on tides
on riding the tides of life
Mary RettaI.
A couple months ago, after living through one of the most fulfilling weeks I’d had in an entire year, I suddenly felt physically and emotionally miserable. I was feverish, achey, depleted of energy—just ill. To be on the safe side, I got a COVID test and quarantined in my bedroom while I waited for the results. For several days I laid in my bed, struggling to find the energy to turn over, slowly convincing myself that I had somehow caught the virus, and preparing for the worst. Until finally, I was emailed my results: negative. Deep within me, I felt two immediate reactions: a profound relief, and also confusion—if I didn’t have COVID, then what the fuck was that?
Since that incident a few months back, this pattern has happened to me a couple times over: I’ll have a few days that feel beautiful, fulfilling, full of hope—and then suddenly I’m bedridden. I know part of this is sadness, existentialism, the emotional turbulence of living through a plague. But I don’t think that’s all of it; sadness doesn’t cause fevers, aches, physical pains. Since my first scare, I have spoken to many friends who have told me, through shock and relief, that they too have been experiencing these same cycles of joy and fulfillment followed by exhaustion and fear. These days when I feel ill, I'm no longer terrified I have caught the virus; I just brace myself for what I am now calling “the tides.”
The tides are the natural ups and downs of life, the mini-deaths and rebirths we live through so often but are perhaps scared to name. I have been scared to name them because for so long I believed that life was a ladder and as I learned and grew I would climb each rung towards peace and healing and emotional enlightenment. But life is not a straight and narrow thing, and once you get caught up in climbing, you may render yourself incapable of experiencing, feeling, taking in the now. To ride the tides is to experience the now so fully it renders you speechless, heavy, and still. Such an overwhelming dose of now can disorient the psyche; at times I might panic, must I keep swimming forever? What if I drown?
II.
Tides reside in the ocean and the ocean is controlled by the moon. Several times each day, the moon’s gravitational pull generates something called tidal force which causes all the water on Earth to spread out and rise. This movement of water creates the ocean’s tides. The moon itself also moves in tides, which are also known as lunar cycles. The moon circles through four primary phases and four secondary phases as it moves through the sky. During the full moon, the ocean’s tides rise highest. Research indicates that the moon’s cycles have an impact on human reproduction, fertility, menstruation, and birth rate, as well as our sleep patterns.
As the moon affects the human body, it therefore stands to reason that human beings are affected by the tides. Research shows us that, when under extreme stress, the human body can begin to mimic symptoms of physical illness—headache, fever, chills—in order to force the body to rest or slow down, even when someone does not want to. In his renowned 2014 book, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, the psychologist Bessel van der Kolk similarly addressed how human bodies that experience trauma need time and space to heal, and connect with the physical, in order to connect with the self. “The mind needs to be reeducated to feel physical sensations, and the body needs to be helped to tolerate and enjoy the comforts of touch,” he writes. “Individuals who lack emotional awareness are able, with practice, to connect their physical sensations to psychological events. Then they can slowly reconnect with themselves.” Though the trauma der Kolk referenced in his book mostly pertained to sexual or physical abuse, it can also be argued that, under capitalism, our bodies are forced to undergo physical and emotional trauma each day through intense labor with little rest or spiritual pause. Capitalism forces people to divest away from our basest physical needs: our bodies want to ride the tides but our livelihoods won’t let us. And so if we don’t choose to fall off the wave, our bodies might decide for us.
III.
Anyone who has experienced the tides before, which is to say nearly every person on Earth, can most likely attest that the moment after the crash, when you begin to come up on another wave, feels almost like a rebirth. Interestingly, this comparison is psychological sound. Popular psychotherapist M. Scott Peck often said that any time someone takes significant steps to grow, that person goes through a process of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance—the same stages Elizabeth Kubler-Ross once identified as the steps through which we confront and process death. In this way, riding the tides is a kind of death and rebirth, but it is also a sort of time travel that asks you to meld the questions of the present with the lessons of the past to map out the best possible future.
I live in two places, always, at once: the future and my mind. Those in-between moments of quiet are so often a small returning to who and what I once was, a necessary break from constant projection. In recent years, I have navigated the tides by intensely curating Spotify playlists to match up to my every mood. This is because it is often the job of the artist to feel very deeply on behalf of others who do not have the privilege or space to do nothing all day but feel and make art and then feel some more. Sometimes I curate these playlists months in advance—my summer 2021 soundtrack is almost complete. Now when I picture myself in, say, July, instead of feeling the uncertainty that permeates any plan in our fragile and chaotic world, I can play the songs that I have already queued and imagine how I’ll sway or sing or dance to them. This is, of course, irrational, because planning your feelings is impossible, and emotions cannot be curated like songs. Nonetheless it comforts me to know the soundtrack of a time when I have reached the shore of myself.
IV.
When I’m riding the tides I often won’t feel like writing, which means I often won’t feel like myself. Sometimes, in those in between moments, I fear that I will never want to write again. Other times, like today, I will force myself to write in the hopes that it will make me myself again.
What is there to say about the tides? What is there to say about grey, or half past noon, or lukewarm tea? In-betweens and almost-there’s rarely make themselves known to you; if you close your eyes too soon, you could miss them completely.
Riding the tides is a recognition that there is no final destination in healing, in spiritual fulfillment, or in life. We will ride waves up and down and backwards for the rest of our days. Slowly, this is beginning to feel right to me. Happiness was a destination I long wanted to reach until I learned slowly that there is no final point in becoming. The prolific bell hooks once wrote: “As whole people we can experience joy. Unlike happiness, joy is a lasting state that can be sustained even when everything is not the way we want it to be.” What I have learned and am learning is that to ride the tides is to experience joy, joy with happiness and without, because if you can feel the tides beneath you then you are being, becoming, unbecoming.
We float. Life finds a way.
Thank you so much for reading! If this story spoke to you, please consider sharing with a friend or two. If you have the means and would like to support me, feel free to do so through Venmo (@Mary-Retta) or Paypal (maryretta33@gmail.com). If you’d like to see more of my work, you should subscribe to this newsletter or follow me on Twitter (@mary__retta.) Be well and more soon!
xoxo
mary <3