the tide

THE STORY BEHIND THE SOUND

You bring a small notebook to the shore, intending to write to someone you have not seen in a long time. The opening has been revised in your head more than once. Sitting on the stone steps, you manage only the date. Water has not reached the upper step yet. Dark rocks show through the shallows like missing words in the middle of a sentence.

The gentle beat never quite matches the water moving back and forth. Sometimes they come together; sometimes they pass each other. Longer notes travel above the bass and lead the melody toward another side. You begin by writing about a little shop you visited, then a tree by the road that has finally grown new leaves. You do not mention the thing you had assumed would be most important.

Nearby, a child lifts a shell to an ear, listens carefully, and sets it back on the sand. Watching them run toward an adult in the distance, you think that a letter may not need to settle a relationship or explain its meaning. Telling someone about the small things in front of you can itself be a kind of closeness. You restore a sentence you crossed out, changing only its final words.

The tide gradually covers the lowest rock. You close the notebook without immediately looking for a postbox or sending a photograph of the page. The letter has a beginning now. The rest can continue when you return. Before leaving, you look back at the water and think that some words may find their own way to shore, given a little time.