Where Anything is Possible
We are at mid-Cape, on the bay side, where the tide recedes along the shallow shoreline to reveal salt flats that extend to the horizon.
Even at the height of tourist season, the flats are sparsely populated. But autumn finds us more alone than usual. On this day, we see two tiny figures in the far distance, approaching slowly. Their white dog identifies them as our next-door neighbors. We all change course so that our footsteps meet, and, for a brief moment, we enjoy each other’s company before we part and become miniatures in each other’s rear-view mirrors. We are the only life visible for several square miles, except for the seagulls flapping as they pull clams and minnows from the sand.
Usually they squabble over edibles, but waterline life is so abundant in this season that they ignore each other as they glean the tide’s leavings.
I walk out towards the horizon, where a startlingly white strip of dry sand separates sky from acres of shallow pools that reflect the bluest of skies and towering, pillowed clouds.
It is midday. Mid-September. An in-between season. Time has paused. We are at that indefinable point when all the air has been exhaled, but the next inhalation has not yet begun.
I stand at the far waterline. The tide has reached its lowest ebb, and, for an instant, it is neither receding nor advancing.
Perhaps, I think, as long as I remain at the ebb line, this state of suspended animation will persist.
Time has not stalled, but it waits for the momentum built by inactivity to jump-start the world into its next breath. Nothing exists but the tideline, water on one side, beach on the other.
In this momentary hiatus, everything seems possible.
The sea breeze picks up, blowing foam at the water’s edge. Wavelets gather at my feet. The world breathes again. Everything that seemed possible an instant before becomes, once more, a list of things to hope for. I am back to living in the present, where disappointments vie for attention with white hydrangeas as dense as moist sponges and breathtaking sunsets over the hushed tidal marsh.
Where the kisses and laughter of children coexist with the dispiriting demands of the news cycle.
As in every previous year, I must be content to hope that I will be here at the same time next year, standing at the tide line, believing—for just a moment—that everything is possible.
Writer Neville Frankel has been walking out to low tide at Paine’s Creek in Brewster for more than 50 years.