Yesterday, on my drive back to Berkeley, I caught a radio show called “Says You!” It was about language, in the guise of a game show, and it was hilarious. An example:
Q: What is the difference between an obsession and a compulsion?
A: About ten years in federal prison.
The contestants eventually gave a legitimate answer, but the best part was the associative ad lib path to getting there. As with art. A listener had written in asking them to revive a topic from a previous episode based on nautical terms. As part of this, they mentioned that we all gain and lose a tiny bit of weight each day, in the form of salt water, due to the gravitational effects of the moon. This made me feel much better, driving away from the coast, realizing that there was an echo of the ocean inside of me, pulsing in sync with the Pacific.
Growing up on the east coast, high tide was for swimming, and low tide was for searching for animals under the mud and in tiny crevices and trapped pools. In between tides was for all of the above. This is what life is: swimming at high, searching at low.
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