King Tides

“My wound is geography. It is also my anchorage, my port of call.”

- Pat Conroy, The Prince of Tides

The proper name for a California king tide is “perigean spring tide,” “perigean,” meaning that the moon is closest to the Earth, and “spring,” referring to a full or new moon.

King tides arrive dramatically — pulling on the ocean with a strong gravitational force.

It makes me think about the gravitational force within each of us, what it triggers within us, what it pulls to us, and what it reveals about us: our desires, needs, compulsions, and wounds.

Standing on the beach during a King tide is to be in the presence of a purge. Beaches that were pristine just 24 hours before are now scattered with rocks, driftwood, seaweed, and marine life - everything that has always been and will always be just underneath the surface of the pale blue waves of California’s central coast.

It makes me think of all that we keep hidden, just below our own surface, those things about us, our present or our past, our future that we are so afraid will be seen, known, or revealed about us.

King tides provide a look to the future, something we’d love to control but can’t when they crash into homes and flood city streets - a reminder that everything is temporary, and what we take for granted or believe to be certain can transform instantly with the pull of the moon.

“See what I can do,” they seem to say.

The Prince of Tides was a brilliant book (destroyed by a film adaptation). I read it very soon after a horrible experience in my early 20s, and I can say, in all honesty, that it helped me more than any therapy session, support group, or other intervention. Sometimes, what we really need is the honesty and safety that come with the uncontrollable purge of authenticity and all that it brings up within us.

To touch an unseen wound.

To hear something true and know we are home.

To recognize ourselves in something else and remember that we are not alone.