It crept up on me, this love of the tide. You don’t see me out on the water much – I don’t go swimming or boating or boarding – but there is something about being on the shore that fits me perfectly.
There is something about this transition place, where the surf rolls its cargo of ocean heartbeat into the shingle. I have sought refuge in this place more often than I can remember, rebuilding myself in the tapestry of ripples, allowing the rhythm of crunch and splash to weave into my heart and stitch back what the day had tried to erode from my spirit.
Sometimes this soaking time is sufficient. Sometimes it is enough to reset the meaning of John to this tidal metronome. Sometimes, however, the restlessness carries me further, and I find myself lost in that strange “between” place where no destination seems to fit.
A few years ago, after my mum died, life seemed to be revolving around the car – the place I sat when there was nowhere else to go… the place I slept when nowhere else felt like home… the place I hid from the world and wrote masterpieces only the streetlight would ever truly understand.
Between them, these two halfway places have left a deep echo on my spirit, a love of the “between” place. Even as I write this, I am preparing for a journey with no fixed destination in mind – just a wandering wobble into the unknown, like some strange rivulet cut off from the tide. Perhaps it doesn’t matter if I ever actually make this journey, now that my heart sits so beautifully in the “between” place.
About the author, John Hulme
John Hulme is a British writer from the Wirral, a small peninsula near Liverpool in the North of England. Trained in journalism (in which he has a masters degree), John’s first love was storytelling, trying to make sense of the world around him using his offbeat imagination. Since the death of his mother in 2010, John’s work has grown increasingly personal, and has become heavily influenced by Christian mysticism. This has led to the publication of two poetry books, Fragments of the Awesome (2013) and The Wings of Reborn Eagles (2015). A mix of open mike performances, speaking engagements and local community radio appearances has opened up new avenues which John is now eager to pursue. He is hoping to go on a kind of busking road trip fairly soon, provisionally titled Writer seeks gig, being John. Find out more about John on Facebook.