With the Tide

“Time and tide wait for no man,” or so the common expression goes. Though the sentiment extends back to time immemorial, some sources attribute its origins to The Canterbury Tales. See the following adaptation from Harvard’s Geoffrey Chaucer website (1): 119 Ay fleeth the tyme; it nyl no man abyde. Ever flees the time; it will wait for no man. Interestingly enough, this particular instance doesn’t mention the tides at all, but consider that the text predates the modern age of naval exploration by a hundred years, and that it would be another hundred years before Francis Drake, directed by Queen Elizabeth I, would begin to develop England into the naval superpower that it would become by raiding Spanish colonies for gold and other riches (2). Also consider that, in Chaucer’s Middle English, tide (or tīd) was more likely to be used to refer to a season or period of time (3), and had only vague oceanic connotations until the 16th century (4). Take the word yuletide as an example. So we come back to modern meanings, and modern happenings, and modern interpretations of modern words. I view the tide, in a figurative sense, as something inevitable, something that must be accounted for. A failure to take into account the tide (And, in any case, the very nature of a thing) can be catastrophic, and the very nature of tidal forces have brought disaster on countless an expedition*. It is the nature of the thing that dictates its ebbs and flows, its comings and goings. It is the nature of the thing, and the nature of the self, that determines one’s strengths, and one’s weaknesses. With the Tide is an exploration of my coming to terms with my own strengths and weaknesses, and the changes associated with this understanding. It is my letter of apology to those I have wronged by trying to go against the tide. Most importantly, it is a letter of acceptance to myself, and a promise to be my best self for the benefit of all, and of myself. *One such was the USS Jeanette of the 1881 Jeanette Expedition, which was crushed in the Arctic Ocean above Siberia. Her captain, George De Long, and most of her crew would be lost on their perilous trek south (5). (1) https://chaucer.fas.harvard.edu/pages... (2) Bergreen, Laurence (2021). In search of a kingdom: Francis Drake, Elizabeth I, and the perilous birth of the British empire. Harper Collins. (3) https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/middle-e... (4) https://www.etymonline.com/word/tide (5) Sides, Hampton (2014). In the kingdom of ice. Doubleday.