a personal philosophy - an ode to tides

The tide moves with the moon. 
Away from your best behaviour. 
What comes after the honeymoon.
I prefer seeing you as you are. 

There was a whole thing I’d thought up while waiting for the kettle to boil. How my work had transitioned from romance to raw realness. A current transitioned state, the reflection of ourselves in the worlds we create. A very ‘human’ journey and death, the purpose which is not an absolute destination. How do we live in and amongst a transition and does this part of life ever come to an end? 

I’ve always seen life as somewhat circular. From the material in which all organic matter is made and eventually gives up itself to feed back into life. Be that a physical act of a mother feeding their child or our bodies decomposing, melting our matter into the ground when we’re ready to meet our maker. In a more metaphysical realm, this may come to light over the ways in which we are remembered, and how our actions outlive bodily endurance. If the forests should speak, what stories would they tell of their visitors? And as such, I believe all life in its purest intention embodies romance. Possibly a romance that extends towards the realness of our mortality. This is not to say I don’t love the gushing of a traditional descriptor of ‘romance’ and its initial heady pull. It is the stuff which means we gather in efforts to make sure life does go on. This is more the acknowledgment that we may leave other forms of this act behind. The aftermath of the sweetness, where all eyes are open and a light is cast over the truest nature of who we are and what life is.

Now when I do paint or write about romance, I turn away from this first few weeks of the ‘getting to know’ while we play hide and seek, concealing ourselves with glass shields. Enough to be seen. There’s the slight over sentiment, and innocent illusion, which is still very real and very pure. Even the need to seem ‘perfect’ for we ourselves may find it hard to feel the underside to us is less than ideal. After all, we see in others what we see in ourselves first. Eventually, we find the sweetness turns sticky, taking on its own substantial, unique form. The humanness, the transition of concealing hidden identity to rising up and out. Reaching further the olive branch and saying ‘well, this is it.’ And to me, that’s where the real power and beauty reside, with the acceptance. The realisation you can trip up and throw your worst Sunday, and the friend, lover, husband, mother, family member, whomever, will not blink. Instead, there’s more comfort and a distance closing between you both. I can’t think of anything more romantic.