The Tide Will Tell

I spent this morning trying to organize my bookshelf, pulling out old notebooks I haven’t touched in years. I found a grocery list tucked into a journal from three summers ago, written in my own handwriting, items I don’t even remember needing anymore. It felt strange to hold a piece of paper that once held so much urgency, now completely hollow. We spend so much of our lives leaving marks—the emails we send, the paths we walk, the small habits we form—convinced that these things define our permanence. But the world is constantly shifting under our feet. The wind picks up, the water rises, and the things we thought were solid are smoothed over by the next turn of the day. It isn’t a sad thing, really. It is just a reminder that we are meant to be present in the passing, not the keeping. What is the one thing you’ve done today that you know won’t last until tomorrow?

Tisha Clinkenbeard has captured this beautiful, fleeting feeling in her image titled Footprints in the Sand. It serves as a gentle reminder of how we move through the world, leaving traces that the tide will eventually claim. Does this image make you feel a sense of loss, or perhaps a sense of peace?