Tide

The doorway of past life is a complex tide. Fragrant scent, sound, the feel of fabric beneath our hands, or a voice not heard for years triggers a memory. So profound is this that we feel we are about to be ripped from “now” and plummeted “when.”
When the past infringes on the present, It is a struggle. Which way will we flow? The temptation of the past is old affections, moments to be redone, errors undone, and tumultuous experiences defused. We’d love to create smoothness, but the tide is all froth, spume and chaos.
There comes a moment when the tide is on balance, and we know it will soon ebb back.
Then the turn comes we are drawn back. It’s something simple, the scent of my wife’s perfume, the cat rubbing my leg, or the squeak of the swing under my weight.

I’ll stay for now. But the tide is an insistent thing. It ebbs and flows and refuses to answer my commands.